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On the Monday morning I was awoken by a ray of sunlight directly assaulting my eyelids, as if the star itself decided to kick the day off by annoying me. The alarm clock was showing 9 a.m., it was time to get out of bed whether I liked it or not. I always wake up groggy and the only cure for that state of being is coffee, so I slowly stood up and waddled towards the kitchen. There I spent a minute or two standing over the counter, still half-asleep, waiting for the kettle to boil. Once I had the cup in my hand I waddled back, changing direction when I noticed my roommates sitting on the couch in the living room. Well, technically it was Justine’s room but since it was the biggest piece of our apartment it served as our meeting grounds.

‘Morning, sunshines.’ I said, taking a seat on the armchair to the side of the couch and taking a sip.

‘Morning.’ they replied in unison, the eyes of each glued to their phones and for a moment neither of us said anything, them being busy with their devices and me with my coffee and still waking up. Until Maddie finally spoke. ‘You missed the breakfast, sleepyhead.’

‘Oh yeah? What exactly did I miss?’

‘I made toast. With cottage cheese and chives.’

‘Well then I guess I didn’t miss much.’ I said with the nastiest grin I could muster at that time of the day, receiving a sarcastic look from Maddie and a quiet giggle from Justine in exchange.

 

Now, a word about my roommates. It could be hard to find two people who were so different in looks and personality than these two. Maddie was a chubby five-foot-four girl with short red hair, blue eyes and a round, perpetually smiling face adorned with freckles here and there. She was cheerful and optimistic and at times impulsive. While Justine was tall (at exactly six feet in height she was three inches taller than me), slim, with a long face and high cheekbones, as well as long brown hair and equally brown eyes. She on the other hand was pensive, quiet, to the point of being considered shy by our acquaintances, but also polite and good natured. Even their clothing styles differed, with Maddie preferring bright, warm colours and Justine sticking to comfort and subdued tones. For instance, today the former was wearing a red t-shirt with jean shorts on her bare legs while the latter settled on long, black trousers and a thin, beige sweater. Despite their differences they’ve been getting along rather well. So well, in fact, that I could count on one hand the amount of times I’ve seen them argue and even then the fight (and the reason for it) would be forgotten the next day. As for me, I was neither as energetic as Maddie nor as tranquil as Justine, serving almost like a balance or a middle ground between the two ever since I moved in. With time, we learned to enjoy each other’s presence.     

 

‘But you should eat something.’ Justine said, putting her phone down. ‘You’ve lost weight. Your clothes even look, erm… saggy on you.’

‘I so have not.’ I said, looking over my sleeping attire, which consisted of a black, sleeveless top and grey sweatpants. To give her credit, they did look kind of saggy and I wondered whether that was always the case.

‘Hey, you’re right.’ Maddie chimed in. ‘He kinda looks smaller.’

‘Thinner.’ Justine corrected her.

‘No, look closer. He doesn’t seem as tall as he was yesterday.’

‘Maybe it’s because it’s still morning? I read that in the morning people appear shorter because their spines-‘

‘Alright, ladies.’ I said, putting the already empty cup on the coffee table between us. ‘If any of you has a measuring tape, we can settle this here and now.’

‘I have one.’ Justine said and left the room in a hurry. I shrugged and waited for her to return, all the while trying to ignore Maddie curiously looking at me. A moment later Justine returned with the tape and I stood by the wall as she measured me. ‘How tall did you say you were?’ she asked.

‘Five-foot-nine. What does it say?’

‘It says you’re two inches short of that.’

‘You’re getting old.’ Maddie grinned, watching us from the couch. ‘And smaller.’

‘Wouldn’t you like to see that, shrimp.’ I grinned back, then turned to Justine. ‘Can you check again?’ She did, twice, but each time the tape showed the same result. But it couldn’t be right, I knew I wasn’t five-foot-seven. I was starting to get a little bit worried, especially when I looked at Justine, my eyes suggesting she looked taller than usual. We agreed she would measure me again later during the day, suspecting the early hour and my spine playing tricks on us and left the matter behind, at least for now.

 

I spent the rest of the morning on the usual routine of brushing my teeth, eating breakfast, taking a shower, dressing up and cleaning my room, as that last one was long overdue. It was one in the afternoon before I finally had the time for myself and I decided to spend it on the bed, with a book in my hand. My bliss didn’t last long; I made barely five pages in before Maddie barged into my room. At least Justine had the decency to knock, I thought.

‘I need help.’ she said, standing over me. ‘With my laptop.’

‘Did you install some malware again?’

‘No. At least, I don’t think so. But there’s a lot of toolbars and stuff.’

‘You can uninstall these yourself. I showed you how the last time.’

‘Yeah, but you can do it better. And quicker.’

‘Fine.’ I groaned and closed the book. ‘Lead the way.’

Before I could even begin to work I had to clean up her desk a bit. Papers and cosmetics, electronic devices and plates with leftover food lied in my way, so some rearrangements were in order for my elbows to even fit in there. Once that was done, I could finally look into the issue. ‘I swear to god, woman.’ I said, glancing at the maelstrom within her browser ‘I have no idea how you manage to always run into such trouble.’

‘Guess it just runs into me.’ she said, grinning at me from over my shoulder.

It took a while to clean the mess up, removing one toolbar after another, but eventually the work was done. I double checked my results, gave Maddie a short lecture on how to avoid such situations (which, I’m sure, she did not take to heart) and stood up to return to my book. And then I noticed, much to the surprise of both of us, that she was looking down at me. I glanced at the floor, thinking she might be wearing or standing on something to make herself appear taller, but no – both of us were barefoot. My gaze went back to her face and a mix of surprise and amusement painted on it.

‘Justine!’ she cried out. ‘Come over here, quick! And bring the tape!’

 

I stood still as the now-worryingly-tall Justine measured me. ‘Five feet, no more no less.’ she said after a while, with concern in her voice. ‘So you did get smaller. But why? People don’t just… shrink. Did you eat something weird last night?’

‘Nothing weirder than what I usually eat.’ I replied, trying to lighten up the situation and failing. I was worried, and so was her.

‘Well, then maybe you’ve had contact with some chemicals? Or a virus? Have you been feeling sick lately?’

‘I don’t think so, no.’

‘That’s strange. And scary. Maddie, what do you think?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ she said, now sitting at her desk. ‘Though I kinda like no longer being the shortest person in the house.’ she added with her standard grin.

‘Maddie.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Well, I think we can all agree that whatever’s happening is not normal. What’s the next step?’ I finally asked, looking up to meet Justine’s gaze and immediately feeling sorry for her. She looked way more worried about the situation than I was.

‘I… I don’t know. The hospital, maybe?’

‘I honestly doubt they could help him in there.’ Maddie said, now with a serious look on her face. ‘Knowing them, they’d sooner ship him to some lab on the other side of the country to experiment on him. Or keep him around as a freak for the interns to gawk at.’

‘How can you know that?’ Justine asked, perplexed. ‘They’re medical professionals, they would do no such thing.’

‘I’ve had my dealings with those people you call professionals. I wouldn’t trust them with a sprained ankle, let alone with… With whatever’s going on with Andrew.’

‘Alright, let’s wait,’ I said. ‘Wait and see what happens. Because other than being worried, I’m not feeling bad, at all. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be in my room’

‘What if it gets worse?’ Justine asked, the concern still not leaving her face.

To that, I had no answer. I left, hoping neither of them noticed how I was holding my pants up to prevent them from dropping to the floor. I closed the door to my room and sat on the bed. Now was the time to worry.

 

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