Edits - Ch 3

Chapter 3 - He tests the app on himself.

Outline

Tim decided that it was about time that he tested out the app on himself. He stepped over to a secluded area by the stairs, and selected the selfie camera option in the app. He snapped a quick photo, selected himself as a subject, and checked the caption that appeared:

Tim Smith is a 16-year-old boy. (Show more.)

There was no reason to press “show more,” as he already knew everything he needed to know about himself. However, he hesitated a moment as he tried to decide what to write. What would he want to change about himself? He looked at the students walking by, realizing that most of them were taller than he was.

“I wouldn’t mind being a little taller,” he decided. “Being six feet tall would be nice.”

Tim edited the caption for himself and saved it.

Then, as usual, a new popup appeared with a loading bar beneath the words “Initializing changes.”

Tim felt his body immediately begin to change, but instead of stretching taller, he seemed to be losing height. The walls and stairs seemed to rise up around him as the already taller students nearby began to dwarf him.

He looked down at himself to see that his clothes hung loosely from his diminishing frame. His pants dropped to the floor, and his shoulder poked out of the neck hole of his too-large shirt. His phone had grown so heavy to him that he had to hold it with both hands. He checked the text on the app, hoping to figure out a way to undo this change before he shrank any more. A glance at the caption showed him the typo that had caused his shrinking.

It read: Tim Smith is a 16-year-old boy. He is 6” tall. (Show more.)

The ” symbol meant inches, not feet! Why had he not just typed out the whole word?

Tim tried to change the ” symbol to a ’ symbol, but he dropped his phone before he could save the change. It was just too heavy to hold now that he was under two feet tall.

Tim reached for it, but stumbled over his huge shoes and giant clothes, becoming tangled up inside his own shirt like a net. By the time he was able to crawl free of his shirt, he had stopped shrinking. At six inches tall, the school seemed enormous, bigger than any building he had ever been inside of before. More worrying for him were the giant teens walking past him, each one the size of a tall building. Even the smallest of them were comparatively gigantic enough to crush him completely beneath one of their feet. He felt terribly vulnerable standing there, naked and tiny. If one of them spotted him now…

“I need to fix this,” Tim said, looking around for his phone. He found it a short distance from his pile of clothes, and stumbled naked down the pile to get to it. The phone itself was nearly as big as a twin bed would be to him, now. He saw that the loading bar for his edit was already past 90% done.

Tim searched the app for an undo button, but before he could locate it, a high pitch whine emitted from the phone, which grew so loud that he had to cover his ears with his hands. Then, there was a blindingly bright flash, stunning him.

After a moment or two of disorientation, Tim’s vision cleared, and he uncovered his ears. Looking down in front of him, he discovered that his giant phone had vanished. He spun around looking for it but saw no sign of it. His giant clothes had vanished as well. He was still naked, still six inches tall, standing there on the cold linoleum tiles of the school floor, gazing up at the looming bodies of giant teenagers walking by. It seemed that nothing of his regular old life remained, not even his phone. Without the phone, he could not use the app to reverse his shrinking. He was stuck like this, tiny and helpless.

Tim considered hiding. Then, he considered calling for help. However, he knew that there would be little anyone could do to help him, now.

The End