Chapter 1: The Shrinking Panic
The world didn’t shrink so much as it violently, soundlessly exploded.
One moment I was leaning against a cold glass display case, trying to decide if a fifty-dollar electric toothbrush was a sensible investment or a personal failure. The next, the case wasn’t beside me. It was above me, a shimmering cliff face receding into a ceiling that was now a distant, humming sky of fluorescent panels. The floor, that bland linoleum, yawned away in all directions, a vast, dirty plain streaked with the cosmic skid marks of sneakers.
Vertigo isn’t the word. This was a full-system reboot of reality. My stomach tried to climb out through my throat. I staggered, and my own foot, now the size of a loafer-shaped apartment building, threatened to trip me. I was staring at the pores in my knuckles, each one a crater.
One inch tall.
The thought arrived, cold and absolute. It wasn’t a question. The evidence was indisputable. The towering forest of denim-clad legs, the distant thunder of footsteps that vibrated through the bones of the world, the sheer, suffocating scale of everything. A dropped receipt floated down like a silken bedsheet, settling with a whisper that sounded like a roar.
Panic is a chemical fire. It burned through the disbelief. I was in the middle of a crowded department store on a Saturday afternoon. I was a cockroach. Less than a cockroach. I was a speck waiting to be erased by a size-nine sneaker.
Move.
The command was primal. I stumbled forward, my legs like rubber. My perspective was all wrong. A passing shopping cart wheel wasn’t a wheel; it was a black, treaded rubber moon, rolling directly toward me with geologic slowness and inevitability. I threw myself sideways, the gust of wind from its passage nearly sucking me into its vortex. I landed in a grit-filled valley between two tiles.
The scent was overwhelming. Old gum, chemical lemon cleaner, a hundred kinds of dust, the iron tang of the air conditioning unit. I coughed.
A shadow fell over me, deep and cool. I looked up. A woman had stopped, her purse swinging from her forearm like a wrecking ball made of sleek brown leather. She was chatting on her phone, utterly oblivious to the micro-man gasping at her feet. Her shoe, a stylish suede boot, lifted. It blotted out the light. This was it. An abstract death by footwear.
Instinct took over. As her purse swung low, its wide bottom grazing the floor, I scrambled. My fingers, weak and clumsy, found the coarse weave of the leather strap where it met the body of the bag. I hauled myself up, clinging like a sailor to a rigging line in a storm, just as her boot descended with a soft whump exactly where I’d been lying.
The relief lasted half a second.
She moved, lifting her purse. My world became a violent, swinging pendulum. I clenched every muscle, my arms screaming. The ground swept away beneath me in a nauseating blur of color and motion. Then, with a final, casual heave, she slung the purse over her shoulder.
I lost my grip.
I was airborne. Not flying—falling. The air was a thick syrup, roaring in my ears. A kaleidoscope of lights, colors, and fabric rushed past. I braced for the impact, for the hard snap of linoleum.
It never came.
I landed with a soft, breathtaking thud. Not on a hard surface, but into a warm, yielding softness. The world went dark and fragrant. The smell was clean cotton, a hint of floral deodorant, and underneath it all, the unmistakable, human scent of skin. I slid, disoriented, tumbling down a smooth, curved slope until I came to rest in a deep, sheltered valley of incredible heat.
I was buried. Cradled. Completely ensconced in soft, living flesh.
It took my terror-fogged brain a long, dizzy moment to process my coordinates. The gentle, rhythmic pressure against my back. The rise and fall. The soft, muffled thud-thud of a heartbeat, a distant drum.
I was nestled squarely in the cleavage of a woman’s bosom, having fallen directly down the front of her blouse.
My face was pressed against the warm satin of her bra. The world outside was a muffled, distant thing. In here, it was all sound and sensation: the swish of fabric, the low rumble of store Muzak, the steady, vital pulse.
I didn’t dare move. I barely dared to breathe.
A voice, huge and melodic, vibrated through the very structure around me. “Ugh, Derek, I told you, I’m at the mall. No, I’m not getting your stupid protein powder. It makes the blender smell like a gym sock died in it.”
She was talking on the phone. I was clinging to the inside of a stranger’s shirt, and she was having a domestic argument.
Then it started. A tiny, almost imperceptible itch. For her, it must have felt like a loose thread or a stray eyelash. For me, it was the beginning of the end. Her finger, a massive, vaguely pink cylinder, entered the neckline of her blouse from above, seeking the source of the irritation.
It was coming right for me.
I froze, a rodent in headlights. The fingertip, with its whorled landscape of fingerprints, brushed against the slope beside me. It was warm and slightly rough. It paused. I could see the microscopic ridges, the flecks of lighter skin.
“What the…” her voice muttered, internal and loud. The finger retreated.
I held my breath. Maybe she’d dismiss it.
The fabric of her blouse suddenly tightened. Light flooded my dark sanctuary as the neckline was stretched gently away from her skin. A giant, beautiful brown eye, framed by impossibly long lashes, peered down into the shadows where I lay, curled and petrified.
The eye blinked. It wasn’t scared. It was… intensely curious.
“You have got to be kidding me,” the voice whispered, a mixture of awe and pure, unadulterated astonishment.
The world tilted violently. She was sitting down. I slid a little, grabbing desperately at the smooth fabric of her bra to keep from tumbling further. The light changed. We were in a quieter space. A dressing room, maybe. The giant hands returned, this time with deliberate, terrifying gentleness. They closed around me, fingers forming a cage of warm skin. I was lifted, slowly, out of the heat and into the cool, sterile air of the room.
She set me down on the polished wooden bench. I stared up, my legs finally giving out, and sat hard.
She loomed over me, a goddess of denim and dark, wavy hair. Her face was a landscape of stunned wonder. She leaned in, her breath a warm, gentle wind. She wasn’t screaming. She was studying me.
“Okay,” she said, her voice low and controlled, a stark contrast to the phone conversation. “Either I am having the most realistic psychotic break in history, or you are a very, very small man who just fell out of the sky and into my boobs.”
I just stared, my mouth working silently.
A slow, dazzling smile spread across her face. It was full of a wild, delighted humor. “And you know what? I don’t even care which one it is right now. This is the most interesting thing that has ever happened to me in a Marshalls.” She tilted her head. “Can you talk? Blink once for yes, twice for no.”
I swallowed, my throat desert-dry. My voice, when it finally came out, was a high, reedy squeak I barely recognized. “I… I can talk.”
Her eyes went wide with delight. “Awesome. Hi, talkative tiny man. I’m Marisol.” She propped her chin on her hand, her elbow on her knee, bringing her face even closer. “And you are having a significantly worse day than I am.”
A hysterical laugh bubbled up in my chest. It came out as a choked squeak. “Justin. My name is Justin. And you have no idea.”
“Justin,” she repeated, as if trying the name out. “Okay, Justin. First, ground rules. I am not going to squish you. That’s not my vibe. Second, you cannot live in my shirt. It’s cute, but impractical. Third…” She glanced at the dressing room door, her smile fading into something more serious, more protective. “We need to get you out of here before someone else sees you. My purse is about to become your apartment. You cool with that?”
I looked from her enormous, earnest eyes to the vast, dangerous world beyond the dressing room stall. I had no choices. Only chaotic luck and this strange, smiling giant who found my catastrophe amusing.
I nodded, a tiny, jerky movement. “I’m cool with that.”
“Good,” she said, and her smile returned. She reached for her purse, the movement slow and telegraphed. “Let’s go.”