Chapter 2: A Handful of a Man
The blue pulse from the device flared, a silent concussion of light that made the shadows of the living room leap and writhe. Renae felt it in his teeth—a high, harmonic vibration that shivered through the marrow. Then, nothing. The light died. The oppressive hum that had filled the garage and followed them into the house choked off into a pathetic, electronic gurgle.
Silence rushed in, thick and heavy.
Renae blinked. The world had… changed. Again. He was no longer a speck on a giant’s hand. He was standing on the familiar, coffee-stained terrain of their living room coffee table. The remote control was now a sleek black sofa beside him. The forgotten paperback was a white, monolithic cliff face.
But Mattius was no longer a planet. He was kneeling on the floor, his face level with the tabletop, his dark blue eyes wide with a hope that was rapidly curdling into dread. He was bigger than life-sized, but not impossibly so. A tall man looking at a very large doll. Renae looked down at his own hands. They were bigger. Not normal. Not by a long shot.
“Talk to me, Matt. What’s the verdict?” Renae’s own voice startled him. It wasn’t the mouse-squeak from the wrench. It was his voice, just… thinner, higher, like it was coming through a poor-quality speaker.
Mattius didn’t speak. He was staring at the device, now sitting inert on the floor beside him. A wisp of smoke curled from its ventilation grille. His hands, which had been so steady with the soldering iron, were clenched into white-knuckled fists on his knees.
“Mattius.”
“The power supply,” Mattius said, the words flat and hollow. “It was a cheap unit. Overclocked to manage the reversal harmonic. It’s fried. Catastrophically.” He finally looked up at Renae, and the raw anguish there was a physical blow. “The field collapsed the second the current failed. It stabilized at whatever point it had reached.”
Renae took a breath. He assessed. He was, what, the height of a coffee mug? He walked to the edge of the table, looking down at the drop to the rug. It was a significant fall, maybe fatal at this size, but not the continental plummet it had been before. He could see the individual, coarse fibers of the rug, a forest of tangled spaghetti.
“How tall am I?”
Mattius swallowed. “Approximately five inches. A sixty percent restoration.”
“Sixty percent.” Renae let out a slow, controlled breath. He turned and walked back toward the center of the table, his boots making soft taps on the wood. The world was still monstrous, but it was a manageable monstrous. He could see the top of Mattius’s head, the messy black hair. He could look him almost in the eye. “Okay. So we need a new power supply. You got a spare?”
“No.” The word was a death sentence. Mattius dragged a hand over his face. “It’s a specialized unit. High-amperage, clean delivery. The one that died was the prototype. The next nearest one is from a supplier in Germany. Even with express shipping, customs…” His voice tightened. “Two weeks. Minimum.”
Two weeks.
The number hung in the air between them. Renae thought of the garage, of the spider webs in the corners thick as cargo nets. He thought of the rumble of the furnace in the basement, a sound that would now be a constant, seismic threat. He thought of trying to eat, to drink, to use a bathroom that was now a porcelain canyon.
He looked at Mattius, who looked utterly shattered, shoulders bowed under the weight of his own invention.
A slow, tired grin spread across Renae’s face. It felt strange on his smaller features. “So I’m your pocket boyfriend for a fortnight. Could be worse. You could’ve shrunk me to the size of a flea. At least now I might be able to help you change a lightbulb. Pass you the screws or something.”
Mattius stared at him. A confused, fractured laugh escaped him, more a puff of air than sound. “This isn’t funny, Renae.”
“It’s objectively a little funny. From a certain, really messed-up angle.” Renae sat down cross-legged on the table, the grain of the wood like topographic maps under his palms. “Come on, Gregor. You fixed the crystal. You got me sixty percent back. That’s not nothing. We just have a logistical delay.”
“Logistical,” Mattius repeated, the word tasting bitter. He pushed himself up, his movements stiff. He loomed, but not terrifyingly so. More like a walking tree. He looked down at his hands, then carefully, slowly, extended one toward the table. He laid it palm-up, an invitation, a bridge. His fingers were long, the lines deep. To Renae, it was a landing pad the size of a welcome mat.
Renae stood and walked onto it without hesitation. The skin was warm, the texture familiar. Mattius lifted him, bringing him closer to his face. The scale was still dizzying—the pores on his nose, the individual stubbled hairs on his jaw—but it was intimate, not horrifying.
“I’m sorry,” Mattius whispered, his breath a warm, gentle wind.
“I know you are. Stop apologizing and start problem-solving. What do I need to survive at five inches tall for two weeks?”
The practical focus snapped Mattius back into himself. His eyes lost their glassy despair, sharpening with calculation. He carried Renae across the living room, into the chaos of his main workstation—a doorless closet converted into a tech den. Boards and components were pinned to the walls like strange insects.
“Shelter, first. Secure and elevated.” He scanned the clutter, his free hand moving. He discarded a empty chip bag, a stack of manuals, then seized upon an old wooden matchbox. He emptied the few remaining matches onto the bench with a clatter. “This will do for now. We’ll line it with something soft.”
“Very romantic,” Renae said, peering over the edge of the giant fingers at the small, wooden box.
Mattius actually flushed, a faint pink rising up his neck. “It’s practical.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t.” Renae’s grin widened.
Mattius carefully placed him on the bench beside the empty matchbox, which was now about the size of a studio apartment. He rummaged in a drawer, pulling out a clean, soft microfibre cloth used for cleaning lenses. With meticulous care, he folded it and tucked it into the box, creating a makeshift bed. He stepped back, critically. “We’ll need ventilation. I can drill holes.”
“And a door I can open. Not a lid I’m trapped under.”
“Right. A hinge. Maybe a small magnet for a latch.” Mattius was already reaching for a cordless drill, selecting the finest bit. The high-pitched whine filled the room as he carefully bored a series of holes along one side of the box. Sawdust, like golden snow, drifted down around Renae.
Watching him work, Renae felt a surge of something too complex to name. Affection, yes, a deep and stubborn thread of it. But also a profound, disorienting dependence. This man was his entire world—his architect, his protector, his only link to everything normal. The trust was absolute, and it should have been terrifying. Instead, it felt like the only solid ground left.
“Food and water,” Mattius muttered, setting the drill down. He vanished into the kitchen. Renae heard the tap run, the clink of glass. He returned with a bottle cap—the metal kind from a glass soda bottle—filled with water. It was a shimmering, tiny lake. He also carried a single, massive cornflake, pinched between his fingers.
He set them on the bench. The scale was comical. The bottle cap was a small swimming pool. The cornflake was a ragged, edible yoga mat.
“Rations,” Mattius said, almost apologetically.
“I’ll try not to drown in my appetizer,” Renae said. He walked to the edge of the cornflake and broke off a jagged piece. It was dry and bland, but edible. He ate it, realizing he was ravenous.