[Shifted] Sudden Shifts 2

Eventually the silence of the room was shattered by a raw, strangled scream.

Quinn bolted upright, his eyes flying wide as he gasped for air that felt far too thin. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird, and cold sweat slicked his forehead. The phantom sensation of crushing cities under his heels still pulsed in his nerves; the terror of being a monster was a weight he couldn’t quite shake.

“AHHHHH!” He yelped.

Reese sat up with a violent jerk, her short brown hair a chaotic mess and her freckled face twisted in confusion. She looked like she’d been struck by lightning, her usual high-energy demeanor replaced by a startled, wide-eyed panic.

Quinn didn’t answer. He couldn’t. His breath was coming in shallow, jagged hitches as he stared at his hands, half-expecting them to be the size of mountains. Slowly, the room came into focus; the familiar posters on the wall, the dim light of the streetlamp outside, and the mattress on the floor where he’d been relegated for the night.

But then, he looked to his right.

Reese was sitting rigid, her face pale and her jaw locked in a bewildered expression. A tiny, frantic movement caught Quinn’s eye a small, slender leg, was kicking wildly, sticking out from between Reese’s lips. It looked like a piece of discarded doll limb, but the desperate, rhythmic thrashing told a different story.

A muffled, indignant sound echoed from deep within Reese’s mouth. Quinn realized with a that when he had bolted upright in his panic, the sudden violent movement of the mattress must have catapulted Allie, who had been sleeping peacefully on Reese’s chest directly into the open maw of her friend.

Slowly, with care, Reese leaned her head back and opened her mouth as wide as she could. She stayed perfectly still, turning her face toward Quinn as if offering him a view within.

From the damp, dark depths of Reese’s mouth, a tiny, muffled voice drifted out. It was high-pitched and distorted by the cavernous space, but the tone was unmistakable.

“Hehehe…” Allie’s voice came through, sounding wet and indignant. She let out a small, chilling giggle that sent shivers down Quinn’s spine. Her expression seemed like it was happy and yet that smile, didn’t reach her closed eyes.

“Let’s fix our sleeping arrangements,” Allie said through gritted teeth, her voice trembling with a forced, manic sweetness.

Quinn swallowed hard, a dry, clicking sound in the quiet room. He felt incredibly small, even before he knew what was coming to him

Hours later, the room was silent once more, bathed in the pale oppressive shadows of late evening.

On the large bed, Reese and Allie were sprawled out in a deep, peaceful slumber. Allie lay comfortably on her side right next to her friend, she was Normal-sized, her hair spread across the pillow like a silk fan, her breathing deep and rhythmic.

Quinn was forced lay on his stomach, tucked into the narrow space below their feet. He wasn’t sleeping; he was staring wide-eyed at the underside of the mattress, his own size-shifting forced onto him. He was tiny barely two inches of trembling, hyper-aware anxiety.

Above him, the heavy, rhythmic breathing of the two women sounded like the bellows of an industrial forge. Every time Reese or Allie shifted in their sleep, the massive weight of their bare feet descended toward him like falling monuments.

He flinched, pulling his limbs in tight as a colossal, warm heel drifted dangerously close to his head, the sheer mass of the foot casting a shadow that swallowed his entire world. He felt the mattress vibrate with every twitch of their toes, every restless wiggle of their digits. It was a constant, dominating presence that threatened to crush him at any moment.

Quinn simply lay there in the dark, too polite to complain and too terrified to move, waiting for this night to end…