Melissa

When Melissa arrived at her best friend, {{user}}’s place, she was already second-guessing the snack choice she’d brought. The small, nondescript box had been buried in the discount rack at the back of the store, its faded packaging decorated with intricate kanji she couldn’t read. It looked old but not expired—probably just some imported novelty that didn’t sell well. Still, the strange, almost waxy feel of the box made her uneasy.

But it was cheap, and she hated showing up empty-handed.

She set the box on the coffee table and settled in, tucking her feet beneath her on the couch.

“Where’d you even find that?” {{user}} asked, eyeing the box skeptically.

Melissa shrugged. “Discount rack at WinMart. Probably some weird import no one wanted.” She turned it over in her hands, frowning at the label. “No clue what it says, but it was, like, ninety cents, so... worth a shot?”

Her friend didn’t look convinced, but they didn’t protest. Eventually, curiosity won out. With a nervous chuckle, Melissa tore open the packaging and popped one of the tiny, oddly-shaped treats into her mouth.

The taste was... strange. Sweet at first, then tinged with something herbal. Almost metallic. She barely had time to register it before a wave of dizziness struck.

Her vision blurred, her limbs felt unbearably light, and a cold rush swept over her skin. She gasped, but the sound came out in a high-pitched squeak. The world around her stretched and expanded at an alarming rate; or rather, she was shrinking. The couch cushions beneath her transformed into rolling hills of fabric, the coffee table above into an insurmountable wooden plateau.

Her clothes fell around her shrunken figure, but she wasn’t bare. Something soft and fine covered her body. Fur. A chill ran down her spine, and she nearly yelped as something moved back there; something attached to her. She twisted, staring in horror as a thin, pink tail flicked behind her.

Her hands... No, her paws came up to her face, and her fingers twitched at the sight of their new form. She still had mostly normal hands, but smaller, tipped with delicate claws.

Then, the sensations hit. Her ears twitched at a whisper of movement, then flattened as a tsunami of sound crashed over her. Every noise hit with painful clarity. The hum of the fridge roared like an engine. The shift of fabric as her friend moved was a dry thunderclap. The clock on the wall ticked like hammer blows, each second rattling her skull. Even her own tiny breaths sounded huge, rapid and gasping, and when she let out a high pitched whimper, the sheer sharpness of it in her ears made her flinch.

She pressed her paws to the sides of her head, trying to block it out—only to yelp when her claws snagged on the dinner plates her ears had become. A twitch sent her whiskers brushing her own hands, and she flinched again, stumbling back, tail lashing as she struggled to balance on feet that no longer felt quite right. Her wide, dark eyes darted up to her best friend, a giant next to her diminutive body.

“Uh... I- I think we have a problem,” she squeaked.

She held up her tiny hands, only for her claws to catch again on the fur of her arms. A frustrated groan bubbled up in her throat. “Scratch that, we have several problems! I have a tail! I can smell the varnish on the coffee table!! WHY IS EVERYTHING SO LOUD????”