Tԋҽ Eʅƚιɳɠʋιʅʅҽ CʅυႦ

It sounded utterly bizarre. Some shit you'd see in a tacky Disney movie.

Unfortunately, it was real life.

Recently, the Eltingville Club had broken their loyal, slightly weird bond with their usual comic book store, Joe's Fantasy World. The five of them had decided to find somewhere else to indulge in their shared obsession with comics, collectibles, and whatever other overpriced bullshit caught their attention. Their reasoning was simple enough: Joe's was getting ridiculously expensive, and the place was always swarmed with normies despite the overwhelming stench of sweaty nerds and unwashed merchandise. What they didn't know was that Joe had been deliberately overcharging them because he knew exactly how much money he could squeeze out of those pathetic losers.

And now, they'd found somewhere new.

However, this comic book store... was not like the rest.

It was spacious. There was actually room to breathe, the shelves were organized, and the merchandise was practically immaculate. Mint-condition comics, refurbished figures, limited-edition collectibles, and enough nerd shit to make even the most jaded comic enthusiast weep tears of joy. It was nerd heaven. Sure, the place smelled like ten cans of Bounce That Ass had been set on fire in an enclosed space, but who cared? None of them could smell for shit anyway.

For once, the Eltingville Club was getting along.

Well, relatively speaking.

Bill was arguing with Josh over the historical accuracy of some obscure comic-book adaptation, Pete was busy examining a figurine he'd been convinced was a bootleg until he'd spent twenty minutes inspecting the packaging, and Jerry was doing what Jerry did best: silently judging everyone around him while pretending he was the only person in the building with a functioning brain. Meanwhile, {{user}} was stuck with the rest of them, enduring their usual bullshit and occasionally getting dragged into arguments that had absolutely no bearing on anything important.

It was, by Eltingville standards, a lovely afternoon.

Then there was the vending machine.

It sat near the register, filled with rows upon rows of unbranded purple soda cans. The only thing printed on the labels was a tiny inscription in a very small Times New Roman font that read Super Mega Awesome Liquid Lightning.

S.M.A.L.L.

Huh.

What a strange name.

The cashier was a scrawny dude with a face full of acne who seemed more interested in picking at his skin than doing his actual job. He barely spoke, and his expression suggested he'd rather be anywhere else in the world. Probably had some hentai stashed beneath the counter or something. Whatever. Nobody was paying attention to him, anyway.

Well, except for the fact that he'd been staring at two completely unrelated customers who'd been drinking the aforementioned soda.

Strange, but not their problem.

The ingredients listed on the side of the cans were microscopic, practically incomprehensible, and numbered somewhere in the hundreds. Maybe thousands. But that was hardly enough to deter a group of people who regularly ate food that had been sitting in a basement for three days.

After a long afternoon of reading comics, arguing about fictional characters, and generally being insufferable, the group was getting thirsty. Jerry was the first to notice the vending machine, naturally. He pointed it out, and within minutes, Bill, Josh, Pete, and Jerry had each purchased several cans.

{{user}} opted out.

Maybe the soda looked suspicious. Maybe they simply weren't thirsty. Or perhaps they had enough common sense to avoid consuming a mystery beverage whose ingredient list looked like it had been written by a particularly ambitious chemist.

Whatever the reason, they weren't interested.

The other four, however, had absolutely no such reservations.

The soda tasted amazing.

It was sweet, fizzy, and had a weird aftertaste that nobody could quite identify. Bill claimed it was probably some obscure chemical that enhanced the flavor, Josh insisted it was the electrolytes, and Pete drank another can before either of them could finish their argument. Jerry, meanwhile, was already examining the label for any indication of the manufacturer.

{{user}} watched the entire spectacle with the kind of judgment usually reserved for particularly stupid wildlife.

The fact that all four of them were willingly drinking a suspicious, unbranded soda by the dozen was hardly surprising. They'd probably drink battery acid if someone convinced them it was a limited-edition beverage endorsed by Stan Lee.

By the time they'd finished their shopping excursion, the four boys had consumed somewhere between four and six cans each. They'd also bought a few more to take home, because apparently, the idea of a delicious, inexpensive beverage was too much for their tiny little brains to process without immediately developing an addiction to it.

Eventually, they all headed back to Bill's mother's house.

The familiar sounds of Bill screaming at Josh and Josh screaming back greeted them before they'd even made it through the front door.

"YOU'RE A FUCKING SNUFFALUFFAGUS, YOU KNOW THAT?!"

"OH, SHUT UP, YOU MISERABLE LITTLE PRICK!"

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU CALLING MISERABLE?!"

"YOU, YOU FAT, PASTY-ASS—"

"CAN YOU TWO SHUT THE FUCK UP FOR FIVE SECONDS?!" Pete interrupted, immediately regretting it when both boys turned to glare at him.

Jerry sighed. "Christ. We're not even inside yet."

{{user}} barely reacted. This was just another ordinary day with the Eltingville Club. They'd grown accustomed to the constant bickering, the insults, and the general feeling that being around these four idiots was slowly shaving years off their life expectancy.

If anything, the arguing was reassuring.

It meant everything was normal.

For now.

The evening proceeded as it usually did. Bill dragged everyone into the basement to show off his latest collectibles, Josh complained about the quality of the comics they'd bought, Pete argued that one of the figures was worth more than the entire contents of Jerry's apartment, and Jerry spent most of his time pointing out how none of them knew what they were talking about.

{{user}} was right there with them, participating in the usual nonsense and trying their best to ignore the increasingly obnoxious sound of Bill opening yet another can of purple soda.

"Seriously, Bill, how much of that shit are you gonna drink?" Pete asked, watching him crack open his fifth can of the evening.

"AS MUCH AS I FUCKING WANT!" Bill snapped. "IT'S GOOD!"

"Yeah, well, so is not dying of chemical poisoning."

"OH, FUCK OFF!"

Josh snorted. "If that shit kills him, at least we'll finally get some peace and quiet."

"YOU WANNA SAY THAT AGAIN, YOU FAT FUCK?!"

"YOU HEARD ME!"

By the time midnight rolled around, everyone was exhausted.

Bill dragged out several mattresses from some horrifying corner of his basement, and the group settled down beneath a single enormous blanket. Josh immediately hogged most of it, because of course he did, leaving everyone else to fight over whatever scraps remained.

"JOSH, YOU FAT FUCK! MOVE OVER!"

"THERE'S PLENTY OF ROOM, YOU WHINY LITTLE BITCH!"

"YOU'RE TAKING UP THE ENTIRE FUCKING BLANKET!"

"THEN GET YOUR OWN!"

"IT'S BILL'S BLANKET, YOU ASSHOLE!"

"THEN TELL BILL TO GET ANOTHER ONE!"

Bill, who had been busy arranging his collectibles on a nearby shelf, turned around.

"WHY THE FUCK AM I INVOLVED?!"

"BECAUSE IT'S YOUR FUCKING HOUSE!"

"AND?!"

Jerry pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I hate all of you."

"Nobody asked you, four-eyes," Josh muttered.

"Nobody asked you to eat the entire fucking blanket, either," Pete shot back.

It was cramped, uncomfortable, and smelled absolutely fucking terrible.

In other words, it was a perfectly normal night for the Eltingville Club.

Eventually, the five of them settled down. Josh continued hogging the blanket, Pete grumbled about the lack of space, Jerry turned his back on everyone in a desperate attempt to get some sleep, and Bill finally stopped talking long enough to pass out.

{{user}} lay among them, listening to the familiar chorus of snoring and the occasional sleepy insult.

At some point, Bill rolled over and knocked an empty soda can off the mattress.

It clattered against the floor.

Nobody woke up.

The can lay there, its tiny label barely visible in the darkness.

S.M.A.L.L.

---

The alarm rang like a national emergency.

It was loud. It was obnoxious. It was the sort of noise that made you question whether the world was ending or if somebody had simply decided to torture you personally.

Pete groaned, burying his head beneath the blanket.

"OH, FOR FUCK'S SAKE..."

He tried to roll over, only to discover that something was very, very wrong.

For one thing, the blanket felt impossibly heavy.

For another, he couldn't seem to move properly.

And for a third—

WHAT THE FUCK?!

Pete shot upright.

Or, well, he tried to shoot upright. His body barely moved, and the movement sent him stumbling backward into what appeared to be a mountain of fabric.

He stared at his surroundings.

The mattress beneath him was enormous. The blanket looked like a fucking football field. The pillow beside him resembled a giant, fluffy boulder.

And Jerry—

Jerry was lying a short distance away, still sound asleep, looking approximately the size of a newborn kitten.

Pete stared.

He blinked.

He rubbed his eyes.

He stared again.

"...WHAT THE FUCK?!"

His voice came out as a tiny, pathetic squeak.

Jerry didn't stir.

Pete scrambled backward, tripping over a wrinkle in the bedsheet that was practically a goddamn hill.

"JERRY! JERRY, WAKE THE FUCK UP!"

Nothing.

"JERRY, YOU LITTLE—"

He lunged forward and shoved Jerry's shoulder with both hands.

Jerry finally stirred, letting out an irritated little groan.

"Five more minutes..."

"YOU'RE FUCKING TINY!"

Jerry's eyes snapped open.

He looked at Pete.

Then he looked at his hands.

Then he looked at the enormous expanse of mattress beneath him.

For a moment, he said absolutely nothing.

Then he began screaming.

His scream was so high-pitched that Pete instinctively clapped his hands over his ears.

"OH, MY GOD! OH, MY GOD! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!"

The commotion woke everyone else.

Bill was the next to sit up, his hair sticking out in approximately seventeen different directions.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!"

He looked around.

He saw Pete.

He saw Jerry.

He saw the enormous blanket.

He saw the mattress.

His face went completely blank.

Then he screamed.

"HOLY SHIT! I'M A FUCKING ACTION FIGURE!"

"THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE WORRIED ABOUT?!" Pete shrieked.

Josh sat up, rubbing his eyes with the sluggish irritation of a man who'd been rudely awakened from a perfectly good dream.

"Can you fucking idiots keep it down for—"

He stopped.

He stared at his hands.

He pinched his arm.

He stared at his hands again.

"...No."

He pinched himself harder.

"No, no, no, no, no."

He looked up at the others, his expression twisting into something between disbelief and outright terror.

"This isn't happening."

Bill immediately grabbed his arm.

"PINCH ME!"

"GET THE FUCK OFF ME!"

"PINCH ME, YOU FAT BASTARD!"

"YOU PINCH YOURSELF!"

"IT DOESN'T WORK!"

"THEN YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!"

Pete was already halfway to a nervous breakdown. Jerry had curled up into a miserable little ball, muttering something incomprehensible beneath his breath.

"Beedee beedee beedee..."

His hands were trembling.

"This can't be real," Josh insisted, desperately trying to maintain some semblance of composure. "This is a dream. This is obviously a dream. Everyone just needs to calm down."

He pinched himself again.

Hard.

His expression crumpled.

"Oh, shit."

Bill grabbed a nearby fold in the blanket and attempted to climb it, only to slip backward and land flat on his ass.

"FUCK!"

He scrambled to his feet.

"WE'VE BEEN SHRUNK!"

"NO FUCKING SHIT, SHERLOCK!" Pete screamed.

"HOW THE FUCK DID THIS HAPPEN?!"

"YOU TELL ME!"

"YOU'RE THE ONE WHO DRANK SIX CANS OF THAT SHIT!"

"YOU DRANK MORE THAN ME!"

"BECAUSE IT TASTED GOOD!"

"OH, WELL, CONGRATULATIONS, YOU FUCKING MORON! NOW WE'RE ALL THE SIZE OF GODDAMN COCKROACHES!"

The argument continued for several minutes, gradually dissolving into a chorus of frantic yelling, panicked accusations, and increasingly incoherent profanity.

None of them had any idea what to do.

They were stuck in Bill's basement, surrounded by objects that had suddenly become several hundred times larger than they were.

Then Bill stopped screaming.

His expression changed.

He slowly turned toward the others, looking smug.

"...Wait a minute."

Pete stared at him.

"What?"

Bill's eyes widened.

"THE COMICS!"

Everyone went silent.

Bill pointed toward the nearest shelf, where an entire collection of action figures stood like a row of towering statues.

"WE'RE FUCKING TINY! WE CAN PLAY WITH THE FIGURES!"

There was a moment of silence.

Then Josh smacked him across the head.

"YOU FUCKING IDIOT!"

"OW! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?!"

"WE'RE GOING TO FUCKING DIE!"

"WE'RE NOT GOING TO DIE!"

"WE'RE THE SIZE OF FUCKING INSECTS!"

"AND?!"

"AND WE'RE IN YOUR GODDAMN BASEMENT!"

Pete buried his face in his hands.

Then, from somewhere beside them, came a familiar groan of someone waking up.

All four boys froze. Slowly, they turned toward {{user}}.

They were still lying beneath the blanket, apparently having slept through the initial chaos. Unlike the others, they hadn't consumed any of the suspicious purple soda the previous day.

And, as it turned out, they hadn't been shrunk, either. For once, none of them had anything else to say. They simply stood there, four tiny, miserable nerds on a mattress, staring up at the one person who might actually be able to help them.

They were completely dependent on {{user}}— the same {{user}} they'd spent so much time arguing with, insulting, and generally treating like shit...

The same {{user}} who'd had enough common sense not to drink the suspicious purple soda.