Toni slunk into her apartment, trying to go unnoticed. After another unsuccessful day of job hunting, the last thing she needed was a friendly reminder from her flatmate about being behind on the rent again. Shoes slipped off, socked feet padded over the carpet, across the living room, and almost to her room. Somewhere she could collapse and relax and prepare herself to try it all over again tomorrow.
“That bad, huh?” The nonchalant voice of Kim came from the kitchen. She stood in the doorway, her poised figure silhouetted by the bright lights behind her. Kim had a sort of effortless elegance to her, even when she was eating a bowl of cereal. It was the sort of confidence that came from never having to worry about money, even when your friends did.
Toni sighed, collapsing a little, letting her bag slip from her hands. She didn’t need to say anything. It wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation, or even the tenth, or twentieth…
“Relax, I know you’re trying,” Kim said, her voice not quite sounding reassuring. She set the bowl behind her, walking over to Toni. “It’s just, it’s been how many months now?”
Toni winced a little. She already felt guilty enough, even if her “rent” was just going straight to Kim’s parents (not that they needed the money). Toni’d tried making herself useful around the house – tidying, odd jobs, grocery runs, that sort of thing – but that didn’t pay rent. With the job market the way it was, neither Toni nor Kim were confident things would change soon.
“Relax,” Kim repeated, gently resting her arms on Toni’s shoulders. “I’m not going to throw you out, or anything.” Toni did seem to relax a little, allowing Kim to gently guide Toni towards the living room, nudging her down onto the sofa. “Though I can’t just have you freeloading forever, you understand?”
Toni nodded, though she wasn’t sure she did understand, “So… what now?”
“Weeelll…” Kim began, taking out her phone, flicking through her apps, “Remember that thing I had you sign up to when you moved in? Let me keep track of things?”
Toni nodded, still not quite getting it.
“Don’t suppose you read all the fine print, did you?” Kim smirked a little, flicking through a few options, stopping on one she liked the look of. A solid tap on her screen, and Toni’s own phone chimed.
“Hey!” Toni yelped, feeling an electric jolt spark from her phone to her side, dancing across her skin. Instantly, she felt dizzy, the world spinning around Toni. Whatever Kim was talking about, it was doing something to her. The world didn’t look right. The sofa cushion beneath seemed to be rising around her, threatening to engulf her. She tried to stand, awkwardly pushing herself forward and off the sofa. Somehow, Toni’s feet missed the floor beneath her, sending her lurching downwards, tumbling over herself.
After falling for too long, Toni landed awkwardly in the carpet. The dense whirls of thread rose around her, Toni’s hands sinking into them as she pushed herself to her feet. Blinking, adjusting her glasses back on her face, she looked out at the room around her. Furniture loomed overhead, the ceiling high above her, and the towering figure of Kim looming over Toni. Somehow, impossibly, Toni had shrunk… and was still shrinking. Her remaining feet in height slipping down to inches, the room growing vast around her. The only mercy was that her clothing had shrunk with Toni. Her overlarge blueberry jumper still hung off one shoulder, not in a heap around her.
“What… how…?” Toni squeaked, struggling to find any words to express her confusion. Surely she was dreaming? Yet everything seemed so real, from the sensation of carpet fibres shifting around her shrinking legs to the sound of Kim’s thundering footfalls. For a moment, Toni stared, paralysed, terrified that Kim was going to squash her into nothing. Toni felt something behind her, a soft thump against her back, then her jumper yanked tight around her. The world spun again, the ground falling away beneath her as Kim effortlessly lifted her into the air. For a few terrifying moments, Toni swung this way and that, completely at Kim’s mercy.
“Holy shit,” Kim’s excited voice boomed around Toni, her massive face moving into view as the dangling Toni spun around, “I really didn’t expect that to work! This is amazing!”
The world lurched again, and Toni felt her stomach climbing up her throat as Kim lowered her down before unceremoniously dumping her onto the coffee table. Kim didn’t mean to toss Toni around or scare her, of course; not really, anyway, but there was a definite power imbalance when you’d just shrunk your flatmate down to barely half a foot in height. “Sorry,” she said, a little half-heartedly, finally noticing the distress and confusion on Toni’s face. Kim’s voice echoed around Toni, shaking her whole body.
Toni picked herself up for the second time in as many minutes, fingers feeling every curve of wood-grain and each dent in the coffee table’s surface. It was as though she’d been transported to some alien world, or a castle above the clouds.
“What the hell?” Toni shouted up at the giant, finally finding her voice. Unfortunately for Toni, it was also a pretty quiet voice. Kim leant down, putting her face close to Toni. For Kim, it was perfectly innocent. For Toni, Kim suddenly rushed towards her, mouth open, as if to eat her… stopping just short, but not before Toni had already collapsed back onto her ass in fright.
“Relax,” Kim said, still smiling, only lowering her voice a little as she saw Toni flinching away. “I’m not going to eat you or anything… though you do look cute, like a little snack.”
Toni felt her face reddening, half from anger and half from embarrassment. She tried to piece things together: the app she’d downloaded when she’d moved in, linking accounts with Kim, whatever Kim had pressed to start this all. If the app meant Kim could change her, somehow, then maybe she could… Toni reached for her phone, gripped by panic when she couldn’t feel it in her pocket. Slowly, she looked up at the sofa. Her phone was resting on the edge of the cushion, hanging tantalisingly above her. It was just a few feet away, but it might as well have been miles.
“Don’t get any funny ideas,” Kim said, catching where Toni was looking, “you agreed to this… remember? Besides, this is only temporary, I just need you out of the way if I’m going to get a paying flatmate to move in.”
“Out of the way?” Toni squeaked back, flushing red again.
“Yeah!” Kim said, as if it were a genius plan for all involved. “Just until the job market gets a bit better, or the next girl needs to ‘move out’.” Toni could hear the thinly veiled suggestion in Kim’s words. Toni was the first to get the shrinking treatment, but she doubted she’d be the last.
“So, what,” Toni replied, trying to muster back some courage, “you’re going to keep me small like this?”
“Oh, no, silly,” Kim said, as though it was obvious. “I wasn’t planning to keep you like a pet, that’s far too much hassle.”
Toni gulped, trying to imagine what the alternative was, her mind racing with possibilities… none of them good, and none of them close to what Kim really had in mind for her. Meanwhile, Kim was busy on her phone, humming to herself as she selected Toni’s change. Satisfied, she looked down at Toni, waiting for the change to start.
The first hint was a strange feeling of heaviness. When she had shrunk down, Toni could tell she’d weighed next to nothing, as impossible as it was. For a moment, she wondered if the laws of physics were catching up with her, adding all that missing mass back onto her diminutive body. The world was pulling her down, drawing her inexorably towards the table. A sensation of weakness and weariness filled her body, now barely able to support herself. Even standing felt like an effort. Every part of her body wished to lie down against the table. Why fight it? A voice at the back of Toni’s mind spoke. Isn’t it easier to just relax?
“What… Why do I feel so funny?” Toni asked, not really expecting an answer.
“Oh! I guess it’s started,” Kim said in a sing-song voice, leaning closer for a better look. She pouted, clearly disappointed that she couldn’t actually see anything different with Toni, yet. “What does it feel like?”
“I dunno, like I’m… underwater?” Toni replied, as much to try and process what she was feeling. Her thoughts swam, her mind clutching for any rational way to explain how she felt. A sluggishness filled her arms, like she was pulling them through treacle. Even just moving them out in front of her seemed slow and difficult, her body lagging behind her mind. It was though some invisible force was surrounding Toni, wrapping around her, bearing down on her body.
Toni’s legs ached, feeling the weight of her body and the invisible force above her. She resisted for as long as she could, quaking as she tried to stand, until the weight became unbearable. She collapsed to her knees, sinking down. Her thighs pressed against her ankles, squashing down into them. She held her hands above her head, trying to push back against the impossible force. They flattened against the invisible barrier, fingers spread wide, quaking and straining as they were pushed lower and lower. Overhead, Kim’s face loomed, grinning at the sight of Toni squashing down against the table.
Her body started to compress into itself, pushed down by the impossible force above her. Not shrinking as she had before, where every part of her shrank in proportion; she was flattening, her torso collapsing into itself, her flesh squashing out around her to make room, carrying her clothes with her. Toni watched her arms getting closer to her face, still pushing back against the invisible force, her arms burning from the effort.
“Why…?” was all Toni could say, still desperately fighting a losing battle against her transformation. She was now barely two inches high, and still shrinking. Her legs pressed into each other, her torso flattening around them. Hands still held above her head, pushing back valiantly against the invisible barrier. Kim watched closely, seeing Toni’s breasts flattening out around her, the edge of Toni’s body gradually becoming circular. The former roommate’s face squashed down into her body, stuck in place, forever looking upwards. As her glasses pressed into her face, all Toni could see was the ceiling and the shadow of Kim looming over her.
Toni’s insides faded away, vanishing into nothing to make room for her flattening self. Toni’s black hair cascaded around her, spilling behind and in her fingers. The pressure built and built, flattening her form completely, merging her clothes and her whole self together. Now little more than a thin disc, she lay flat against the table, only able to wobble about a little as she tried to move.
“What… what happened?” Toni said, still miraculously able to talk. Her mouth was in the dead centre of her, opening straight through to the coffee table behind her, a strange sort of hollow feeling in her open mouth.
A brief shadow fell over Toni, then an inquisitive finger prodded her in what used to be her chest. Her whole body squashed and crumpled, folding around and under Kim’s touch. The weight of her seemed immense, bearing down on Toni’s flattened form.
“Hey, quit it!” squeaked Toni in meagre protest, squirming under Kim’s touch. All she really managed was a slight wiggle, flopping about on the coffee table. Toni blushed red, frustrated at her helplessness. Annoyed that she seemed to be little more than a plaything at Kim’s mercy, and even more annoyed that part of her was enjoying it. She could feel Kim’s finger pressing down into her body, her flattened flesh squashing out around it, rising slightly. Even through her sweater, it felt weirdly good, like shrinking down had made her skin so much more sensitive. She tried to resist blushing even redder, refusing to give Kim any satisfaction of watching her squirm.
“Sorry,” Kim replied, barely stifling a giggle, “I didn’t expect you to still be so… squishy.” Toni had a few brief moments to focus on the word ‘still’ as Kim turned back to her phone, impatiently checking the progress bar running across the bottom.
Toni’s next change began with a fuzzy, tingling sensation underneath her. An electric tingle and flash of heat underneath. Though neither Toni nor Kim could see it, the underside of Toni was being burned away, replaced with something very different. The discomfort was brief, replaced with a soothing cool, an almost paralysing numbness. Her squirming stopped, her body freezing into shape, holding her perfectly flat against the table.
Toni felt even more helpless, desperate to see what was happening, her flattened eyes totally unable to look down at herself. Kim, however, got the perfect bird’s eye view of Toni’s final change: a rippling tide of clear plastic, creeping up around her edges. Toni felt a squeezing pressure: like when she was being squashed down, at the same time gentler yet less forgiving. Locking her body into shape, smoothing out all of the slight bumps and soft edges.
The helpless Toni glanced up, catching the reflection of herself in the back of Kim’s phone. It didn’t help much, though. All she could really see was a rippling shimmer, a weird distortion that was spreading over her. She felt it moving, a brief warmth as it passed across her body, sealing her in. It reached her eyes, vision swimming for a brief moment as the plastic coating covered them. A few seconds more, and it had reached her mouth, looping through the hollow space in her middle, stretching out her mouth into a rough circle.
Toni felt a strangely perfect stillness. Her whole body was not exactly paralysed, but resting, holding perfectly in place. She looked around, wide eyes shifting on her surface. If it hadn’t been for that slight movement, anyone would have thought she was a simple CD, albeit with a very strange design printed on it. Kim certainly knew better, smirking down at the finished piece, moving to pick Toni up from the table.
Toni felt the fingers at her side. The pressure of them, and the warmth of Kim’s body, though she was no longer squashing or flexing like before. She really was stuck in shape, rigid under Kim’s touch. Quietly, Toni hoped Kim wouldn’t decide to test just how strong her changed form was. The wood-grain brushed by under her as Kim not-so-carefully dragged her over the edge of the table. A flash of heat and frustration ran through Toni. Each whirl of wood and stray crumb was scratching faint lines into her back. Toni felt the sense of indignation only an object could feel when its owner refused to treat it properly.
“Hey!” Toni said, surprising both herself and Kim by still talking, “Be careful!”
Kim’s fingers slipped in surprise, tossing Toni back down onto the table. She felt herself fall, tipping slightly, the brief second stretching out as the world shifted around her. Then the shock of impact, her right edge catching against the wood. Her body flexed slightly, a sickening feeling inside her, then bounced back. She tilted sideways, catching against the table with her other side. Her edge ran across the wood, tracing a lazy circle as Toni spun around. Kim looked down, her grin a whirling blur above Toni, watching the hapless CD spin and flounder. Toni’s body vibrated against the table, spinning faster and faster as she levelled out. She slammed to a stop, abruptly settling against the wood, a flash of friction across her back.
“Please don’t do that again!” Toni said, voice weak and shaking. She felt a nausea she couldn’t deal with, wrestling with the thoughts and sensations of her new body. Was this really her life, now? Some human CD, completely at Kim’s mercy? The thoughts were punctuated by Kim picking her up again, finger-prints smudging across Toni’s plastic surface.
“Wow,” Kim said, turning Toni over, both stunned and a little annoyed that Toni could still speak. Her face reflected back at her in the shimmering rainbow gleam of Toni’s rear. “I wonder what would happen if I tried to play you? Not more whining, I hope.”
“Hey!” Toni replied, yelling as much as a CD could. “I didn’t exactly ask for this!”
“Yeah, well,” Kim replied, turning Toni back around, “you didn’t exactly pay the rent, either.”
“Okay, okay,” Toni’s indignation turned to bartering, “you’ve made your point, you can change me back now. I’ll go right back to the job search! First thing tomorrow, I’ll be going from door to do—” She stopped mid-word, silenced as Kim rammed a finger through Toni’s mouth, forcing it wide open into the perfect circle of a real CD. Not really a mouth anymore, just a hole to stick onto a spindle or the inside of a CD tray. Inert and static, just like the rest of Toni.
“Ah, that’s better,” Kim breathed a mock sigh of relief, smiling down at Toni’s face. She was blushing furiously, embarrassed as Kim’s finger completely silenced her. She tried to speak, or yell, or swear at Kim, but was left in frustrated silence. “I should have done this sooner.”
“Still, can’t have you stuck on my finger all day,” Kim thought aloud, walking to Toni’s room, brushing her free hand across her collection of CDs, stopping at Stadium Arcadium. Toni could just watch as Kim opened the case, tossing the CD into a bin, then lifting Toni into it.
“Wait, don’t pu—” Toni yelled, briefly able to speak before Kim clicked her down into the case’s tray. It’s plastic teeth holding firm in Toni’s mouth, silencing her once more. Trapping her until Kim decides to take her out again. If Kim decides to take her out again.
“There, that’ll keep you nice and quiet,” Kim said, looking down at Toni’s face. “Oh, don’t give me that look. You know I can’t exactly have you talking whenever you feel like. I’d never be able to explain it to my next roommate.” It was all a joke to Kim, even as she looked down at Toni’s scared face. “Oh, relax, I’ll change you back.”
With that, Kim slammed the case shut, plunging Toni into darkness. There was a slight shift, her body rattling in the case, then the slap of her case slotting back on her shelf.
“Probably…”
✧
“So, this will be your room,” Kim said to her new roommate, pushing open the door to the extra room. “Sorry about all the junk. My last roommate left it all behind, so… feel free to just toss it or whatever.” Kim turned away, leaving the new girl to settle in. At the back of her mind, she wondered if she was forgetting something… Ah, well, it probably wasn’t important.
The new roommate dropped her bags down, looking over the abandoned belongings of the room’s previous occupant. She whistled to herself, grabbed a few bin bags, and got to sorting it all out. There was a lot of eclectic stuff, but maybe some of it was worth keeping. After a while, she came to the shelves of CDs, rattling a finger across their spines, pulling out one at random.
“Red Hot…? Eh, never really cared for them,” was all she said, tossing it straight into the trash.