Ariana's Close Call
Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2022 2:43 am
Just a quick scene I cooked up. Not a shrinking woman story per-se, but she has shrunk. Includes F-f, micro, doll-size, and 1/3 scale sw.
Sabrina ran for the terrarium in the corner of the lab, her neck-length raven hair fluttering as she went. She held a small beaker in one hand and an eye dropper in the other. The expression on her face was one of relief, but also worry. “Please don’t let it be too late!” She prayed.
The doll furniture had been removed from the glass cage on the countertop when it became useless. Even a cotton ball was too coarse now for the terrarium’s occupant, but it was still the best place to keep her now that it was so easy to lose her. In fact the only furnishings left inside it was a small petri dish of the nutritional solution used in hospitals when conventional food can’t be offered to a patient. Now Sabrina was afraid that the half-inch high rim would be too tall.
“Ari!” Sabrina called to the cage. “We did it!”
Scared that she wouldn’t be able to see her friend, Sabrina removed the lid and peered down into the nearly empty glass container. There she was! Sabrina breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the half-inch tall redhead hugging her knees to herself in a corner. Her face was so small Sabrina couldn’t read the expression but knew it to be despondence. It had been that way since the formerly six-foot-four woman had shrunk below the four-inch mark two days ago.
Four sleepless days had produced the antidote in the beaker. If it at least stabilized Ariana’s shrinking, it would give them enough time to rest and synthesize something better.
“Ari! Drink this please!” Sabrina pled. She drew a single drop from the beaker and reached down to place it on the floor near her continually shrinking friend.
The minuscule woman obeyed sluggishly, crawling to the drop of liquid so big that it rose to her neck while she was on her hands and knees. The reflected light on the drop waivered as Ariana brought her nigh-invisible face to it and started lapping it down.
Far above, Sabrina parted her full red lips to let out the breath she’d been holding. As the drop on the floor of the terrarium shrank, Ariana needed to press herself lower to drink it. She was growing! Her tiny, tiny, friend was growing!
Sabrina’s hands shook as she used the dropper to place another milliliter of antidote before her friend. Ariana was already an inch tall. She looked up to watch the dropper come down.
“Keep drinking Ari! You’re already an inch tall,” Sabrina cheered her little friend.
Ariana nodded as the next drop was deposited in front of her face. She had stopped trying to speak since she went below three inches—her voice was too small for a human ear to hear.
More drops came and Ariana grew with every droplet she gulped down. By the time she hit three inches, she stood and grabbed at the mouth of the dropper, lapping desperately at the miracle within.
Four inches, she was able to fit the tip of the dropper in her mouth. Five inches, her cheeks bulged as Sabrina squeezed more antidote into her mouth. Six inches, she ran her hands along the length of the glass tube, as if trying to force the antidote out of the tube faster.
Nine inches. Sabrina could see Ariana’s freckles and the grey of her eyes again for the first time in a week. “More!” the growing woman squeaked, the first thing Sabrina had heard of Ariana’s voice since a tearful sob yesterday as she resigned herself to being eaten by an insect or bacteria.
“Go slow Ari. I’ll help you,” Sabrina told her when she held the beaker between her friend’s eager little hands.
Ariana drained the beaker. Slowly at first, for her size limited her, but faster and faster. Until the rim of her glorified fish tank was just beneath her armpits.
“Sabrina! I’m huuuuuge!” the fourteen-inch-tall woman exulted up at her sixty-inch friend. “Get me more!”
“I will babe, I will!” Sabrina said, bringing her face down to Ariana. The recently regrown redhead pressed her dripping face against Sabrina’s and gave the giantess’s cheeks the biggest hug she could manage. Sabrina ran her finger up and down Ari’s spine. “Hold tight. I’ll be back with more.”
Sabrina almost ran to the door in her excitement, going down the dark hallway to yet another laboratory in the massive Archer Labs complex. “! It worked!” Sabrina cried to the blonde taking notes next to a machine that looked suspiciously like a soda fountain.
“Thank God,” the blonde replied. “How well did sixty cc. do?”
“It got her a little more than thirty centimeters, I think. We can measure after we grow her back.”
Jenna grimaced. “It will have to do, I guess. We have enough on-hand for another ninety cc., and we’ll be able to get more materials later this morning from the pharmacy.”
“This morning? What time is it?” Sabrina asked, unaware of the blue-black bags under her eyes from days without sleep.
Jenna checked her phone. “It’s almost two in the morning. Give me a minute to synthesize what we have.”
Sabrina sat heavily on the stool next to Jenna as her coworker got to work.
“Sabrina. Sabrina, wake up!” Jenna shook the shorter woman awake.
“Hmm?” Sabrina picked her head up from her arms on the counter before her.
“It’s been five minutes,” Jenna said before placing a beaker next to her with a coffe stir-straw floating in it. “This is what’s left. I’m going home for a few days. Tell Ariana that I’m happy for her.”
“Thanks Jenna. We’ll overnight in the quiet room. I’ll touch base with you and Lauren later,” Sabrina said, mentioning the other scientist who’d been working on their nearly lethal project.
“Good night, Bree,” Jenna said on her way out the door.
Sabrina pushed herself away from the counter and carried the precious fluid back to her friend. She opened the door to discover the naked, doll-sized redhead had scrambled out of her tank and chose to take a shower in the sink. A trickle of warm water sufficing to rinse off the miniscule amount of liquid soap she needed to clean her lithe little body.
“When you get out, I have more for you,” Sabrina told Ariana.
Ariana glanced over her shoulder and flashed her dark-haired friend a smile and walked to the faucet, grabbing hold, and turning the metal knob as a full-size person would turn a barrel. Sabrina handed her a paper towel and helped the little woman climb out of the sink.
“That’s not much,” Ariana said uncertainly as she knelt to bring her mouth to the straw floating in the clear fluid.
“It’s what we have though. We’ll be able to make more when the pharmacy opens in a few hours.”
Ariana stopped herself before putting her mouth on the straw. “A few hours?”
Sabrina rubbed her eyes. “Ari, it’s like two in the morning. Drink up and we’ll weigh and measure you afterward. Maybe by then we’ll both be big enough to use a bed.”
Ariana winced at the late hour, nodded, and set about drinking. She grew fast. At fourteen inches, she needed to steady the straw in her hand, bending forward as she drank and grew. More than half the antidote later, she was big enough to lift the beaker and drink from it like it was a bucket, holding the glass to her mouth while Sabrina’s nervous hand made sure it did not fall from her expanding hands.
“Okay babe. Let’s see how you did,” Sabrina said when Ariana was done.
Neither woman looked pleased with the results. Ariana had visibly grown. She had begun short enough to walk on the counter without needing to duck under the hanging cabinets. She needed to crawl under them now. But for all her gains, it was a letdown to still be so small after drinking half again as much of the antidote. Both women had been hoping for larger.
“Okay, not quite five and a half pounds,” Sabrina reported once her little friend was crouched on the desktop scale designed to weigh newborn children in hospitals. Ariana frowned while grasping the sides of the aluminum cradle to steady herself. “Let’s see how tall you are.”
Ariana raised her arms to allow Sabrina to lift her under the arms to set her on the floor. “I can’t wait to fit into clothes again,” the now bigger redhead said while walking over the larger medical scale with height rod in the corner of the room.
Sabrina extended the rod and knelt to bring it down to the crown of Ariana’s head. “Whoa, you just barely into the scale’s range. Sixty centimeters,” Sabrina said.
All that and I’m only two feet tall?” Ariana groaned.
Three feet above her, Sabrina’s face fell with fatigue. “Well we’ve made a start at least. Come on, let’s go to the quiet room.”
Ariana looked glum as she reached up to allow her giant friend to pick her up. They made their way to the door of the exam room with Sabrina holding Ariana facing her chest. The shrunken woman could just peek over Sabrina’s narrow shoulders. Her last view of the examination room was the sight of her glass cage. She shuddered and buried her face in Sabrina’s collar.
Sabrina ran for the terrarium in the corner of the lab, her neck-length raven hair fluttering as she went. She held a small beaker in one hand and an eye dropper in the other. The expression on her face was one of relief, but also worry. “Please don’t let it be too late!” She prayed.
The doll furniture had been removed from the glass cage on the countertop when it became useless. Even a cotton ball was too coarse now for the terrarium’s occupant, but it was still the best place to keep her now that it was so easy to lose her. In fact the only furnishings left inside it was a small petri dish of the nutritional solution used in hospitals when conventional food can’t be offered to a patient. Now Sabrina was afraid that the half-inch high rim would be too tall.
“Ari!” Sabrina called to the cage. “We did it!”
Scared that she wouldn’t be able to see her friend, Sabrina removed the lid and peered down into the nearly empty glass container. There she was! Sabrina breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the half-inch tall redhead hugging her knees to herself in a corner. Her face was so small Sabrina couldn’t read the expression but knew it to be despondence. It had been that way since the formerly six-foot-four woman had shrunk below the four-inch mark two days ago.
Four sleepless days had produced the antidote in the beaker. If it at least stabilized Ariana’s shrinking, it would give them enough time to rest and synthesize something better.
“Ari! Drink this please!” Sabrina pled. She drew a single drop from the beaker and reached down to place it on the floor near her continually shrinking friend.
The minuscule woman obeyed sluggishly, crawling to the drop of liquid so big that it rose to her neck while she was on her hands and knees. The reflected light on the drop waivered as Ariana brought her nigh-invisible face to it and started lapping it down.
Far above, Sabrina parted her full red lips to let out the breath she’d been holding. As the drop on the floor of the terrarium shrank, Ariana needed to press herself lower to drink it. She was growing! Her tiny, tiny, friend was growing!
Sabrina’s hands shook as she used the dropper to place another milliliter of antidote before her friend. Ariana was already an inch tall. She looked up to watch the dropper come down.
“Keep drinking Ari! You’re already an inch tall,” Sabrina cheered her little friend.
Ariana nodded as the next drop was deposited in front of her face. She had stopped trying to speak since she went below three inches—her voice was too small for a human ear to hear.
More drops came and Ariana grew with every droplet she gulped down. By the time she hit three inches, she stood and grabbed at the mouth of the dropper, lapping desperately at the miracle within.
Four inches, she was able to fit the tip of the dropper in her mouth. Five inches, her cheeks bulged as Sabrina squeezed more antidote into her mouth. Six inches, she ran her hands along the length of the glass tube, as if trying to force the antidote out of the tube faster.
Nine inches. Sabrina could see Ariana’s freckles and the grey of her eyes again for the first time in a week. “More!” the growing woman squeaked, the first thing Sabrina had heard of Ariana’s voice since a tearful sob yesterday as she resigned herself to being eaten by an insect or bacteria.
“Go slow Ari. I’ll help you,” Sabrina told her when she held the beaker between her friend’s eager little hands.
Ariana drained the beaker. Slowly at first, for her size limited her, but faster and faster. Until the rim of her glorified fish tank was just beneath her armpits.
“Sabrina! I’m huuuuuge!” the fourteen-inch-tall woman exulted up at her sixty-inch friend. “Get me more!”
“I will babe, I will!” Sabrina said, bringing her face down to Ariana. The recently regrown redhead pressed her dripping face against Sabrina’s and gave the giantess’s cheeks the biggest hug she could manage. Sabrina ran her finger up and down Ari’s spine. “Hold tight. I’ll be back with more.”
Sabrina almost ran to the door in her excitement, going down the dark hallway to yet another laboratory in the massive Archer Labs complex. “! It worked!” Sabrina cried to the blonde taking notes next to a machine that looked suspiciously like a soda fountain.
“Thank God,” the blonde replied. “How well did sixty cc. do?”
“It got her a little more than thirty centimeters, I think. We can measure after we grow her back.”
Jenna grimaced. “It will have to do, I guess. We have enough on-hand for another ninety cc., and we’ll be able to get more materials later this morning from the pharmacy.”
“This morning? What time is it?” Sabrina asked, unaware of the blue-black bags under her eyes from days without sleep.
Jenna checked her phone. “It’s almost two in the morning. Give me a minute to synthesize what we have.”
Sabrina sat heavily on the stool next to Jenna as her coworker got to work.
“Sabrina. Sabrina, wake up!” Jenna shook the shorter woman awake.
“Hmm?” Sabrina picked her head up from her arms on the counter before her.
“It’s been five minutes,” Jenna said before placing a beaker next to her with a coffe stir-straw floating in it. “This is what’s left. I’m going home for a few days. Tell Ariana that I’m happy for her.”
“Thanks Jenna. We’ll overnight in the quiet room. I’ll touch base with you and Lauren later,” Sabrina said, mentioning the other scientist who’d been working on their nearly lethal project.
“Good night, Bree,” Jenna said on her way out the door.
Sabrina pushed herself away from the counter and carried the precious fluid back to her friend. She opened the door to discover the naked, doll-sized redhead had scrambled out of her tank and chose to take a shower in the sink. A trickle of warm water sufficing to rinse off the miniscule amount of liquid soap she needed to clean her lithe little body.
“When you get out, I have more for you,” Sabrina told Ariana.
Ariana glanced over her shoulder and flashed her dark-haired friend a smile and walked to the faucet, grabbing hold, and turning the metal knob as a full-size person would turn a barrel. Sabrina handed her a paper towel and helped the little woman climb out of the sink.
“That’s not much,” Ariana said uncertainly as she knelt to bring her mouth to the straw floating in the clear fluid.
“It’s what we have though. We’ll be able to make more when the pharmacy opens in a few hours.”
Ariana stopped herself before putting her mouth on the straw. “A few hours?”
Sabrina rubbed her eyes. “Ari, it’s like two in the morning. Drink up and we’ll weigh and measure you afterward. Maybe by then we’ll both be big enough to use a bed.”
Ariana winced at the late hour, nodded, and set about drinking. She grew fast. At fourteen inches, she needed to steady the straw in her hand, bending forward as she drank and grew. More than half the antidote later, she was big enough to lift the beaker and drink from it like it was a bucket, holding the glass to her mouth while Sabrina’s nervous hand made sure it did not fall from her expanding hands.
“Okay babe. Let’s see how you did,” Sabrina said when Ariana was done.
Neither woman looked pleased with the results. Ariana had visibly grown. She had begun short enough to walk on the counter without needing to duck under the hanging cabinets. She needed to crawl under them now. But for all her gains, it was a letdown to still be so small after drinking half again as much of the antidote. Both women had been hoping for larger.
“Okay, not quite five and a half pounds,” Sabrina reported once her little friend was crouched on the desktop scale designed to weigh newborn children in hospitals. Ariana frowned while grasping the sides of the aluminum cradle to steady herself. “Let’s see how tall you are.”
Ariana raised her arms to allow Sabrina to lift her under the arms to set her on the floor. “I can’t wait to fit into clothes again,” the now bigger redhead said while walking over the larger medical scale with height rod in the corner of the room.
Sabrina extended the rod and knelt to bring it down to the crown of Ariana’s head. “Whoa, you just barely into the scale’s range. Sixty centimeters,” Sabrina said.
All that and I’m only two feet tall?” Ariana groaned.
Three feet above her, Sabrina’s face fell with fatigue. “Well we’ve made a start at least. Come on, let’s go to the quiet room.”
Ariana looked glum as she reached up to allow her giant friend to pick her up. They made their way to the door of the exam room with Sabrina holding Ariana facing her chest. The shrunken woman could just peek over Sabrina’s narrow shoulders. Her last view of the examination room was the sight of her glass cage. She shuddered and buried her face in Sabrina’s collar.