Shrunken Freshmen 2: Part 2

I took the vial from her hand. I couldn’t resist her. Whatever this power of hers was it was unyielding. I drank the potion. I was screaming in my mind, not able to stand the thought of the transformation I was about to make. But I wouldn’t have to watch.

“Sleep,” Alundra spoke again. Instantly I sank to the floor, unconscious.

I don’t know how long I was asleep exactly. Long enough to shrink. Long enough for Ken and Alundra to gather us up and take us from my house. I awoke in the dark. I was wearing some kind of clothes I was unfamiliar with and was lying on a bed of some coarse fabric. I felt around and my hand touched a wall of cardboard. Where was I?

“Hello,” I spoke. No answer. I was alone.

I thought I heard voices from outside whatever room I was in.

“Hello?” I called, this time louder. On the opposite side of the room two doors opened. Well, not doors really. Cardboard flaps. It was then I realized I was in some kind of box or food container. It made my heart sink because it confirmed I was in fact shrunk.

With the flaps open I saw a stranger. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit, which I could now see I was wearing one identical too. The stranger was a guy about my age, maybe a year or two younger.

“It’s about time you woke up,” he spoke. “Your friends came out of it hours ago.”

”Who are you?” I asked.

“The name’s Bobby,” he said.

“Bobby Douglass?” I asked, realizing who he was.

“That’s me,” he said. “Your friends told us there’s been a lot of stuff about us in the paper since all this started.”

He was one of the new freshmen who had disappeared.

“Come on out,” Bobby said. “Meet the others.”

I followed him out of the box. Once outside I saw that it was large saltine cracker box. Around it were about seven or eight other giant boxes and food containers that formed some kind of a bizarre shantytown. Beneath me the ground was rough wood grain.

“Welcome to ‘Shrunksberg’,” said Bobby. “We’re a small but industrious little community. If you look around you’ll see some examples of our most prime real estate. There’s small cup we use as a latrine and a bowl of water for bathing on the other side of that large Stovetop box. On the other side of the table is the food and water dish.”

I looked around and saw my four friends, Kobe, David, and three guys I assumed were others among the abducted freshmen. They all wore the same orange jumpsuits I had on, except David and Kobe who still wore togas. None of them approached me. They all had these pretty hopeless looks on their faces.

“Looks like Ken’s gotten a better tailor since last time,” I said.

”Yeah,” said Bobby, sounding a little ticked. “Your pals were telling us how this happened to you all once before.”

“Yeah.”

“Funny, you’d think if you’d been through this before and been changed back you’d have done everything you could to make sure it didn’t happen again,” he said, not holding back any disdain.

“Ken was also shrunk last time,” I said. “We didn’t know that Alundra even existed, so how were we suppose to know she’d come for him and start all this over again?”

“You weren’t suppose to,” said Bobby. “But you could have done the smart thing and squished Ken when you had the chance.”

There was no point in trying to talk to this guy. I saw Ray standing next to a hut made from a Betty Crocker box and walked to him.

“So what’s new?” I asked.

“Besides us being totally screwed? Not much,” he said.

“Did they say anything about Rob?” I asked.

“No,” Ray said. “Bobby and the others have never heard of him.”

I looked around at my surroundings again. This weird village was on a table, probably not more than six by four feet in reality, but huge to us. At each corner of the table sat a white crystal. The table was the only thing in the giant room. It was up against the wall far from the door. The door and wallpaper both looked very old and run down.

“What about Ken and Alundra?” I asked.

“Haven’t seen them. They haven’t been back since any of us woke-up.”

Bobby and the other freshmen approached us.

“Guess we should introduce you to everybody,” he said to me. “Seeing as we’ll all be together for a while.”

“I’m Cody,” a tall (taller than me anyway) blond boy said.

“I’m Max.” Max was slightly shorter with bright red hair.

“I’m Eduardo,” another one offered. Eduardo was a Hispanic guy with long dark hair. They all had pretty long hair, I guess from not being able to cut it, but that didn’t account for their lack of facial hair. Even freshmen should have had a little.

None of them reached out to shake hands when they greeted me. They had clearly been through a lot.

“Weren’t there five of you?” I asked.

“Speak of the devil,” said Bobby.

“What?”

“Look behind you.” I turned to see the door to the room open and a gigantic Ken looking down at us. I had to fight the urge to run and hide in one of the boxes.

“I hope you’re all playing nice together,” Ken’s booming voice mocked. “I brought your other playmate back.” He then sat the fifth of the new shrunken freshmen down on the table. This time I did back away as his hand descended. But all the other had done that too.

“Why did you bring us here?” I called up at him.

“What’s that, little Jimmy?” he said. “Was that a question?” With speed I could hardly believe his hand shot down and yanked me off the table! He held me in his fist so tight I could barely breathe and brought me up to his face. “Don’t ask questions, bug. Human beings are allowed to ask questions, and you’ve ceased to be human. So keep your tiny little trap shut.” He lowered me back to the table and dropped me a few inches short. He then left the room and my friends ran up to me.

“Are you alright?” asked Kobe.

“I’m fine,” I responded. I looked over at the new freshmen Ken had brought in. The other freshmen were lifting him up and carrying him back to one of the huts. “Is he alright?” I asked Bobby.

“Tommy’s fine,” he said. “Or at least he will be in an hour. The drain takes a lot out of you.”

“Drain?”

“The drainage orb. That’s what the guy and woman call it. I guess it’s the reason we’re here,” he said. “It’s this glass orb thing they place you inside. It’s doesn’t hurt but it feels like the strength is being sucked right out of you.”

“What the point of it?”

“We don’t know,” said Bobby. “Just now when he talked to you was the first time either of them has really spoken to us.”

“Have any of you tried to escape?” I asked. Bobby laughed.

“Walk to the edge of the table and reach your hand out,” he instructed. I did as he said. When tried to put my hand outside the border of the table edge I just couldn’t. It was like some invisible force holding my hand back.

“We think it’s those crystals that do it,” said Bobby. “We’ve tried moving them but they’re protected by the same stuff.”

“What about the ground. It’s wood, maybe we could break through it.”

“Too hard and no tools.”

“Bobby?” It was Tommy. Max and Cody had walked him back over to us.

“You should rest,” said Bobby.

“No,” he said. “I have to tell you something. Something I heard when I was in the drainer.”

“What?”

“Him and her were talking,” Tommy said, using all the strength he could muster.

“Ken and Alundra?” I said.

“Is that their names?” asked Bobby. “We never knew. Go on, Tommy.”

‘They were talking about these new guys,” Tommy continued. “They took them to use as hostages against someone. They said something about a spy who would warn someone called the… the… the ‘beholders’.”

“That mean anything to anyone?” Bobby asked everyone. No one responded. “Is that all, Tommy?”

“Yeah,” said Tommy, exhausted.

“Take him back to his hut.”

“This is good,” said Cody. “Isn’t it? I mean maybe someone’s gonna try and rescue us. Right? It could mean that, right?”

“We don’t need to get out hopes up too quick” said Bobby.

“But it could mean that, right?” said Cody. He was clearly desperate for hope.

“Cody, just shut-up,” Bobby said. Cody turned and helped Tommy back to his hut.

“We’ve been here a really long time,” said Max, to me and my friends. “Cody kind of held on to hope that we might be rescued longer than the rest of us.”

“How long has it been since we were taken?” asked Eduardo.

“About a month and a half,” said Ray.

“What?” said Bobby, shocked. “Is that all?”

“There are no windows in here so we haven’t really been able to keep track of time,” said Max.

“I can’t believe that’s all it’s been,” said Bobby. “It seems like months and months.”

“Yeah, well time sure flies when you’re the size of a rodent,” David said.

“Uh, I have kind of an unusual question. It’s just something I’m kind of wondering,” said Ray. “Why do none of you have any facial hair?”

“What kind of question is that to ask them?” said David.

“They’ve been here for over a month and obviously Ken’s not gonna give them as blade,” said Ray. “And yet their faces are all completely smooth.”

“They’re fourteen,” said Kobe. “They’re not supposed to look like Grizzly Adams.”

“Yeah, but we all had a little before we came here,” said Bobby. “We just figured it wasn’t growing now because of something to do with the shrinking.”

“No,” I said. “We all continued to grow facial hair when we were shrunk.”

“Maybe it has something to do with that drainage thing,” said Marshal.

“That’s what I was thinking,” said Ray. “You guys said it feels like they suck the energy from you. Maybe that really is what’s happening. Maybe Alundra draws power from it.”

“So now she’s some kind of vampire?” said Ben.

“It’s just a theory,” said Ray.

“If that’s true then it might eventually kill us,” said Bobby. “Oh, God. We got to get out of here.”

“I’m not following you,” I said. “How does this theory fit in with them not having facial hair?”

“The same way it fits in with us not being the one’s they chose to shrink in the first place,” said Ray. “When you’re fourteen puberty hits you hard for the first time. Maybe all those hormones make their bodies energies better and that’s what Alundra wants to drain. They can’t grow facial hair because all that pubescent energy is being drained from them.”

“That’s a pretty wild theory,” said Kobe.

“As opposed to what?” asked Ray.

“You think that means they won’t put us in the drainage orb?” I asked.

“Maybe.”

“Hopefully.”

“You may be about to find out,” said Bobby.

The door to the room had opened and Alundra walked in.

She carried a silver tray which she sat down on the table.

“Get on,” she ordered. I looked at Ray. His eyes told me he was thinking the same thing: the weird affect of her voice was gone. “Get on!” Alundra ordered again, speaking above a low voice for the first time. “I don’t have time for this,” she added, speaking more than two words for the first time. Her colossal hand came down and herded us onto the tray. She then grabbed Tommy out of his hut and dropped him on the tray.

We were carried out of the room and down a flight of stairs. The house we were in was old and dilapidated, full of dusty old furniture that time had eaten away at. We were carried into the living room where Ken lounged on a dirty antique couch. In the center of the room was a pedestal, and on that was a pale green, glass ball. That had to be the drainage orb.

Alundra sat the tray on a small end table, equipped with the same crystals as the village.

“Have you finished transferring the energy from the last drain into my amulet?” Alundra asked Ken. Now that we were unaffected by her power her voice seemed shrill and piercing.

“Yes, baby,” said Ken. “Just as you asked.”

“Good,” she replied. “By now that stinking little spy Tobias will have summoned the Beholders.”

Tobias! What?

“I’ll need the energy from the last drain should I have to battle them when they arrive,” Alundra continued.

“I was hoping we’d be gone by then,” said Ken.

“I still don’t have enough energy. The Darkrealmers won’t open me a portal for escape until I do.”

“We were just three or four drains away from it,” said Ken. “Then we could have escaped across the barrier and come back to another town, where the Beholders couldn’t find us.”

“We should have left this town already, portal or no portal,” said Alundra. “But you had to stay so you could get your revenge. Now the Beholders know we’re here and unless we cross the barrier they’ll pick up our trail and find us anywhere on Earth.”

“Alundra, baby?” said Ken. “I have a question. What would happen if we were to put three or four of the freshmen in the orb and drain them at the same time?”

“They probably wouldn’t survive.”

“So?”

“You know I can’t kill earthlings,” Alundra said. “It violates the rules of engagement pact made by the Darkrealmers and the Beholders.”

“Then what do we do?”

“I’m going outside to place a shielding spell on the house that will make it harder for the Beholders to locate us here,” Alundra said. “While I’m gone place the next of the specimens in the orb. If we can remain undiscovered long enough to drain them all then we can get the Darkrealmers to open the portal.”

Alundra walked out and Ken came over to the table we were on. He just looked at us for a minute. He then glanced at the door Alundra had walked out. Then back at us. He repeated this several times before breaking the cycle and glancing at the drainage orb.

“What the Darkrealmers and Beholders don’t know won’t hurt us,” said Ken.

“Ken, whatever your thinking-” Ray said. He was cut off when Ken reached over and thumped him in the face! The blow knocked him down like a straight punch from Mike Tyson. I ran to his side. He was knocked out, and his nose might have been broken, but he would be okay.

“YOU STUPID FREAK!” I shouted.

I thought I’d suffer the same fate as Ray, but Ken had something worse in mind for me. With both his hands he grabbed up me and the five freshmen. We screamed our heads off and even bit at Ken’s hands. But none of it mattered. Ken sat us on the pedestal and lifted up the drainage orb. There was a hole in the bottom and he sat us inside it, before sitting it right again. Instantly the orb began to glow. My friends still on the table screamed and cursed Ken, but there was no help else they could give.

Suddenly I was overcome by intense cold and the weight of my own limbs seemed like one hundred pound weights. Through the pale green glass Ken watched. There was barely room in the orb for myself and the five freshmen. Ken turned back to deal with my cursing friends. With his back turned I realized there might be one hope. This thing was too big for one shrunken teen to move in such a weakened state, but maybe not six.

“Listen to me,” I said, barely able to speak. “We have to try and push the orb off.”

“No use,” said Bobby. “Tried that. Not strong enough.”

“Six of us might be,” I said. “Just try.”

The five freshmen moved towards my side of the orb slowly. Outside I saw Ken with one of my friends in his hand yelling at him. I could only pray he wouldn’t turn around. With the intense pressure weighing down on us and our strength fading every second, the six of us pushed against the orb. The glass was thin and working together it wasn’t as heavy as it seemed. Part of the hole in the bottom of the orb was now over the edge, and we had to push the sides to move it further.

“When we push it off be careful not to get caught inside and fall with it,” I said. The orb was on the edge. “Everyone, one last push!”

The orb slipped off the pedestal and shattered on the ground beneath. The hole slipped right over us and we were left on the pedestal, perilously close to the edge. We collapsed in a pile, but with the orb shattered our strength instantly began to return to us.

“What have you done?” shouted Ken.

“What have YOU DONE!” shouted Alundra. “You idiot. I told you not to put more than one in the orb.”

“I’m sorry, baby,” said Ken.

“You’re gonna be sorry,” she said. “Don’t you get it? You tried to kill them. The pact made between the Beholders and Darkrealmers it mystical. By violating the pact you’ve instantly told the Beholders where we are!”

“What do we do?” asked Ken, desperate. “I don’t wanna be turned into one of them again!”

“Gather them in a box,” said Alundra. “I still have enough power in my amulet to handle a one or two of Beholders, and we can use the shrunken ones as a shield.”

Ken sat Kobe, the one he’d been holding back on the table, and then roughly did the same with us on the pedestal.

“There’s a box in the kitchen,” said Alundra.

Ken went to run out of the room, but his exit was blocked… by Rob!

“Going somewhere, Kenny?” Rob asked. I couldn’t believe it.

“ROB!” Kobe shouted.

“Hey, guys,” said Rob. “We’ll get to you in a minute.”

Ken backed away in fear.

“Beholder!” Alundra hissed.

Rob was wearing some kind of silvery-blue uniform with symbols on it. His hair was longer than it had been and he wore a very noticeable crystal ring on his right hand.

“Come here to play, Rob?” asked Alundra. From a coffee table near the pedestal she grabbed a crystal pendant, similar to Rob’s ring, but green.

“Yeah, we can play,” said Rob. “But I think my team has yours outnumbered.” He gestured towards the front entrance of the room, where Tobias and a tall blonde girl stood, both dressed like Rob.

“Come on, Alundra,” said the blonde girl. “Do you really think you can take on three of us?”

“Probably not… but….” Alundra stormed the front entrance were Tobias and the girl stood. As she did a bolt of green energy blasted out of her amulet and struck the two. She ran past them and out the house. Tobias and the girl stood up, miraculously unharmed.

“Let her go,” said Rob. “Renald and his team will pick her up. Without a portal she’s ours. Now, as for my good friend Ken here…”

“Please Rob, no…” Ken pleaded, now on his knees.

“What do you think we should do with him, Quint?”

“Quint? Who is Quint?” I asked.

“That would be me.” A pocket near Rob’s collar came open and a tiny form poked out. Rob took the guy out of his pocket and sat him on the table with us. He wore a uniform like Rob’s. He was blond with a crew cut. He looked seventeen, maybe eighteen.

“Quint is my field aide,” said Rob. “My Ace. He helps keep me on track.” Is it weird that I was kind of jealous? I mean, I was used to thinking of Rob as my giant.

“So, Quint, what should we do with Ken?”

Quint turned towards Ken and stood up straight, kind of like a marine with his arms to his sides.

“Ken Turner,” said Quint. “You have aided a Darkrealmer agent in her attempt to gain power by draining the life force from earthling youth. You are also guilty of attempted murder and violation of the rules of engagement agreed upon by both Beholders and Darkrealmers over a century ago. According to Beholder law you are to be shrunk and your freedoms restricted until such times as you are deemed worthy of their reinstatement.”

“No…noooo,” Ken cried.

“You heard the man,” said Rob. Rob held his hand out towards Ken’s face and, kind of like Spider-Man, something shot out of the wrist of his shirt and into Ken’s face. It was a blue mist. Everyone on the table knew what it was, and everyone smiled to see Ken’s face covered in it.

Ken crawled into a fetal position as the shrinking began to take affect. Within minutes he was trapped beneath a pile of gigantic clothing. Tobias walked over. He was wearing some kind of back pack and from it he pulled a small container he placed Ken in.

“Hey, guys,” he said to us, with kind of a sad smile.

“Hey,” said Ray, having recovered from Ken’s thump. “So I guess we’re not the only ones who’ll be missing homeroom tomorrow.”

“No, guess not,” said Tobias.

“Tobias,” said Rob. “Go check in with Commander Renald. See what the status on Alundra is.”

“Lieutenant?” Quint addressed Rob. Quint had a ring like Rob, miniature of course, and he had been waving it around while it glowed.

“What’s their status?” asked Rob.

Quint was silent for a moment. Rob picked him up and carried him out of the room.

“I don’t think that’s good,” said Bobby.

“Probably not,” I said with a sigh.

The blonde girl walked over and kneeled by the table.

“I’m Alexandra,” she said. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Some of you anyway.”

Alexandra was beautiful. Easily as beautiful as Alundra.

“What are you?” asked Ray. “All of you. Ken, Alundra, you and Rob…”

“It’s a long story,” said Alexandra.

“I don’t have any plans,” said Bobby. “Talk.”

“Well, I guess I should start by stating something you probably already figured out: magic is real,” she said. “But there is way more than that. There are five alternate dimensions. In two of the dimensions good magic is supreme, and in two of them evil magic rules. And then there is this dimension. On Earth magic occurs so infrequently that neither white nor black magic is dominant. Earth exists right in the middle between the two good worlds and the two evil.”

“Let me make a wild guess here and say that Alundra’s from one of the evil ones,” I said.

“Right. She’s from Avatavaris, directly across the dimensional divide from Earth. She and her kind refer to themselves as Darkrealmers. They send their agents to Earth to suck mystical energy wherever they can and bring it back to their own dimensions. Their plan is drain enough mystical power from Earth to tip the balance of power between our dimensions and theirs.”

“This is ridiculous,” said David. “How could no one know all this was going on?”

“Let her finish,” I said.

“Our side refers to ourselves as Beholders,” said Alexandra.

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“Just that we know the truth about magic and use it to protect those who don’t. It’s our job to make sure the evil worlds don’t tip the balance of power, and make sure that your world doesn’t discover the truth. Earth has to remain neutral in this struggle, because if either good or evil magic is able to dominate the universe then all personal choice will disappear.”

“I cannot freakin’ believe this,” said Marshal. “A year ago we get shrunk and turned into someone’s pets, and we thought that was trouble. Now we find out we’re in the middle of a war to control the universe. This just keeps getting better and better.”

“It’s not really war,” said Alexandra. “Just a struggle. Contest might be a better word. A century ago when the barrier between dimensions was first crossed both the good worlds and the evil ones realized that war would likely destroy everything. So they agreed to rules of engagement. Neither side can have more than about a thousand operatives working on Earth at any time, and neither side is allowed to kill earthlings. That’s how the shrinking thing came about. Even though you’re shrunk you body still has the same amount of mystic life energy. It’s just compressed.”

“Does puberty by any chance do anything to these life energies?” asked Ray.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” said Alexandra. “The body generates added energy to accommodate the physical changes that occur at puberty. It’s especially true in males. Most Darkrealmer agents chose to drain the energy from males. Although there are a few exceptions.” She reached into the pocket or her uniform near her collar, like the one Rob had brought Quint from. “Boys, Meet Krista. My field aide.”

Alexandra sat her down on the table with us. Whoa. I had never seen a shrunken female before. She was tall, as tall as any of the guys on the table, with red hair and green eyes. She was about seventeen. The other guys all checked her out. Particularly the five freshmen who hadn’t seen a female in a while.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said, standing in the same military posture Quint had used.

“Wow,” I heard Ben whisper. “I guess all chicks from alternate realities must be babes.”

“Who said I was from an alternate reality?” asked Krista, having heard. “I’m from Earth. I became this way the same way all of you did.”

This brought up a question I’d been asking myself since Rob had first brought out Quint. Why hadn’t the antidote been used on Quint and Krista?

“You should tell them the rest,” said Krista.

“The Darkrealmers shrink you so that they can drain your energies as much as possible. Because your bodies are so tiny they can take much more energy and still leave you with enough not to kill you and break the pact. The side effect is-”

“Let me tell them,” said Rob, returning. I braced myself for the news I knew was coming. News I had hoped desperately against. “Guys…”

“Wait,” I said. “I know what’s coming. But I want to hear the rest first. I want to know the whole truth about how this came about. How did you become a Beholder and how did Ken become involved with Alundra?”

“Well, it’s pretty simple really. When Alundra first came to Earth she used her powers to seek out some one who could be her guide. She found Ken. My guess is Ken really was just trying to give us gifts when shrunk you five to be our pets. He must have done it without Alundra knowing. That’s why he was so desperate to keep the potion a secret. Plus he probably didn’t know the formula anyway. When Alundra found out what happened she wanted Ken back. But I have a rare natural immunity to the mind control the Darkrealmers use to manipulate earthlings. She didn’t wanna risk harming me to get Ken back because that would have alerted the Beholders to her location. So instead she used her magic to contact me on the internet and gave me the antidote. When I didn’t restore Ken then she was forced to come for him herself. I don’t know if she really loved Ken or if he was just a good flunky, but she definitely wanted him back. She attacked me with her amulet. She didn’t kill me, but it was enough to attract the Beholders. When they saw that I was immune to the mind control they recruited me.”

“Why didn’t you come back, though?” asked Kobe.

“Normal earthlings aren’t allowed to know the truth,” said Rob. “I did come back to town to check on you guys the week school started. It was then I heard about the five new freshmen abducted, but by then Ken and Alundra’s trail was gone and I assumed they’d left town. I left Tobias here as a spy incase they came back. When Alundra saw Tobias run out of James’s house she must have recognized him. We came as soon as we could.”

“If normal earthlings aren’t allowed to know the truth why are you spilling all this now?” asked Ray. He realized what I had realized.

“Because you’re not normal now,” Rob sighed. “The five new freshmen have had too much energy drained to ever be returned to normal.”

“It can’t be true,” said Bobby. “It can’t be.”

“I’m sorry.”

The five freshmen each turned away and dealt with it in their own way. Cody was crying. Eduardo was praying. Max was cursing. Tommy was silent and Bobby just stood with his eyes closed tightly.

“What about us?” asked Marshal. “We weren’t put in the drainage orb.”

“No,” said Rob. “But you were shrunk and restored once before. Your bodies wouldn’t survive the transformation again.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Everyone who has ever been shrunk and restored more than once has died.”

“Our lives really are over,” said David.

“No they’re not,” said Rob. “Your lives here maybe. The twelve of you are gonna come with us. We’ll take you to Arlucia, the good dimension we’re the Beholders have base. We’ll teach you Beholder magic and you can become mystic aides like Quint and Krista.”

“What about our families,” asked Kobe.

“We can’t leave you with them,” said Rob. “It would violate the pact. Not to mention make them vulnerable should Alundra or any other Darkrealmers come looking for you.”

“But… our parents…” I said. “I don’t know if mine can handle losing me again.”

“They won’t have to,” said Rob. “With Alex’s help I can cast a spell over the entire town. They’ll still remember all of you, but nobody will think to ask what happened to you or where you are. That way there won’t be any pain.”

“This sucks Rob!” I shouted.

“I know it does,” he said picking me up and holding me up in front of him.

Just then Tobias reentered.

“Alundra’s escaped,” said Tobias.

“We’ll get her next time,” said Rob.

“Yeah, we will,” I said. “If we have no choice but to come with you, then so be it. But I’m gone learn this magic you’re talking about and I’m gonna make Alundra pay for what she’s done.”

The End.