.Returns on Investments

Meryl watched Bradley jump from the table to the cage and up to the gap in the lid.  She missed.  She fell back down to the lip and over the side.

Meryl just barely kept herself from reacting too obviously while on-camera.  Kira and Ellie sat with their backs to the corner and just looked at their friend curiously.

"Nothing," she said with a shake of her head.  She crossed her fingers, both for lying to the others and luck of Bradley.

The blonde appeared again, pulling herself into view.  She looked pissed.  Her second attempt was good, although it seemed to take more effort to get back inside the cage.

She sat in the blind spot for a second, then continued her regular circuit.  Two laps later, she sat down beside the others.

"What happened?" Meryl asked her.

"I don't know.  I couldn't reach the edge." She shook her fingers.  "It was like it wasn't where I left it."

Kira sat up straight.  "Hey, that's what I thought about the upper bunk.  When I went to jump into it last night.  I bumped my thigh into the side.  I haven't done that since the first night I slept here."

Meryl rose and stepped to the TV.  She reached through the hole to the volume control.  She could only barely touch it with her fingertips.

She pushed and stretched but couldn't get enough of a grip to move the dial.

"My reach is less.  I can't… I'm smaller.  We all are."

Kira stood and tugged at her shorts.  "Hey!  You're right!  These are loose!"

They spent the day measuring themselves and each other.  Tight clothes got loose, loose clothes fell off.

Ellie didn't seem to change, though.  They assured each other that they were just shrinking down to her level.

"Maybe that's just the only stable size?" Bradley suggested.  "Shrinking to our size is temporary, until we're all Ellie's scale."

"It'll be nice to have company," Ellie said.

"Silver lining much?" Kira asked.  She stood up to pace.  Her hot pants slid off of her ass and down to her knees.  Meryl caught her just before she fell over.

"Great," Bradley said angrily.  "We're going to be tiny and naked.  Again.  Tinier and nakeder."

Ellie turned to the thief and shot out a hip.  She gestured to her bare boobs and her diaper.  "You wanna make a complaint?"

-----

Corey was whistling as he skipped down the stairs.  "So, how are my whores doin'?"

"We're shrinking!" Meryl said.  She ran to the corner of the cage closest to the stairs.

He smiled as he walked up.  "So it's started?"

"What?  You knew this was going to happen?"

"Yeah.  The tinies always get tinier."  He fished something out of his pocket.  It was a penny.  He dropped it into the cage. 

Meryl picked it up curiously.  "Look at Lincoln's eye," he told her.  She found a small clear drop.  "Look into the superglue." 

She held the penny like a plate and squinted.  Floating inside it like something preserved in acrylic was a skeleton.  A human skeleton no bigger than the dead president's eye. 

She cried out and dropped the coin.  Corey laughed.

"That seems to be the point of stability for the shrinking effect." He reached down and recovered the coin.  "THIS is the inventor.  I try to keep him around for luck."

She couldn't breathe. The floor felt like it was sliding under her feet as they shrank.  She bent over, trying to clear her head.

"So!" he said.  "Who wants fried chicken?"