Hide and seek

You had made an error in judgement. Your hyper-competitiveness to win this stupid game of hide and seek had doomed you.

It had only been a few weeks ago that you and your sister had a game of hide and seek, after having an argument about who was going to clean their room. You had insisted that it was her turn this week, while she argued that it was yours. To settle things, you made a deal; a high stakes game of hide and seek. You would hide, and if your sister didn't find you in 10 minutes, she'd have to clean the room for a year.

Naturally, she laughed at you and agreed right away. She said that 10 minutes was more than enough time to find someone in a closed room.

Little did she know that you had a secret plan in the works. You bought a shrinking device online that would, in theory- make this competition a complete piece of cake for you.

You asked her to give you a minute to hide, then shut the door. Taking out the device, you set it on the floor and tried to get it working. You soon realized that you had completely forgotten to read the manual beforehand, so you had no idea how to get the device working. With time ticking by, you began to panic- pressing a bunch of its buttons haphazardly. To your delight, it was at this point that the device sounded like it was powering up. With only 20 seconds left, you felt yourself being zapped by a bright beam from the device.

Once the bright beam subsided, you examined the giant messy room in awe. The device worked! You were about the size of an ant, dwarfed by the clutter and clothes littered around your room. Your triumphant moment was soon ruined when your eyes passed over the device, which was collossal and clearly did not shrink with you. At this size, it was impossible to configure it, let alone have the strength to hit any of the buttons.

The door suddenly opened, revealing your cocky titaness of a sister, blissfully unaware that you had resigned your life to the world beneath her feet. For ten minutes, her massive form looked through the room, looking through her closet, underneath the bed, and behind the curtains. Little did she know that she should have looked between the carpet fibres or check underneath her sock to find her insignificant brother. You couldn't help but hide from her terrifying presence, her feet alone was the size of a large stadium- easily capable of squishing you underneath them. The thought of being discovered by her was equally terrifying. You could only imagine what she might do to you at your current size, or even smaller if she found your device. Somehow, you needed to get back to your normal size yourself.

After what seemed like an eternity, your 10 minutes of hell had come to an end. Your sister, flabbergasted and frustrated was right next to your device.

"I can't believe this! There's no way you're in here! I give up!" she scowled.

There was obviously, no audible response from you. The anger in the air emanating from your sister was palpable.

"Dirty cheater... I bet you went out the window! Ugh, there's no way I'm cleaning for a year!" she stomped her feet.

Unfortunately for you, your device happened to be right beneath where she put her foot down, sending forth an earthquake of scraps and plastic pieces that flew everywhere.

"Dammit! Why does he leave crap like this everywhere? Of course it's gonna get stepped on if you leave it in the middle of the floor like that," your sister growled, ignoring all of her things that were thrown around the floor of the room.

After the shaking subsided, you could only fall to your knees in anguish. As she stormed out of the room and slammed the door. What little hope you had was now obliterated on the floor, just another mess in this new world that was your bedroom.

A couple weeks later, you had slowly gotten accustomed to your new life. You walked alongside the walls, the safest way to avoid being crushed like a bug. Food was never a problem, since your sister was such a slob. There was always some spare chips that were far bigger than you were that you could ration throughout the day. For the first time in your life, you prayed that your sister would never clean up that room, knowing full well that it would most certainly be the end of your microscopic life.