Lily was feeling each brutal second of time ticking by, her heart nearly beating twice that fast. She had no idea when she would shrink, but it was no longer an if, and she was freaking the fuck out.

No one she could conjure up seemed like a good option to take care of her at a tiny size. It seemed an impossible question: who would you want to lord over you, a giant, tasked with caring for you and keeping you safe? Lily didn't trust anyone like that.

Then, fate made Lily's decision for her: Angela Douglas's name and face appeared on the screen of Lily's smartphone.

Inwardly, Lily's stomach tied itself in knots, but her thumb was already swiping to accept, and a queer kind of relief crept in at the prospect of some - of any - kind of movement from the morass of her current stuckness.

Angela's easy-breezy voice filled Lily's ear. "Yo, girlie. Got some dead air on the site right now... You got anything cooking?"

Lily unsuccessfully gulped down the anxiety that crept up her throat. She couldn't speak. Her mind was at war with itself, trying to square her new reality that she was about to shrink, and the reality that she had lived up until just a few minutes ago, where she was a writer for End of an Empire who might have simply been working on an article.

"Lils?"

And then, in a jokingly static-like radio voice, "Mission Control here, Earth to Lily, come in, over!"

"Um, I... I, uh..."

"What's up, dollface?"

Lily winced. That hit a little different, now. "Angela, I sorta got a problem over here. Like, a big problem. Or..." Lily wanted to punch a wall. "Or a small one. Fuck."

"Huh? I'm not following, Lily. Slow down. What's going on."

I can't slow down, Lily's mind screamed.

Can I trust her, Lily wondered. Like, really trust her? On the one hand, End of an Empire regularly wrote about SSP, especially with how it impacted women and communities of color. Angela had tiny friends, and tiny women even contributed articles to End. On the other hand, Lily couldn't stop from imagining what it'd be like to be an inch or less tall in front of Angela, and the thought terrified her. How would Angela treat her?

"I got a notification. On my smartwatch."

"Okay," Angela offered after Lily seemed to freeze. "What'd it say?"

"I'm going to shrink." Lily's voice was more like a squeak.

It felt so good and so awful to finally say it out loud.

Oh shit. Oh, shit! It was real now. It was real before, but it was realer now that Lily had said it out loud.

"You're going to shrink." Angela repeated, as if she needed to hear it again.

"Yes, goddammit! I'm going to SHRINK!" Lily nearly screamed.

"Whoa, whoa, okay..." Angela was saying, but Lily only half heard her.

Lily almost hung up, but Angela started asking questions. The woman was a decade Lily's senior, and suddenly sounded it as her voice took on a soothing tone. Lily knew it was all years of training and experience around crisis management, but in the moment, she was grateful for the space.

"Okay, you're going to shrink. That sucks. I'm so sorry to hear that, Lily. What's the plan, now? It's okay if you don't have one."

"I don't know," Lily whined. Why don't you help me, was the angry thought in her head.

"Do you have someone you can call? You know, like a loved one or a relative? Someone you trust?"

Lily was starting to sink, then. Fast. "No."

"Okay. Okay. How about making it to the office so we can keep talking about this? Can you come in now?"

"I can't move," Lily whimpered, barely audible.

"All right, girl. Stay right there. Keep your door unlocked just in case you shrink before I get there. I'm coming."

It felt awful to hear that. Everything was awful. But at least it meant that Lily could unlock her front door and then lie on the floor in the middle of her tiny apartment and do nothing but wait for Angela.

Fuck this, Lily thought bitterly. Fuck everything. Fuck my life!