Audrey and Leslie have been best friends since early childhood. It was a typical story right out of a movie: Audrey’s family moved towns, Audrey was bullied in school, Audrey happened to make a friend who went to the same school and lived next door. The girls were inseparable for many, many years, up until and throughout high school. They knew everything there was to know about each other; they discovered life together and shared many of the most important memories in every person’s life.

Naturally, they ended up going to the same university, albeit chose different majors. Audrey wanted to be a mathematician and already knew she’d go on to a PhD after college, while Leslie was significantly more practical in her dreams and planned to get out with a B.S. in aerospace engineering to land a job that would pay the big bucks.

The shrinking was like thunder on a sunny day - neither of them really believed that they could be vulnerable to it. Leslie lost a foot in height and went down to 4’9”; Audrey turned out to be much more unlucky and dwindled away to about two inches. It took them almost a month to adapt to a new reality. But they persevered and still went through with their higher ed plans.

They roomed together and, luckily, were not assigned any other roommates. It was, of course, on Leslie to care for her now incredibly tiny friend. And care she did - diligently and faithfully. Few of their classes overlapped but Leslie would always bring her bestie to and from the classrooms. It pained her initially to leave tiny Audrey around larger classmates, but she eventually relaxed a bit as she realized that they didn’t seem to pose much of a danger and Audrey assured her everything was alright.

In reality, Audrey simply didn’t tell her friend of some things. Shrunken women like her were often teased and suffered from simple negligence from their taller classmates. Shrinkee awareness posters and other stuff put out by the University wasn’t helping. She’d seen shrunken girls trapped under empty glasses, poked with pencils; the worst was perhaps when the larger classmates threw now-monstrous insects right next to them. Still, most of such misfortunes were coming by her side and she largely enjoyed being around people. After all, most people are quite nice.

Leslie, in the meantime, was getting a bit tired of her hectic lifestyle. There was just so much involved in caring for a tiny human and she felt like tons of her time were going down the drain. Her studies were not going great, too. She saw a therapist in secret from Audrey but didn’t really get much out of that. Leslie felt like her life was slipping through her fingers - and, worst of all, this was college, which was supposed to be the best time in her life. And she should have been having this time with Audrey at her side as a normal human.

They got through a semester and managed to stay close, but both of them felt the rising tension and feared for the future, although neither of them would openly admit that to the other one. Audrey tried to be more independent, but it was incredibly hard at her size, and she never really adapted to this life.

One day, the solution came to Leslie as she went on a mobile app store to try and find a new planner for time management. It was an ad for a dating app. It struck Leslie right then and there. If she had a significant other, she would have someone else to lean on in these trying times! She could ask them to help with housework from time to time… and help with Audrey… but most of all, she’d have some fun again, she’d be able to confide in another person and maybe live a bit, like a college girl is supposed to. So she went ahead and installed the app. This happened right as a new semester started and in just a couple of days Leslie thought she struck gold.

“He’s a math major, just like you”, she explained happily to Audrey.

“What’s his name?”

“Matt”.

Shivers ran down Audrey’s spine. She’s only had a couple of classes with Matt, but she already noticed he was a bit… rude with tinies. She saw him talk to a shrunken girl once and while Audrey didn’t understand what they were arguing about, at one point the guy simply hushed her by pinching her head between his fingers. He didn’t give Audrey a good vibe.