Shrunk Overnight

Tom woke up from his slumber, feeling a chilling sensation all over his body. As he sat up, he felt dizzy and weak, sensing that something was amiss. He never slept naked, but now, to his surprise, he found himself completely bare under a large piece of fabric. He couldn't recall having such a large blanket.

Swiftly getting up, he looked around and saw nothing but a vast expanse of white. He rubbed his eyes, feeling increasingly bewildered. How did he end up on a basketball court? It seemed as large as two basketball courts combined. Did he sleepwalk naked to the neighborhood basketball court last night?

Taking soft steps, he soon realized he was not on a basketball court but in his own bed! Behind him was a large structure resembling his pillow, or rather, a pillow-shaped building. Next to the pillow house was a large platform, looking quite elevated, and it seemed oddly familiar.

He rented a single room, barely 40 square meters, combining a sleeping area and a kitchen. Beside the bed was his desk, where he worked, ate, and assembled models. It resembled the large platform strangely.

Walking with his weakened steps to the edge of the bed and peering down, he was startled. Since when was his bed so high above the ground? It must have been about ten meters high. This shocked him, and he sat down abruptly, feeling his legs give way.

"What... what's going on?" he muttered to himself.

Looking up, he saw a towering "building" in the distance, with floors stacked upon floors, each filled with various robots, tanks, airplanes, and figurines behind glass displays. Weren't those the models and figurines he had assembled and collected? Gundams, Transformers, Tiger tanks, and the Tauren from World of Warcraft. Due to his limited income, he only bought relatively cheaper versions, but they all represented his passion. Though somewhat distant now, he could still recognize them. However, these models and figurines seemed much larger than he remembered, even larger than he was now.

"All the things at home have become larger..." he couldn't help but think.

"No, it's me who has become smaller!" a thought flashed through his mind, and he suddenly woke up, feeling a bit panicked.

"Could this be a dream?" He pinched himself, feeling the sharp pain, which indicated he wasn't dreaming.

"Could it be... I really shrank?" He swiftly got up, looking at his naked self and the oversized underwear and T-shirt on the basketball court. Indeed, those were what he wore last night.

"Oh..." he sat down again, his mind drifting through his circumstances.

Tom was an ordinary worker, working nine to five. The thought of submitting performance reports the next day always gave him a headache. Now that he had shrunk, how could he go to work? Surely, the company would fire him. Without a source of income, how would he live?

Then he thought of his sister.

He lost his parents at a very young age and didn't know anything about them—where they were, what they were like. He was adopted by an orphanage and had been transferred twice. Thus, he was named Ping An, an ordinary name. When he was 5 years old, a couple adopted him. Although they had a daughter the following year, their affection for him didn't diminish.

With limited verbal skills, he could only repay his foster parents' love by caring for his younger sister. However, when he was 10, his foster parents died in a car accident, leaving only him and his sister, who was then only 4 years old. Despite their lack of blood ties, they relied on each other in the house left by their foster parents. Two years later, when the compensation for the accident was finally settled, their uncle intervened, taking away his sister's custody along with the compensation and the old house.

Nobody wanted Tom, the "unlucky star." In order to provide his sister with a better environment, he signed an agreement with the uncle through a lawyer, ensuring that most of the compensation would be used for his sister's benefit. In exchange, he would never see his sister again.

When they parted ways, despite his sister's reluctance, Tom left resolutely, embarking on a life of self-reliance.

Over the years, Tom worked odd jobs while self-studying. He endured the toughest times, sleeping under bridges, doing menial tasks like sweeping and dishwashing, and even picking up odd jobs, until he managed to establish a stable life. Though he was just a small technician at the company, at least he could afford to rent a house. With few friends, he immersed himself in his hobbies, model assembly being one of them.

And now, overnight, he had shrunk. It felt like he had regressed to square one.

"What on earth happened?" he wondered aloud.

Looking at himself and comparing his size with the pillow and blanket, he came to a conclusion—there was no need for doubt. He had indeed... shrunk. As for how small he had become, he would find a ruler to measure later.

Since it happened, he would accept it. He was an orphan who had always adapted to changes better than most. After a while, he calmed down and thought carefully about what happened last night and what might have caused him to shrink.

Last night had been a typical evening after work—ordering takeout, taking a shower, assembling models for a while, and then going to bed.

"Could it be the takeout?" It didn't seem likely. He had been eating from the same place for almost half a year without any issues.

"Wait..." Suddenly, he thought, was it just him who had shrunk, or was it the whole world?

While Tom was lost in his thoughts, his stomach began to growl.

Thinking about global matters wouldn't help; it was better to fill his stomach first.

The takeout from last night was already thrown away, but there were cookies left. Before going to bed, he had opened a packet of cookies and had a few pieces, leaving the rest in the packaging behind his second-hand laptop.

But now, the table was too high. It was almost three floors high. How would he climb up there?

"Tall?" Tom glanced at the books on the bedside table. They were three computer programming books he had bought three months ago, intending to improve his skills and increase his income. Stacked together, they were almost the same height as the bedside table.

But even these books were out of reach. Tom turned to the pillow beside him and exclaimed, "Got it!"

Grabbing the edge of his enormous pillow, which was soft and made of cloth, he managed to climb up without much difficulty, just exerting a bit of effort.

Finally on top of the pillow, he looked at the books across, took a deep breath, and then sprinted and leaped at the edge of the pillow. Finally, he landed on the books, with only a small distance remaining to the bedside table.

Jumping up and grabbing the edge of the table, Tom climbed up.

The bedside table faced the window. What used to be a window of a normal height now looked like two towering mountains to Tom. He stood in the valley between the two mountains, with the morning sun shining through, casting a golden glow over the table, warming him.

Looking at his shadow in the

 golden sunlight, Tom sighed. "I've read all kinds of novels—apocalyptic, zombie, cyberpunk—but never a plot about shrinking... Well, maybe I have."

He remembered a novel where the protagonist shrank, and cockroaches, mice, stray cats, and dogs posed threats to him. Even birds picked him up and carried him back to their nests to feed their chicks.

Thinking about it, Tom clenched his fists. "I don't want to become food for mice!"

At the mention of food, his stomach growled again.

Tom shook his head, pushing away the thoughts. "Now's not the time to think about this. Fill the stomach first, then we'll talk."

The leftover cookies should be behind the laptop, which should be easy to grab. But now that he was small, the tabletop seemed like a warehouse, and distinguishing directions was a challenge.

He stood on a cutting board used for model making, covered with scales, and there was a black "house" not far ahead, reaching up to his chest. He immediately recognized it as his second-hand laptop.

The laptop's fan vent was on the left side, which was unmistakable. Since he knew the location, finding the cookies behind the laptop would be easy.

It was a long packet of BB thin biscuits. He had opened it before going to bed, leaving the packaging behind, and now, with a little effort, he could tear the opening and crawl in.

The biscuits were thin and light, but they were almost his height in diameter. He grabbed a piece and started munching. After finishing one piece and still feeling hungry, he grabbed another and threw the packaging bag away, then crawled out to sit on the table under the warm sunlight, continuing to munch on the biscuits.

After eating one-third of the packet, he decided to go back to the cutting board.

The cutting board was used for making models, with many scales on it, making it convenient to measure dimensions and angles when processing model parts. So, after finishing the biscuits, Tom lay down on the cutting board, pressed his head, and sat up, allowing him to see his current height.

7.1 centimeters. His original height of 172 centimeters had shrunk to 7.1 centimeters, almost 24 times smaller. He remembered his palm being 8 centimeters wide, and now his current height was almost the same as the width of his palm.

His current size was indeed too small. A gust of wind could blow him away. If he walked outside and nobody noticed him, he might be stepped on. And if they did notice? It could be worse. He might end up in a laboratory as a lifelong subject of study, or worse, he might be exhibited like an animal in a zoo, attracting spectators for a fee.

Bathed in the morning sunlight, Tom sighed, "Looking at the bright side, at least I won't eat much now."

Feeling full and no longer as cold as before, he realized he couldn't just stay naked.