...2 feet tall. He couldn't quite wrap his mind around it. He'd lost 50 inches in height. He'd actually *shrunk*. He tried to fight down the panic that was even now rising to overwhelm him. His mind was racing. What if it's permanent? What the *hell* will I do if I'm stuck like this? He thought of all the plans he'd had, all the things he wanted to do. What kind of future could he hope for now?
Lost in thought, and still fighting off shock, he looked at his surroundings again and caught sight of the mouse skeleton that he'd stepped on earlier. Only now, closer up and looking much larger than it had before, he could see that it wasn't the remains of a mouse. He'd stepped on a human skeleton. His stomach churned at the thought and he backed away from the broken shards of bone. So he wasn't the first to step on the cursed carpet. But this poor soul had obviously stayed on it longer than he had. Doing some quick math, he figured the bones were from someone about 6 inches tall. Ryan swore that he wouldn't suffer the same fate.
Jock though he was, Ryan actually had a clear and logical mind most of the time, and that part of himself started asserting itself. Ok, he thought, what can I do at this size to fix the situation? He looked at the door. It was still open, which was a boon. The doorknob was out of reach. He probably could have stacked some toys or books underneath it to try and turn it, but that wouldn't be necessary. So, he could go back the way he came, find his friends or his brother and get their help. But he balked at that. He wasn't just frightened by what had happened to him, he was embarrassed by it. He *couldn't* let the others see him like this, especially not Johnny. Ryan was the big brother and Johnny had always looked up to him, literally and figuratively. He'd be mortified if his little bro saw him this small. The same was true of Erick, but for other reasons entirely. Still, he might be forced to get some help if he couldn't figure something out on his own.
And in that arena, there weren't a whole lot of options. Scratch that: there was only one option that he could see. If the left half of the carpet - the part with the small white box encompassed by the large black box - had made him shrink, maybe the other half of the carpet - the half that had the opposite pattern - would make him grow. It seemed sensible, but there was no telling what to expect. A few minutes ago, the idea of actually being able to shrink had seemed nonsensical, but that idea had pretty well been blown out of the water. So maybe that half of the carpet would have no effect...or maybe it would shrink him even more. He shuddered at the thought. At 2 feet tall, he might still be able to have a life. Granted, not the life he’d planned on, but he could still interact with the world. If he shrunk much more, even that would become impossible.
But Ryan felt for certain that standing around in the buff wasn't going to solve anything, so it was time to make up his mind on what to do next.