"...shit!" exclaimed 29 year-old Dan, staring down at the tiny infant that had mere minutes ago been his co-worker. Baby Mike simply bawled loudly, squirming about in his once tight-fitting shirt and jeans; poor Mike's co-workers suddenly seemed to him to be giant, leering monsters.
"What the hell happened?" muttered Jake, the 17-year-old trainee. His question went ignored, although whether that was because of the shock of the situation or because he was always ignored was not clear. He peered nervously between his two still fully-grown co-workers at the distressed and crying baby. The two truly adult co-workers huddled closer to Mike, blocking Jake's view as they peered anxiously at Mike - little did they know that they would all soon be suffering a similar fate. They had already inhaled the virus.
"He's a baby," stated Matt bluntly. Crouching down to peer into Mike's face. "He's a little baby." The sight of Matt’s massive, grinning face only further provoked Mike’s tantrum. "Little baby Mikey!"
Truth be told, Matt was secretly amused by this turn of events - being just one year younger than Mike, and not quite as muscular, Matt always felt jealous and in competition with the big jock. Mike was no longer a big jock but a tiny baby boy - his status had been humiliatingly stripped from him before his peers, and Matt was loving it. He scooped the protesting Mike up, hoisting him clean out of his pants and underwear and leaving only his too big shirt to cover his chubby little body.
"What're you doing?" Dan demanded as Matt held the wailing Mike in the air, laughing softly at the vain flailing of his ineffective limbs. Dan glanced quickly at the chair Mike had previously occupied fully with his brawny build - now all that remained was a black pair of boxer-shorts set within a drooping pair of jeans, set above an empty pair of shoes and a pair of discarded socks.
"I'm just checking him out, okay?" Matt said laughing, turning the child this way and that. Mike felt utterly degraded to be manhandled so easily by his co-worker, especially Matt, who Mike considered to be inferior. His view shifted wildly and drastically as he was rotated in the air. Mike found he couldn't stop crying and to make matters worse he was barely covered; his tiny, impotent baby penis rubbed against the fabric of his gigantic shirt, making him feel horribly exposed and vulnerable.
"Stop it!" commanded Dan, not pleased at the sight of a crying infant.
"Aw, c'mon, Dan!" snickered Matt. "Lighten up! Don't you want to 'check-out' what's under this shirt?" Dan just stared in disgust at the monomaniacal Matt, but his train of thought was interrupted:
"Maybe he needs a diaper change..." offered Jake, trying to get the approval of Matt. Dan rounded on him, glaring at him with utter contempt. At least Jake felt noticed.
"Yeah, little guy," said Matt, addressing Mike. "You need a diapee?" he mocked, as he reached to pull away Mike's only article of clothing.
"Nononono!" babbled Mike in mangled gibberish, but Matt only laughed and striped the infant bare. Mike began to cry anew as he was held, naked and helpless, before his co-workers. There was a triumphant, horrified and fairly disinterested silence, save for the wails of a distraught baby boy.
"Listen, dudes, I'm calling the cops!" Jake piped up petulantly, pulling his mobile phone out of his pants' pocket. As usual, he was ignored...but he did notice that his pants were a little loose. He tugged them back up to sit on his hips before punching 999 into his mobile.
"My, how the mighty have fallen," crowed Matt, little realising that his own body was undergoing a startling transformation. His jeans had already begun to slip, ever so slightly, down off of his waist, and his height had dropped from 6'3" to 6'2".
"Uh, hello...yes...police, please..." Jake mumbled, feeling silly.
"...shit!" Dan repeated, clenching and unclenching his fists. Here was his former co-worker, someone he respected, being paraded about as a mewling newborn by a fellow co-worker. He couldn't allow this.
"Give him here!" Dan barked harshly as he tried to snatch hold of the unclothed infant in Matt's grasp.
"Oh, so you want to look at him now, do you?" taunted Matt, shaking Mike viciously. The harrowing cries of a baby echoed around the room as the power-struggle began.
"Let him go!" bellowed Dan, a strangely invigorating energy surging through him. Little did he know he was reverting to his energetic early 20s. Matt, meanwhile, had now slipped to 6'1", then 6'0"...he was barely 21-years-old now, but he was so determined to best Dan that he didn't notice.
"Stupid cops..." muttered Jake, coughing to clear his throat as his voice slipped into a boyish tone for the first time in ages. He studied the scene before him...and noticed something very odd. His co-workers were...shrinking?
"I said give him here!" Dan roared, lunging at Matt. He felt odd as he did so, his feet slipping slightly in his shoes. Matt just turned away, smirking, and began to tickle Mike's little feet, causing him to kick and giggle through no choice of his own.
"He's so cute!" sniggered Matt, still not noticing as his sleeves crept over his palms as his fingers prodded Mike's sensitive skin.
"Uh...guys?" Jake implored, slipping his mobile back into his suddenly baggy pants. He was now just 15-years-old, his bright-red underwear exposed above his pants. He stared in horror as he felt his body regress further, 14-years-old, 13...the patchy beard he had been trying to grow degenerated into peach-fuzz, then a few wispy hairs on his otherwise baby-smooth chin - as he rubbed his face frantically even they disappeared. "Guys!" he screeched again, his voice cracking oddly in from low to high as he reversed through puberty.
"What?" snapped Dan, turning to look at the irritating trainee. His jaw dropped open as he saw that, where a nearly adult Jake should have been standing, a very young teenage Jake stood, his pants threatening to fall down at any minute even as he clutched at them with hands hidden within his sleeves. As Dan watched, Jake slipped completely out of his teenage years as his pants slipped completely off his narrowing waist, taking his underpants with them.
"What the...?" murmured Dan, incredulously. The realisation that all three of them were rapidly regressing as Mike had done suddenly hit him. He hurriedly stared down at himself - he looked to be about 22! He quickly cast an eye over at Matt - Christ, he looked like a damn teenager!
"Matt!" Dan yelled, backing away from Mike and the area where he had been transformed. "Matt, get away!"
"Such a biiig boy, Mikey!" Matt taunted as Dan's words just about trickled into his perceptions. He suddenly realised that something was very, very wrong, and he felt his shoulder's gently collapsing into themselves as his hard-won muscles melted away. Dan, Jake and Mike watched as the formally well-muscled Mike returned to his scrawny, undeveloped high-school days, his chest now smooth and immature and his limbs gangly and awkward.
"Help me!" sniffled Jake as he regressed into a 10-year-old, his pants tangled around his pale, skinny legs. He was used to being ignored, but couldn't help tears rolling down his cheeks as he felt the ground rising to meet him. He peered through hazy eyes at Matt, who now appeared to be just 16-year-old.
"No...no!" stammered Matt, shifting the strangely growing Mike as he realised he was getting weaker. He reached out to thrust Mike back into the chair, feeling his comically over-sized jeans drop down his no longer hirsute legs as he performed the manoeuvre. With his burden dropped, he hastily tried to simultaneously back away and pull his jeans back up - he managed to shuffle a few steps but ultimately stumbled out of his shoes and slipped on the tiled floor in his dangling socks, collapsing to his knees. He stared up at Dan, wide-eyed and smooth-cheeked: "Help me!" he pleaded in an ever-higher voice.
Baby Mike had settled into a quite whimpering as he watched his co-workers, the good and the bad, his only way out of this mess, dwindle before his eyes. Now merely four feet tall, little Jake fell backwards out of his sneakers and onto his baby-smooth butt, his tears turning into a childish tantrum as his formative years slid away. Matt felt the last of puberty’s assets taken from him as his body-hair vanished, leaving him as smooth as a newborn.
Dan surveyed the scene: the now innocently boyish, 5-year-old Mike sat snivelling in a pile of his own clothing; Matt, although he had stumbled back to his feet, was barely five feet tall, and was rapidly loosing what little masculinity he still had as he descended into pre-pubescence.
"...shit," the teen moaned, holding his pants up with one hand and scratching his head with the other.