"Let's see what these things will unlock," he thought to himself, turning the key in the lock. It clicked.
Slowly, he opened the lid and looked inside.
A coolness wrapped his fingers as he tilted the lid back. A slender, almost invisible fog seemed to drift out of the box, enwrapping his hands. Surprised, Timothy jerked his hands back, letting the lid fall back down. The mysterious mist drifted for a bit around his arms and then seemed to fade. It left a cool, tingling sensation upon his skin as he turned his hands over and over, staring at them.
"What th' hell was that...?" he wondered, aloud, looking back at the chest.
Cautiously, he picked it up again and turned it over in his hands, examining its bottom and sides to see if there was any indication of where the fog had come from. He didn't see any sign of a snap-on canister or special-effects squib ... then again, something like that could be hidden inside the chest and he'd never know.
He put the chest back down, pondering his options. Deciding that it might be for the best to check it out later, once the shipment had been sorted by the afternoon crew, he tossed a towel over it and headed for the door. Rather surprisingly, he stumbled over his own shoes and had to catch himself on the edge of his bed. "Great..." he muttered and looked around to see what he'd caught his shoe on.
His shoe, in fact, had come off and was lying a foot or so away on the floor. There was no sign of a loose floor board or anything else to see what had pulled it free from his foot. He reached for it and picked it up, putting it back on. He blinked, feeling a bit odd.
The shoe was too big. Much too big.
He looked down as he stood next to his bed and stared at his feet. Both of his shoes looked two sizes too big. They'd fit properly this morning ... this made no sense! With equal suddenness to his earlier surprise, though, his pants slipped down and he had to grab at them to keep them from hitting the floor. The belt was still tightly through its loops but, as he pulled them up, they were too lose around his waist. Far too loose...
Surprised and feeling strange, Timothy looked over his clothing dubiously. His shirt seemed to hang about seven inches lower than it normally did, making a nice night-shirt, now, rather than the tight-fitting-T it had always been.
"What's happening...?" he exclaimed aloud. Then, he looked up. The mirror on the wall, positioned so he could check his hair when he got up out of bed, was too high. His eyes widened as the truth began to dawn on him. He was shorter!
Quickly, he looked at his body in comparison to his clothes again, and found -when he stared long enough- he could actually see himself getting smaller in relation to his clothes! Eyeballing himself against his bed posts, he did a quick calculation and felt his stomach drop. Timothy, never a particularly big man, was barely five feet tall, now ... probably closer to four-foot-six!
And he was shrinking...!