Tripping, shrinking, embarassed about Saul... Tim panicked. In his fear, he couldn't see any other options than to try the chest again. He quickly tossed aside his shirt and climbed up on the rapdily expanding table. It was too late to worry about who saw him, he needed to get this chest to work, and fast!
He slammed the chest lid down, pressed the button, turned the key and opened it again. Another cloud of mist flew out of the box, much bigger this time... or maybe 2' 4" was just a lot smaller than Tim expected. As the whiteness spread up his arm, he felt his skin crawling. He knew right away he was still shrinking.
"Oh, fuck," he whispered closing the lid again. Pressing the button and turning the key, he watched the cloud emerge again, quickly covering his entire torso. "Work this time!" he hissed from behind clenched teeth, his inches fleeing. He dropped the lid as he felt a cold hole in the pit of his stomach, seeming to shrink him past 1' 6" all the faster.
"Uuuhh," was all Tim got out as he repeated the process with the chest. As he opened the box, he heard his front door open and Saul came in. Their eyes locked for just a moment, and then the mist hungrilly pounced Tim's entire body, consuming his size. The cloud was as big as Tim's 10 inch body, and it quickly loomed larger as he rocketted downwards.
Tim felt himself falling, the air ruffling his hair as his head shot towards the table. The rest of the world exploded before his eyes. The lid of the chest was out of his hands as soon as the box was open. In less than a second, the chest became a wall and then a hill. A few seconds later, the couch behind him looked like a far away mountain range, continuing to receed.
The mist seemed to take a lot longer to be absorbed this time, and Tim realized that his rapid shrinking meant that with each passing moment there wasn't as much of HIM to absorb it. Instead of dispersing, it clung to his vanishing form, shrinking him furiously.
Turning back towards the chest, Tim saw a huge crack where the vertical plane met the horizontal one. It took him a minute to realize that was where the chest was sitting on the table. The smooth surface of the table was being transformed into a rugged alien landscape, and as the cracks beneath his feet became fissures, he began to realize the gravity of his predicament.
In fact, the only saving grace of this whole shrinking process seemed to be that his body was getting lighter. Before long, he had to choose -- was he going to get into one of the revines, or stand on a plateau? He picked a plateau, but noticed how easily he could hop from plateau to plateau.
Tim thought about the pictures of dust mites and bacteria he had seen in textbooks, and wondered if it was possible to actually "shrink to death".
# # # # #
Saul had been treated to quite a different sight. After watching what appeared to be Tim shrinking while fiddling with this chest, the small man had simply disappeared. A pale mist hung in the air above the chest for a moment, fading slowly and then it was gone. Stepping inside, he scratched his head. "So, where do you want us to start?" Scott shouted from somewhere behind him.