Just because there is a crowd of people ahead, it does not mean Darius can use his new powers nonchalantly. He’d cause a scene if people from the crowd suddenly saw someone turn into a lifeless husk. If he is to use this power, he must choose somewhere quiet, somewhere discreet. And what’s the quietest place if not for the public library? Darius pulled his cap closer and wore the thick leather jacket he got from the store. He nearly thought that the jacket would disappear along with the establishment. He’s glad it was not the case. With the police roaming the streets, he crossed the crowd and entered the library.
Libraries, nowadays, are more desolate than they were before. With the rise of the Internet, where all knowledge is at the tip of your fingerprint, people came to this grand establishment less and less. Which made it all the better for Darius as he strolled between towering bookshelves for a lone victim he could use the ring on. And alas, he found such a person. A child, perhaps no older than twelve. He’s in the history section, more specifically, in front of a book collection regarding the history of pornography. Whilst busy regarding a translated and revised book about the Kama Sutra, Darius covered the kid’s mouth and pulled him deeper into the library. The boy struggled but all his efforts were for naught.
Darius opened a door into what seemed like a storeroom and pushed the boy to a table. Just as he was about to start screaming, Darius raised his finger - blazingly hot from an invisible flame - and aimed straight for the boy’s throat. It made a deep hole in his neck, and just as he pulled his finger out, hot air seeped out of it. The boy thought he could scream for help, and so he did. But all that came out were small gasps. He cried desperately at Darius, his eyes filled with confusion and despair. His struggles didn’t last long as the last bits of air escaped what remains of his hollow husk.
What remained was a hollow suit. Its consistency was that of dough, its thickness to that of a condom. Strangely enough, Darius felt warmth from the skin - as if it was still alive. In the chest area, he could feel faint heartbeats pumping non-existent blood to a hollow body. Darius stripped the suit of its clothes, and what remained is the naked skin of a child. He flipped the suit over and stretched the hole. For a moment, he thought it impossible to enter the suit. Darius is a hulk of a man thanks to years of lifting weights and protein supplements. And the suit? Well… It’s so small yet stretchy, he could mistake it for latex underwear if it were not in the shape of a child. Nevertheless, the information he received regarding the finger states that the suit can stretch infinitely. It’s indestructible unless harmed by another magical artifact. Darius cleared the doubts in his mind and started wearing the suit.
Darius stretched whole. It’s a mix of surprise and expectation when the hole stretched endlessly just as the instruction said. When it was big enough, he slipped his feet inside. It looked ridiculous at the start. The child’s foot where his foot slipped in looked ridiculously overstretched. But as the seconds passed, he felt a tight feeling. It started coiling from his toe and then traveled up to the femoral area. When he looked down, he saw his legs look like that of a child. There are no marks of stretching or bulging soles. It’s a normal leg. He could even feel the damp air of the storeroom traveling his legs, tickling their fine hairs. It was as if any sign of the suit in that area was gone. Next, Darius slid his humongous groin into a sheath smaller than a peanut. Like before, it stretched to ridiculous proportions. But he saw his dick slowly shrink down until they were no larger than his pinky. He flicked his new crotch and reeled when he didn’t expect how sensitive it would be.
Darius looked in a conveniently placed mirror and realized how ridiculous he looked. He’s an adult above the hips, but a child underneath. And the realization came with actual results. His legs could not support his heavier torso. Darius stumbled backward and landed on his smaller yet plumper buttocks. The ground is marble, so the pain is lessened but he felt the shivering cold of the floor. With a solid foothold, Darius made work of the rest of the suit until all that was left was the head. It’s a hollow mask with blonde hair and holes where his eyes, nose, and mouth should be. As he slipped inside the head, he noticed the faint smell of caramel. Probably the boy’s last snack before his body was stolen from him. Amid that thought, darkness covered Darius’s vision. He lost control of his body momentarily. He was in a void, floating, with nothing but him and a light in the distance. He swam over to the light and as he did, memories of another became apparent on top of his own.
The boy’s name is Frederick, but close friends and his mom would just call him Fred. He lived a simple life in the suburbs until a few years ago when a talent agency caught him on their radar. Ever since he was young, Fred has had a knack for memorizing his scripts and acting them out in a manner befitting of an adult. He’s an actor through and through. Driven by fame or by money, his single mother pushed his career to greater heights. Fred appeared in small-town commercials, radio advertisements, a billboard for a clothing line, and even appeared on the front cover of an underwear brand. Fred does not know it but those boxes were recalled (for reasons he will only understand if he was an adult). And for his best performance yet, Fred is now a star in a local television show regarding the daily life of a boy who’s also a social media star.
The visions ended and Darius is back in the world of the living. Still groggy from the visions, he picked up his clothes and wore them. He remembered that he was in the midst of a shoot for a clothing line. But it’s noon and he’s bored out of his mind in the director’s trailer. That’s when he saw the library at the back window and sneaked out to see what interesting books were in the library. Books bored him, but somehow, he found books that made him funny on the inside. Men on top of women, men on men, women on women, and people of all sizes and proportions are depicted naked and in strange positions. Fred has seen naked people before, but they have never made him this way before. While he was enjoying himself between the pages with a caramel toffee popped into his mouth, a strange man grabbed him and led him to another room. He thought he was about to die. He saw the man hurt him in the throat, and that is the most recent of Fred’s memories.