As the friends split up, Sophia headed to the kitchen. She held up her phone, stretching out her diminutive arm as she tried to acquire a signal. This wasn't working. If anyone was going to find a signal, it wasn't going to her. She was the shortest member of the group, after all.
Sophia was the platonic ideal of a late bloomer. Tiny, with a high-pitched and squeaky voice. Constantly getting mistaken as Wendy's younger sister. Waist-length hair grown out to give herself more of a physical presence in this world, but all it did was make her look like a dainty wallflower.
The waifish girl looked at the clock on the wall and shuddered.
8:35
For some reason, that sent a tingle of dread down her spine. But she had nothing to worry about, right? Soon her friends would find a way to get out of here, or they'd call someone and get help.
So why was she feeling so nervous?
Sophia shook her head, hair swishing around as she did. Everything was going to be fine. Everything always worked out in the end.
She circled around the kitchen's massive island counter, taking in the sights. Copper pots and pans hung above her. A knife block was covered in dust. A microwave door was completely smashed. Should Sophia even bother opening up that creaky-looking fridge? Or that rusty convection oven?
The diminutive girl was about to leave the kitchen when her nose twitched. She had caught a whiff of something. A smell of something good and tasty.
Bread.
Sophia scanned the kitchen again, sniffing. And then the saw it. A breadbox. It was covered in dust. She strode over to the container and wiped away the dust that covered the glass. There was a half-loaf of bread inside. It looked pristine and it smelled even better now that she was close to it.
She really shouldn't be doing this, but she reached forward and pulled out the loaf. It had been cut in half. The sides and top were a lovely baked-brown hue, but the cut cross-section was rainbow-hued.
Weird. It was like those food hacks she saw all the time in TekTuk. Rainbow Bread. She examined the bread more closely. It was immaculate. Like the wildflowers.
No dust. No mold. The crust of the bread wasn't dry and brittle. The crumb felt soft and tender to the touch, it wasn't even slimy or wet. Sophia took a deeper whiff of the bread, and could've sworn she was catching some floral notes from the bread. It smelled delicious. Mouth-wateringly so.
Sophia's stomach rumbled, and she licked her lips. She felt very hungry all of a sudden. Forgetting herself for a moment, she tore into the bread and took a big bite.
"Mmm," she sighed happily. She had to take another bite, so she did. The bread sat in her stomach in a filling, satisfying way. She had to have more, she needed more.
Sophia tucked into the bread with gusto, not noticing her body slowly changing as she ate.
She was getting taller, bigger. The petite waif was slowly stretching upwards with each swallow, each bite. In no time at all, the girl that had been less than five feet tall had already hit six feet. With no signs of stopping or slowing down just yet.
"So good," she muttered to herself. Not noticing that her voice had changed. Getting huskier, deeper. Not overly so, but Sophia should've noticed that something was wrong.
She didn't. As far as she was aware, her scratchy, husky voice was perfectly fine, and suited her.
Like the rest of her changes. Like her hands and feet, which had gotten larger, proportionally speaking. It was like Sophia was in that awkward, gangly stage of puberty. It was like she was a piece of dough that had been stretched out, giving her a lanky, unflattering frame.
Sophia's features shifted slightly. Becoming a touch sharper, less soft edges and girly daintiness. Arms and legs picked up a little mass, now looking far more promising and full of potential instead of useless sticks that struggled carrying grocery bags.
She chuckled to herself. Savoring the bread, and something else. An amusing, ticklish sensation as the late bloomer finally grew in a few scraggly armpit hairs. She didn't feel the urge to shave or pluck them one bit.
You know what did irritate her, though? Her hair. Her waist-length brunette hair. So heavy, so uncomfortable, so impractical. Sophia took another bite of bread, and her hair problems were solved for her.
Her hair lifted itself up like a bouffant, and it was like an invisible scythe slashed through her hair, leaving her with an androgynous pixiecut. As her hairstyle changed, so did the rest of her style. Her face scrubbed itself clean of any makeup or lip-gloss. Her blouse and skirt were replaced with sandals, jeans, and a t-shirt. She caught her reflection as she walked past a less-dusty part of the metallic fridge, and she nodded in approval. Looking good!
The gangly, awkward, unfeminine, androgynous girl smiled as she finished off her half-loaf of bread. That sure did hit the spot, didn't it? She licked her fingers, and then noticed something on the counter.
It was a recipe. For a bread. The recipe dictated that a percentage of the flower was substituted with wildflower pollen. Welp, Sophia didn't know a single damn thing about bread or baking (too girly for her liking), but whatever it was, sure did satiate her. She reminisced fondly on what she had just ate, not quite full. But then she realized something.
She was in the middle of something, wasn't she? Yeah, now she remembered. She reached into her pocket and stretched out her arm again, trying to acquire a signal. If anyone was going to find a signal here, it was going to be her or Jack. They were both 6'7, after all.
She stepped into the dining room, continuing her search for a signal. But also because it smelled so good in there...