John simply couldn’t contain his excitement. This thing had to be tested now! But where to start? His 13-year-old brother, Conner, could certainly be made less of a pest with some sort of alteration, or perhaps he could swap places with his dad to see how he liked being grounded for a change. To start, just to see how the Chronivac worked, John turned the device’s camera toward himself, allowing it to scan his body before his profile and information were displayed on the screen.
"John Chambers"
Species: Human
Age: 18
Height: 5’11”
Weight: 160 lbs.
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Blue
Race: White
Clothing: Black tee-shirt, blue plaid boxers
John clicked through various submenus, allowing him to change various aspects of himself, including nearly all physical attributes. One option, attached to a large warning label, even allowed his changes to warp reality around him, making it as if he had always been that way (whatever that may be). That could be fun if he wanted to roleplay with whatever changes he made to himself or others, but it’d also be funny to see people’s reactions to being transformed, so he’d have to decide on the spot whether or not he’d check that box.
One of the simplest and most dramatic changes he could make would be his age, John thought, so he decided he’d start with that. Just a simple backspace on the first digit, and voila!
Might as well check the reality box, see how powerful this thing really is. And with that, John submitted his changes and observed.
His room immediately began to phase backwards in time, his sports trophies and medals vanishing altogether from the shelves on his wall, various action figures and toys taking their places. Whoa!
As the room’s décor transformed to match his 8-year-old sensibilities, his body, too, became ever more juvenile. His toned legs, which nicely filled out the legs of his boxers, thinned considerably, as did the smattering of dark hair that adorned them. Following that trend, John’s toned, but not overtly muscular, arms lost any definition as they descended backwards through all the years of training and testosterone that got them to their 18-year-old form. As his frame dwindled, John grabbed for his boxers before the elastic band would be too big for him, and just as he thought his shirt would devour him whole, the whole ensemble of shirt and underwear began to morph too. The deep black of his shirt bleached into a heather white, and the hemming of the sleeves and waist popped with a vibrant crimson as a cartoonish design from his childhood manifested squarely on his chest. As his shirt shrunk and became fitted to his newfound smallness, John was granted a clear view of his boxers brightening and eventually losing all of their color and patterning. The legs ascended slowly as the seams of a fly front began to form on the front of the white underwear, which he noticed lacked any discernible bulge at this point. As the hems of the retracted legs tightened around him, John found himself in the tighty-whities and cartoon tee-shirt typical of his 8-year-old self.
Pulling at the front of the briefs, John checked out the damage to his once proud package. Yikes… it’s a good thing I can undo this whenever.
At that very moment, John’s brother, Conner, barged through the door. Frightened by the intrusion, John released the waistband and hid the Chronivac behind him. Conner looked so big now, given John’s substantial loss in height.
“John!” the teenager barked. “Mom said you took my package to your room. I want it. Now!”