I guess I'll be a teenage nerd," Andy said, "Might as well be
creative." The amulet on his chest glowed brightly for several
seconds, then subsided.
*****************
Meanwhile, across town, Mitch was reviewing his presentation for the
senior executives who would be visiting that day. All of a sudden, he
felt a weird tingling sensation start to go over his body. He chalked
it up to his nerves, but then he realized that something just felt
wrong. At first it seemed like chills, but whatever it was also made
him feel very lightheaded.
He decided to go to the bathroom to splash some water in his face to
see if that would get him to calm down. As he entered the bathroom,
however, he felt a pain in his stomach that sent him running to the
first stall. He quickly pulled up the toilet seat and proceeded to
throw up his breakfast. His body felt weird, as if it were being
squeezed tight. He threw up again, this time causing his muscles to
contract quickly. The pain seemed to reach a climax, and then slowly
began to subside. He collapsed on the floor in the stall, exhausted.
His entire body felt different in a way that he couldn’t quite
understand. He tore some toilet paper off to wipe his mouth, and then
noticed that his jacket and shirt seemed much larger on him. He stood
up as he wiped his mouth, and was surprised to see his nice dress
pants fall to the floor. He threw the toilet paper in the toilet,
flushed, and then pulled his pants up. It looked like his clothes had
grown to be three or four sizes too large. Walking a bit uncertainly
in his now too big shoes, he made his way out of the stall to the
sinks and the mirror.
What he saw in the mirror astonished him. He looked like a kid again.
It appeared that he was thirteen or fourteen years old. But he looked
different. Mitch had always been a fairly trim guy, even as a
teenager. He had never been super muscled, but he looked now more
like a little shrimp. Before he could ponder his looks further, he
felt his clothes begin to change.
First his jacket disappeared completely as if it had never existed,
and his nice white dress shirt began to shrink to fit his smaller
body. The sleeves on the shirt slowly receded to become a short
sleeve dress shirt, and an ugly brown plaid design appeared on it.
The fabric of the shirt had changed to cheap cotton; as opposed to the
fine dress shirt he had worn that morning. His fine black silk tie
pulled itself up to the caller, as if it were shrinking in on itself,
but the knot seemed to grow larger on either side. The color changed
from black to a red with blue polka dots. He saw the tie recede from
around his neck, clipping on to the front of his shirt in a new red
and blue polka dot bow tie.
“What is happening to me?” he said to no one in particular. Maybe I
can just close my eyes and open them, and everything will be all
right. He closed his eyes and started to count to ten, but a shifting
in his lower body caused him to open his eyes before he reached four.
The shirt and tie were still there, ugly as ever, and as he stared
down at his nice silk boxers that he was still holding up along with
his pants, they proceeded to shrink. The dark blue color turned a
plain white, and the fabric began to tighten around his crotch. Soon
he was wearing a small pair of white briefs. The briefs themselves
seemed to contract, and Mitch cried out in pain as it felt like his
penis was shrinking. He let go of his pants, which pooled down on the
floor around his feet, and pulled down the briefs, and was shocked to
see his once proud six inch member had been reduced to what looked
like a little boy’s 2 incher. Almost all of his pubic hair was
completely gone, except for a few sparse hairs above his tiny dick.
“This can’t be happening!” he cried out. A ripping noise drew his
attention back down to his pants. The nice black leather belt had
ripped in two, and had pulled itself out of the loopholes on the waist
of his freshly pressed slacks. Large metal clips appeared on each end
of the belt, and two of the clips fastened themselves to the front of
his pants. The black leather turned to a polyester, and brightened to
a sky blue color. As if pulled by a strong force, the two parts of
the belt pulled the pants back up his legs. As the pants started
coming up his legs, they quickly changed. The crisp black, freshly
pressed slacks seemed to rib themselves, as they turned from expensive
dress pants into cheaper corduroy. The color changed from a black to
an olive green, completely clashing with the light blue color that
what Mitch now recognized as suspenders that his former belt had
become. The green corduroys shrank to fit his small body, and the
suspenders pulled the pants up as high as they could go, above Mitch’s
waist to where his bellybutton was. If he had still had his larger
endowment, this would have proven to be extremely uncomfortable, but a
growing part in his mind seemed to find it quite normal to have his
pants so high. Several inches of his leg showed under his now high
water pants, as the suspenders pulled themselves over his shoulders
and locked in place on the back of his pants.
With a sudden shift, his stretch nylon black socks started to stretch,
extending from his calf to the bottom of his knee. The fabric began
to change to plain cotton, and the color slowly whitened until he was
wearing plain knee-high white cotton socks. Because his pants were
pulled up so high, the majority of his high socks were showing for
everyone to see. The thickness of the cotton felt strange in his
expensive dress shoes, the only article of clothing that hadn’t
changed.
His shoes then began to feel strange as the heel grew in thickness.
Due to his pants being pulled up so high, Mitch had a full view of the
change beginning to happen. His shoes completely unlaced themselves,
the laces disappearing much like his jacket, and in their place, black
Velcro began to grow in. The back of the shoe slowly grew up his
ankle, as the last Velcro attachment fastened itself in place. His
nice expensive dress shoes had become a pair of heavily scuffed and
well-worn black Velcro sneakers.
He looked back at himself in the mirror, the change apparently
complete. He looked like a complete nerd! The only thing missing are
the glasses, he thought to himself sarcastically. As if on cue, his
eyes began to ache in pain. He closed them and rubbed his eyelids
slowly, but they felt like they were on fire. After what seemed like
hours, the pain subsided, and Mitch opened his eyes. He was shocked
to see that his entire vision had blurred. His perfect 20/20 vision
was completely gone. Now he could barely see six inches in front of
him. His own reflection in the mirror was a complete blur, and
although he could make out the colors, the detail was gone. Somehow
without realizing it, something had appeared in his hand. Holding the
item up close to his eyes so that he could see clearly, he realized he
was now holding a pair of Coke bottle glasses with a huge piece of
white masking tape holding the two lenses together in the middle. I
had to tape them after that bully, Billy Jackson, hit me in the face,
a voice seemed to say inside his mind. Wait, what? What was that?
Mitch was slowly becoming aware of another voice inside his head, one
that seemed to be asserting itself more and more strongly, and it was
frightening him. Putting on the glasses, he found that his vision
corrected itself, but his countenance was that of a complete nerd.
As he continued to look himself over in the mirror, a strange feeling
began to work its way across his face. He pulled himself closer to
the mirror and watched in horror and large red blotches started to
push out of his skin across his cheeks and forehead. The blotches
continued along his chin and started working their way towards his
nose, which itself had grown to be much larger. Larger red pimples
pushed their way out of his now acne-covered face. Another feeling
started to work its way through his whole body, and as Mitch examined
himself closer in the mirror, he noticed that a multitude of freckles
were mixed in with his acne on his face. He looked down at his arms
and noticed that his entire skin had grown pasty white, and freckles
covered his arms as well. He could literally feel the freckles appear
under his clothes across his entire body.
How can this get any worse? Mitch thought to himself. As if to answer
his question, his freshly combed brown hair started to lighten in
complexion, turning an orangish-red color. His straight hair started
to curl and grow unruly. He felt his hair to make sure it was real
and was disgusted to realize that it felt super greasy, like he hadn’t
washed it in weeks. Parts of it stuck out all over the place, making
him look like a complete dork. Although his hair was a little longer,
his ears seemed to grow with it, and stuck out hugely on either side.
Please be over…please be over. As Mitch thought this, however,
another voice spoke softly in his mind: This is how I’ve always
looked. I’ve always been a huge nerd. Mitch shook his head in
frustration. “That’s not me!” he cried out loud. Nevertheless, he
couldn’t get over the feeling that this was how he was supposed to
look. But there were still things missing. On cue with that thought,
he felt a pain rush through his mouth. He opened his mouth wide to
see that his perfectly white straight teeth had grown crooked. His
two front teeth stuck out as huge buck teeth, and ugly metal braces
now covered both levels of his mouth. Metal wires pushed themselves
out of the braces, and came together behind his head, growing larger
into a large pad on the back of his neck, completing his new headgear
set. You’ve got to be kidding me! He thought. His large buck teeth
and the headgear made it impossible for him to close his mouth without
his teeth sticking out.
“What is going on?” Mitch cried out in despair. He stopped though, at
the sound of his voice. It sounded higher. “Test…test…” he said
softly. There was no doubt about it. His voice had gotten
significantly higher, and had a marked nasally sound to it. “Oh no!”
he moaned in his new nasally voice. “I’m a complete dweeb!” His
voice sounded like a little girl with a cold.
To complete the ensemble, a large pocket protector appeared in the
pocket on his shirt, jammed full of pens and pencils. His nose
started running, and the armpits of his shirt dampened with sweat.
The feeling that he had always looked this way completely asserted
itself over his original persona. New memories forced their way in of
being made fun of at his high school, his late bloomer body, and his
overall nerdiness. His mind filled with math, science, video game,
and anime information, replacing all of his old interests.
Mitch the fine business man was now replaced with Mitch the high
school nerd.