Emma was so excited she could barely keep the car on the road. After all these years, the answer to her dreams had fallen into her lap. Emma had been short all her life, and she hated it. When Mary opened the door and was shorter than her, she was briefly elated. She was a little disappointed when she learned that it was Mary who had shrunk rather than herself who had grown, but she still enjoyed being the tall one for once, Mary had always been the tall beautiful center of attention, while she was played the part of the small mousy friend. She had entered the research field hoping to develop a way to help women grow taller, possibly with some type of hormone. But all her years of research had yielded nothing but failure. Then, Mary called her. She was friendly with Mary, but secretly felt deep resentment towards her. She had just finished another unsuccessful test of her research, and was still feeling the sting, when Mary provided her with the solution to all her problems.
When she arrived home, she quickly dropped the box on her coffee table, locked the doors, and drew the blinds shut. Greedily, she wanted to guard her prize and keep anyone from interrupting her. She was still not sure how the vials worked; she theorized it was some type of retrovirus too small to see with her equipment. But frankly, she no longer cared. All she wanted was results.
She pushed the button, opened the box, and began examining the vials. She really did not want to be an animal; she was sure that there was a vial that would just make you taller. There just had to be! The number of vials seemed endless, with more drawers appearing as she continued to search. But no matter how many vials she examined, the result was always the same - everyone of them had a picture of some type of animal on it. There was vial with a picture of a human, but she doubted that it could make her more human. It was probably some way to reverse the changes. She began to toss the vials out of the box wildly as she continued to search, almost on the verge of tears. She was so frustratingly close! She was about to begin smashing vials, beginning with the one in her hand, when she looked at the picture on the vial and had a thought.
Mary had only partially transformed because she had only tasted a portion of the contents of vial. And it had caused her to shrink. Thus, if she would drink just a little bit from the vial of a large animal, she would probably gain its size. With a little experimentation, she could probably find the right mixture of potions that would allow her to be taller, while still remaining mostly human She looked again at the picture of the animal on the vial in her hand - a Dragon.
Yes, this is the perfect vial to begin my experiments with, she thought. She remembered that both Mary and Jeremiah had used about half of their vials. Half of the vial is as good a starting point as anything else, she thought. I can always reverse it later with the human vial. She gulped down half of the vial and waited for the changes to begin.