FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Mason flipped through the pages of the book he had found buried in the school library in the dim light of his parent’s basement. His pet hamster Crackers sat on the tile floor in front of him. He had chosen to do this experiment down here mostly so no one would see him. It wasn’t like he believed in magic… But when you found what appeared to be a book of spells you couldn’t not use it! Right? Not that he believed it would work… Just curious. And… what if it did?

“Okay Crackers if this spell works you’ll turn into a giant Hamsterzilla! Then you can crush the school auditorium and I won’t have to take the SATs tomorrow!” This probably seemed drastic… But really it was heroic! High school life was hard enough without tests like these… Besides the spell probably wouldn’t do anything. Still… He felt a strange sensation as he looked at the words in the spell book. It promised to make even rodents swell to gigantic sizes for the user! He spoke the magic words written in the book aloud even if he didn’t understand them. “Dlrow tnaig eht nihtiw llewd.”

Suddenly a strong wind blew through the basement despite being completely enclosed. And right before Mason’s eyes it looked like Crackers was indeed starting to grow.

“It… It worked!?” Mason dropped the book completely dumbfounded. This was an eventuality he hadn’t prepared for! But Crackers was clearly getting bigger and… And it was at that point that Mason’s jeans fell down around his ankles. “What?” He looked around in confusion. It wasn’t just the hamster getting bigger… The entire world was growing larger.

Crackers wasn’t getting big! Mason was shrinking!

“That’s not what I meant!” Mason gave a shout as he shrank down towards his discarded jeans and underwear. After just a couple seconds his shirt fell down on top of him burying him in the dark. Mason struggled to get out from underneath and took a few steps across the basement tile now naked. He stopped when he saw crackers. The orange and white hamster was now twice as tall as him.

“Squeak.” Crackers boomed causing Mason to cower slightly. But seeing his hamster that big gave him an idea.

“Crackers! I have an idea!” Mason shouted as he ran over to the ever-growing hamster. He quickly jumped onto its back and grabbed handfuls of fur to climb up. “Quick! Climb out of the basement we need to get help!”

“Squeak.” Crackers boomed again. It then used its hind leg to scratch one of its ears nearly tossing Mason from its body.

“Crackers noooo!” Mason whined as he continued to shrink. The hamster was already ten times his size by comparison. And it was getting worse. Mason quickly ran along Crackers’ back to get closer to its ears and shouted at them. “Come on! I know you can hear me! Moooove!”

“… Squeak.” Crackers yawned and then lay down. Mason couldn’t believe how unhelpful the little… Erm big guy was being. He tried jumping up and down to get its attention. He wasn’t sure if the hamster could even feel it. He was becoming so small that he couldn’t see over the tops of cracker’s individual hairs! Each of them were now like enormous tree trunks going above him. He kept jumping up and down hoping his weight would have enough impact to rouse his hamster into action.

He stopped abruptly when an enormous shadow fell over him. He looked up just in time to see a giant pink paw coming towards him. Once he hadn’t even noticed his hamster had claws. Now as they came down towards him Mason couldn’t help but see them. The tip of one claw was the size of a one story house in comparison. He had gotten Cracker’s attention… But only to make it scratch an itch.

Mason wisely chose to run. He wasn’t sure if he was going to make it or where he was running too… But he wasn’t about to stick around to be scratched off like some flea. Eventually he found a break in the forest of hairs and leaped out... And immediately found himself falling. He screamed. He wasn’t sure for how long he fell but eventually he landed on a strange cracked surface. It took him a moment to realize what had happened. He had leaped off crackers and onto the tile.

And regretted the choice in an instant. There was a much more alien creature on the floor with him. And it was bigger. A grotesque silver wormlike creature with lots of legs and what looked like antennae sticking out its front. It was a silverfish. The basement were full of them. But he had never seen one that was bigger than him. And of course… It was getting bigger which meant Mason was still shrinking.

“Good… Good bug…” Mason pleaded as he slowly backed away along the rough tile. The bug was five times his size… Then ten times… Then twenty times. What did silverfish eat? Right now Mason was worried it was going to be him. The creature started taking steps towards him and Mason quickly jumped to his feet and began to run. But it was hopeless. One step for the silverfish was a thousand steps for Mason! And that ratio was getting worse for him by the second. Mason let out a cry as the giant bug moved over him… And yet didn’t even seem to notice.

The silverfish was now well over a hundred times Mason’s size… No probably more than that. It walked directly over the boy without ever noticing or seeing him. Mason was so small he was beneath its notice. All he could do was huddle on the ground as it passed and be thankful he hadn’t gotten stepped on.

At least he was safe. There couldn’t be anything else that could threaten him right? If he was this small then any hungry predators would overlook something as tiny as him. At least that’s what he thought… But as he stood up he became aware of strange organisms growing up from the floor all around him. They looked like a cross between blobs and some kind of fish.

They were microbes.

And they were soon as big as Mason… And then bigger.

“I can’t believe this…” Mason let out a heavy sigh. “From dodging bugs to dodging amoebas. What is going on…” He quickly began to move, putting as much distance between him and the organisms as possible. It looked like he was going to be doing a lot of running away from things for now on. Who knew what would come next.

But… At least he didn’t have to take that test.

The End