Tom could hear his younger sister in the kitchen cleaning. She wanted to go out with some of her friends to do whatever dumb stuff they end up doing. However, their parents had told them no one could go out if the house wasn’t clean. Although Tom didn’t have any plans himself other than playing Call of Duty with the guys. He would never hear the end of his little sister’s whining if she didn’t get to go out.
This meant it was just easier to clean the house as while he could live with his parents being a bit upset Cassie’s whining was next level. As soon after their parents would get tired of it and then it would lead to him, and her bickering, and he would just end up grounded. He had lived through this story before.
A knock at the door startled Tom who had just finished dusting the living room and watering the plants. As he opened the door, he saw a UPS man walking back to his truck. The driver looked back, and Tom waved grabbing the package which was addressed to him. He was curious about what it was as he hadn’t remembered ordering anything. As he ripped open the packaging, he pulled out what looked like a toy gun. As soon as he saw it everything came back to him. He ordered it a couple of months ago from Hong Kong. It was mostly on a whim to see if it was real. It was supposed to be a shrink ray. All the comments said it worked but he had never heard of one being so cheap.
As he paged through the instructions briefly while letting the box drop to the floor, he found everything to be written in Chinese. He threw the book down with the box and started looking over the gun itself. It seemed pretty self-explanatory, pull the trigger and the item shrinks. He pretended to holster the shrink ray like a gun and quickly pulled it up aiming it forward like he was some kind of cowboy in a duel. He spun the gun around on his finger but what didn’t know was that the shrink ray unlike a real gun didn’t have a safety switch. So, as he spun it around in his hand he grabbed the hand grip with the ray gun pointing down and his finger hit the trigger as he grasped it in his hand shooting his own foot.
“Oh shit,” Tom screamed as he found himself shrinking rapidly. Everything happened so fast he couldn’t even comprehend what had happened or call out for help.
“What is going on out there? It doesn’t sound like cleaning. I want to get this done Tom.” The voice of Tom’s younger sister Cassie bellowed from the kitchen. A few moments later he felt the ground shake as heard her footsteps rumble across the hardwood floor.
“Did you vacuum the rugs? You know how mom gets about the rugs. Tom? TOM!?!” Cassie shouted, looking around her brother. “I swear you so fucking useless,” Cassie said stomping her foot and crossing her arms.
“Cassie!! Cassie!! I’m down here!!” Tom shouted as he waved his arms, but the carpet was so high and he found himself to be small enough that he was just lost in the sea of giant white rug fibers. Tom looked over at the Ray gun which was now enormous. He knew it would be impossible for him to push the trigger and get in front of the gun. He wasn’t even sure if he could push the trigger enough to fire the gun if he was being honest with himself.
“Maybe he went to the bathroom? No look at that shit over there. He’s been probably sitting out here playing on his damn switch.” Cassie grumbled. “Just because you have NO LIFE doesn’t mean OTHERS CAN’T” Cassie shouted as she stomped her foot in anger as she looked down at her phone.
“Two hours. I can do this.” Cassie said as she walked into the living room pausing briefly to stop at the closet and pull out the vacuum cleaner.
“No wait Cassie! I’m here. I’m right here! I didn’t leave, I was actually helping this time. Cassie!!” Tom shouted, jumping up and down in vain to get his little sister’s attention as she pushed the vacuum over to the rug.
“TOM! YOU COULD HAVE AT LEAST PICKED UP YOUR AMAZON SHIT!” Cassie shouted as she bent down, picking up the box Tom had discarded along with the instructions. She broke pulled at the tape on the box breaking it down as she walked into the kitchen and threw away the box into the cardboard recycling bin.
Tom felt the floor shake. It felt as if she was stomping around the house. With each footstep she took he could hear clearly as the closer she got to where he was everything shook. Dust from dirt would get kicked up into the air as she stood on the carpet with the vacuum behind her. She placed her hands on her hips as she glanced around seeing the floor mostly clean.
“I swear, he’s so fucking useless. TOM PICK YOUR STUPID TOY UP!”
“Cassie! Wait, wait Cassie” Tom shouted as he watched her roughly pick up the ray gun not knowing what was or what it could do. He watched her toss it uncaringly onto the sofa. He prayed it didn’t misfire as then they would both be shrunk although two of them would be easier to work the gun but now that it was on top of the couch it was much harder to get at.
The sound of the vacuum cleaner whirring to life filled the room. Tom watched in shock as Cassie rumbled towards him pushing the vacuum cleaner across the carpet. He watched her unsure of how best to contact her for several moments. It wasn’t until he felt the pull of the vacuum that he realized what kind of danger he was in.
“Cassie!!” Tom shouted with renewed effort as he started running trying to get away from the vacuum. The closer it got the stronger the pull of the vacuum was. Tom soon realized he would never be able to outrun it. He started running to get to the side of the vacuum. As he looked towards it, he could see the annoyed look on his little sister’s face. She wasn’t even looking down as she pushed the vacuum across the rug.
The vacuum drew closer and closer causing Tom to run faster and faster. He finally dove into the air just barely clearing the front of the vacuum. However, he landed roughly on the rug as he heard a digital beep of Cassie’s phone. Cassie stopped grabbing her phone from her pocket while Tom started to feel the full pull of the vacuum as it stood stationary next to him. He tried desperately to pull himself far enough away from the vacuum to not be affected by the powerful suction of the motor. However, it wasn’t long until he felt himself slipping backward and being drug through the carpet towards the vacuum.
“CASSIE!!!” Tom tried to shout, hoping she would turn off the vacuum at the very least. However, he could see her typing some messages to her dumb friends.
As Cassie finished typing the message and slid her phone back into her pocket, she had just started to push the vacuum forward when she heard a loud thud of something large hitting the vacuum brush. The brush had Pulled Tom behind the brush where he found himself getting sucked through the house. Tom reached out in every direction trying to find something to grasp and hold onto but the smooth inside of the vacuum house left him nothing to grab onto. It wasn’t until Tom was shot into the plastic cylinder that he landed in a large pile of grey dust, dirt, and other debris.
“What was that? It sounded big whatever it was. Well, it’s still working I will look at it later.” Cassie said, annoyed as she rolled her eyes that her stupid brother had left her to do all the work again.
“NO CASSIE!! LOOK AT IT NOW!!” Tom yelled as loud as he could as more dust and dirt rained down on him as Cassie continued to vacuum the rug. He just prayed she actually looked at what made all that noise and didn’t just shove the vacuum into the closet or dump everything in the garbage.
