Crystalline

Chapter 2
10:10 AM

Chapter Description: Ben's lab mates find someone intruding in their work space.

[img align=left; footer=’’; border=0; showfooter=1;]http://i.imgur.com/LIchp.png[/img]

As he looked down at his feet, the ground was rushing up to him. Rather, he was shrinking! He felt his bones shorten, his muscles tensing and pulling together, everything pulling him slightly closer to the floor. His labcoat lay strewn on the ground. His pants bunched up against his shoes and his shirt hung off him like a dress. He had lost nearly all of his muscle mass from working out at the gym and his wrists looked as if they were only half their former size. He wrapped an index finger and thumb around it to check. When he stood up, he was eye to eye with Miranda, who seemed concerned, looking directly at him with annoyance.

“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” she said sternly, arms folded.

“It’s me, Miranda! Don’t you recognize me?” he pleaded.

Miranda looked at the door and saw her name listed on the staff check-in list next to Bens and several others that used the lab space.

“Very funny. No. I don’t recognize you, and you’re trespassing right now. I don’t take kindly to teenagers mucking around in here, so if you have any other friends hiding in here, tell me now before I call the cops.”

“Miranda, I swear—“

“Alright, knock it off, kid,” she said, taking him by the wrist and pulling him sharply closer to her. Her light perfume was detectable now as he bumped into her, “I’m not joking around.”

“Neither am I, I’m—“

The door swung open, revealing another one of his lab mates, Jennifer, who came in holding a clipboard.

“Is everything alright in here? I heard some stuff from the room next door. Who’s this, your little brother?”

“No, this is some gangster-wanna-be who I found hiding in the lab. Can you believe what these kids wear?” Miranda said, pointing at Ben’s now loose fitting shirt that draped over his thin body.

“Kid, let me give you some advice,” Jennifer laughed, “you’ll never land a job looking like that. Anyways, Miranda, should we call someone?”

“Jennifer,” Ben started, seeing Jennifer briefly give him a look of recognition, before Miranda interrupted.

“He read your name off the sign-in sheet,” she said, pointing behind her to the list taped to the wall.

The look of recognition faded from Jennifer’s face as it gave way to a wry smile, “Very clever,” she remarked.

Ben looked up at the wall clock and saw the second hand ticking down until 10:15 AM. As it struck quarter-past, the blinding light from the pocketwatch, now blinding him for a third time, made me realize the awful truth behind what the inscriptions had meant!