Amy sighed in irritation. She knew this was a stupid waste of her time. She was the best damn nurse they had at piloting the submarines and utilizing shrinking technology. She had developed training protocols and had even met with other hospitals to help them start their shrinking submarine technology. Why her boss wanted her to help treat walk-ins was beside her.
“So, you’re congested?” she sighed, looking at the middle-aged woman sitting on the bed. Thankfully Amy wasn’t working in the ER, just helping with the standard walk-ins.
“Yeah, and I’ve got some weird pain higher up in my nose,” the woman said, rubbing her nose near its bridge. “I’ve also been having difficulty breathing out of my left nostril for weeks now.”
“Uh huh,” Amy said, trying but failing to sound concerned.
“And the doctor mentioned something….you know…..” the patient said, her voice trailing off.
Amy knew exactly where she was going with this. “Let me guess, you think sending some shrunken people inside you will help,” she said, raising her eyebrows to the patient.
“If…..I’m sorry…..my daughter’s a nurse here too, maybe she can help you with that,” the patient stuttered.
Amy paused for a moment and pulled up the patient’s chart. The name on the form was Wanda Zoller. “Zoller? Is your daughter Eve?” Amy questioned, fully aware that there was a nurse in the emergency department with that same last name.
“As a matter of fact she is,” Wanda said with a smile.
“Alright, I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Amy said, walking out of the room.
—
“You want me to do WHAT?” Eve asked, with a shocked expression draped across her face. She had been sitting in the break room in the emergency department, scrolling on her phone and sipping a sparkling water, when Amy dropped this on her.
“It’s simple, WE want you to take care of a patient,” Amy said, making sure to emphasize that she already spoke with Wanda’s doctor, who was totally fine using Eve for this. “It’s a nasal blockage, you’ll be fine,” she insisted.
“Well why don’t you just do it?” Eve asked defensively.
“Well one, I’m going to be scheduling trainings and putting together lesson plans for shrinking submarine lessons. I don’t think you want to do that. Two, it’s YOUR mother,” Amy said, not giving an inch.
“I mean, should I be with someone?” Eve asked nervously.
Amy could see she was clearly uncomfortable, so she caved a bit. “Fine, take two techs with you. I don’t really care,” she said, exiting the room.
—
Back in Wanda’s, Amy was busy typing on her laptop while Wanda listened intently to her daughter. The middle aged woman was quite tall, and had her brown hair tied back behind her head in a neat bun. She was definitely Eve’s mom, as Eve was also fairly tall, with her hair tied back into a blonde bun.
Also in the room were Andrew and Maura, a pair of patient techs from the ER, both in their mid-twenties. All three of them had been shrunken passengers before, but not often, and always with much more experienced nurses. There was a definite sense of tension among the three staff members.
Being a mother, Wanda could tell that her daughter was nervous and uncomfortable. “Oh don’t worry, sweet! You’ll be fine, it’s just my nose!” Wanda laughed, which Eve did her best to play along.
“Oh I know, we got this. Just gotta make sure everything’s alright up there,” Eve said, less than confident.
As Eve, Andrew and Maura left the room to get to the sub down the, Amy decided to hang around. “Everything will be fine,” she said reassuringly to Wanda. I’m gonna have their sub shrink down to about one-sixteenth of an inch tall, I doubt you’ll even feel much in there.”
“Okay, how will I know when they’re done?” she asked curiously.
“I’ll keep on the clock so I’ll have a rough idea when they’re done. Also they’ll be able to fly out, so you might not even feel it,” Amy responded.
“Sounds good, thank you so much for doing this,” Wanda said with a smile as Amy walked out of the room.
Down the hallway, Amy walked in on Eve, Andrew and Maura getting into the sub. “Everything alright here?” she asked, poking her head into the cockpit where Maura and Eve were buckling in.
“Yeah I think so,” Eve sighed, though she seemed to be struggling with something. Amy thought about asking but assumed she could figure it out.
“Okay, just shrink down when you’re ready and I’ll take you to your mom,” she said, walking down the ramp and out of the sub. She had pre-set the size, as she didn’t want Eve screwing it up and either being too big or getting too small to be useful.
Stepping back, Amy waited patiently for the sub to diminish in size. It finally did, and she grinned. She wasn’t trying to be malicious, but she’d be lying to herself if she didn't get a bit of a power rush whenever handling shrunken submarines with her coworkers inside. She knew this sub was not equipped with a defensive beam, so there were no dangers to her handling it. No dangers to her, that was.
Keeping the submarine encased in the darkness of a closed fist, Amy re-entered the room where Wanda was patiently sitting in a chair. “Alright Wanda, I’ve got something that might make you feel a bit better,” Amy said with a smile. She extended her hand and opened it, revealing a tiny, silver object in the middle of her palm.
If Wanda hadn’t known what it was, she would have mistaken it for a tiny pebble, maybe even a speck. Leaning forward, her eyes studied the tiny object before widening. “Oh my god,” she whispered, staring down at the miniaturized sub. The fact that her own daughter was actually inside of there amazed her.
Inside the submarine, Eve was struggling to maintain her professionalism. “Holy shit,” she whispered, a shutter running down her spine as she stared up at the face of the monolithic woman in front of her. It was hard to believe this behemoth was her own mother.
“You good?” Maura asked, a slight worry in her voice.
“Yeah I just….it’s a little weird seeing your own mom from this perspective, you know?” Eve responded, clearly shaken.
Outside the sub, Amy was explaining what was going to happen to Wanda. “Okay I’m going to bring this directly under your nose, when I tell you to inhale, then you inhale,” she instructed. She watched Wanda nod.
“Alright, gently now,” Amy mumbled, holding her hand directly in front of Wanda’s face, below her nose. “Annnnnd now!”
Wanda did as instructed, breathing in as best she could through her congestion. The tiny submarine was sucked right into her left nostril, vanishing into the dark cavern of Wanda’s nose.
“Alright, now we just let them do their thing,” Amy said, getting up to walk out the door.
“Wait! You’re not staying here? What if I need something?” the patient asked annoyingly.
“I’ll be right outside working on my laptop if you need me,” Amy responded though her patience was being tested. Hearing Wanda start to protest once more, Amy walked out the door, closing it behind her before she could say anything.
inside of Wanda’s nostril, the shrunken submarine and its three tiny passengers might as well have been on an alien planet. They slowly traversed up the nasal passage, with enormous hairs brushing against the front of the submarine. Mucus tripped down the cave walls, illuminated by the headlights of the sub.
“So what exactly are we looking for?” Andrew called out from the passenger bay. All Amy had told him was congestion, and that could mean literally anything.
“We’re probably looking for some kind of blockage,” Maura chided in.
“And I don’t think my mom really has any allergies,” Eve added, trying to focus on flying the sub.
It took a bit of very slow flying, as Eve hated the idea of hitting anything and forcing her mom to sneeze, but the trio soon came upon something.
“What the hell are those?” Andrew asked, staring out of the sun. From out the windshield, they saw several large, fleshy appendages dangling down from the roof of the nasal passage.
“They look like nasal polyps,” Eve muttered, disgusted by the giant pink cylinders, which must’ve been holding back the mucus, therefore congesting her mom. She didn’t know much about them, it wasn’t something she ever dealt with in the ER, but she figured antibiotics would take care of them.
“Well that was easy,” Maura said, before getting an angry glance from Eve. Like all ER nurses, Eve was superstitious and worried about jinxing herself. “Sorry. What do we do about them?”
Eve sighed. She decided to have Andrew and Maura search the passenger bay for medical equipment. They had found plenty of syringes and vials containing steroids. She knew steroids would reduce the swelling and inflammation, so her plan was to carefully pilot the sub next to the polyps, have Andrew and Maura climb up through the hatch on top of the sub where they’d be able to move freely.
From there, Eve thought she’d be able to get them close enough to the polyps where they could inject them with the steroid doses in the syringes.
Both Andrew and Maura protested, noting how dangerous it would be to go outside the sub without any type of safety equipment. They looked around the passenger bay for a rope of something they could use as a tether, but didn’t have any luck. Ultimately, the pair decided just to try their luck and hope for the best.
As Maura and Andrew exited the hatch and climbed atop the submarine, they made sure to keep the hatch open in case of emergencies. There was a folk talk at the hospital that an intern named Renee once digested two nurses when they couldn’t get back into the sub through the hatch. Meeting their end inside Wanda’s body was not something either Andrew or Maura had on their agenda today.
Far back in Wanda’s nasal passage, the tiny duo felt the currents of air from Wanda’s breath jostling their bodies. They were incredibly small, and right now thankful that Wanda was so congested through this nostril. The full force of her breath could do some serious damage to the miniscule patient techs.
As slowly and carefully as she could, Eve approached the first of the three polyps. It dangled down from the roof of her mom’s nasal passage like a giant link, slimy punching bag. “Alright, nice and easy,” she said, coming to a rest directly next to it.
She had parked perfectly, and the polyp was within reaching distance for Andrew. After Maura carefully handed him a handful of syringes, he began to inject the fleshy polyp. He was winging this, none of them having any idea how much to use, but the syringes were so small compared the the polyps they’d probably need a few. “Done with this one, I guess,” he called out to Maura, who poked her head down the hatch and relayed it to Eve.
“Roger that, on to the next one,” Eve said, steadily flying over to the next polyp. This poly appeared to be holding back a nasty looking wall of mucus, which no doubt was making Wanda congested.
Eve pulled up just like she had done the first time. Maura passed Andrew the syringes containing steroids, and Andrew had injected the polyp. Everything was going according to play, until Eve lurched forward ever so slightly.
The sudden movement caused Maura and Andrew to fall back on their asses, still atop the submarine and unharmed. The hatch door also slammed shut next to them. Then they saw the issue.
When the submarine lurched forward, the front of it made contact with the sticky mucus. Now, Eve was panicking, frantically trying to back the submarine up and free it from the sticky substance.
“Eve calm down! You need to take it easy!” Andrew shouted, clinging to the rail on top of the submarine. He could hear Maura angrily banging on the hatch door, demanding Eve open it up.
Eve wasn’t paying attention to her coworkers yelling, nor was she thinking about their well-being at all. Reversing the sub, Eve floored it. Jerking backwards, the sub pulled free of the mucus lined walls before slamming directly into the polyp.
Ricocheting off the slimy polyp, the submarine tumbled before slamming into the inner wall of the nasal passage. Dazed and confused after her head bounced off the steering wheel, Eve realized something. She heard screaming.
After the submarine had struck the nasal wall, Maura had been thrown off of it. Andrew had managed to maintain a grip on the safety rail for now, and had half his body around it.
Down on the floor of the alien cave was Maura. The poor woman had fallen, and landed directly into a deep pool of mucus. She screamed for help, but only sank deeper. Before Eve or Andrew had any chance to do anything, Maura screams became muffled, as she disappears beneath the surface.
Eve was almost in a horrified trance, watching her coworker become submerged in her mother’s snot, that she was oblivious to any danger until she heard Andrew frantically banging on the side of the submarine.
“Eve go! Fucking go!” he screamed.
“Crap,” Eve whispered, eyes widened as she saw what Andrew was referring to. The combination of Eve slamming into the mucus wall and then jerking backwards to free the sun, along with the submarine slamming into a nasal polyp and the wall of the nasal passage, had unintentionally freed part of the mucus wall. It was now descending down her mom’s nose like a disgusting landslide.
Impulsively, Eve made a wide turn, trying to get out of her mother’s nostril as quickly as she could. As a result of the wide turn, Andrew found his grip slipping. “Eve stop the fucking ship!” he screamed, before his fingers slid off the rail.
Landing on the floor of Wanda’s nasal passage, Andrew rolled several times before he came to his senses. “Come back you bitch! You can’t fucking leave me here!” he screamed, watching the sun fly forwards the exit of Wanda’s nostril. The shrunken man managed to stagger to his feet. His entire body hurt and he was sure he had multiple broken bones somewhere.
Struggling to sand, Andrew’s heart sank as he heard a horrifying rumbling noise behind him. He turned, eyes wide. The landslide that might as well have been a mountain of mucus was turning into a full-blown runny nose. The shrunken man started to limp through the passageway, holding onto some hope that he could escape.
It didn’t take long before the runny nose overtook him. A wave of cold, sticky mucus surrounded Andrew. He tried to scream and gasp for air, but soon found himself sinking under as well.
Eve was coming to terms with the fact that she had to cut her losses with the patient techs. She knew they were trapped deep within her mother’s nose somewhere, and that they likely wouldn’t be leaving alive. There was no time for that to resonate in her mind, she just wanted to get out of this wretched cave and could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Wanda lifted her head slightly. Whatever her shrunken daughter was doing inside her nose appeared to be working. She couldn’t believe it, but for the first time in a week it felt like she actually had a runny nose. She thought back to what Amy said, about her daughter getting out of there as soon as the treatment was done, and assumed all was safe. Seeing a box of tissues sitting on the counter, Wanda reached forward to grab one.
Approaching the exit of her mother’s nostril at high speed, Amy was happy to be putting some distance between herself and the landslide behind her. without warning, the light out of the outside world was replaced by a sudden wall of white. “What the fuck?!” the tiny woman screamed. She tried to pull up but was moving too quickly to stop. Slamming into the white sheet, a wave of whiplash slammed into Eve, disorienting her.
Casually wiping her nose, Wanda sighed, happy to feel the blockage that was contesting her get cleared up. She didn’t know where her tiny daughter had flown off too, but she figured she was safe somewhere. Probably flew back down the hall to grow back. One place Wanda didn’t suspect was right under her nose.
The sub was not moving anywhere. It was wedged in the tissue with a sludge of mucus holding it in place. Inside the sub, Eve’s head was throbbing and she wasn’t thinking clearly. She knew the submarine wasn’t moving and she needed help. Throwing the door open, Eve rushed out of the tiny sub, stumbling out into the open.
It immediately dawned on Eve just how small she was as she looked up at her monolithic mother. With the submarine one-sixteenth of an inch tall, Eve was smaller than a millimeter.
“How’s everything going in here?” Amy asked, walking into the room. She froze, confused, staring at Wanda who was holding the slightly used Kleenex in her hands.
“Oh hey!” Wanda said, unaware her voice was deafening the tiny daughter she did not know was there. “I was just gonna come out and tell you I think I’m good!”
Amy wasn’t stupid and was staring at the Kleenex skeptically in the woman’s hand. “Did you…did you blow your nose?” Amy asked, wondering how her miniaturized coworkers were doing.
“A little bit,” she said, glancing down at the tissue. She still didn’t see her absolutely tiny daughter shouting for help down there. “Just a second…”
“Mom please! I’m still here!” Eve screamed. Her mom’s eyes drifted down to the tissue, but didn’t light up with any hint of recognition. Instead, her nostrils flared slightly, and Eve screamed as the tissue was being brought back up to her mother’s face.
“Oh shit, mom no!” the shrunken nurse yelled as her mom’s nostril was upon her.
Amy watched silently, too disturbed to say anything as the tall woman blew her nose into the tissue. It seemed to go on for ages, as every time it slowed, she started to blow again.
After what felt like an eternity, Wanda finally pulled the tissue away from my face. “Ugh, all better,” she said with a sniffle.
Wanda blowing her nose was a disaster for Eve. The tiny woman was brought skyward at a rapid pace with the tissue, only to see the giant nostrils of her mom. When Wanda blew into the tissue, she showered her exposed daughter in a tsunami of nasal mucus. Eve was buried alive under seemingly tons of her mother’s nasal mucus. It didn’t take long before the sludge started to harden, causing Eve to slowly suffocate.
Staring at the woman, Amy’s jaw dropped as she started to realize what had just happened. She knew that the sub was in the tissue, likely buried under Wanda’s snot. “Oh I can take that from you,” she said, reaching out with her hands shaking.
“No it’s fine, I might need it later if my nose keeps running,” Wanda laughed, crumbling up the Kleenex and shoving it in her purse.
“But I….” Amy stuttered.
“Thank you so much Amy, I’ll see my way out,” Wanda said, not knowing the chaos she had just caused.