Couple’s Story by DaBoss

It was hard to get and expensive to purchase, but a unique new party board game had made its way to the shadier parts of the internet. It was referred to as Shrink-Manji, obviously influenced by the fictional game Jumanji. 

Buyers of this game were always kept in the dark about where the game came from, how it operated, and what the goal and endgame of it were. 

The game had become something of an urban myth that people knew about but never expected to see. One thing was very real about it, it always worked. 

The game was simple, and may have been sentient or functionally alive in its own right. Players were all scanned in by a glowing green light. They were now locked in, and anyone trying to quit the game would be punished by irreversible shrinking. 

Next, the turns would start. Once the button was pushed, a player would be selected at random as the shrinkee. The process would repeat to select the player shrinking them. The shrinkee would hold a button, shrinking the player until they’re desired size. The player would be stuck at that size for a short amount of time. 

The instructions of the game simply stated the game would choose when there was a winner, after everyone had their chance to be shrunken. While this was true in a way, it really meant, when there was only one survivor….

—

“Alright everyone, drink up!” Samantha laughed loudly. Her right hand held a shot of Jameson which she effortlessly threw back into her mouth. She savoured the burning sensation of it traveling down her throat, it was her preferred alcohol of choice after all. She looked around and smiled; seeing her other friends sipping cocktails, swigging beers and pounding shots. 

It had taken months of planning, but Samantha had convinced her three best friends to come up to a fancy AirBNB cabin with her and her husband Robert for a fun couples weekend. All three of her girlfriends had brought a date, and after some initial awkwardness and shyness from some of the guys who hadn’t met each other yet, everyone seemed to be getting along fine. 

“Damn, look at you,” Robert said, wiping a towel against Samantha’s back. She had just gotten out of the hot tub a bit ago, and was still showing off in her sexy one piece swimsuit, really highlighting her fantastic breasts and toned ass. Robert knew that Samantha was often a stereotypical nerd, being shorter, having glasses and a larger nose, and being a total bookworm, but he also knew she could definitely be a party girl when she wanted to. And the board game she was about to pull out was proof of that. 

“Thanks babe,” she said, planting a kiss on her husband's lips. “Wanna get the guys rounded up? I’ll get the girls,”

“Sure thing,” Robert said, caressing Samantha’s butt as he walked away. The slightly drunk Samantha cleared space on the coffee table to get a game setup. 

“Ohhhh, what’re we playing?” her best friend Kendall asked. Kendall and Samantha had been friends since high school, as unlikely as they seemed just by looking at them. Kendall seemed to be Samantha’s polar opposite, a blonde former cheerleader, very outgoing and a party lover. Still, opposites attracted and the duo had basically been inseparable. 

“Just a little game I bought online,” Samantha laughed, trying her best to sound mysterious. 

“Holy up, let’s see this,” another voice called out. This voice belonged to Allison, a friend Samantha had made at her office. Samantha was a year or two older than the rest of the girls, and seemed to be a big sensitive about her weight at times, though she really wasn’t fat in any way. Brushing her brown hair out of her eyes, she knelt down next to Samantha and Kendall

“Oh shit,” Kendall said, seeing what Samantha had just pulled out. 

“Shrink-Manji?” Allison asked tentatively. “Where the hell did you get a copy of this?”

“Internet,” Samantha said with a shrug, before pouring another shot of Jameson down her throat. 

“You thought what!?” a more nervous voice asked from across the room. This was the voice of Cassie, Samantha’s college roommate. Cassie was much more awkward than the other girls, and even nerdier than Samantha. She was also just coming out of the hot tub, in a two piece swimsuit with her brown hair tied back into a ponytail. Her eyes were wide as she sipped a hard seltzer. “Isn’t that dangerous?!”

“Please, we’re all responsible adults here,” Samantha said, before giving all her friends an accusing look. “Right?” Everyone seemed to nod in agreement with her. “We’re all friends and we all trust each other, right?” Again, everyone seemed to agree with her. 

“Alright good, let’s take a look,” Samantha said, reading the instructions. As the four guys walked into the room, she motioned for them all to come over. The four guys were Robert, Jason, Leo and Toby. Leo and Allison were a married couple, Toby was engaged to Cassie, and Jason had started dating Kendall after meeting her several months before. Jason also happened to be Cassie’s twin brother. 

Samantha went on to explain the game from the instructions to the rest of the group. It sounded like something out of jumanji, without the dangers of being sucked into the game or dangerous animals coming to life. Instead, some feature of the game would scan all eight players. Then, after pressing the button in the center, one player would be shrunken at random. There would be a second random spin choosing the person to shrink with, and toy with them. That person would be shrunken for a random amount of time allowed by the game. 

“So, how do we win?” Leo asked, taking a sip of a light beer. 

“I think the game just chooses when we’re done,” Samantha responded, interpreting the instructions as best as she could. 

After about five minutes of an alcohol fueled debate, everyone in the group had decided to play. They’d have been a bit more skeptical if they were sober, but everyone had at least a buzz going. Everyone seemed pretty nervous on edge, but there was also a feeling of excitement, universally shared even by the most nervous members of the friend group.

“Who wants to go first?” Cassie said, trying to remain calm. Toby began to rub her back in an effort to calm her nerves. 

“Well let’s try this first,” Samantha said, activating the button. A green beam scanned the individuals circling the board, beeping eight times. “Well too late to back out now,” she laughed. She looked around and realized it might take some convincing for her friends to play. 

“Fine, I’ll go first,” she said, pressing the button. The green beam spun around in a circle for a moment, before it settled on Samantha herself. 

“Dammit,” she mumbled, before looking at the instructions. “Okay, now I press again to see who gets to shrink me.” Taking a deep breath and seeing all eyes were glued on her. “What, never seen someone shrink before?” she laughed. She still couldn’t keep her hands from trembling, but she thought she liked it for the most part. 

Pressing the button, the green light randomly flashed on everyone else for a few seconds, before stopping on Cassie. “SHRINKER SELECTED,” a robotic female voice said. 

“Whoa, ugh,” Cassie said, blushing heavily. “What, what am I supposed to do now?” she asked, uncomfortable with all the attention on her. 

“Okay so hold the button down and I’ll slowly shrink till the size you want,” Samantha said with a shrug. 

“Then what?” Cassie said, still clearly uncomfortable. 

“Whatever you want, girl!” Kendall blurted out with a laugh, sipping more of her beer. 

“Alright, here we go,” Cassie said in almost a whisper. she reached forward, adjusting the dial to one inch tall. “And ready,” she said. Pressing the center button down. 

Everyone watched in amazement as a real-life magic act was occurring right before their very eyes. Samantha, there in her sexy, black one-piece suit, designed to show off her body, slowly began to get smaller and smaller. 

Wanting to put on a bit of a show, Samantha got up and stood next to the coffee table. When she hit about three feet tall, she climbed up on the table as her shrinking continued. She got smaller and smaller, diminishing past the size of an average Barbie doll until she stopped. 

“Shit, this is weird,” she said with a nervous laugh. The faces around her all looked on in disbelief. Also, they were enormous! 

This sensation was completely alien to Samantha, and her body was still processing everything. She could hear that people were talking loudly, shouting things and laughing, but her ears were still adjusting to the new noises. 

She noticed a change in the room's lighting and turned around. Her heart started pounding in her chest then. The room hadn’t gotten darker, it was the shadow of her friend Cassie, who was now towering over her and reaching down. “ALRIGHT MY LITTLE TOY, COME HERE,” she said, as Samantha started to back up in shock. 

Samantha was thinking this game might have been a mistake…..