Zeelo was one of the two winners of the Micro May raffle, he won the raffle on Twitter, getting him one 1k shrinking based commission. Zeelo chose to have his human self visit the library and encounter a book of actual magic.
A Little Trip to the Library
By CalexTheNeko
Zeelo sat at one of the library desks with a large book on the table before him. It was a Monday morning and the place was mostly abandoned, making it even more quiet than usual. Zeelo was dressed in his usual attire, jeans, a sweater and some shoes. He had his glasses on to help him read, though he occasionally had to move his light brown wavy hair out of his eyes. It wasn’t long, but his bangs were curly and tended to get in the way.
The book he was reading had come from the new age occultism section, which despite containing nothing but fictional books was somehow marked as non-fiction. But, even if it wasn’t real Zeelo found it an interesting read. A lot of the fantasy stories Zeelo read were based on old folklore, and it was fun to see the original ideas. This specific book claimed to be an encyclopedia of spells, listing out supposed magical spells, their effects, and then the magic words to say to cast them. He stopped on one page when he saw it labelled as a shrinking spell. That caught his interest. He had certain types of interests that he would often commission art or stories of for himself, it was kind of funny to think there was what someone would have one thought it a real spell. Zeelo wondered how people casting these spells kept up the illusion since magic wasn’t actually real. A shame, but he could have his fantasies.
“I syrriknomeni mageia me pairnei. Ginete mikro san pontiki.” Zeelo read the spell out lout in an amused voice. Then he moved on, turning the page to check out what else was in the book.
But he felt his shoes suddenly slip off his feet.
“Wait what?” The library desk was rising taller, Zeelo’s glasses were suddenly too big and fell off his face. His clothes were becoming loose. What was happening? Well he knew what was happening! He was shrinking but that only happened in stories and art not in real life. Zeelo didn’t have time to question it. He turned back to the shrinking spell trying to find a description of how to reverse it. But soon the desk was above his head. He grabbed onto the edge of it with both hands, and after a few moments was soon hanging off the edge his feet dangling in the air. Pants and underwear fell to the ground, and then weighted down by his sweater, Zeelo lost his grip before falling down to the ground too, landing in a pile of his clothes.
A few minutes of squirming around later, a now naked inch tall Zeelo climbed from beneath his sweater and looked up at the desk. How was he supposed to get back up there to fix this! That was impossible to climb! Ok, maybe there were some splinters and things he could use as handholds, but he wasn’t one of his characters, he didn’t have claws! Just plain normal human hands! There was no way he could make it without some kind of help. Zeelo let out a frustrated groan as he began to pace back and forth and then walked into his own shoe.
“Ow!” Zeelo then froze as he stared at his shoe, or more precisely his shoelaces. He had a rope! If he tied the laces from both shoes together, they’d be long enough to get him up!
It took several minutes too unlace the shoes completely. Despite how thick they were in comparison to Zeelo they didn’t feel too heavy. Thank you square cubed law. He tied the ends of them together into a knot, and made another knot to create a loop on the very end. It wasn’t long enough to go straight up the table, but he could make it to the chair first. He tossed his shoelace up, but it fell short. He gave it another try and it reached the chair but didn’t snag anything that would hold it. It took a few more tries, but eventually the loop snagged on the very end of the armrest, though it looked like it could slip any second.
“Please don’t.” Zeelo begged as he slowly worked his way up the rope. It was a hard climb, he wished he had made more of an effort in gym class in high school when they did the rope climb. Still, he made it to the armrest without issue and climbed above it and unhooked his shoelace. From there, getting to the top of the table was actually easy. He tossed the shoelace and hooked it on the very corner of the book he was trying to reach. He tugged it to make sure it wouldn’t come loose, and then climbed up to the top of the table. He had made it, now if he could just find how to reverse it in the description. He found where it mentioned reversals and in there it said more information could be found in volume 2. “Are you kidding me?” Zeelo remembered there had been an entire series of these on the shelf… He had climbed all the way up here though, and now he was going to have to get back to the occult section, climb the bookshelf, and then somehow get the book off the shelf and open. It was going to be quite the workout. If he ever got stuck tiny like this he’d probably wind up quite toned just from his normal daily life.
Zeelo rolled up the shoelace, then leaped down from the table aiming for his sweater for a soft landing. Then he ran as fast as he could for where the occult section was. He was so glad the place was empty so there was no risk of getting stepped on. Eventually he reached the shelf he had gotten the book from. Now for the hard part, getting up. Though, it might not be as hard as he expected. There were book ends with points sticking out to hold the books in place. Those turned out to be pretty easy to hook his shoelace on and start the climb up. It was just tiring work, and he had to take a break around the third shelf. The book was of course on the fifth and top shelf.
Once Zeelo felt ready, he started the climb again, up to the fourth, and then finally the fifth shelf. Here he had to be careful. These books were thick and big, and stuck all the way out to almost the very end of the shelf. Even someone as small as him had trouble fitting on the shelf with them. Zeelo pushed his back against the wall of books and slowly slid across the edge of the shelf while trying not to look down. True, the fall wouldn’t kill him, but the distance would freak him out, make him lose his balance and then he’d have to get up again.
After a few minutes, he reached an empty spot with no book, specifically where volume 1 belonged. Zeelo quickly got off the ledge and threw himself down on the center of the shelf, relieved no longer be in danger of falling. Now all he needed was volume two. Except…
Zeelo knew he was small right now, but the gap left by the single book he had taken seemed way bigger than it should. Zeelo could see another book in the encyclopedia of magic set on the other end of the gap, but the distance he had to walk to get to it made him nervous. Without his glasses he had to get close to the cover to read it, then he saw the words he feared.
Volume Three
Someone must have checked out volume two! Meaning Zeelo had no way to reverse the spell and was stuck like this! Zeelo sat down on the shelf not sure what to do. Could he make it home like this? Well, he had gotten around the library. He looked at the shoelace he had coiled up and was carrying over one shoulder. It was going to be seeing a lot of use.
Well… If nothing else at least he was going to get into great shape… Which was probably good for his self-image since he was now far too small to wear clothing. Well, on the bright side, maybe he could get a new place. He was sure at least one of his friends wouldn’t mind a roommate that didn’t take up too much space, and if he called them they could come pick him up… But his phone was in his pants pocket. Which meant… Back to the desk.
He groaned, and started the climb down the shelf, heading to go find his phone in his pockets, and towards a future of having a terrarium as a bedroom. But again, at least it got him into great shape.