Movie Night
"C'mon, it'll be fun!" Jei urged.
Pat looked at the bottle in his flipper and tried to think of a reason why he shouldn't drink from it. He couldn't, and so he raised the bottle to his beak and took a swig. There were no immediate reaction, but he could tell that the stuff inside was working. He felt a little queasy and closed his eyes. When he opened them, everything in Jei's living room was over ten times its normal height, and still growing. It loomed over him until it seemed as though he would be squished by it all. But he knew it wasn't the furniture that was growing larger - it was him that was growing smaller. He looked down.
Everything that composed of his own body looked the same. His claws were his own, and most of his feathers were the same size, although some were still shrinking. His flippers hung at either side, and they seemed just the same as they always did. He reached out to touch the monumentally sized table chair in front of him.
"How're you doing down there?" a voice boomed. Pat covered his ears and contorted his face. The sound waves booming around were too much for him. He was about to tell Jei to be quiet when the whole room adjusted to a more comfortable volume and the loud, monotonous rumbling that he hadn't noticed fell silent. His ears must have just finished their transformation. He tentatively lifted a claw and twirled around twice to make sure there wasn't anything else that was still transforming. A single tail feather snapped into place and it was done. Pat hadn't transformed into another animal; he had been shrunk.
He raised his flippers up to the raccoon. "Lift me up!" he called to Jeimuzu. "I think I'm ready!"
Jei bent over and gently lifted Pat from the floor. He raised him to eye level and opened his huge mouth, his tongue bouncing around like a giant worm. "Remember," he said slowly, the inside of his mouth gleaming with saliva. "It's on the left side. I don't think you have to go all the way down because it got caught on something. As soon as you find it, let me know and I'll get you out of there. Make sure you get a good grip on it."
"Yeah, I know," Pat said impatiently. "Let's just get this over with." Jei's stomach rumbled and he rolled his eyes.
He was placed on the top of the entertainment center and Jei grinned. "Don't get lost now!" he said, turning towards the kitchen. "I'm going to get the popcorn ready. I'm starving." Pat nodded and Jei walked off, leaving him to his job.
Pat took a deep breath and looked down the dark crack between the wall and the furniture. This didn't look very fun. What was he doing here, anyway? Jeimuzu always seemed to get him into crazy situations like these. He didn't even want to watch the stupid movie. Still, he'd agreed to this, so there wasn't much else he could do. Pat lowered himself behind the entertainment center and found that he could edge his way down between the wall and the furniture. He made his way at what seemed to be a comfortable speed.
It took a few minutes but then there was a glint in the darkness and Pat realized it must be the movie. It wasn't that far away but it had fallen out of its case. It was now balanced on the top of a wire jutting from the back of the TV. This was good, because at least Pat wouldn't have to go all the way to the floor. It was still something of a task to make it over to where the movie was caught, though, and Pat slipped a few times and almost fell. His breath caught at times like these, but he reasoned that he was light, and so a fall probably wouldn't do much damage. Maybe. Pat didn't want to take that chance.
Finally he made it to the disk and stared at it. It was almost twice as big as him. He wrapped his flippers around it and tested the weight. It wasn't too heavy, but it was still difficult to manage. He almost knocked it to the floor. He grunted. How was he supposed to carry a huge thing like this? Maybe he just had to think about it. What did he have for tools? Nothing but himself, that's what. He had claws, but those wouldn't be much of a help. They were too small and he'd just end up scratching the disk. His arms weren't good or flying and his tail was hardly long enough to be much help.
He sidled down beside the disk and looked through the hole in the middle. It wasn't too small and not too big either. He closed his eyes and put his beak through it, and then he jerked his head up to test it. The DVD moved with him. Perfect.
Pat set himself between the large wall and the wood of the entertainment center once again and began his climb. It was much harder going up then it was going down. He had to use all his strength and he didn't have the help of gravity to aid him. Plus he had the disk that, if it survived the trip, he would never be able to retrieve if it fell. But he was doing it! Up, up, up. Slowly but surely Pat made his way to the top and poked his head above the entertainment center. He was about to cheer when the DVD slipped off his beak and started to fall. In desperation he jutted his head forward and bit down. He'd caught it, just in time.
Sweating and panting, Pat used his claws to help lift the disk and set it back down on the top of the entertainment center. He plopped himself next to it and lay on his back, exhausted. He heard the door open, and then there were footsteps approaching.
"You got it! I knew I could count on you!" Jei said as he walked into the room with a big bucket full of popcorn. Pat snorted. "I mean, it's not my fault I dropped the DVD, y'know? Now we can -" he stopped midsentence and looked down at Pat. "You scratched it! I thought I told you to be careful!"
"Relax, it'll still work," Pat said exasperatedly. He got to his feet. He was tired beyond belief and he actually didn't care very much whether it worked or not at this point.
"It'd better. I was so excited to watch this movie." Jei put the disk in the DVD player and the loading screen popped up. The movie started playing and Jei smiled. "Great!" He held out a hand and Pat climbed on. Jei put him on his shoulder and strode over to the couch. He plopped himself down and his huge belly jiggled.
Jeimuzu was a raccoon. He had long hair and a very fat belly, which sagged out in front of him. He almost never wore a shirt. He was stronger than he looked but behind the shady raccoon stripe on his face his eyes were good-natured. At the moment, he was absorbed in the love story playing out on the screen in front of him. Two furs had lost each other in an airport and all they wanted to do was to fly back to each other, though they had no wings.
Pat rolled his eyes and looked around. Pat was a penguin. He was normally close to the same size as Jeimuzu, and arguable larger around the middle, but at the moment he was tiny. Jei had convinced him to take a shrinking potion in order to get the movie he had dropped. Being who he was, Pat couldn't refuse. He was supposed to be the hero of the Central Park Zoo, although he wasn't exactly clear on how this was supposed to help make him a better hero. Jei said it would. Anyway, the potion was supposed to wear off in a little while, and so Pat just had to wait.
His own stomach rumbled and he looked toward the popcorn. He didn't say anything to Jei, but the smell was way too much for him to bear. He hadn't been offered any, but the scent of butter and salt made his mouth water. After watching only a little more of the unbearably slow movie, Pat began to climb down from Jeimuzu's shoulder.
Jei didn't notice. He was too absorbed in story playing out in front of him. He reached into the popcorn bowl and shoveled more popcorn into his mouth, and then went back for more. More often than not, a piece of popcorn would fall rack into the bowl or else onto the floor or couch around him. Jei paid it no mind.
Pat trekked across Jei's huge belly, which jiggled and bounced as it was fed, and when Jei laughed or breathed. It was a difficult journey but Pat had almost made it to the popcorn when a particularly large bounce sent him flying headfirst into the bowl. Pat was completely submerged in popcorn and everything was dark. The greasy, delicious smell was irresistible to his hungry belly and so he stayed exactly where he was, taking large nibbles of the glorious stuff around him. The popcorn was almost as large as he was, but that just meant that there was more for him to eat. He ate his fill and more, and then rested contentedly in the sea of popcorn as Jei continued to take from the pile on top of him.
He had closed his eyes and was almost asleep when his sense of weight was lost completely as he was lifted out of the bowl. Pat opened his eyes in confusion and yelped as he found himself flying straight toward Jei's open maw. He'd just touched down on the raccoon's tongue when Jei looked down and blinked. "Pat? What are you doing there?" he said with confusion. He dropped the remote and shifted to the side.
"You were about to eat me!" Pat said hotly. "Be more careful, would you?!" He was shivering despite the warmth of the room and the mouth in front of him.
"Wait a second. Were you . . . eating my popcorn?" Jei crossed his arms.
"Yeah. I was hungry," Pat said defensively. "You didn't offer me any, and I just figured - hey!" Jei's tongue shifted and licked him again, and he moved back, out of its way. "What are you doing?!"
"Sorry," Jei said, although he didn't sound sorry at all. He smacked his lips. His eyes focused on the TV, and he pointed. "Do you see that screen?"
It took a moment for Pat to understand what he was talking about. What about the screen? He didn't care about the movie, especially now. But he looked across the room and saw that the movie was jumping, as though the DVD were skipping. "Yeah? So?"
Jei sighed and held up a hand. Pat gratefully jumped on top, ready to be lowered back down to the couch, or to Jeimuzu's shoulder. Instead, Jei picked him up by the scruff of his neck and held him out in front of his face. "I thought I told you to be careful with the disk!" he said sternly. His stomach rumbled again, and he frowned. Pat didn't know what was going on but he didn't like the way Jei was dangling him He wriggled around, trying to get out from between Jei's fingers. "And look how much of my popcorn you ate! I told you I was hungry, and now I have less to eat! What are we going to do about that?"
"Maybe you should find something else to eat?" Pat suggested. His legs dangling and he wished for nothing more than to be put back on a solid surface.
"Y'know, I was just thinking the same thing," Jeimuzu said, grinning, apparently having come to some conclusion. "Maybe you can help me with that!"
Pat's eyes opened wide as he realized what Jei was talking about. He wriggled harder. "No. No way. That's not gonna happen. C'mon, we can talk about this! Put me down, Jeimuzu!"
Jei slurped over the front of Pat's feathery body again, and his stomach growled louder than ever. "What's there to talk about? I'm hungry, you taste good, and look at that, you're bite-sized! The strong eat the weak," he said simply. "And right now, I don't see how to you can be much weaker."
Pat stammered in response, unsure of what to say to, but then Jeimuzu plopped him into his mouth and his voice came back to him. "Jeimuzu! You stop that this instant! . . . I'll get you another movie! I'll get you more food! Just - argh!!"
He was tossed all around Jei's mouth, bouncing with the tongue as the raccoon sampled him. And boy, was he a real treat! Pat kept on with his pleading, but it was no use. Jei was hungry and Pat tasted too good. Besides, he'd eaten his popcorn and scratched his movie. What else was Jei supposed to do?
Pat felt the tongue twisting around him and he hoped that Jei was just playing, just fooling, just messing around. He couldn't really swallow him! He tried his hardes to get out of the wet, sticky mouth, but then the tongue moved upwards and the muscles of Jei's throat began to pull him down. He was being swallowed! Pat tried to hold on but his flippers weren't much use for that sort of thing. He couldn't stop himself from being drawn into the throat, which at this point was impossible to resist. It pounded all around him and pulled him deeper and deeper. In other circumstances, Pat would have found the feeling of the throat's massage enjoyable, but right now all he could think about was that he wanted out. He struggled some more, but that only made him slide down faster. He fell into Jei's belly, which was soft and broke his fall without doing any damage. He was welcomed with more pounding and bouncing, and he got up and hammered on the belly walls. This only felt all the better to Jeimuzu, who rubbed happily at his belly.
Jei sighed and stretched himself out. He looked disappointedly at the TV. He'd really wanted to see the ending of that movie. He searched around for the remote and realized that he was sitting on it. Wait a second . . . He pressed the play button and the movie started playing again. Of course! He'd just hit fast forward by mistake! He must have sat on the remote. He eagerly pressed rewind and the movie bounced back to where he had left off. He was about to press play when his hands flew to his belly. Something was growing inside. He gasped and breathed heavily as it grew larger and larger. He felt Pat returning to his normal size and he grunted as his stomach made room to accommodate its newly-sized meal. Pat gave a few weak struggles, but it was no use. It was way too cramped. He finally settled down and waited out his time.
Recovered, Jei pressed Play on the remote and sat back. He had a full belly and a great film, and it turned out there was still more popcorn in the bowl, which he began munching again to some light squirms from his stomach. There was no question about it - this was one of the best movie nights he'd had in a long time!