Gwen is my younger sister. Our parents died in a car crash when I was eighteen and she was fifteen. The insurance settlement gave us plenty of money to live on and for her to go to college, so they put her into my custody until she graduated from college. She was now in her first year of college and her best friend was Stella, a girl from Sweden attending school on a Visa. Now with the pandemic shutting down everything, I had to drive to her college and bring her and Stella back home. Fortunately, I was one of those Doomsday Preppers and we had enough food and other supplies to shelter in place at home for quite a while.
The pandemic started in Europe. People began shrinking. No one knew what was causing it at first and it took several months for the brainiacs to figure out it was a manmade virus, somehow released into the world. It turned out it was genotype specific and only affected people with strong Nordic heritage, such as people from Norway, Sweden and Germany. The victims shrank to a height of three feet to six inches, depending on the purity of their DNA. I first noticed it at breakfast one morning about a month after Gwen and Stella moved home. Stella was eating and her tank top strap kept slipping off her shoulder. I didn't say anything, but then when she finished eating and went to the sink to wash her dishes, I saw the cuffs of her jeans were bunched up and her clothes in general looked a little baggy. I decided to mention this to her, and she said she already knew. Over the next month, she continued to shrink. Gwen had always been into dolls, from the My Size Barbie to regular Barbies and her favorites, a collection of Hello Kitty dolls which were all six inches tall. Stella switched from the different size doll clothes until the shrinking finally stopped when she was about six inches tall.
By this time, Stella had adjusted to her new height. Gwen set up all the Hello Kitty dollhouse stuff and Stella moved into it. She and Gwen grew closer than ever, spending nearly every waking minute together while I managed the household, cooked and cleaned. Gwen had amassed quite a collection of Hello Kitty doll clothes which were made for dolls six inches tall, so Stella had plenty of outfits to wear. Finally, after a year the pandemic had run its course, and the world began to open up again. The world's governments, not wanting to have to manage several million miniaturized people, ruled that any of the victims too small to fend for themselves would be given the status of household pets and could be owned and cared for by the people who had been caring for them over the past year, or bought and sold at auctions for the ones who had been living in government institutions. I had registered Stella as my "pet" since Gwen still had to finish school and the tiny people were not permitted to be kept on campus for their own safety. So, Stella and I stayed home when Gwen left for college.
Stella was used to being carried around by Gwen most of the time, but since I was busy much of the time, we had to do something to ensure her safety and make it more convenient for her to get around on her own. First, I marked lanes on the floor where she would walk and I avoided. Then an elevator to the kitchen counter and one to the sink in the bathroom. A few ladders were placed in other places, such as to the top of the coffee table so she could watch television. I built a holder for the remote so she could push the control buttons to turn the TV on and off and to change channels. As people began to invent things for the virus victims' conveniences, I bought her a small refrigerator and table and chair that we kept on the kitchen counter, so she wasn't totally dependent on me if she got the munchies when I wasn't home. Also, a bathtub with miniature controls was attached to the top of the bathroom sink so she could take a bath, use the commode and brush her teeth. As the days went on, Stella had fully adjusted to her new life and with Gwen away at college, we began to get closer.
One day, about six months after Gwen went back to school, she called home. She said that it must be hard on Stella since she was gone. Probably feeling lonely and bored out of her mind. As we talked, I looked down at the coffee table and Stella was motioning for me to pick her up. I lowered my hand, palm up, onto the table and she climbed onto my hand. As I lifted her up, she peeled off her top and skirt and threw them to the floor, flashing me a mischievous grin. I smiled to myself and told Gwen not to worry........we're finding plenty of things to do to keep both of us occupied while she's gone..............
