Stories Big And Small

Roadtrips, portals, and other things (like being three inches tall)

Alana had had quite a few weird days in her life. There was the time she'd found out her ex boyfriend was cheating on her, with her friend Delaney's coworker, at said coworker's baby shower. Tthe time she and Delaney had missed their bus and ended up hitchhiking several hours with a former cult member. And the time Delaney had invited a random twitch streamer to join them on spring break.

Delaney was generally the common denominator when it came to weird events, actually. Alana had come to accept that about her friend years ago. At the very least, it made for some good stories (and a panic attack or two). Still, this day took the cake even by normal Delaney standards.

When Alana had gotten a call from her college friend two weeks ago asking if she wanted to go on a roadtrip to Washington State, she'd happily accepted. Her remote job meant she didn't have to worry about taking days off to travel. And life had been beginning to feel a bit boring lately. She'd thought a weeklong trip to the gorgeous Pacific Northwest was the perfect way to liven things up a bit - plus whatever hijinks Delaney ended up pulling them into.

What she hadn't thought was that she'd find herself standing in a field of grass far taller than she was, staring up at their now giant former friend who apparently wasn't human, next to a tropical beach on an island that wasn't supposed to exist.

Yeah, this one definitely takes the cake.

"Are you freaking out? Don't freak out," Theo said, crouching down to be closer to their height. He still towered over them. When he'd said they'd be three inches tall after going through the portal, she hadn't really conceptualized just how big everything - and everyone - else would seem in comparison.

"Just-just a little," Alana managed. She took a deep breath that was meant to be calming, looking around at her new surroundings. Where cars, skyscrapers, and the perpetual gloom of Seattle had sat moments before, an entirely different scene now lay. The field they were in stopped abruptly at a cliff, and beyond that, a thin, sandy beach, dotted by palm trees. The sun was starting to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in pastel hues. Behind her, there was what looked to be the start of a suburban neighborhood. If suburban neighborhoods were usually full of tropical plants, free of cars, and composed of nearly endless varieties of architecture making up the houses as opposed to cookie cutter buildings.

"I guess that's to be expected," Theo replied.

"A kiddy pool. That's a strange place for a portal," Delaney said casually. She was taking this all pretty well, it seemed.

"Precisely," Theo replied. It was then that another individual fell into the field, appearing from seemingly thin air just as they had.

"Jack. Took you long enough," Theo said. Jack was a friend of Theo's, and by that Alana meant, also not human. She and Delaney had only met the man a few hours prior, but Theo said he'd known him for several years and they could trust him.

Hopefully we can trust Theo, Alana thought. Earlier that morning, when Delaney mentioned meeting up with their old friend, she never would have questioned whether or not she could trust him. The three of them had been pretty close in college, and it was only time and distance that had resulted in them drifting apart. At one point she'd even thought she knew about everything going on in his life. That was decidedly not the case.

"I was making sure no one was watching," Jack said, drawing himself to his feet and dusting himself off. "So, how long do you think they'll have to stay here."

"Couple days, maybe," Theo said. "Until that detective gets bored."

Right. As if everything else that had happened hadn't been enough, there was that. The fact that Delaney and Alana had ended up right in the middle of a black market art trade investigation. Something they had absolutely no involvement in, but Theo apparently did.

God, I really know how to pick friends, Alana thought.