Kent was excited. The gray wolf had gotten a new mobile game for free from the developer. His friends had to pay ten bucks for it. It was called Scale Stepper. Size changing apps were the hit new craze since changing size through your phone became more viable. All you had to do was set the size you want to be, then start walking. You could walk your way to a new size.

He was fiddling around with the settings. The smallest you could go was a millimeter. The largest was a mile in height. Larger sizes were locked behind a paywall. Typical. He had a chuckle at the ‘steps to size’ setting. He could set it to as little as two steps. The default was fifty. The app was fairly simple in premise. There was a button to stop the size changing. A small red x tucked away in the corner.

He currently had it set to an inch with like fifty steps. The default settings. He hadn’t started it yet. Kent was thirsty. The wolf walked over to the sink to get a cup of water. The cool water slid down his throat with ease. A second cup sounded nice. The water was still running.

Suddenly, Kent let out a hard sneeze. Stupid dust. As if it was slow motion, he watched as his phone dropped into the sink. he scrambled to get it out from the running water. He tried to dry it off with a paper towel. Too late. The water was messing with the screen. It was glitching out like crazy. He hoped it wasn’t too broken. Maybe sitting in rice overnight would fix it.

Out of rice. Problem. The wolf looked back to his phone. He was suddenly reminded of what app he had running. Scale Stepper. With his feet planted firmly, he tried to make out what the app was set to. In between the flashing from the glitching, it seems the app was running. One inch. Ten steps. Not good. He couldn’t stop the app in the phone’s glitchy state. Kent needed a plan. Maybe if he just sat down on the couch, he could wait for the phone to dry out by itself.

One good hop could get him to the couch. Living in a studio apartment had its privileges. He crouched. Pushing his legs hard, the wolf propelled himself towards his couch. His landing was off. Turns out the leap counted as a step. As did the landing. The third step to catch his balance was not a great help. He watched as the world expanded around him rapidly. Embarrassingly, his shorts fell right off. His shirt fell to his knees. He landed on his much larger couch face first. One of his feet grazed the ground. He groaned in annoyance as his shirt went halfway past his calves.

Finally. Relaxed on the couch. He laid down on it. The couch felt much softer at this size. His tv was turned on to the weather channel. He wanted to change it. Unfortunately, the remote was under the tv, and far too many steps. He would use up the last six of his steps before even making it back to the couch. Time to feign interest in the weather for awhile. A knock at the door. He forgot he was having lunch delivered. “I got pasta for Kent!” the voice shouted. “Just a second!” Kent shouted back. How was he going to get his food? he had to get creative.

He knew this was inevitable. He had to get his feet on the floor. He swung his feet around, gingerly placing them on the floor. His shirt was now only a hair above his ankles. Carefully, he slid across the floor. No shrinking. Finally! Happily, he slid over to the door. He was now eye level with the doorknob. He reached up for the knob and opened the door. It was Cameron. The usual delivery mouse. He was on the short side at four foot ten. At least he used to be. Now Kent was staring into the chest of the confused mouse. Cameron stood there with the paper bag. He awkwardly handed the bag to the diminished wolf. With a wave, Kent closed the door. He shuffled back to his couch, leaving a confused mouse in the hallway.

The wolf pushed his bag onto the couch cushion he wasn’t sitting on. He pulled himself up onto the other cushion. He used one of his feet to balance himself. When he got onto the cushion, his shirt was know covering his whole body. His hands barely stuck out of the sleeves. He wiggled his upper half through the neck hole. He pulled the bowl out of the bag, and in front of himself. It was penne noodles swimming in a thick and cheesy tomato sauce. His favorite. All this shrinking had him starving.

He wondered though. How often is he gonna be able to enjoy this pasta while shrunk. He shook his right leg a couple times. He had a really dumb idea. The rectangular bowl was as wide as his arms. Kent stood up and stomped a few times. The bowl was as long as he was tall. He gave one more good stomp before jumping into the bowl.

The pasta dish was enormous! The penne noodles were as big as the couch once was. Swimming in the thick sauce was an experience to behold. He didn’t know food could be this much fun while small. A shrinking app experience gone wrong had turned out into an interesting day. He wondered how much more fun he could have.

It took Kent a moment to realize he was trying to swim around on his couch, covered in sauce. He looked over to his phone on the other end of the couch. He slapped his forehead hard. In all of his panic, it seemed that the gray wolf forgot one crucial detail.

The app ran on a timer.