Mark was alone. With his father at work, John at a college class and Matt out with friends, Mark finally found that he had the house to himself.
         It was summer in Spurville, and Mark realized that this would be the last summer before his Senior year in High School and he wanted to make the best of it. His friends were all busy today; with their little brothers and sisters or summer jobs. So Mark was searching for something to do.

         The telephone rang.

         It was his father. As Mark brought the receiver to his ear he could only hope that it was something to do, something to save him from boredom.
         "Could you go up to the attic for me and see if we still have my old blueprints of the Borton Hotel? It was an old project that we had built when you guys were still kids but my client wants me to show him what types of things we can do. It should be in a labelled cardboard box - call me if you find it." After Mark had told him that he would look, his father hung up the phone on the other end and Mark, full of enthusiasm having been given a task to complete, turned off the television, changed into actual clothes rather than pajamas, and headed up to the attic.
         It was dark and dusty and Mark fumbled over boxes and chairs and things as he made his way to the window to pull open the curtains. Sunlight bathed the dank attic. Light silhouetted off of an old, gold-painted lamp so that Mark had to move to save his eyes from the blinding light. He swiftly moved about the attic, searching for some box labelled with his father's name (Eric) or anything to do with his contracting company.
         As he was about to turn and leave the attic, ready to tell his father that he couldn't find it, his eyes caught sight of a rather large object with a sheet draped over it. Curiosity pulled Mark toward it passed an old armchair. He pushed some things out of his way, making enough space for him to move about comfortably without having to step over things. He removed the dusty sheet to have a look at this strange object.
         It was a long silver object pointing downward toward the floor. It was big at the back and got narrower at it got toward the end and at the very tip, seemed to be a tiny ball of glass or plastic, Mark couldn't tell. On the back, was a console, with many buttons and a small screen that was displaying the word "Automatic". Mark stepped back, standing in line with the tip completely unaware that he was standing on a circular pad that was connected to it.
         In a second, the tip shot upwards to face him and Mark was to stunned to move. The tiny spherical tip was starting to glow a very vivid blue, before that same blue light filled Mark's vision.

         ...Mark had no idea where he was. He stood up after what seemed like hours of lying on the floor, starring at a vast brown something that stretched thousands of feet above him. He stood and in that instant realized what had happened. He had shrunk, obviously from the strange machine that was pointing toward the floor again with no trace of blue light anywhere. He was only...