Prologue Chapter 1 (Last Edited: 3/17/2022)
June 2, 2020
It was a hot Summer afternoon over the I-95 bridge across Lake Marion.
Jack Delano Jager was an average-looking college student. He had long curly blond hair that hadn't been cut since he was in high school. He kept it well-groomed, though, so rather than being mistaken for some homeless weirdo, people often assumed he was in a band or perhaps a surfer. His eyes were a greenish-blue, although you wouldn't know that with his glasses on. He wasn't overweight by any measure, but a decade of inactivity followed by four months of semi-regular workouts had left him a little flabby. He had just finished his junior year at Coastal Carolina University and was driving his Honda CR-V home for Summer Break after spending the month of May studying abroad in Italy.
"I can't wait to get home!" Jack thought, grinning excitedly as his favorite section of the song Jesus of Suburbia blared from his CD player. "Mom and Dad are going to be so proud to hear that I've made the Dean's List again. I hope they like the souvenirs I brought back from Italy! It'll be nice to see Shawn and Bryce too. I'm sure the Carney's will appreciate us visiting together. I just hope I don't have to see Yuri. Though dealing with her might be better than having Mark glare at me all Summer. Not that their hatred isn't deserved"
Sighing, he glanced out the window at the dark blue waters of Lake Marion. "God, I hate driving so close to the water," he thought, shuddering at the idea of his car plunging into the depths.
Looking back at the road, he was blinded by a bright light and slammed the brakes. The first thing he noticed when the light faded was that his vision had blurred. He took his glasses (which felt strangely large in his hands) off and was astonished to find that he could see with the same clarity as when he was a child. He was even more surprised to see everything was in technicolor. The next thing he noticed was the cars in front of him crashing into each other. Thinking quickly, he tried to break again, only to make a final realization; he couldn't reach the pedals. He looked down and was shocked to find that his legs had shrunk and immediately noticed his line of sight had lowered as well. Looking out the window, he saw his car was slowly turning toward the bridge's guard rail. He quickly turned the steering wheel, unbuckled his seatbelt, and jumped on the brake to avoid crashing. Once the CR-V stopped, he reached up, shifted the gear to park, and looked to the back seat. "Ok, my turtles are alright," he thought, upon spotting the 4 small reptiles shuffling around in their tank.
Feeling a strange sensation on his tongue, he spat out three pieces of resin and two pieces of silver. "Are those my fillings?"
"Wait a minute, I can see without my glasses, I've shrunk, I sound like a child, and everything looks like a cartoon. I know what's going on; this is a dream!" he said with a laugh.
Reaching into his pocket, he fished out a small pocket knife with his name engraved into the side. Flipping the blade out, he sliced open his left hand, hoping to wake himself up. "FUCK!" he shouted in pain.
Holding up his bleeding hand, Jack screamed, "Holy shit! That actually hurt."
As he watched the blood flowing from his hand, it finally hit him. "Wait, if I actually felt pain, then this isn't a dream!"
After a full minute of debating whether or not this could be real and wrapping his hand with gauze from his emergency kit, he finally hopped out of his car and tripped on the asphalt. "OW!" Jack shouted. "This tiny body is going to take some getting used to."
As he got to his feet, his clothes began to slip off. "I guess they are too big for me now," he thought, clenching his pants in his tiny fists.
Scanning his surroundings, he could see dozens of crashed vehicles and ran to the nearest one to check for survivors. When he made it to the first vehicle (a white Ford Transit), he found no trace of its owners other than two Santee Cooper uniforms in the front seats. Checking the back of the van, he found it locked. He examined several other wrecks finding no trace of the drivers apart from scattered clothes. "Where is everyone?"
"I should call mom and tell her I'm going to be late," he decided. She'll never believe this in a million years!"
He dialed her number, "The number you have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this message in error, please check the number and call again."
"Shit!" Jack exclaimed. "What about Dad?"
"The number you have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in serv…"
"Mark?" He thought while dialing his little brother's number.
"The number…"
"DAMN IT!" Jack shouted.
This went on for several minutes as he tried to contact his Grandma, his Grandpa, and all his friends with the same result each time. Finally, it occurred to him to contact the police.
911
"The number you..."
"What the hell?" Jack asked himself.
Eventually, he decided to walk to the nearby town of Santee to find help. After about an hour of walking past crashed cars, he reached the town to find it too was deserted.
"What's happening? This can't be real!" he exclaimed in dismay. "IS ANYONE HERE!"
As he continued walking through the town, he began to ask himself. "Is this the rapture? Were those fundamentalist freaks right? Dear God, I'm sorry I chose the wrong denomination. I'll be a Baptist, a Pentecostal, whatever you want, just please don't leave me behind!" he prayed. "What the hell am I doing? There has to be a rational explanation for this."
In a last-ditch effort, he tried the police station only to find it empty. By this point, he was getting hungry. He made his way to a nearby Cracker Barrel and helped himself to some catfish filets.
Going into the bathroom, he couldn't help but get a look at himself in the mirror. Sure enough, he looked exactly how he did in second grade. His hair, while still curly, was as short as most boys kept their hair. His flabby body had shifted into the skinny, practically androgynous form of prepubescence. His teeth had shifted back to the positions they were in before he got braces too.
Afterward, Jack decided to gather some supplies and head back to his car. He found his way to a Family Dollar and stole a backpack, clothes that fit him, five bags of beef jerky, and a twelve-pack of root beer. As he was on his way back to his car, he noticed a kid-sized bike on the side of the road. "Oh, thank God, I'm not going to have to walk the whole way back!" he exclaimed in relief.
He arrived at his car twenty minutes later, completely exhausted. Turning on his old iPhone 6, he opened Safari. "Surely something about this will be in the news," thought Jack.
When he tried to check the news, he found that he was unable to access the internet. "That's strange. I'm getting plenty of cell service. The internet should be working fine,” he thought.
He tried again without any luck. "This doesn't make any sense. I haven't used much data this month, so it can't be that, plus I have unlimited data, not to mention my phone is showing that it has service. How is this possible?" Jack pondered
He looked up from his phone and saw it was getting dark. He checked the time, 8:17 PM. Realizing he wasn't going anywhere fast, Jack got back into his car and started to eat his beef jerky. At about 9:30, he decided to make one last attempt at getting rescued. He pulled a flare gun out of his emergency kit and shot it into the sky. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to see it.
He could feel the stress of the day starting to get to him. As the tears began to well up in his eyes, he was at least able to take comfort in the fact that no one was around to see his incoming meltdown.
Hours later, with all hope of rescue lost, he pulled the blanket out of his emergency kit and went to sleep.
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Okay I see this is your first go. Youre learning. Im going to keep looking for a bit. Im betting that over time youve grown.
10521119
Thanks for deciding to give my story a try. I hope you find it to be at least somewhat enjoyable.
Clearly, he should've been a Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist, Great Lakes Region (Council of 1879).
Constructive criticism time:
It's an okay start to the story, but the block with all the info about the main character at the start didn't really feel necessarily and detracted from the flow of the story.
In my opinion, you could leave it out and maybe sprinkle parts of what you described there throughout the story, wherever relevant.
10915702
Alternatively, you could create a character bio card, where you put this info, but I don't think that FIMFiction lends itself well to those kinds of things. You see tose more often on sites like DeviantART.
I have one minor criticism: show, don't tell.
To explain what I mean, take the fairly lengthy exposition of the main character at the start of the chapter. The physical description was perfectly fine, no problems there whatsoever. The rest of the exposition could be used later on to slowly bring the character's beliefs and personality traits to light. Think of it as an opportunity to keep the character a little mysterious to keep the readers guessing. The reason this is often a good idea is if you say too much right at the start some folks will invariably be turned off by one trait or another.
Let's take the political stance for example. Most folks don't like talking about politics because almost nobody can agree on them. When I read the part about him being a leftist it irritated me because I became concerned that this would be a politically charged story with the author trying to push and preach about why their beliefs are right and everyone else's are wrong. It happens quite often. I'm a Libertarian (moderate extreme, for clarification), but you didn't need to know that. It's the same with the character, display his choices as being in-line with leftists without explicitly stating them.
A good example of this would be when he went to the Police Station and found it empty. Many people would have taken advantage of that and grabbed a firearm and ammunition or even mentioned it. The main character did neither of those things and instead headed off to Family Dollar for supplies. That is an excellent example of 'Show, Don't Tell'. It shows that his priority was not to obtain a weapon and did not even think about it, which is in-line with leftist mentality.
I hope this helps. Apologies if I offended, it was not my intention.
11081821
No worries. I know exactly what you mean and I’ve been meaning to edit that down for a while now.
Seems like a pretty good start. The grammar and spelling are good. Jack checking if he was sleeping by taking a knife to the palm of the hand seemed a bit excessive. Other than that nitpick, it's a good start!
11104052
I’ve always found that when I realize I’m dreaming in-dream self-harm wakes me up, but your nitpick is noted