Caitlin.pdf

It was a warm summer afternoon and 16-year-old Caitlin was bored. Her parents were out and her older brother Tommy, 18, was lounging on the couch playing video games. Caitlin sighed in exasperation. "Ugh, how am I supposed to have any fun with you as a lump on the sofa?"

Tommy shrugged, eyes glued to the TV screen. "Find a hobby or something, I don't know. Not my problem you're boring."

Caitlin seethed. Typical Tommy, always so lazy and rude. A malicious idea formed in her mind. She had been sneaking into their eccentric inventor uncle's lab and playing with his gadgets. There was one device in particular that caught her eye - a shrink ray. She had used it to shrink her doll to the size of an ant for shits and giggles. But now, a far more entertaining target presented himself.

Caitlin crept into her room and grabbed the shrink ray from under her bed. Heart pounding, she tiptoed out and snuck up behind her unsuspecting brother. Before Tommy could react, she zapped him with the device. In a flash of green light, he began rapidly shrinking down, down, down, until he was no larger than a cricket.

"Whoa, what the hell?" Tommy squeaked in a high-pitched voice, waving tiny arms. "Caitlin, what did you do to me?!"

"Nothing much, just made you more proportional to your intelligence!" Caitlin stated smugly. "Have fun being smaller than a bug now, 'big' bro. I'll be sure to step on you extra hard if you annoy me again, mmmkay?"

Giggling evilly to herself, Caitlin went to grab a snack from the kitchen, leaving Tommy cowering against the couch leg. She munched on chips carelessly, popping them into her mouth as she surveyed her tiny, helpless sibling. A bit of food dribbled down her chin and plop! A chip fell, landing right on top of Tommy with a sickening crunch. His minuscule body crumpled beneath the weight of the snack.

"Oopsie," Caitlin sing-songed, not sounding very sorry at all. She stepped on the chip, grinding it into the carpet. "Guess I'll just have to be more careful next time. Wait..." A horrible realization dawned on her. "Moooom's coming home early!"

Panic rising in her throat, Caitlin scrambled to pick up Tommy's flattened form. But her brother had gone limp, his tiny body broken and bleeding from the chip crushing his thorax. "No no no, this can't be happening!" Caitlin shrieked. Frantically, she looked around for a place to hide him. Spying a dust bunny under the coffee table, she shoved Tommy's corpse inside just as she heard her mom's key jingle in the lock.

"Girls, I'm home!" Their mother called cheerfully as she strolled in, grocery bags straining her arms. Caitlin leapt up to help, mind racing. "Here honey, let me get those," she said, trying to keep her voice steady as she took the bags. Her mom smiled, kicking off her heels by the entryway.

"You're such a sweetheart, Caitlin. What would I do without you?" She stepped into the living room, eyes scanning around. "Tommy? Are you home, son? Your sister is so helpful and thoughtful. You could learn a thing or two from her you know."

Caitlin's blood ran cold as she watched in horror. Her mother's bare foot was mere inches from where Tommy's body lay hidden. "M-mom, wait! I mean, um, watch out for that dust bunny there, it's really dirty!"

But her warning came too late. Her mom's heel came down firmly, squishing the dust bunny - and the tiny corpse of Caitlin's brother. The girl let out a strangled sob, unable to hold it in any longer.

Tommy's mom whirled around, eyes wide. "Caitlin honey, what's wrong? Are you ok?" She went to embrace her distraught daughter, but Caitlin flinched away.

"You...you killed him!" The teen wailed, throwing herself on her knees by the spot where her brother met his end. "I shrunk him and then you stepped on him and you don't even know!"

"I don't understand," her mother said, brow furrowed in confusion. "You're saying...Tommy is...under the carpet? In the dust?"

Caitlin nodded miserably, tears streaming down her face. "I'm so sorry, I just wanted to teach him a lesson for being such a jerk and I didn't think and now he's gone and it's all my fault!"

Her mom sank to the floor beside her, pulling Caitlin into her arms as she sobbed. "Shh, it's going to be ok baby," she soothed, stroking her hair. "We'll figure this out. But that shrink ray...where did you get that from? It's not safe, you can't go around using it!"

"I know, I know," Caitlin wept. "I'm so stupid. I should've just taken his stupid video game away. I never meant for this to happen..."

She collapsed into full-body shaking sobs, the weight of what she'd done crashing down on her. Her mother held her, murmuring comfortingly. They would have to tell the police, and get rid of the shrink ray, and explain to their father, and oh god, her brother was really gone forever.

The sisters cried together on the carpet where Tommy had drawn his last breath, two lives irrevocably shattered by a cruel twist of fate and a careless act of teenage malice. The house that had once rang with sibling rivalry and love now echoed only with anguished sobs as the sisters mourned, and a brother was no more.