Samantha Klein checked her phone. 4:00 AM. She yawned cavernously, and glanced at the pile of textbooks, paper and her laptop, open to a dozen tabs.
She stood, stretched, and decided to go out for a run.
She glanced in her fridge first. Water, water, fruit juice, some bread and vegetables. No coffee.
"Of course not." she yawned again. She shook her head sharply, pulled on a jacket and left her dorm room for a run.
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Fifteen hours later Samantha trudged into a small cafe near her dorm, Gull Coffee, with her backpack feeling like lead on her shoulders, and slumped into a booth near the back of the sparsely populated independent cafe. She opened her backpack, pulling out her laptop and a couple of textbooks, dropping them with a thunk on the table.
She then double-checked the paper schedule caught in one of the books, and sighed.
She staggered to her feet, and trudged to the counter. The barista (also the apparent owner of the cafe), wore a green sweater that fit close to generous curves, and a deep grey apron with 'Gull Coffee' embroidered on it, and a name tag reading 'Marta'.
"What can I getcha?" she asked. "We have some new pastries, fresh out of the oven!"
She pointed at the pastry case, which had a bunch of various pastries, cupcakes, even a small cake or two. Sam licked her lips, but shook her head.
"No, I try to limit my sugar and fat intake. Um, do you have diet options?" Sam asked.
Marta looked disappointed but shrugged. "Sure. We have nut milk, we have a few different kinds of milk and I have just gotten this new Apifer Honey, it's supposed to help with losing weight. Though you don't look like you need it at all." she said.
"I'll uh, have the honey cappuchino then." Sam said.
"Sure. Give me a sec, kiddo." Marta said. "Feel free to take a seat at your table, I can bring it out to ya when its ready." she said.
Sam nodded, tiredly, and trudged back to her seat to wait.
She hauled the books and her laptop out of her pack with an exhausted sigh, sorting them out and grabbing the wrinkled paper that had her test schedule.
She glanced up as the light from the setting sun went dark, and started when she realized Marta had walked up to her practically unheard, holding her coffee.
"Long day?" she asked.
Sam nodded. "Two all-nighters. I think I got the worst of it over though."
"Glad to hear it, you look positively starved." Marta said.
"I'm fine. Mostly. Just sleep-deprived." Sam said.
"Well, if you want anything else, let me know." Marta said, then walked away.
"Sure." Sam answered, and took a sip of the oddly-flavored cappuccino as she focused on her study.
She winced, the sweetness novel after years of avoiding sugary food and drinks, and the honey clashing oddly with the coffee.
Her stomach growled, and she glanced at the pastry display, but shook her head and looked back at her textbooks, remembering she had healthy food at her dorm.
She drank the entire cup of coffee over the course of about half an hour, and yawned. Surely she could rest her eyes a little until the coffee kicked in...
She lay her head on her textbook, and closed her eyes.
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She slept, head pillowed on her book. Over the next few minutes, she seemed to shift, her hands, arms folded under her head, began to shift, her sleeves seeming to get looser, and the collar of her dress shirt got a little looser as well.
Her head seemed to slip back away from her original position.
Bit by bit, she seemed to grow smaller, until her legs were dangling over the floor, one of her tennis shoes slipping off her feet, along with a sock.
Her head was barely on the table, before she slipped and shifted in her sleep to curl up in her increasingly oversized clothes.
Her feet slipped finally out of both her shoes, pulling up into her pant legs.
A few minutes later, the unstable pile of clothes slipped off the booth seat and onto the floor.
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Sam jolted awake to the sensation of falling, and opened her eyes, blearily looking around, trying to remember when she'd fallen asleep, and figure out why it was so dark. She was lying on something soft, and there was a strong odor of sweat.
She stood up, head bumping on fabric, and she pushed up trying to get some space. Light shone through the weave of the fabric, and she pushed her way through the space.
She felt the floor under her bare feet and hands. It felt odd. Covered in lumpy fabric. Then she pushed through an opening and into warm light.
A cool breeze brushed across her skin, and she realized she was entirely naked. She slapped her arm over her chest and a hand over her crotch with a squeak. She was on smooth wood, and something nearby loomed over her, a bunch of cyclopean shapes she had trouble identifying.
She stared at a nearby shape, and realized that it was a tennis shoe.
Her
tennis shoe. Now the size of a car.
She looked up, seeing the underside of a wooden table, and the bench seat she'd been seated on, her empty clothes having slid off it in a pile, apparently with her inside it. Her backpack was resting against the desk.
She was barely taller than her shoes. She heard footsteps, and at her size, they seemed to shake the room. She scurried deeper into the booth, hiding under the edge of the bench.
She saw a pair of towering legs, slacks and the hem of a skirt, and tennis shoes, blotting out the light from the overhead lights.
"Where did she go" The woman asked, her voice was loud, distant and blocked a little by the table and the chairs.