Leftovers (2023) (Patreon)

The story is written by the incredible author Mysterion1800. This will be a part of a whole Father's Day week worth of stories, leading up to Sunday. If you'd like to reach out, his socials are below:X: https://x.com/Mysterion1800?s=20Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mysterion1800/

It should have been a crime to get up this early for his school. Todd even had to leave the house before his father, who was usually out the front door for his construction job before six thirty. However, Todd’s Bachelor's degree wasn’t going to earn itself, though he had made a mental note to level a negative review of his teacher on RateMyProfessor after the class was done and dusted.

Half-asleep, Todd lumbered around the kitchen, throwing together his sack lunch. Going out to eat every school day was out of the question in this economy, and the less said about the quality of the cafeteria’s offerings, the better. Besides, his mother’s lasagna the previous night had been so amazing, Todd was surprised there were even leftovers, given both his own and his father’s voracious appetites.

Taking one slice and leaving the other for his father, who had the same strategy when it came to lunch arrangements, Todd placed his portion of the lasagna in a Ziploc bag before putting it in his lunch pail. He then left the kitchen, grabbed his backpack in the entryway, and walked out the front door and onto the porch, ready to head towards the bus stop on the next block over.

However, just before he stepped off the porch, Todd suddenly remembered he hadn’t put the last piece of lasagna back in the refrigerator. Already tensing from the potential long-winded lecture he’d receive from his father had he left his precious piece of lasagna out, Todd turned on his heels and walked back into the house, leaving his backpack and lunch pail on the edge of the porch, not noticing how both of them slowly fell into the bushes after he had closed the front door.

Todd then raced back into the kitchen as quietly as he could and grabbed the plastic container that still held his father’s inevitable lunch. However, the moment he lifted the container just a centimeter off the counter, Todd suddenly felt lightheaded, and his legs collapsed as he immediately lost consciousness.

Todd woke with a start as a massive crack of thunder split the air. A crack of thunder that strangely sounded like an exasperated sigh, but amplified a hundred times over.

Todd blinked repeatedly, trying to get his eyes to focus, which were still glazed from his sudden blackout. As he did so, another loud crack rattled Todd’s eardrums, only longer this time, and, to Todd’s utter bewilderment, unmistakably resembled words.

“GODDAMNIT, TODD. CAN’T BELIEVE HE LEFT THIS OUT.”

Todd, eyes still fluttering rapidly to kickstart his focus, threw his head back towards the sky. As his eyes finally stopped betraying him, his mouth fell open. Standing over him was Brad, his middle-aged father, already clad in his workwear. 

However, something was not right. Todd had spent a lot of his childhood playing with his Hot Wheels on the living floor, so his father looming over him like this was nothing he hadn’t seen before. But his perspective now did not look the same as it had when he was a boy. His father now appeared as if he was as tall as a giant, a notion made worse by the disgruntled expression on his father’s weathered face as he looked down, old eyes glaring daggers at his perceived lazy son.

“D-d-dad.” Todd stammered. “I didn’t mean to…”

“YOU BETTER HOPE THIS HASN’T BEEN LEFT OUT TOO LONG HERE, BOY.”

To confirm Todd’s worst fears, his father brandished a calloused hand the size of an airplane, pointer finger extended and quickly descending with ferocity towards his diminutive son as if to eradicate his only child from existence.

“Dad! No! Don’t! I’m sorry!”

Beyond panicking, Todd placed both of his hands on the ground to scoot himself backwards as quickly as he could to get away from his father’s final judgment. As his hands dove into what felt like cold mud and thick spiderwebs, which turned out to be refrigerated tomato sauce and melted cheese, Todd finally realized where he had woken up and why his father was now the size of a god. He had shrunk to the size of an ant on his father’s leftover slice of lasagna.

Using every ounce of adrenaline coursing through his veins, Todd pushed back hard on his hands and managed to move backwards, but only a couple of feet. At this point, death at the hands of his own father, who was suddenly murderous over a left-out lunch, was definitely certain. 

“Dad! St-!”

But Todd’s scream was silenced as his father’s finger impaled the lasagna. 

However, Todd was not dead. At least, not yet. By some miracle, his seemingly failed attempt to back away from his father’s crushing finger was somehow enough to spare him. This brought little comfort to Todd, though, as he watched his father’s pointer finger, inches away from his son’s gnat-sized body, sink deeper into the lasagna. He then heard his father scoff under his breath, which was clear as day to Todd’s small ears.

“BOY’S LUCKY,” mused Brad as he retracted his monument of a finger, now covered in tomato sauce and small slivers of ricotta, which he brought up to his lips to sample. “HE WAS ABOUT TO GET AN EARFUL FROM ME LATER.”

These words somehow stung more than anything Todd had heard since this nightmare began. It was now clear to him that his father, who even at the worst of times never attempted to so much as lay a finger, giant or otherwise, on his son when he was upset with him, was not suddenly willing to sacrifice his only child over a potentially squandered lunch after all. His father had simply not seen him on the lasagna. Todd had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

This revelation, nevertheless, unlocked a new concern for Todd. At this size, he was effectively invisible to his father. The likelihood of him getting his father’s attention, if it even yielded satisfying results, was extremely slim.

However, Todd had little time to dwell on this, as his father suddenly reached down somewhere beyond Todd’s sight and picked up something large, flat, and translucent purple. The lid to the container.

“What? Dad! No! Don’t leave me in here!”

But Todd’s pleas went unheard. With his calloused palm, Brad pushed down upon the lid, which snapped shut, sealing his tiny son inside. Todd then suddenly felt weightless as his father lifted the plastic container and placed it inside his own lunch pail. Through the translucent ceiling, Todd then watched his father place a blue ice pack on top of  the container, the air slowly becoming colder. To add to the already insurmountable feeling of helplessness overwhelming Todd, his father zipped the lunch pail shut, extinguishing all light and leaving his shrunken son in the steadily cooling darkness.   

Todd then felt weightless once more as his father lifted his lunch pail off the counter. However, as Brad walked through the house, out the front door, and towards his pickup, Todd’s dark world now swayed back and forth like a clock pendulum as his father took each step, the sound of his large feet slamming onto the ground even audible to Todd despite the layers of walls excluding him from the outside world. Todd held on tightly to the ropes of the cheese that, at least for now, helped him stay in place. 

As he felt the lunch pail being lowered down onto the passenger seat of his father’s pickup, as well as heard the biblical noise of the giant V8 firing up, Todd’s mind continued to race, wondering if there was even enough oxygen in the container to see him through this ordeal to lunch.

Todd didn’t know how long he had been inside the container. Although his clothes had somehow shrunken with him, he had forgotten to put on his watch that morning in his haste to get ready for school, and his cellphone was somewhere inside his backpack that his father somehow hadn’t seen as he left for work. The only ways he knew at least a decent amount of time had passed were the ice pack above the container was sweating condensation at an incredible rate and the oxygen inside the container was starting to get thinner. He supposed this was a better way to die than how most people in his current predicament would meet their maker, but this thought felt anything but consoling.

As he pondered, Todd heard the now familiar sound of giant footsteps approaching him. He had heard them on and off throughout the day as various employees, mostly men by the sound of their voices and steps, wandered past wherever his father had left his lunch pail. However, even at his current size, Todd could recognize his father’s own footsteps.

The hard surface the lunch pail sat on suddenly gave way to the nothingness of air again as his father picked up the lunch pail once more. Todd perked up at this, as he realized it must have been his father’s lunch break, which meant that not only would get a fresh new wave of breathable air, there would also be a slim chance he might be able to get his father’s attention again, though he still wasn’t holding his breath for that prospect.

A couple of minutes passed as Brad strolled somewhere on site to take his break. Todd could hear more voices now, meaning his father had evidently chosen not to have lunch alone. The bottom of the lunch pail touched down upon yet another flat surface, which was immediately followed by the loud, distinct noise of a zipper being undone and an overwhelming amount of bright light shining down harshly upon Todd and the rest of the pail’s contents. 

Todd held up his hands briefly to shield his eyes from the light, but quickly had to grab onto the grips he had made in the cheese coating the top of the lasagna as his father lifted the container out of the pail and onto a table in what looked like a makeshift breakroom. 

Before Todd could have a chance to soak up any more details of his surroundings, however, there was an enormous pop above him as well as a rush of clean air as his father had mercifully removed the container’s lid at long last.

Todd was about to take in a long, deep breath to relieve his lungs when his father picked up the container once more. Todd’s head darted upwards to see his godlike father’s face, whose brow was now slick with sweat and covered in grit and grime from the construction site. His eyes were also scanning all over the room in search of something, but they never once looked down at lunch, never mind his shrunken son.  

Knowing he had nothing to lose at this point, Todd built up whatever energy he could muster and yelled towards the heavens that was his father’s upper body.

“Dad! Down here!” 

But as Todd had feared, his father had not heard him yet again. In fact, based on how his eyes had finally locked onto something and a small satisfied smile took residence on his face, his father had clearly found what he was looking for.

“THERE WE GO,” Brad said to himself quietly as he began walking towards his desired destination.

Todd whirled around and immediately balked. His father was heading straight towards a microwave, evidently not content with having his lasagna cold. 

Todd immediately started hyperventilating. Of all the things he knew he stood a zero percent chance of surviving while this small, the microwave was one of them. His head snapped towards backwards his father’s face, stinging tears now suddenly flowing out of his eyes as if a facet had been opened.

“No! Dad! Don’t be put in the microwave. For God’s sake, don’t cook me! Please! Dad!” 

As usual, Todd’s father had still not heard. However, although his words were seemingly for naught, some deity above must have answered Todd’s pleas, as another construction worker, just as rugged and colossal as his father, suddenly stepped between Brad and the microwave.

“SORRY, MAN. MICROWAVE’S BUSTED. GAVE UP THE GHOST EARLIER THIS MORNING.”

Todd breathed an immense sigh of relief that was immediately drowned out by the ear-splitting sigh of annoyance from his titan of a father.

“FUCKING FIGURES,” Brad growled, this time not bothering to be heard by just himself.

Todd’s father then one-eightied and began sauntering back towards his lowly lunch pail. Todd, meanwhile, was beside himself for what felt like the millionth time that day. He had avoided being crushed by his father’s finger, survived several walks and a car ride, managed to get by with only a small amount of air in the container, and had just escaped being cooked alive.

“WELL, BETTER COLD THAN NOTHING AT ALL.”

Todd froze, his father’s words cutting into him like a thousand knives all at once. There was one thing he had yet to prevent. Getting out of his father’s lunch.

The container was lazily dropped onto the tabletop beside the lunch pail, which sent Todd briefly airborne, followed by the loud noise of Todd’s father’s rotund buttocks collapsing into a nearby plastic chair.

Collecting himself after his brief venture into the air, Todd finally attempted to stand on the top of the lasagna, which was difficult as it was anything but firm. 

“Oh, shit. Dad! Come on! You gotta see me now! You have to! Please!”

But Brad was too busy digging in one of the pockets of his lunch pail for something. Not that he would have noticed anyway.

Todd’s heart then stopped for what felt like ten seconds as his father fished out a metal fork from home out of the pocket. 

Fork now at the ready to claim its first helping, Brad finally looked down at the lasagna, not seeing his diminutive son among the spices in the tomato sauce. 

“THIS SHOULD STILL BE FUCKING GOOD.”

Then Todd’s father dived the fork into the lasagna.

“No!”

Todd immediately jumped out of the way as the tines of the fork missed him by inches, sinking instead into the lasagna and quartering off a jagged piece. Todd then looked over his shoulder as his father slid the fork beneath his freshly cut piece and lifted it out of the container and towards his face, his mouth agape and greedily waiting for its meal. 

Todd didn’t even want to look as he watched the first forkful be hovered into his father’s mouth, closing his eyes as he heard the wet squelches of the lasagna being torn apart and pulped into a bolus. He finally opened them again when he heard the meaty gulp of his father swallowing his first bite, just in time to see his father smacking his lips and opening his mouth slightly to emit an audible sigh of satisfaction.

“YUP. STILL FUCKING GOOD.”

What happened next was almost too fast for Todd to comprehend. Hungry for more, Brad brought his fork back down to the lasagna and sheared off another piece. A piece that contained Todd. “Oh, fuck.”

Todd was powerless to do anything as he watched the fork sliding out of sight towards the bottom of the container before it began lifting Todd’s piece gradually towards his father’s maw. 

Todd, feeling nothing short of completely mentally broken, turned to face his father as his godlike visage drew closer and closer until his piece was level with his father’s mouth. To add to the horror, Brad was now looking directly down at the lasagna, eyes almost perfectly locked on where his microbe of a son stood. Yet, even this close, no signs of recognition took hold in the giant father’s eyes.

Feebly, Todd let out more of a croak than a cry.

“Dad. It’s me. Todd! Your son. P-please. D-don’t e-e-at m-me.”

Brad’s immediate response was a quiet, at least to him, but foul-smelling belch that reeked of digested black coffee and lasagna, which washed over his tiny son like a shockwave from an explosion.

Todd’s hands quickly flew to his mouth and nose, trying his best not to vomit from the stench. However, his father then doubled down in only the worst way he could.

Softly, so no one else in the breakroom could hear, Todd’s father muttered to the lasagna and inadvertently to his shrunken son, “COME TO DADDY.”

Brad then opened wide, giving his son a glimpse into his mouth, the tongue, teeth, everything, coated in the remains of his first bite of lasagna. 

Todd let out another guttural scream as the fork then plunged him and the lasagna into the depths of his father’s mouth, which closed not long after, sealing Todd inside the dark and humid orifice. 

For a fraction of a second, everything was still. Todd spun towards where he thought his father’s lips might have been in the darkness, but was unable to move an inch further when the fork was suddenly extracted, and the chewing began.

It was pandemonium. Todd was thrown this way and that, hitting chunks of the lasagna as it was cut into pieces by his father’s powerful jaws. Several times, he found himself involuntarily swallowing both masticated bits of the lasagna and his father’s own saliva as it was forced into his mouth during every attempt at another cry for his father’s attention. He even bounced off the hard enamel sides of his father’s old and worn teeth numerous times.

Then, at long last, Todd was flung through the wet chaos and landed on his back on top of what felt like one of his father’s lower rear molars. Through the darkness, Todd had just enough time to make out his father’s upper rear molars as they loomed above him momentarily before beginning to crash down upon him with the force of a freight train.

“Daddy! St-”

Brad moaned quietly with pleasure as he finished chewing his second bite. Though he would have preferred it warmed up in the microwave, his wife’s lasagna was perfect no matter what temperature. He let the thoroughly shredded bolus rest on his tongue for a moment, taking in all of the flavor, including a small tinge of something he hadn’t tasted in the previous bite. This new addition, however, added rather than subtracted. 

With that notion, Brad finally swallowed, sending his second bite down into his waiting stomach, where it would help fuel him for the rest of that day’s shift. As he looked down at the final bite of leftover lasagna waiting for him, he sighed in frustration that his son had taken the other piece for his lunch. Hopefully, that little bugger of his was enjoying it as much as he had enjoyed this slice.