The Sphere (2024) (Patreon)

Written by the incredible Mysterion1800, The Sphere is the fourth story in our Father’s Da

y week.

This is also another collaboration featuring photos from the late Cole Tenor, who was gracious enough to allow their use. This release is shared in his memory.

You can find Mysterion1800 here:X: https://x.com/Mysterion1800?s=20Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mysterion1800/

“Dude! Stop looking through that shit! Dad told us not to!”

Charlie didn’t respond. He kept sifting through the box, not even bothering to look at his brother Sam. Sam stepped closer to him, peering over his own shoulder at the back door to make sure their father wasn’t about to walk in on them.

“Seriously, Charlie”, Sam hissed. “Dad’s going to flip his lid if he sees this box is still in the house, let alone you rummaging through it.”

“Just give me a minute”, nagged Charlie, still not looking at Sam. “Mom always kept this box out of reach before she bounced, and I’m not going to throw it out not knowing what was in here.”

Sam took another nervous glance at the back door before leaning in even closer to Charlie.

“Dad said it himself. It’s just some freaky shit Mom was into before they got married,” said Sam quietly as Charlie’s hands passed over several objects not out of place in some new age shop.

At last, Charlie found something that caught his interest. It was a ruby red glass sphere. He pulled it out of the box and held it aloft for Sam and himself to see better, the light from the living room ceiling fan making the sphere appear as if it were glowing.

“Bet I could sell this on eBay and make some decent cash,” muttered Charlie.

Sam scoffed. All this risk just so he could sell something? He opened his mouth to retort, but was cut off by a beam of red light that suddenly illuminated both him and Charlie. A light that came from the ruby sphere. At first, Sam thought  it was merely the light from the ceiling fan shining through, but the longer he and Charlie gazed at it, the more he realized that the sphere was actually glowing now and producing the beam of red light entirely on its own.

“What the fu–”

In less time than it took to take a breath, Sam and Charlie unceremoniously shrank. The ruby sphere, which remained normal-sized, dropped onto the tabletop and began to roll ominously towards the edge.

Sam and Charlie, now the size of common ants, both whirled around frantically, taking in their new surroundings.

“What the fuck did you do?!” demanded a bewildered Sam.

“Me!?” replied Charlie, highly affronted despite their situation. “All I did was touch the thing! I di– What the fuck is that?!”

A loud noise analogous to rolling thunder rumbled above Sam and Charlie. Both looked up and saw the ruby sphere, roughly the size of a small planet, begin to roll over the edge of the table above them.

“Move!”

His fraternal instinct ignited, Sam grabbed Charlie by the shoulder and threw both himself and Charlie somewhere off to the side of the sphere’s growing shadow. With the force of a meteorite, the sphere crashed onto the floor, practically inches from Sam and Charlie, who were now lying in a heap. Despite being made of glass, the sphere did not shatter. Instead, it bounced a few times before continuing to roll.

Sam and Charlie looked behind themselves and watched in horror as the sphere rolled through the open door to the basement, disappeared from sight, and bounced down the steps, landing God only knows where in their excessively cluttered basement.

“Fuck,” said Charlie, almost flatly.

There was then a pregnant pause before Sam finally spoke, his voice shaking.

“We need to go down there.”

Charlie’s head snapped violently towards Sam.

“What?! Why?!”

Sam looked over at Charlie incredulously.

“Because that thing did this to us, and it’s probably the only thing that will, well, unshrink us.”

“No way”, said Charlie, throwing his hands before getting to his feet, not bothering to help Sam onto his own. “I’ve seen this exact movie before, and going to the basement is just going to get us killed.”

“Well, what else can we do?!” Asked an incensed Sam as he stood up.

“Get Dad’s help,” replied Charlie, as if it were the only sensible option.

Sam turned a pale shade of white. “What?! At this size?! We probably look like bugs to him. He’d just ki–”

“BOYS? YOU OKAY? THE FUCK WAS ALL THAT NOISE?”

Sam and Charlie spun around. The back door was now open, and standing in front of the doorframe, overwhelmingly backlit by the sun outside, was their father, Steve. He was wearing a hoodie, black jeans, and gray Wellington boots, his usual yard work attire when the weather started to get cold. He was also now the size of a titan to his now diminutive sons.

Sam felt his legs weaken. Charlie gulped loudly.

“Holy shit.”

Sam and Charlie continued to gawk at their father as he toed off his Wellington boots, his bare feet rising out of them with a loud wet suction noise before crashing down on the hardwood floor. Steve had been out back for only an hour or two, but even on a colder day, he still sweated like a pig.

Steve took a few steps forward, causing his sons’ small world to tremble as he did so. Sam and Charlie could see there was a look of concern upon their father’s face as he scanned the room. However, Steve’s face contorted with annoyance when his eyes fell upon the open box of his ex-wife’s abandoned belongings. Then, as he spotted the open front door and heard nothing that indicated his sons were still in the house, Steve became downright angry.

“STUPID KIDS,” he muttered, though to his tiny sons, it still cracked through the air like thunder. “TOLD THEM THEY COULDN’T LEAVE UNTIL THEY GOT RID OF ALL THIS SHIT.”

Steve began to approach the table, utterly oblivious to the fact that he was heading straight towards his ant-sized sons. His feet, still damp with sweat, slapped onto the hardwood floor with each step, leaving barely discernible wet footprints behind. At least, barely discernible if you weren’t the size of Sam and Charlie.

As their father closed in, Sam froze. Being shrunk and almost crushed by the falling sphere was one thing. But seeing his father the size of an eldritch being completely broke him. His lip trembled, and his eyes started welling with frightened tears.

Charlie, on the other hand, was frantic. He grabbed Sam by the arm and tried pulling him forward, hoping they might avoid their father’s feet better if they ran at him as opposed to away from him.

“Sam! We need to get out of here now!”

But Sam was anchored to the spot.

“D-d-da-dad” was all that came out of his mouth.

Charlie then felt a shadow wash over him and Sam. He looked up to see his father’s right foot descending upon them, the sole slightly pruned from its own sweat. Steve, anger still etched on his face, didn’t even think once to look down at where he was stepping, his attention glued to the box Charlie was supposed to have thrown out.

“Fuck!” screamed Charlie, beginning to run with reckless abandon and leaving his older brother to fend for himself.

But Charlie didn’t get far. His father had just unceremoniously stepped on both of his sons simultaneously, not even aware one thing was underfoot, let alone two, and let alone who. 

Steve looked down at the contents of the box, his frown becoming, somehow. more pronounced. He was not really sure who or what he was mad at more. The memory of his bitch of an ex-wife, or his sons, who as much as he loved them unconditionally, sometimes drove him further up the wall than his ex did, especially on occasions like this. 

Sighing with annoyance, Steve folded the tabs of the box, closing it as much as he could. He would make Sam and Charlie throw it in the dumpster the second they came home, and he was going to stand there and watch them do it. He closed both the basement door and the front door before heading down the hall towards his bedroom, wanting to relax both his body and his anger.

Charlie, somehow, was not dead. At least, not yet. But that wasn’t due to a lack of trying on his unaware father’s part. Charlie, stuck to his father’s sole as a result of his father’s foot sweat, felt his entire body ache as he was repeatedly smashed into the hardwood floor every time his father took a step, his father’s full body weight threatening to burst his body like a grape each time. 

Charlie did not know where he was on his father’s sole, but he knew Sam couldn’t have been far. He tried to call out to his brother as his father’s foot swung through the air to take a step, but only the loud sound of air being displaced by his father’s foot answered, followed by a crashing boom as his father’s sole contacted the floor.

Steve grabbed his tablet from his nightstand shortly before lying down on his back on his bed, crossing his feet at his ankles for good measure. Already, he felt his anger subsiding as his body welcomed the comfort of his bed. He then sat up a little and pressed the home button of his tablet. He was immediately greeted by his wallpaper, a photo of Sam, Charlie, and himself at Legoland when Sam and Charlie were little. Mercifully, his ex had taken the photo, so cropping was not necessary. 

Although he was still annoyed with Sam and Charlie not obeying him no less than twice in the same day, Steve couldn’t help but smile, just a little. If anything good came out of his previous marriage, it had been his boys. 

Steve then proceeded to unlock his tablet and become engrossed in his daily crossword puzzle on his favorite app.

Charlie, meanwhile, finally had a reprieve. While the pungent scent of his father’s hardworking feet still lingered in his nose and lungs, he now had much cleaner air to breathe, and his body, no longer under threat of being squished into a pulp, began to relax. He was still dazed from the repeated impacts, however, and it took a moment for him to remember he was not alone in this ordeal. “Sam?” he asked, shouting as much as his lungs would allow. “Are you okay?”

Silence. Just the distance tapping of his father’s giant finger on his tablet screen.

Figuring Sam would’ve likely been above him somewhere, Charlie stretched his neck upwards towards his father’s toes. His heart dropped what felt like ten thousand feet.

On the ball of his father’s foot was Sam. At least, what little remained of Sam after his father’s brief walk from the living room to his bedroom. In fact, so little of Sam was recognizable at this point, that Charlie would not even have known it was his brother had he not known his brother had shrunk with him.

Charlie’s mouth was agape. He didn’t even think he was capable of ever closing it again. His father had accidentally killed his brother, and Charlie was the reason why that had happened. If only he hadn’t gone against his father’s wishes and his brother’s warning, he and Sam wouldn’t have shrunken, and Sam would’ve still been alive.

More still, that damn ruby sphere was down in the basement somewhere, and he had no way of getting it. He wasn’t even sure if it would’ve even helped Sam and him. If by chance they managed to find and touch the sphere, it might have shrunk them even further to a microscopic size. As tears began pouring out of his eyes, Charlie thought he would’ve preferred it that way. 

Even if it was possible to grow back, Charlie didn’t think he’d have the stomach to tell his father about what had just happened. He could now only hope that his father somehow crushed him next, and that it would be, at the very least, quick and merciful.