To her credit, Alison doesn't shriek in fear at what she had just witnessed.  However, she does retreat from the doctor, frantically pushing her way backwards to the opposite side of the mattress on her heels and elbows and climbing the slight elevation towards the head of the hospital bed.  She stops just before reaching the edge as if sensing that she was this close to falling off the side.

After everything that she has seen so far, Alison still doesn't trust her senses.  This could be another development to her hallucinations becoming progressively worse.  Whereas everything had originally just seemed to be out of scale, now it looked like things were becoming distorted.

"What did you just do?  What are you?!" she managed to squeak out between gasps of breath.

Her attention was divided -- one moment looking at the doctor's face, and the next, looking down at the extended length of the doctor's arm like it was one of those giant snakes or a tentacle from some sea creature that was about to lash out and wrap itself around her.

Ah, crap, Jessica thinks.  She was so excited to meet someone else like her that she failed to consider their condition.  So much for doing no harm.  Alison is still in the  denial stage about her condition.  That's the sort of things that she should really be told about before going in to see a new patient.

"Sorry!  I'm..."  Her arm retracts back to normal as a guilty look appears on her face.  "I shouldn't have done that.  I..."  She closes her mouth to regroup.  "I elongated my arm in defiance of biology and reason to pick up a paper cup, then bonelessly twisted it over to the bed.  I'm pretty sure I'm still human.  The DNA tests say that I'm still me.

"I just- I'm sorry.  I finally get to meet someone else with a paranormal condition, and got so excited I forgot my job."  Jess definitely looks guilty for what she did.  But there looks to be something else there, beyond the immediate faux pas.

There was an extended moment of uncomfortable silence between the two of them.  Alison kept her distance as far as the edge of the bed would allow but eventually calmed down after having some time to consider the sincerity of the apology.

"Is that the clinical term?  A paranormal condition?" she asked in a voice that suggested the heaviness of the truth was wearing on her.

"Is that what's going to happen to me?" Alison asked.  "Does it hurt when you do that with your arm?"

After giving Jessica the opportunity to answer, she asked the question that was most important to her.  "How do you make yourself look normal again?"

Jessica perks up a bit when Alison responds.  Things can still be salvaged here.

As for her first two questions, Jess gives a bit of a shrug.  "Sort of?  We need to write something down for the records, and 'weird shit' and 'superpowers' aren't neutral enough."

The next two questions: "I don't know; maybe?  There's only 3 confirmed cases so far, and the only thing they have in common is defying common sense and science.  The other guy can fly, for what it's worth.

"And no, it doesn't hurt when I stretch like that."

Jess's mood has been building while answering the questions, but drops just a little at Alison's last question.  "I'm not... sure it works that way, for me.  It just goes back to normal once I stop trying to stretch or change shape.  Other than a bit of drooping if I relax too much.

"Part of what I can do involves picturing it in my head.  I'm not sure if that helps?"

"Not really, but I guess that it can't hurt to keep trying," Alison replied.  "Positive thinking, right?" she said, but it was clear that she was not convinced that it would work.

"The weird thing is that I don't feel any different.  It feels more like the whole world has changed around me because I didn't do anything to cause this and I'm not doing anything to stay this way," she explained.

"With my luck, I'll probably overshoot while trying to reverse it and get too big to be able to get out of the room."  It was meant to be a joke, but after seeing for herself that a person could actually stretch in an unusual way and hearing that there was another person who could apparently fly, this was a possibility that couldn't be ruled out.  There could be other changes yet to come that were far worse than what she was experiencing now.

Jessica responds, "I think I know what you mean, a little bit.  I don't really feel all that different, either, most of the time.  There are days at work where it seems like nothing has changed from before.  But it's not the same, since I can still pass as normal."

She hmms, before continuing, "It is also possible that there is nothing you can change, and this is just your new normal.  But that seems awfully unfair.  Not that we know enough to really say what is going on, or what is fair.  This is just a crazy situation, after all.  So don't give up hope."

She makes a little face as an idea occurs to her.  "Maybe you need to imagine the rest of the world getting smaller.  You said how you feel normal and it's like the rest of the world is different, so maybe..."

Although it was unintentional, Jessica's words stung at the time.
I can still pass as normal. but to Alison, it was just a cruel reminder that she couldn't pass for normal if she was stuck at this size.  It was a point driven home by the doctor's next statement -- there is nothing you can change.... this is just your new normal.  Maybe it was because the words had amplified what Alison had already feared.

Alison closed her eyes and tried to tune out all of the distractions in the room and out in the hallway.  Meditation was something that she had experimented with before while in college because of a recommendation from a roommate at the time and this felt a little bit like that.  Ultimately, she didn't stick with it because she actually preferred things to be more exciting.

I can grow back to my normal size.  I'm normal again.  The world is getting smaller and returning back to its normal size. she thought, repeating similar ideas in her mind as she tried to come up with the proper combinations of magic words that would will this into existence.

Alison opened her eyes again to find that absolutely nothing had changed.

"I don't think that I've found the secret to getting back to normal yet,"  she confessed to Jessica.

There is a soft knock on the door, then Dr. Williams pokes his head inside the room. "Ah, Dr. Kowalski," he says as he slips in, shutting the door behind him. "Thank you for coming in on your day off. I see you've met Alison..." He trails off and glances down at the clipboard in his hands. "Other than the obvious, there does not appear to be anything anomalous about Alison. She is in good health, though a bit undernourished and stressed at the moment," he says to Jessica before turning to Alison to ask, "How are you feeling, Alison?"

"A little bit overwhelmed at the moment, to be honest," Alison replied to Dr. Williams' question.  "I don't feel any different, but I'm realizing that everything in my life is about to change."

"It's all that I can think about.  Things that I never would have thought about before, like - Will I need to ride an infant car seat when I'm released from here?  Am I going to lose my independence?  And what if this is just the start and the changes are only going to get worse?"

"Sorry.  I hate the way that I'm behaving right now.  I know that there are people who have it much worse than I do that also have to rebuild their lives."

"I just wish that it made sense.  Maybe it would be easier to accept," the tiny woman explained.

There is a brief tick on Jess's face when Alison mentions rebuilding their lives.  But she quickly moves back to being supportive.

"That's not necessarily that right attitude to adopt, either.  Your troubles are your own and don't need to be judged against anyone else's.  Your problems are just as valid as anyone else's."  Jess manages to bit her tongue before saying anything about how small Alison's problems might seem.

"I just wish we had any useful answers for you, the whys or hows of your condition.  Or an idea how things will play out for you."

Dr. Williams nods as he listens to Alison and Jessica. "We're doing everything we can think of to try to find some answers for you, but we're in uncharted territory, so to speak... Dr. Kowalski, do you have any insights or ideas?"

Jessica briefly purses her lips.  "I have a few ideas.  It's both relieving and frustrating that nothing is showing up on the tests.  It would be nice to have some obvious leads to chase.

"Before you joined us, we had just started talking about my powers and whether my experiences could help her."  She turns towards Alison.  "You asked about how I return to normal.  Maybe it would be more like how I stretch?  Because it's not just picturing it in my mind.  I have to...  It's a bit like there's another set of muscles there?  And I have to work them to stretch, especially on any of the more complex shapes.

"Oh!  Just to ask a dumb question, have you just been trying to return to normal?  Or have you also tried getting bigger?  I mean, like this is your normal, and you're trying to grow into a giant?"

"I don't know how to describe how it feels," Alison attempted to explain, " or maybe that should be, how it doesn't feel like anything at all."

"I'm not actively doing anything that I could just stop.  Even when I fell asleep, nothing changed or went back to normal afterwards."

"It wasn't even in my thoughts.  I didn't even know that I had become smaller until yesterday.  It just seemed like someone had stuck me in an oversized funhouse filled with gigantic representations of furniture."

"I haven't felt anything new or out of place, like if I just turned a certain way or flexed a particular muscle, that something different would happen."

She sighed in frustration.  "We just tried the power of positive thinking approach," Alison explained for Dr. Williams who hadn't been there to witness it.  "I don't know.  Maybe I wasn't doing it right, like doubt or worry could have been affecting my concentration.  I know that I'm probably still in a state of shock so maybe I just need to get to a better frame of mind...?" she looked at them as though seeking a fragment of hope.

"If that doesn't work, I can probably experiment.  Do you think that hypnosis could help?  Or floating in those sensory deprivation tanks to eliminate all distractions?"

Dr. Williams looks concerned when Alison brings up experimentation. "We wouldn't want to do anything that could endanger you, Alison. And you're otherwise healthy, so I'm not inclined to rush into anything. Perhaps you'll return to your original size soon, even without medical intervention..." He scratches his chin, then asks, "Did either of you see the story about the flying man at O'Hare? As far as I know, he hasn't been evaluated medically, but perhaps whatever happened with him could shed some light on what happened to each of you."

The confused look on her face made it clear that Alison hadn't heard the story.

"Sorry.  I've been dealing with this the past few days.  I've been out of touch with what's going on with the rest of the world," the doll-sized woman explained, sounding depressed.

"Did he have wings? she asked curiously  An image of angelic figure floating above the airport was what she had pictured.

Jessica, on the other hand, clearly seems informed.  "Yeah, I've been following that story.  It would be nice to get him in here as well.  Not sure how easy that will be.  His name got out, and crowds are gathering around his house already.  He asked them for some space, so we'll probably have better luck with an official letter from the hospital.

"Oh," she says, switching conversations.  "No, no wings.  Just flying through the air and catching a plane that was going to crash, like a real-life superhero.  It looked like he was about our age," indicating herself and Alison.  She looks over at the computer terminal in the room.  "We could pull up the videos if you wanted to see."

OOC: I'm figuring that the secure wing has lousy cell reception by design, and assuming that there is a computer terminal in it.  GM, let me know if I'm mistaken. ;)
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 03:27, Mon 26 July 2021.

"Please.  I want to see it," Alison requested.

Even if it wasn't possible to get it in the hospital room, the video was probably in constant rotation on all of the news channels, local and national, probably even international by now, and would continue on for several days so she was likely going to see it once she got released.

But what would be waiting for her once she left the hospital?  No matter how professional the staff had acted, someone was eventually going to talk.  Even if they didn't tip off the tabloid media for cash, the story was too interesting not to share not to share when the subject of flying men was also being discussed.  Was she going to have to deal with crowds too?

"If I were able to fly, I don't think that I would want to come to the hospital either.  That doesn't sound like something that anyone would want to have cured."

"However, he might be going through the same thing... wondering if he's the only one.  Maybe he'd be willing to talk if he knew that he was going to be talking to somebody different too.

"Alright," Jess says as she steps over to the computer terminal to find some of the recent clips of Karl Brennan.  As she looks, she replies, "Having him come here wouldn't be about 'curing' him.  It's mostly just curiosity at this point; how is he able to fly?  And to establish a baseline, if his condition were to change over time.  That's one of the things I'm watching for, with my stretching and shapeshifting."

Jess takes care not to throw Alison's last comment back in her face. "We'll have to see if he's interested.  We could start up a support group once we all know each other.

"Ah, here it is," she finishes as she's found the video and turns the monitor to show Alison.

The video that Jessica found begins playing, beginning with cell phone footage of a small commuter jet with a missing wing making an emergency landing on a runway at the airport. Through the falling snow, the form of a man can be made out underneath the nose of the plane, his arms wrapped up around it as if he is lifting it. Gasps of shock can be heard as the jet slows and then touches down, the shirtless man pushing his legs downward against the runway until the plane comes to a complete stop. It then cuts to the man entering the now grounded, smoldering jet then exiting with a bag and a stuffed animal in tow, approaching a family huddled under a blanket near an ambulance, and handing the young girl with them the stuffed dog. He looks around at the crowd that has gathered, most of whom are filming him, pulls a Rockefeller Center sweatshirt out of the bag and puts it on, then hovers a few feet above the ground for a moment, waves, and flies out of sight.

"It's quite amazing, no matter how many times you see it," Dr. Williams says when the video finishes. "There was, is, a lot of talk about it being a hoax, but with what I know about Jessica, and now you, Alison, I'm confident that the flying man is the real deal."

There's a knock on the door, and Dr. Williams pokes his head out and has a brief conversation with the nurse on the other side before excusing himself. "You two carry on. I'll be back shortly."

Alison watched the video on the computer monitor with rapt attention.  Even from this distance, it was like watching a big screen television from across the room.

"I think that I've met him before...." she said with surprised recognition, trying to recall the exact setting or event.  Being a young business professional often meant going to seminars or off-site training sessions at some hotel conference room.  Although these meetings were meant to be educational, one usually left with a three-ring binder that would immediately go on a shelf at your desk when you returned to the office and remain untouched until the binder would be later repurposed for some other job-related activity.  These events were also a good chance to network in between breaks or meals.

"I probably still have his business card somewhere in a box at my desk," Alison explained.  "I don't think that it would do much good though.  I'm sure that his work phone and email inbox are just as full as his home number is right now."

"How much longer do you think that I'll have to stay here?" Alison asked.  "If there's nothing that can be done to change this, I might as well go somewhere more comfortable and wait for it to wear off or start getting used to being this small."

There was still one more possibility that she didn't mention -- that things could get even worse.  Whatever was in store for the future, Alison was fighter and was going to see it through to the end.

"Really? Jessica mutters when Alison mentions having met the flying man before.  "Small world," is out of her mouth before she can really think about it.  There is a bit of a cringe as she hopes Alison doesn't take it personally.

"Ah... You should be able to leave pretty soon.  There might be a few last tests to wait on, and some paperwork to shuffle around.  But it sounds like there is nothing really 'wrong' with you, that modern medicine can help you with.

"Have you told anyone else about this?  Family, friends... significant others?" She seems to catch just a little on the last part of that question.

"I didn't have a chance to tell anyone yet," Alison explained. "I didn't even know that I had changed until the police officers showed up at my home last night to check in on me and I'm looking up at these... giants."

"Even after that, I was still thinking that it was just me having hallucinations."

"Anyway, I couldn't have told anyone if I had realized it earlier.  I was basically trapped on the floor and all of the phones were all the way out of reach up on the countertops."  Alison couldn't help but smile at the absurdity of the description of her predicament.

"I'm still hoping that I don't have to tell anybody about this.  If I could just get back to normal size, I could put this nightmare behind me and nobody would need to know about it.... well, except for the police officers... the ambulance crew... and the people here in the hospital." Alison frowned when she realized how many people knew.

"I guess that I'm going to be a topic of conversation at everyone's Christmas and New Year's parties, right after the flying man at the airport."
This message was last edited by the player at 03:17, Thu 26 Aug 2021.

"I wouldn't be too worried about gossip," Jess responds.  "Not that many people saw you, and most of us pretty good at keeping quiet.  I pretty sure that most of the staff here is unaware of me having powers, even with the accident.

"But that does sound pretty awful, trapped in your apartment and unable to reach anything.  I'm not sure what I'd... well, I'd-"  Trains of thought are colliding.

"Actually, will you be fine if we release you?  I mean, if you're stuck at that size for a while, you're going to need help.  Do you have anyone who will be able to help you out?"