Harry sat back on his heels and wiped sweat and soil from his forehead. The sky bled orange along the horizon; the first stars of evening would prick through soon. He could feel the cold fingers of fear creeping back—if he didn't find a safe place to hide before dark, he would not survive the night. He weighed his options carefully. Above, in a normal forest, climbing and sleeping high in the branches was often the better tactic. But this was not a normal forest. Spiders ran on every surface, ants swarmed up stems, and lizards climbed trees like neighbors popping over to borrow sugar. Those predators could scale whatever height he might cling to; a tree-top refuge offered little safety at his scale.
An underground burrow, then—small, concealed, with room to slip away if necessary. He pictured a network of little tunnels: one narrow entrance to block and at least one escape route bored quickly in a direction the spider could not reach. It would be cramped, but it would be hidden. He rose and began searching.
Near the root system of a nearby sapling he found a promising place: a pocket of loose soil beneath an exposed tangle of roots, half-sheltered by moss and shadow. The opening was small enough to hide in but, with effort, could be widened into a snug hollow. Harry collected a brittle twig and a tiny shard of terracotta — a sliver from a broken pot — and lashed them together with a strand of dried grass. The makeshift shovel bit into the earth; he scraped and pushed, the soil compact and stubborn. His fingers ached, but the rhythm of work steadied him; it was problem-solving rather than panic, and for a little while his mind quieted.
Somewhere far away a distant rumble began, low and steady. Harry paused and listened; the sound grew into a procession of mechanical thumps and steady explosions. A car. At his scale each piston's motion sounded like a distant drumbeat. He scrambled up a grass stalk to peek, and through the wavering green he saw his parents stepping down from the vehicle—James's tired shoulders hunched, Lily's hand on his arm. They carried that particular look people had after urgent days: muscles loose, minds heavy. Harry's chest tightened with hope and a wild, childish urge to run to them and shout. The thought was ridiculous and cruel; he was invisible to them now.
Inside the house James was already moving with the stiffness of a man trying to shrug off a long day's work. He called Harry's name as he crossed the kitchen, but only silence answered. He peered out at the garden, shading his eyes, scanning the lawn. When he saw no small figure bounding toward him, he frowned and called louder. The voice that mattered to Harry boomed across the grass like a cathedral bell—majestic and unreachable—and Harry waved as wildly as he could, the motion a comical insect dance against the vast lawn. James took a step forward, shouting, then went back inside.
The moments that followed were terrible. James and Lily searched every room, checked the sofa cushions, peered under beds. Panic seeped into their movements like a stain. When James noticed the lab's door was slightly ajar and the low hum of the machine still thrummed in the air, his stomach dropped. He crossed the room in two strides and froze at the console. The control panel—one of the buttons looked nudged, its surface smeared. A child's fingerprints? His face went white. "Oh God," he whispered. "No… no, no—" He staggered down the stairs, breathless. Lily's knees gave out as he told her; she crumpled in a heap of prayer and tears. James's voice trembled when he said the word that made everything else stop: "Shrink."
They didn't know how to look for a boy that size. They fetched magnifying glasses and lamps and took the third floor apart inch by inch, calling his name into every nook. The whole house rang with the sound of their searching—scraping chairs, slamming drawers, the staccato clack of footsteps on the stairs. Harry heard his father call and his mother sob; their emotions were like weather to him—storms he could feel but not ride.
By the time he scraped out the final root and crawled into his crude burrow, night had fully settled. He pushed a cushion of clover and curled leaves over the opening and slid inside, the world muffled and damp. He set his tiny pouch of nectar within reach and forced himself to eat a little more. Every small sound outside made him flinch—owl wings slicing the dark, the soft scuff of a beetle passing too close, and the distant clack of his parents' flashlights as they swept the lawn.
Once, in the thick black of midnight, he heard a slow, heavy tapping that made his bones feel hollow—the measured footsteps of a wolf spider pacing not far from his chosen ground. He lay still as stone, breath held, and the spider's legs beat the earth like a drum. It passed by, close enough that Harry could feel the faint tremor in the soil. He did not move until the rhythm faded and the night grew oddly quiet again.
Dawn came pale and hesitant. He peeked out, heart small and stubborn. He had survived the night. Now, in the thin, gray light, he felt the weight of the decision ahead: he could not linger. Returning home would be a trial, but staying would mean certain danger. He climbed from his shelter, dusted himself off, and set his jaw. Today he would make it back.