Between a Hard and a Hard Place

The machine he stumbled into was a simple rectangular chamber. It activated so quickly that he didn’t notice it at first. He was plunged into complete darkness as he was sandwiched between two hard cold steel plates. One plate surged from the front, and the other from behind. They slammed together with a booming clang. The pressure was unbearable as the plates continued to press into each other. They pressed and pressed, squashing him faster than he thought possible. He could barely think by the time the pressure stopped increasing. Then the cold steel began to heat up. If it was possible to scream with his flattened lungs, then he was sure he could be heard all the way from England. His body sizzled as the heat baked him into a 2D shape. Just when he thought he would go mad, the plates withdrew. His 2D form was left standing in the air briefly before it crumpled in on itself. The squashing had happened so fast, that he still had a slightly suppressed expression from when he tripped. Even when he was free from the machine, he almost still felt the heat and pressure.

“What was that sound? Didn’t I tell you not to touch anything? Wait! Oh no!”

Ronnie heard Elizabeth before he could see her. In his flattened state, he couldn’t move a muscle. Surprisingly, she looked horrified.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no! That was the compactor! This is bad!”

The mouse awkwardly moved as quickly as she could in her dress. She tried to reach down to pick him up, but she was far too inflexible to pick him up. She looked around the building to make sure they were alone. She pulled the bottom of her dress off with the sound of ripping velcro. She tossed the fabric on the floor. If Ronnie wasn’t currently as flat as a pancake, he would have been surprised to see the mouse was using a pair of wooden stilts. Her true height must of been about three and a half feet. She wore a lacey pair of blue panties straining to cover up a rump that outclasses most regular-sized women. Her plump thighs pushed her white stockings to the limit. She quickly unstrapped her stilts and hopped off of them, letting them fall to the ground. She gathered up Ronnie’s squashed body and looked into his face.

“Didn’t you listen? I told you not to touch anything!” Despite her scolding, she seemed to me genuinely worried about him. “Now, I have some bad news… That machine is supposed to be part of an industrial cotton processor… and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that raccoons aren’t supposed to be inside it. And I have some even worse news… There’s going to be a good chance you’re permanently stuck like this.”

Ronnie wanted to scream, trash, or do anything, but he was stuck with his mildly surprised expression.

“You might still be able to recover, but I wouldn’t put too much hope on that happening… and if you don’t, I’ll think of something. I’ll leave you in my office to try to recover. Uh, good luck?”

Ronnie mentally whimpered, silently hoping he could return to his normal shape.

<Line break>

There was a small office in the factory, a place that the raccoon had called his home for quite some time. Ronnie didn’t know exactly how much time had passed. It was hard to tell when you were pressed flat and hung up in a small closet on a hanger like an old shirt. Elizabeth, back to her full outfit, would occasionally check up on him, but she never said a thing to him. She only looked more and more nervous. This went on for what seemed like forever. Finally, one day, she took him out of the closet. She looked over his still flat form again.

“I’m sorry to say that it doesn’t look like you’re getting any better,” she said sadly. “I guess all there is to do is decide what to do with you.”

His expression was still frozen in the same expression as it was when he was flattened. He tried to make some kind of sound, but nothing happened.

“I really and truly wish I could return you to normal, but it’s impossible to reverse being permad… You know, the sheriff came by a while ago asking about you. Of course, I couldn’t tell her what happened. I’m sorry, but I didn’t come all this way to be tossed in prison. I told her you had just left. Besides, it’s not like she could do anything to help you. That also means I have to… take care of you here. I'm so sorry, but just because your life is over, it doesn’t mean my future is over. Now, I could just shove you into a file cabinet or something and forget about you, but I’m not that cruel. I’m sure I can think of something you can do.”

Elizabeth looked closely down

Ronnie felt a shiver run down his flattened spine. Whatever she had in mind, he knew it wasn’t going to end well for him.