The Gigantic Chihuahuas

The sun rose over the hilltop, still invisible to the cratered bowl that half of the city had become. The gigantic chihuahuas roamed the city streets, as they picked off the few last remaining survivors that clung to life in the sewers down below. One approached a manhole cover and dug into the metal seal with impossible strength, and with one sniff of its powerful nostrils two men were sucked out into the open air above. They scattered in the streets, but one was caught under the dog's paw. Immediately blood splattered the street, as the man was ground into the asphalt with a sickening crunch.

Just then, I thought about the sounds that my then small best friend made when she grabbed a treat from my hand. They were little bone-shaped biscuits. She loved them, but that was before. This was our reality now, as we lived with the consequence of our horrible mistake. It all began in lab #1503 outside of Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was one sunny morning, a day just like today, when I pulled up in my gray Jeep Wrangler to the parking garage of the laboratory. The crate in the passenger's seat seemed to shiver. I felt the constant vibrations through the crate as I carried it up into the entrance of the building.

"Today's the day," my partner said.

She beamed as I set the crate down onto the table. I looked through the discreet opening. A patch of brown showed through the breathing holes. I opened the crate. The brown and white spotted chihuahua shook violently, its eyes bulged as it blinked them in their sockets. It was as if they could barely contain them, as they shifted around the room to take in the small dog's surroundings. My partner already had the preparations made. I removed my clipboard from the drawer of the desk. It occurred to me to make sure I was prepared.

"We're not ready for evaluation yet."

I gave a nod, put it back in the drawer.

"Oh, I know," I said.

The dog attempted to move its legs, as they were strapped down onto the table. She placed a clamp on its ear, just tight enough to be snug. It whined and whimpered, scratched at the metal surface with the length of its nails. That was as much movement as it was allowed.

"So, do you have the vial?"

"It's ready, yes," she said.

She walked hastily to the door of the supply room. It opened and shut, her figure just visible behind the thick, warped glass of the door window. She came back out with the vial in hand. The syringes were to the right of the subject. One shone clinically as I removed it from its container. She handed me the vial, filled with a transparent, purple liquid, labeled 'Solution B.'

"Read to me again our hypothesis," I said.

"Our hypothesis is as follows; the initial experiment resulted in a conclusive finding that if we could isolate the strand in a chihuahua's DNA that composes the information for their small size, we can replicate that within other species," she said.

"And what does our current experiment involve," I said.

"Just pull the plunger already," she huffed.

I turned to her with a disapproving look. She let out a sigh.

"To inject Subject A with Solution B, which contains the genes of a larger species to neutralize the expression of that gene, thereby creating a solution inside of Subject A which we would then extract. We would inject the resulting solution into a larger species, with the end result, as we theorize, would possibly make the larger species much smaller in stature." 

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," I said.

Indeed it was quite an exciting prospect, that one could shrink an animal through introducing the end product of this experiment intravenously, one solution which we would label as 'Solution C.' With that the experiment began. I pulled the purple liquid from the vial up into the tube of the syringe, then positioned it at the ready. The dog continued its struggle on the cold metal surface as the needle poked through its skin.