The room that had seemed so massive not even an hour before now felt uncomfortably cramped. A heavy silence was all that sat between the giant and herself, and every move he made sent a jolt of panic up her spine. Juniper’s heart hammered with heavy anticipation.

    One of his gargantuan arms lifted suddenly from the floor up to the back his neck. The speed and power of the simple gesture overwhelmed Juniper and she stumbled backwards, landing on her butt. As she scrambled back to her feet she looked up, and up, and up to find that the giant was watching her. Color rushed into her cheeks.

    His mouth opened and his deep, powerful voice filled the room. Juniper stared at him, her own mouth gaping open. She thought for a moment that his voice had caused the room to quake, but realized that her knees were just shaking. The giant watched her with one eyebrow cocked slightly, and it occurred to Juniper that he had spoken, but she had no idea what he had said.

    “W-what?” she stammered in a volume she hoped was loud enough for him to hear.

    The giant watched her for another moment before he spoke again. “You sure are a fidgety little thing.”

    Juniper could not think of anything to say to that, so she just stood there in her corner. Her knees were shaking so violently she had to lean into the wall to stop from falling over again. However futile her hopes were of winning a fight against a giant, she was determined not to make it any easier for him by letting her guard down.

    “I take it you’ve never met a giant before?” he asked. Juniper shook her head slowly back and forth. She did not know anyone who had ever met a giant. From what she knew, only a handful of people had ever met one and survived, and most of them were in no condition to talk about their encounters.

    “You’re so quiet, now,” the giant observed. “I couldn’t get you to shut up a couple minutes ago.”

    Juniper shrugged. “I, uh, I’ve never met a giant before.”

    “According to the human government all giants are blood thirsty monsters,” he said. “Tell me, do you think all giants are blood thirsty monsters?”

    “I don’t know, I’ve never met a giant before,” she said nervously. Then added, “are you all blood thirsty monsters?”

    The giant thought it over for a second. “From a human standpoint, probably.”

    “According to the human government, I’m not a human.”

    “No? What are you then?”

    “I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “They haven’t told me, yet.”

    “Well, you look like a human,” he said, looking down at her from a hundred feet in the air.

    “Well, I thought you looked like human, too, when they first brought you in,” she said.

    “They shrank me.”

    “How?” she asked, curiously.

    “Magic powder.”

    “Oh,” she said, because she was not sure if he was being sarcastic or not.

    The giant move his arms around to an awkward angle in attempt to stretch them out in the small space.

    “Are they going to shrink you again?” she asked.

    “Why would they do that?” 

    “Well... I mean you can’t even move in here, how do they expect you to live like this?”

    “I don’t think they do expect me to.”

    “Oh,” she said, confused. “What do you mean?”

    “I mean after this they’ll put me back in a bigger cell.”

    “What?” Juniper asked, looking up at the ceiling high above her. “You mean there

are even bigger cells than this here?”

    The giant laughed. “Yeah there are bigger cells.”

    “So, so then why’d they put you in this one?”

    “It’s one of their experiments,” he explained, as nonchalantly as if he wereexplaining the rules to a board game. “They want to see how long I can last inthis tiny room before I snap and kill you to get assigned a new partner.”

    The words pierced her like knives and for a moment her lungs were solid stone in her chest. She understood immediately that what he had said was true. There was no hope of beating this giant, she knew.

    “You’re wrong,” she heard herself say.

    The giant cocked his eyebrows. “I’m what?”

    Juniper thought hard about her next words. She had never been a good poker player, her instincts were to fold unless she had a decent set of cards to back her up. “It’s not you they’re testing.”

    “What? You mean they’re testing you?”

    Juniper nodded. “They’ve had me kill monster after monster, each one worse than the last to test how powerful I am.”

    The giant’s eyes narrowed. “You’re bluffing.”

    She was. “I’m not.”

    “No? Prove it, then.”

    Juniper pulled her hands around from behind her back and showed him the broken handcuffs. The giant looked from the handcuffs back to her in surprise. “Alright little human, you’ve caught my interest. How’d you do that?”

    “I’m not a human,” she said.

    “Are you sure? You look like a human. You’re small like a human. I could crush you like a human.”

    It took every ounce of self control to keep the fear from her face. “You could try.”

    The giant looked her over for a moment. “I could make you tell me,” he decided.

    “Try it, then,” she said. Please don’t try it. She crossed her hands behind her back to hide that they were shaking.

    “Some people might take that at as challenge, you know,” he said. “If you’re going to pick fights with people that are bigger than you you’d better be prepared to back it up.”

    “I’d be happy to show you,” she said. “I’d just ask that you lean in the other direction so that once I kill you, you don’t fall on top of me.”

    The giant looked shocked. Juniper held her breath and stood ready for whatever happened next. Suddenly the giant burst out laughing, and she exhaled in surprise. “Well I wouldn’t want that to happen. What’s your name little giant slayer?”

    “Juniper,” she said, exasperated.

    “Well Juniper,” he said. “You’ve very small, but you’ve definitely got a big mouth. I like that in a human. I’m Niro.”

    “I’m not a human,” Juniper said.

    “Yeah, you said that. You can relax, Juniper, I’m not going to do anything. I mean not unless you start busting out all these crazy moves you’re hiding.”

    Juniper stood bewildered. “You- you’re not going to try and kill me?”

    Niro shook his head. “No little buddy, I’m not going to hurt you.”

    “Wh-why should I believe you?”

    Niro shrugged. “Why would I lie?”