Jack didn’t know how to feel, he was very annoyed, but also very upset, and he was beginning to regret his petulant outburst to Penny more and more as he replayed it back in his mind. Sitting down, he stared into space for a while, slowly sipping his tea.

After clearing up the mugs, he made himself a little something to eat, watched a bit of TV, and then went to his bedroom. He didn’t much feel like doing school work, or even going on his laptop, he just felt tired and emotional, running through what had happened, scarcely believing that any of the experiences were real.

After years in his room fantasising about the giant girls at school, the way Caitlin had treated him was deeply sobering. Despite her inescapable sensuality, he had feared for his life, been humiliated, degraded and reduced to tears, just so the oversized vamp could prove a point. Thinking about it was hugely conflicting, as some of his desires had come true, and thinking about it now, retrospectively and in the relative safety of his bed, was causing him to become aroused in defiance of the feelings in his heart.

Dejectedly, he plugged his phone into the charger, and finally lay down on his bed, where, thoroughly exhausted, sleep overtook him.

Initially, he dreamt that he was back in school, in the corridor, talking to Penny about cinema and various actors as they walked. They were having a fantastic conversation, when everyone ahead suddenly stopped walking and shuffled to either side of the corridor, triggering Jack to turn and look in front of him. Caitlin’s monumental form, flanked by Alex and Hannah, strode confidently up to him, reached down and picked him up between her mighty hands. He struggled like crazy in her grip, shouting out for help over and over again, but Penny’s face melted away into the background, her eyes wet with tears. Caitlin’s menacing, gigantic smile then filled his vision, as he felt himself shrinking smaller and smaller, becoming more and more helpless. He heard monstrous moans of pleasure as her now-brobdingnagian fingers pressed his insignificant body into her building-sized breast, and her sultry, deafening voice boomed out, humiliating him, “You’re soooo tiny! Sooooo tiny!”

Jack’s eyes ripped open as he awoke in a cold sweat atop his bed, the duvet cover beneath him partially wrapped around his sprawled, fully-clothed form. He realised, despite his terror, that he was sporting a full-blown erection, and felt a wave of shame wash over him.

Reaching out for his phone, he grabbed it and yanked it free from the charger; 3:49am. As he lay there, trying to slow down his frantic heartbeat, he told himself that it was only a dream, only a nightmare. Not real. Switching his laptop on, he first went to check his emails, then logged in to his social networking page.

Despite what had happened earlier, he had half-hoped that there might be some kind of message, or request, from Penny, but no such luck. Regret overwhelmed him as he thought back to when she was sat in the main room, happily drinking her tea. He didn’t even know what her surname was, and now he’d blown his chance of making friends with the only Alpha who’d ever treated him as an equal. Rubbing his bloodshot eyes wearily, he vowed to never be so stupid again, no matter how upset, angry or frustrated he got.

Turning off the computer, he took off his clothes, noticing the missing button from his jeans which elicited a cold chill through him. Dropping everything in a pile, he crawled under his covers wearing just his underwear, and tried to get back to sleep again.

“Jack?” “Jack!”

The sound of his bedroom door being knocked violently.

“Jack! Get up, I’ve been shouting you for 20 minutes!”

His eyes slowly blinked into life, letting the harsh, bright light of day in.

Trying to speak, his voice sounded croaky and hoarse, “What... time... is it?” he asked groggily.

He heard his mum yell through the door, “It’s 8.40, will you get up young man!”

Eight fucking forty!

FUCK, he thought, throwing his covers off immediately. Forget time to shower, dress, eat, walk in, he had less than 5 minutes to catch the bus! Throwing a different pair of pants and a polo top on, he frantically dressed himself and grabbed his bag. He ran into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror, his hair was a bit bedraggled but not awful, so he quickly started brushed his teeth until he realised... SHIT, glasses. Recalling his broken pair, he threw his bedside drawer open, clawing around to find his old glasses, which he eventually found at the very, very back.

Sprinting through the house, his mum cried out to him, “Grandad’s fine, just so you know!” as he opened the door and rocketed across the front lawn. Not 30 seconds later, almost completely out of breath, he reached the bus stop just as the jumbo school bus came to a halt. He was nearly doubled over as he let two Alpha kids, both very young but far taller than him already, board before he did.

“Haven’t see you in a while, son,” said the driver gruffly, an elderly Alpha guy who he remembered was called Joe, giving him a toothy smile.

As the bus started to move off, Jack regained his breath and looked around for somewhere to sit, realising that there wasn’t really anywhere at all, even for someone as small as him.

“You can sit here,” said a large girl who looked about 10 or 11 years old but was already getting towards 9 feet tall. She had her shiny black hair in pigtails and was wearing a yellow t-shirt with a picture of a kitten on it and ¾-length pink leggings.

Jack walked up to her, and waited for her to move over for him to sit down, but instead she looked down at him curiously.

“No silly, sit over here,” she told him, patting the seat between her body and the window.

Jack rolled his eyes and squeezed between her knees and the back of the seat in front, then jumped up next to the gigantic kid and made himself comfortable.

“My name’s Sam,” said the girl, fiddling with her pigtails, “What’s yours?”

“I’m Jack,” he replied detachedly, eager to get this bus ride over with.

“You’re really small, you know that?” she observed. He looked at her in disbelief for a moment, then tried to cover it up with a forced smile.

“Yeah. I know,” he said.

He watched as she shifted her big thigh across the seat towards him, pressing it up against his.

“My leg’s like twice the size of yours,” she said boastfully, “I bet you couldn’t budge it if you tried.”

Jack decided that, as much as he was enjoying this riveting conversation, he’d probably be better served by just smiling at her, so he did, then turned his head away.

“How old are you?” he heard her ask, but he really didn’t want to have to tell her, so he kept staring straight ahead.

“Hey,” she said, her tone becoming more impatient, “Hey shorty,” and he felt a large finger poke him extremely painfully right on the shoulder blade.

He shot his head around to glare at the girl, “Watch it!” he said crossly, holding his shoulder as the stinging pain slowly subsided.

The big girl’s face turned first to shock, and then to anger, and he felt her bodyweight shift as she slid towards him on the seat. Before he could stop her, she pressed his miniature body against the side of the bus using hers, squashing him uncomfortably.

“You be nice to me,” she threatened, her face above him turning slightly red, “Or I’ll squish you to death, little boy.”

Jack swallowed hard, completely caught off guard and afraid, realising that the colossal tween could not only do so if she so wanted, but might do accidentally if he didn’t calm her down soon. He nodded desperately, looking up at her indignant expression, “I’m s... sorry,” he stammered.

He felt the pressure of her body pushing into him relent slightly, “Good,” she said firmly, and patted him on the head roughly, “Good boy.”

To Jack’s great relief, he only needed to spend a handful of awkward minutes wedged against the side of the volatile 10-year-old, listening to her talk about herself, before the bus reached the school. Only after almost everyone had left did she release him, having lectured him emphatically about his obligations towards “big people”, and then ran off to join her friends.

He stepped off the bus in a daze, and completely failed to respond to Joe wishing him a good day. A good day, he thought, it was bad already; he just needed to survive it. Tomorrow, it would be the weekend, and he could spend 2 days in bed, safe and sound. Emphasis on safe.

He trudged up the steps into school, running his hand against the wall numbly as countless Alphas of varying sizes and ages walked or ran past him. He tried to hug the side of the corridor as much as possible and stay relatively out of sight, he did NOT want to run into Caitlin or any of her mates.

In a way, he didn’t want to run into Penny either, because just thinking of her tearful expression the previous night made his stomach knot. As he plodded along, a familiar face appeared right next to him.

“Nice specs,” said Delon.

“Yeah, rockin’ it,” Jack replied drily.

“Totally,” his friend agreed, pulling an overly-exaggerated impressed face. Jack couldn’t help but smile, Delon always managed to cheer him up. The pair went to their lockers, organised themselves, and then headed to registration.

He and Delon were able to stick together for the first couple of classes, as they shared the same subjects. Jack decided against telling him about what had happened with Caitlin, as he was in many ways embarrassed about the sexual nature of the humiliation, particularly as he was a virgin and he knew Delon was not.

Delon had a long-term girlfriend of 4 years who lived in the next town over, a Beta girl from a first-generation immigrant family. They’d met during a regional summer camp exclusively run for kids not on GH-X2, Jack had been ill for most of that summer with a virus, and the following year the camp stopped running because of the shrinking numbers of Beta kids in the area.

Jack did however decide to mention the he’d met a girl called Penny, and nonchalantly asked if Delon knew anything much about her. Initially, Delon teased him a bit because of his interest in a girl, especially an Alpha one (completely out his league, of course), but then told him what he knew.

“Never really talked to her to be honest, she seems a bit strange. You know that Shen guy in the year below?”

Jack nodded, Shen was a Beta, and like a lot of Chinese students, was pretty smart; always in contention for the school’s academic achievement prizes and things like that.

“Well, do you remember last year when I got him to help me out with some coursework, she was a new girl then and he said she was a bit of a loner cuz she was bullied when she was younger.”

Jack frowned, “Bullied? How come? Was she short?”

“Ha, no, you met her right? Pretty much the opposite,” continued Delon, “Apparently she had problems with her growth shots as a kid and grew way too fast; perhaps an issue with the compound they gave her. Her parents educated her from home for years until her bones strengthened, but when she went to the Alpha school across town, the other kids made her life hell because she was so much taller. Apparently she was home-schooled again until she came here last year.”

Jack felt a crushing sense of guilt as Delon relayed the story to him, it put some of the things Penny had been saying to him in perspective.

“Oh, right,” he said numbly, trying not to betray his thoughts in front of his friend.

Throughout the next class he was very subdued, working through various scenarios in his head, trying to figure out how to apologise to Penny. What on earth could he possibly say?

“You ok, dude?” Delon asked genially, nudging him with an elbow, “Ever since I told you about that girl you’ve gone all quiet.”

Jack turned to him, “Nah, I’m good, just worried about exams” he lied, though he could see that Delon sensed something was up. In fact, he was planning out when he could go and find Shen.

After class finished, Jack had a free period, so after putting his bag in his locker he made his way to the IT Department on the promise of finding Shen there. At the very least, he thought, there was no way he’d bump into Caitlin; there wasn’t a chance in hell she would’ve picked it as a subject, let alone voluntarily hang out in the computer lab.

He made his way there carefully; it didn’t take him too long to get to IT and he spotted Shen in the small Beta area (only a handful of small workstations and tables in a corner) of the main computer room talking to an Alpha boy a few years below. Jack took a seat at a computer a few feet away from the pair, and waited patiently until Shen was alone once more.

After the Alpha kid had left, Shen packed a couple of sheets of paper into his bag, and turned to look at Jack.

“Hey,” he said, “Did you want to see me too?”

“Err… yeah, but not about schoolwork or anything like that,” Jack explained.

Shen’s brow furrowed slightly, “Ok... so what’s up?”

“Well, this might be a bit weird, but you know a girl called Penny, right?”

The Chinese boy’s face showed recognition, “Yeah, I know Penny, we both study History.”

Jack hesitated slightly, “Well, the thing is, I need to speak to her, do you have her number or anything?”

Shen got his phone out of his pocket and had a quick scroll through, “Sorry dude, I thought I did, but to be honest I’m not entirely sure if she even has one. I’d suggest trying to find her but she wasn’t in class earlier, so I don’t think she’s here today.”

This news didn’t make Jack feel any better, “Really?” he said emptily.

“Yeah, quite often she doesn’t come in to school, she seems to get ill a lot,” Shen went on, lifting his glasses up slightly to scratch his cheek, “Why do you want to talk to her anyway, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Jack paused, weighing up whether he should ask Shen for her last name or not, ultimately deciding it would be a bit awkward.

“Er… I got talking to her yesterday after school… it’s no big deal, but thanks anyway man,” he said, getting up from his chair.

“Ok then… I’ll catch you round. Jack, is it?” asked Shen, looking slightly puzzled.

“Yeah, it is. Cheers Shen,” he replied, and made his way out of the computer lab hastily.

As he walked briskly, Jack couldn’t shake off the notion that Penny hadn’t come in because of him. He probably should have asked Shen for her last name, but it would have made him seem like a creep. Well, maybe not, but it would have been a bit awkward.

The corridors were now pretty empty, and he’d been pacing along minding his own business, staring at the floor. He’d literally just rounded a corner when he suddenly became aware of the presence of two Alphas standing by the lockers just in front of him.

“I’m not sure about that, Caitlin,” he heard a guy’s voice say.