I was standing before a creature from what I could see in the dim light of my new prison. She looked human enough, with pale, sullen skin that almost appeared waxy, and long flowing blonde hair that came to her waist. Her dull grey eyes flickered in the soft light. I tore my eyes away from her stoic expression though, and took a moment to uncover my surroundings before I confronted the strange being.

Really, Thomas?

I was standing at the base of a large birdcage, similar to the one St Agatha's had to house two budgies. The floor was flat and littered with what looked like tissues, pieces of scrap material and knick knacks. I glanced up and saw bird perches, connected by coloured plastic ladders. Another creature swung absentmindedly on a wooden bird swing with a metal bell on the seat. He wasn't looking directly at me, but I could tell just by glancing at his pasty skin and emotionless features that he... these people weren't normal.

My heart thudded, shocked by the whole ordeal. With another quick glance around the cage, I noticed that four other creatures sat chatting amongst a wad of scrap material and tissues in the far corner. One caught my eye and their jaw dropped.

"He got another one." They whispered in shock.

I couldn't take it anymore. “What- What are you?” I stammered to the creature standing inches away. She didn't say anything at first, instead tilting her head to the side and smiling a soft smile. Looking closer, she wore a roughly sewn black dress and no shoes. She was like a doll, almost. Fragile and ghostly.

“You haven’t seen another human this size, have you… Amy… is it?” She asked in a hoarse tone. My eyes widened, but before I could stumble backwards in both shock and fear, the girl grasped my shaking hands in her own. I gulped loudly, feeling the soft, gentleness of her fingers, which matched mine. Crap, this was messed up.

“I'm Harriet." The girl continued. "I know this must be quite a shock to you…” Her words faltered when I yanked my hands out of hers and paused to stare at them for a second, amazed that I was stronger than this girl.

I’d never been stronger than anyone.

Ever.

"What the hell..." I stuttered, my mouth becoming drier by the second. I backed up, my knees like jelly. The cold metal of the cage bars brushed against my back and I shuddered. Harriet moved towards me, holding her hands out again. Her expression was almost... apologetic. My hands gripped the thick wire bars and I pushed against the metal, actual fear finally catching up on me after the whole Thomas situation. My slightly swollen hand didn't even matter anymore.

What mattered were the five other pairs of eyes that now trained themselves on my shaking form. The guy on the swing had stopped, too, and was staring down at me dully. Never in my wildest dreams had I thought that I’d meet anyone my size. I mean- I knew they existed, but all in the one place?

It frightened me.

These people... all here with me at once made me realise how normal I felt. There were no regular sized people wandering around in the way I've grown so used to. No giant faces to stare up at, and no voices capable of bursting my eardrums. The situation was just like it'd been ripped right out of a dream and thrust at me. I even pinched my skin to make sure it was real.

"Okay." I said, more to myself than the others, who had now formed a makeshift crowd around me. Even the guy on the swing had joined them. "This is the weirdest thing I've ever seen."

At this, a boy with jet black hair smiled crookedly, his green eyes twinkling. “So it's you then. I wondered when Thomas would find the famous Amy Leebeck." He said, folding his arms as he looked me up and down.

At his comment, mouths were dropped. A boy who couldn't have been any older than ten pointed at me accusingly. "You're Amy Leebeck!? My mum told me about you!"

"He's getting us more regularly, these days." The swing boy sighed, completely off topic. "Where did he pick you up from? Brisbane?"

In response, I held both my arms up in the air, taking a deep breath. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Rewind. Can someone please explain to me how you all know my name? And why you're all... here?" I massaged my temples. "This is getting way to trippy..."

"Do you need to sit down?" Harriet piped up, worry creasing her forehead. I opened my mouth to speak, but the black haired guy had already started.

"Duh! Pretty much everyone knows you from the news. You were born with Shrignakemia and everything!"

"Yeah, so?" I asked, frowning. "That doesn't exactly make me a celebrity!"

"It kind of does, hun." A tall girl with sharp features and a pixy cut smirked. "You come from a whole other category to the rest of us."

I shot her a strange look. "What category!? We're all tiny here!"

"But we used to be normal. At least, everyone but Marcus remembers those times." She said calmly, and the guy from the swing shrugged.

"I was changed at five. Can't do much about that, Ebony." He rolled his eyes. "At least you got the pleasure of spending your teenage years regular sized and out of this cage!"

My mouth fell open. "No way." I whispered. "This has to be a different guy." There was absolutely no way that the one and only Marcus had been crammed into Thomas Ryan's bedroom for the three years he'd apparently been dead. Someone had to have connected the dots. Someone had to have figure out where he'd gone...

"What!?" The girl, Ebony, said in exasperation.

"You're Marcus Andrews! My cousin Gabby told me all about you! You're alive!" I all but shouted, my head pumping into overdrive. An insane part of me was itching so badly to leap into his arms, just to make sure it was really the guy everyone at St Agatha's missed so badly. All of a sudden I felt anger coursing through me, at the thought of Thomas keeping him in this cage for the past three years, while his family, his friends mourned and accepted his passing. Thomas probably mourned with them, just to cover his tracks. None of the evidence would have pointed to him. I guess that's how he'd captured so many of us in the first place. It made me want to punch the guy. Multiple times. With an axe.

Marcus only huffed, pushing his long blonde hair out of his face. It was tied up rather messily in a ponytail with what looked to be a length of wool. His ice blue eyes glinted dully, framed with purple bags. "Last time I checked, I was." He said. "I remember Gabby. She told me about you, once."

"I met Kyle, too." I continued, on a roll. "He worked with you."

For a moment, his eyes went glassy, but the dull expression was back in an instant. "Kyle, huh? Another person on the list of who I'll probably never see again."

The lack of emotion in his speech cause the lump in my throat to grow larger, and I swallowed just to keep my nerves at bay. The thought of spending another minute in this birdcage made me feel sick. Glancing over my new 'cellmates' briefly, I clapped my hands together. "Right. I'm busting us outta here."

What I expected was a chorus of 'hell yeah!'s and 'let's do it!'s. I expected a rally of tiny people with tiny pitchforks and flaming torches. Heck- I'd've taken anything but what really happened. The long lost Marcus Andrews let out a snort and turned to walk away.

"Hmmph. Right." He smirked, beginning to climb back up the bird ladders to his swing. My mouth hung open, dread finally making its way into my system. As I took another glance of the cage's occupants, I realised one crucial fact: these people did not care. They'd given up whatever hope they'd ever had of getting out of Thomas's clutches. They'd been stuck in his bedroom fro lord knows how long without any care in the world. I refused to let myself follow in their lifeless footsteps.

"Goodnight, Amy." Ebony said softly, breaking my series of terrified thoughts. I blinked a few times to make sure this was really happening. "I'll see you for every day of the rest of my life."

I stood there, bones refusing to co-operate, as the small group of teenagers left for the opposite side of the cage, one by one. Even the two youngest, a scrawny boy with blonde hair and green eyes who I'd come to know as James and sweet little Abigail with her chestnut pigtails, were just as nonchalant about this cage. They settled into their bed of tissues in a routine manner, leaving me standing stock still in the darkness. I felt cold and hollow, despite the summer heat.

"You should get some sleep, new girl." Marcus called with sickening bluntness from his swing above me. I peered upwards at his slumped form, watching him move his legs back and forth with the motion of the bird swing. He wasn't looking at me. He just knew I was there, and that was the part that scared me the most.

"So should you!" I countered back, wincing as my voice cracked on the last word.

The boy only laughed; a bone dry sound that carried no real humour whatsoever. "I don't sleep anymore." He said.

After that, I couldn’t stop myself from shuddering. My teeth chattered uncontrollably, and I curled in on myself, back straining against the cage bars. It wasn't even the situation that scared me the most. It was the attitude of everyone in the cage with me. These people weren't even people anymore. They'd become something else entirely, guided by Thomas and his apparent hatred to all tiny folk. It made mere realise how utterly screwed I was. And that was the scary part.

I didn't even notice Harriet sitting down next to me until a warm hand touched my shoulder. I would never get used to how light and gentle that hand was, given that my body was toughened up from being tossed around and prodded all the time. I stiffened as her arms wrapped around my shuddering body in a hug. Was this what a real hug felt like? The way mum and Max always hugged each other?

“Amy.” Harriet whispered, pulling away from me. I turned to face her, but she was looking down into her lap, features obscured by her long blonde/white curls.

“Yeah?” I mumbled. Amongst everything, my mind was busy worrying, missing my family, missing Gabby and my other school friends. Suddenly, reality was catching me, fuelled by the determination to get out of this place. Harriet tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear.

“It’s not that bad here. Thomas has kept us here for months now, some years. He gives us basic needs, of course, like food and blankets. You’ll be ok; It’s not that bad.” I didn't take that kindly. In fact, I outright refused to believe she could say something as absurd as that with such calmness, as if she liked it in a cage.

“Harriet. You don’t understand! I have a family that are probably worried sick! He can't just abduct us all like this and get away with it!” My voice rose an octave halfway through the sentence. She stared at me blankly for a second, mumbling the word 'family' under her breath, as if it was part of a foreign language.

“I gave up on seeing my family again a long time ago.” Was all she said. I could feel tears stinging my eyes as I thought about Mum and Max again.

“I have to get out of here, Harriet.” I whispered, and she only bowed her head.

“There's no use in trying.” Her expression turned serious. “Thomas always finds you.” I opened my mouth to speak but closed it, unsure. Once again, reality was hitting me harder than ever, and more and more uncertainty, fear and rage was spreading like wildfire in my frantic heart. I fell silent for a moment, the only sound coming from Marcus on the swing above me. He hummed the tune of 'Dream' by Imagine Dragons in a tired voice, with as little enthusiasm as before. Finally, I found my voice.

“Harriet. What happened to everyone here?” I asked, choking out the words. "What happened to you?"

The girl looked at me with blank, grey eyes that shone with remorse. "You'll realise soon enough, Amy." She said. "This is it. This is your home now." No. It couldn't be my home. I had to escape... had to do something. "This is where you'll spend every day of the rest of your life. And when you accept that, even Thomas will leave you alone."  No. No. No.

Yes.

“Get used to it in here, Amy." Harriet said. " Because I can guarantee you will never escape.” And with that, she stood up and returned to the opposite side of the cage, leaving me sitting in the shadows of reality. I was completely alone, the only sound coming from Marcus as he sang in a bitter tone:

"We all are living in a dream, where life ain't what it seems. Where everything's a mess. And all the sorrows I have seen, they lead me to believe, that everything's a mess."

I curled into a tight ball and closed my eyes, thinking of my family, telling me I would see them again soon. Thomas couldn't hold us here forever. My world was falling apart before my very eyes. School, home, friends, Gabby, my family...

Marcus was right: everything was a mess.