Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

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Blinding white slowly dissolved into cloudy vision as my ears pulse through a high-pitched buzz. I winced from the pain and blinked repeatedly to try to focus on my surroundings.

Where…? I didn’t remember a thing about how this happened. I regain some more focus and try to lift my arm. No… My arms are already in the air. I concentrate and look up, a few strands of my red hair falling in my face. Chains. Tight chains. Chains even I couldn’t break out of, or even move. They were suspended in place. I glance down. I’m vertically chained to a wall, I realize.

The floor below me seemed to be hundreds of feet away, and I couldn’t even begin to imagine what this place was. However, I’m not simply dangling there; a small platform supports my feet. I assume that my capturer didn’t want my arms to dislocate.

I started to get a better look at my surroundings. Both the floor and ceiling where bathed in a pulsing white light. The room was not very wide; I could touch the wall in front of me, but the length seemed to go on for miles. The walls were a sleek silvery color, some kind of piercing metal I guessed, which painfully reflected the blinding light into my eyes along all directions. I also studied myself. I had different clothes on as well. Urgh, did they really have to? If my capturers were human, I couldn’t imagine their trouble trying to do that. I now wore black pants that went down to my ankles and a matching shirt with sleeves ending just before my elbows.

My head nearly stopped throbbing, and my vision was almost clear now. I no longer suffered the painful ring in my ears. While it seemed like minutes had gone by since I woke up, it was probably mere seconds. Everything had gone in a blur.

I glance in front of me and I’m extremely surprised to notice something that I hadn’t before, even though I’d looked in that direction multiple times now. A very small set of chains, identical to mine, held another creature in front of me.

I squinted to see his facial features more clearly. He was a human. That’s right, I wasn’t a human. I was a giant. There’s a big surprise. Our two races were allies in the distant past, but this changed as the humans grew more independent. Time itself covered up all remains of our partnership and my race, while not even populous before, began to falter. Hardly many giants were left, and the ones who did suffered the stereotypical hatred from humanity. Some of us acted on our impulses and tried to take advantage of the humans, but this was a minority. I can’t really blame the humans for being afraid, but did they really have to assume it was all of us?

Humans became pretty racist over the years. They fought many wars with the elves, nearly causing the poor buggers to go extinct, even though the elves were allies to the humans at one point as well. Stereotypes we thought died as our alliances formed came back quicker than we could have ever expected. These stereotypes were especially bad for us giants.

Once again we became the monstrous towering brutes that crushed buildings and swallowed people alive. No, no, don’t gape at me like that; hardly any of it was true. Sure, some of us went off and did horrible things, but like I said earlier, that was the minority.

Anyway, back to the present. The human looked like he had come to consciousness not long before me. Humans were tiny compared to us. This little guy might have been around the size of my little finger. He wasn’t even an arm’s length away from me, so I was sure he could feel my breath on him as I looked at him. He was as evenly placed in front of me as he possibly could be, but a tiny bit lower. He would be near my neck-area if I were closer.

His breaths came fast and if I didn’t know any better I’d say I could see his heart thumping at a quickened pace. Honestly? I didn’t think his reaction was out-of-the-ordinary. Most humans didn’t even believe giants existed anymore, even though they had so many documents and stories about us. I was sure they’d all heard that, but to actually see how massive one of us is? Shocker. He must’ve felt like he was in an enormous situation. Yeah, yeah, my size jokes could use some buffing; quit laughing.

I looked at this little man and smiled. What else could I do? His eyes were wide and his dark hair contrasted with his pale skin. He looked like he might be screaming if it wasn’t for how exhausted he was after being here. I knew the feeling. Why the hell were we even here? Me and some random human chained to metal walls in who knows where?

If you expected something exciting to happen now that we were both awake, it didn’t. We stayed chained to the wall, and I stayed staring at him with a bored expression on my face. His, of course, was still full of shock. I quickly grew tired of this.

“Hey,” I began, unaware of the volume at which I was speaking, “close your mouth before you start drooling.” My words were laced with sarcasm.

Unfortunately, my voice reverberated loudly around the room, and he looked even more frightened under the power of my voice than he did before.

I sighed and began to speak in a whisper. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” He remained silent and his expression didn’t change. “I’m not going to hurt you,” I state plainly, “it’s not like I’m even able to.” I nodded toward the chains around my wrists.

I think I saw him relax a bit, but it might have been my imagination. I didn’t know if he was going to say anything or not, but he didn’t get a chance. A loudspeaker filled the room with sound, and a masculine (yet monotone and computerized) voice spoke.

“Good evening. This is a test of your sanity. It is a test of your willpower. It is a test of your emotions. It is a test of your psyche,” It paused for a few seconds, presumably to let us dwell upon the situation before it continued. “The two of you will be forced through trials. There will be others. There will be deaths if you are too weak-willed or too slow to act.” I swallowed hard. It spoke the word ‘deaths’ like it was the most natural thing in the world. Well, yeah, it’s natural, but you know what I mean.

“There is a way to solve everything without failure,” it continued. “The ultimate penalty is death. You will need to be cunning and trustful to get everyone home alive.”

Suddenly, the floor beneath us began to rise. The floor was padded, to my surprise, and I didn’t get long to wonder about why. The human’s chains unsnapped and he fell, yelling, to the padded ground. The ground was high enough that I could see him, but he was on the ground, rolling in pain from the fall.

My own chains made an audible click as they unlocked, and my mind whirred into motion. I was going to fall right on top of him! I quickly glanced over to my right and, just as the chains unsnapped, I forced all of my body weight to the right of him. I slammed into the metal floor with a loud 'BANG!' and I was sure I caused the entire narrow passage to violently shudder.

Since my body was too large to land in this position, my head slammed against the wall that the human had been chained to, leaving a small dent. I felt a warm liquid rolling down my forehead and after rubbing it off, I wasn’t surprised to look down at my hand and see thick blood smeared across it. The human was not too far from me now; I could have reached out to grab him if I wanted to. He was shivering and approached me cautiously, but I think he realized that we had to do this screwed up test together.

And that’s when the walls started closing in. They were slow, but the passage out was immense. Immediately I stood up and, much to his disapproval, I scooped the human up on my palm, closed my hands around him for what safety I could provide him, and shot off down the passage.

You may or may not have noticed, but I don’t hate humans. Sure, they have an awful big ego for their size, though I knew a lot of them were simply ignorant because their elders had unfairly spread it to them. I don’t mean to brag, but giants live longer than humans. A human will only live to around 70 while we usually live to around 150. This isn’t as much as you were probably expecting, I know, but it filters out a lot of stupidity that a generation could potentially pass on.

However, obviously you probably care more about my wondrous escape, so we’ll get back to that. Right. I sprinted as fast as I could toward the end of the hallway, trying not to shake my little friend around too much. It wasn’t long before the walls were starting to press against my shoulders. This was insane! By the end of this little adventure, I was squeezing through the two walls sideways. It was a close call. I made it. Though even here I knew, this was going to be the start of something horrible.

I slowly moved my left hand away so that the light wouldn’t burn my human friend’s eyes. I called him my friend, but I was sure he hated me. After my left hand was away, he lay curled up into a ball in my right palm. The sight, I must admit, tugged at my heartstrings. He was terrified of me, even though I hadn’t done anything to make him think of me badly. I felt horrible about it.

He didn’t move from this pitiful position, so I gently poked him with a finger. His body quivered and I began to wonder if I accidentally hurt him during my run. I looked at the miserable scrap, unsure of what to do. I hadn’t ever come this close to a human before.

I looked around and came to the conclusion that this small area at the end of the passage wasn’t going to start shooting at me or something, so I sat down. If this ‘test’ was all about trust, we weren’t going to get very far.

“Look,” I began softly, “We’re both in a bad position, I know. It’s not going to matter who trusts who if you don’t start getting used to me and we just fail this completely.”

No response. “Can’t we talk about this? I do recall humans being able to speak, or was I wrong?” Still nothing. I decided to try a different approach. “Don’t you have family? They’ll—“

The tiny man mumbled something, but I didn’t understand it. “Err… What? I can’t understand you with you being curled up in a ball.”

He slowly moved out of his sulking position, and I brought him closer to my face. He sat down on my palm. He looked up at me and instead of fear, sadness laced his expression this time. I realized just how small he was as my hand completely dwarfed him. It would be so easy to think of him as insignificant, but I wasn’t like that.

He finally spoke. “The people who run this disgusting place…they took my sister. I tried to save her, but that’s when they knocked me out too.” He looked up at me blankly.

I now understood why he had been acting so depressed alongside his fear of me.  His sister was being taken away, and in his attempt to stop them from kidnapping her, he fell into their grip as well. It was strange. He could remember what caused him to end up here, but I couldn’t recall a thing.

I looked at him with genuine concern.

“I’m sorry…” It seemed his sense of fear had returned after he was able to get his little rant off of his shoulders. He started to back off of my hand, but I quickly curled my fingers up as a small barrier so that he wouldn’t just walk right off.

His back pressed against the wall of flesh and he glanced around. “J-Just put me d-down…”

I shrugged and lowered my hard toward the ground. He was out of my hand like a bullet, though he didn’t run too far. In fact, he had only run down to my ankles, since my legs were stretched out in front of me. I think he didn’t realize the fact that running in that direction wasn’t really going to get him away from me. His line of vision moved up to my feet, which completely dwarfed him in every way, and I playfully wiggled my toes. He took a few steps away. His line of vision trailed the entire length of my body before he met my emerald-green eyes. I gave him a smile, and I wasn’t surprised to see that he didn’t return it.

Not that I could see his face clearly from his distance away. Either way, I knew we would have to keep going forward.

“We should move on. Wouldn’t want to keep our hosts waiting, would we?” I sneered as I said the word ‘host.’ No reply, of course.

I stood up to my full height and looked down at him. He looked ridiculously small as he stood there with his head craned upwards, taking in my sheer size. I couldn’t help but stifle a laugh. I stepped over him, my foot lingering as it was above him, and I heard a shriek. I quickly put my foot back alongside the other as I heard this; the force of it colliding with the ground caused him to fall backwards.

My heart sunk and I silently cursed under my breath. I kneeled down above him, my form towering and leaving him in my massive shadow.

“God, I didn’t mean to scare you that bad.” I paused for a few moments as I contemplated what the best thing to say would be. “I wasn’t really going to step on you.” The words didn’t come out as well as they sounded in my head. Oh, sorry, I wasn’t really going to crush you to death beneath my foot? What was I thinking?

Gingerly, I picked up his shivering body and dropped it on my palm before standing up again.

“Might be better if you’re up here with me, hmm?”

I finally continued down the hall. If you wanted to see some breathtaking part about how I avoided swinging axes and jumped over pits of lava, you’re going to be awfully disappointed. There was no Indiana Jones-style action scene here. Quite the opposite, frankly. It was a large open room with the same silvery metal walls, ceiling and floor as the other room had been, only this one was bigger by far.

Okay, there was one difference I noticed. As I stepped in, cold air bit into my skin in a contrast from the previously warm hallway. The entry-way behind me suddenly slammed shut with a piece of the metal, causing me to turn around in surprise.

The voice immediately began to speak over the intercom, “Because we are interested to see the results of this test when you are at your pique of alertness, we are courteous enough to allow you this room to rest in for the night.”

“I’ll show you courteous.” I scowled under my breath.

The lights began to slowly dim, but they didn’t go off all the way. I placed my tiny friend on the ground and he immediately moved away from my feet, running to one of the corners of the room. I sat down and rested my back against the wall.

I don’t know how long I sat there. It must’ve been at least two or three hours, but they passed completely uneventfully. Sure, I was tired, but I wasn’t really inclined to sleep on this cold metal floor in a completely foreign area. I looked over at the human. At his size, the cold in this room would have been horrible. I saw him curled up and running his hands along his legs, trying to warm himself up.

I grew tired of watching him suffer, so I went over and scooped him into a palm, bringing my other hand above him. No, I wasn’t trying to squish him. I was allowing my hands to trap my body heat inside so that he could get warmer. After a few minutes of standing there, I laid down on my back with my head propped up against the wall.

When this giant first picked me up and placed her other hand above me, I was sure she was going to crush me right there.

…But she didn’t. As her body heat started to build up in-between her hands, I understood what she was doing. She must have seen how I was trying to warm up and decided she should help me. I didn’t need help from a giant!

I started to move and she opened her hands. I wasn’t near used to the image of her immense figure staring down at me, so I flinched when I looked up at her. Not that she was hard to look at. If she weren't so immense, I might have considered her to be attractive.

Then she dropped me. I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the end against the cold metallic floor, but it never came. The surface I landed on was everything I had not been expecting...it was warm, soft, and covered by a thin fabric. I opened my eyes and realized she had dropped me onto her stomach.

I attempted to stand up, but the unstableness of her body caused me to fall forward. This only brought her to laugh a little, shaking the world around me as I grabbed onto her shirt for safety.

She murmured, “Sorry,” and looked at me with a smile.

I gave up on standing and just sat down. I could feel myself lightly rise and fall with each breath she took, which intimidated me even further.

“Feeling better?” Her voice startled me with its sudden volume. I wished she would just stop talking!

I have been calling the giant a she, but I had been in a mental war with myself over if I should use ‘she’ or ‘it’ to refer to the giant.  This wasn’t a person. She… It… It was a monster.

I know what you’re thinking. No, no, she’s nice, right? I have no reason not to believe that. You see, we’re taught a lot about giants when we’re in school, and most of it tends to be the negative things, I admit. But I had a reason to believe these stereotypes, and I had a reason to fear her.

I couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old when a giant came to my small town. It was a female, like this one. It, however, had rough black hair and icy blue eyes that would send a chill down your spine. Her smile was the worst; she would peel back her lips into a devilish grin, showing off her striking teeth. My mum and I were in the garden, as we usually were in the mornings, when she approached.

The earthshattering rumble as her enormous boots came forcefully came down right in front of my neighbor’s house was not a sound I can ever forget. My mother shooed me inside of our house and I ran to my room before I realized she hadn’t come in behind me.

Then I heard the ear-shattering laugh. It was horrifying, like someone would as they were playing a simple game. The very sound brought tears to my eyes, but I ran to the window anyway. I nearly died inside when I saw what the monster was doing. It was holding a bunch of people, people I knew, as if they were toys; swinging them around its gigantic fingers and making them hold on for their lives.

Including my mother. My blood curdled with rage and I ran outside of the house, shouting. The giant simply looked down at me, raising an eyebrow.

“What’s the matter?” She said playfully, “Do I have someone dear to you, little boy?”

It tightly closed its fingers around the people in its grasp, causing them to scream. It treated them like insects, not people. It was disgusting.

“Let my mum go!” I yelled, tears now streaming down my face.

It grinned at me, that horrible grin, and dropped all of the people except for my mother. They all hit the ground with a horrible 'crack!' all around me. I felt like I was going to be sick and pass out.

I fell to my knees and looked up at the monster, my body completely shivering now. It brought my mother up to its enormous mouth and just put her inside of it. I tucked my head into my knees and felt like I was going to die.

Everything else in my memory is a mess. I saw blood everywhere, and the only thing I could hear was my own pulse and the screaming of other people trying to get away. The last thing I remember was the giant stomping its enormous foot down, sending me flying from the force. My thoughts dwindled on the realization that my little sister was still in the house as my mind went blank.

A few weeks later, I woke up in a strange house and tried to sit up. An old man came over to me with my little sister in his arms. He told me that he had rescued us and that it was going to be alright, but he didn’t respond when I asked what became of my hometown. This was this man who raised me. I never knew my true father, but he might as well have been.

The human stared blankly at the wall and I was sure I saw tears streaming down his face. He was like this for several minutes before he rubbed at his eye with the back of his wrist.

I sat up slightly, not enough to cause him to fall off of his position on my stomach, but so that I could see him easier. Whatever was going on with this guy, it wasn’t normal. He definitely hated me, but I could tell now that there was a reason. A good reason, I assumed.

A wave of regret engulfed me for what I had done earlier. If I knew something was this wrong, I wouldn’t have joked around with him like that. I said the only thing that came to my mind and I looked at him with my eyebrows furrowed in concern.

“Are…you okay?”

Apparently that wasn’t a great thing to say, because he suddenly stood up (surprisingly) and began yelling at me with pure rage.

“You! You monsters ruined my life! You killed my mother! Everyone I knew! You almost killed me and my sister, too! All of the people you killed! You treated them like insects, because that’s what we are, right?! We’re just the insignificant bugs that you think you can just play with! We’re not people to you! Why do you even pretend to care, you disgusting creature!?”

My face went white from the surprise of hearing him do this. I was sure my head sunk into my shoulders to be noticeable even for him. My mouth was slightly hanging open as my jaw dropped in shock.

“I…”

“No, stop! Just stop! If you’re going to crush me, pull my limbs off, eat me, whatever sick things you do, just do it now! Get it over with!”

“…I do think of you as a person.”

“What? No you don’t.”

I felt a tear well up in my eye.

“Yes I do. I’ve always thought of humans as people. I’m terribly sorry for what happened to you, and I wish there was something I could say or do, but…”

He looked down without reply, so I continued.

“I would never even think of hurting someone, including humans. Our races used to be allies!”

 “You really think of me as a person?” He shifted anxiously and I could hear nervousness in his voice.

“Yes. But in return, I want the same from you. I’m not a monster. I’m a person too, just a bit taller.  Can you do that for me?”

Several moments of tense silence went by; I began to wonder if he would decline.

“I…I can try.”

I smiled and carefully moved a finger near him in an offer to shake. He reluctantly gave me a nervous look in return and took the tip of my finger in his hand.

"I won't let you down, I promise." I whispered.

"Can you put me down now?"

"Do you really want to sleep on the cold floor?"

"No, but-"

"You can sleep right there if you'd like."

He looked around at the island of my body.

"What if you turn over and squash me?" He asked shakily as he lay down on my stomach.

"I won't. I'll make sure of it."

With that, he curled up on me and fell asleep. He looked adorable; I couldn't help but smile at his form for a few moments before I leaned back and contemplated sleep of my own. I didn't know what tomorrow had in store, but I was sure it wasn't going to be anything easy.

I woke up with a start to a ferocious roar. Immediately I sat up, glanced around, and…

…and, with a wave of despair, remembered where I was. The sound was the giant’s stomach growling, of course. I had fallen asleep on her last night not long after I agreed to have a truce with her.

 I looked over to her face. Her neck looked like its painful position of being craned up against the wall had given her discomfort last night. Her head was mostly on its side with a hand covering her forehead as her eyebrows were furrowed in deep thought.

She was still asleep. I felt sort of bad when I realized that while I was warm and comfortable during the night, she was sprawled out on the cold metal floor.

I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t want to sit here, but I didn’t want to wake her up. I wasn’t even sure if I could.

If you’re wondering why I’m suddenly taking a lighter opinion of her, it’s because last night was extremely emotional for me. Frankly, I didn’t even know what to think anymore. You heard what happened. Don’t get me wrong; I’m still no giant lover and she still intimidated me.

I looked down at her feet. They were so far away, yet they were still connected to what I was standing on. She was literally a living landscape. My mind swirled in wonder about this fact when she finally began to wake up.

I guess she forgot where she was as much as I did, because I felt myself sliding down the plain of her stomach as she lifted her torso in a daze that sent me falling along her belly and down to her lap. She immediately realized this and scooped me up into her hands to bring me in front of her face. Her eyes were wide and I could feel her hot breath wash over me as she began to speak.

“Yikes! You’re okay, right? I didn’t accidentally hurt you? Damn, I must’ve forgotten that I let you sleep there last night.”

“No, I’m fine.” I replied, nervously rubbing my shoulder. She let out a sigh of relief and set me down on the floor next to her.

The lights in the room returned to their painful level of brightness and we both covered our eyes with an arm. A heavy mist slowly filled the room through small vents I hadn’t noticed in the ceiling before. I held my breath, unsure if I should inhale this substance, when the voice once again came over the loudspeaker.

“Good morning,” it began in its horrible monotone voice, cold as the room itself, “we do hope you enjoyed your rest; you will need it. The vapor being vented into this room will provide your body with the nutrients, energy, and liquid for the length of today.”

That was…strange. What kind of organization could have something as advanced as that? What was the purpose of this in the first place? I just couldn’t grasp it.

Reluctantly, I allowed myself to inhale. The mist was strong with a scent I cannot begin to describe, but it was neither pleasant nor hindering.

The wall on the opposite side we had come in yesterday snapped opened loudly, revealing another long passage.

“Hey,” came a god-like feminine voice from above, “what’s your name? I hope I don’t have to call you ‘Tiny’ or ‘Human’ or something.” she finished with a wink. I considered giving her a fake name, but I decided there would be no point to it.

“I’m Daniel. And you?”

“Lynn.”

I looked over to the passage and then up to my giant companion. This was going to be one hell of a thing.

I stood up, taking a last deep breath of the vapor, before looking down at Daniel.

“Do you want to walk, or…?”

“I think it would be easier if you carried me.” Daniel replied nervously.

I kneeled down and placed my open palm near the ground. He looked at me hesitantly for a few seconds before stepping into it.

I lifted him up and put him on my shoulder. He instinctively grabbed onto my neck for balance, so I took an experimental step forward.

“Is that going to be okay?”

Daniel sat down before he responded. “Yeah, this’ll be fine.”

I continued down the passage, carefully examining the walls around me for any trace of change. Anything could happen at any moment, and I had to be prepared for it, for both of our sake. The silence between Daniel and I was awkward at best, so I attempted to start some instance of conversation.

“So…did you sleep well last night?”

“Yeah, I did, actually. Did you?”

“Not really. My neck is still sore from leaning against the wall like that.”

He laughed a bit, bringing a smile to my face.

“Tell me about you, Lynn.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. What do you do?”

“You mean besides rampage villages?”

“You—“

“Sorry, that was bad. I don’t do that, though that’s probably what you were taught. …What are you taught about us?”

“Does it matter?”

“I’ve always wondered…”

While I had a pretty good idea about what humans were taught about giants, I found it interesting to know exactly what they were told. Perhaps one day I could go out and quell some of these misconceptions.

Daniel sighed.

“Well, we’re taught that you used to be our allies…”

“Uh-huh.”

“…But we’re also taught that you betrayed us with a lust for power…and that you now crush and eat us.”

I stopped walking.

“Do you think I’d do that?”

“What?”

“Do you think I’d crush and eat you?”

“Well… No?”

“Good. I won’t.”

The rest of the walk was in silence. It wasn’t long, however, after we stopped talking when I came into another room.

 To my amazement, there was another human on the wall in chains not unlike the ones we had previously been in.

“That’s my sister!” came a voice shouting up to my ear. “We have to save her!” I quickly walked over to the human in the chains.

 I squinted to examine her. She looked like she was around 17 or 18 years of age, making her a bit younger than Daniel and me. She was unconscious.

“Allison!” Daniel shouted from my shoulder.

I suspiciously eyed thousands of tiny holes along the wall throughout the room near my ankles. There hadn’t been any holes like this in the other rooms, or at least that I’d noticed. Maybe I was just being paranoid.

The girl groaned, but quickly shook the sleep out of her head. She opened her eyes and immediately gaped up at me with a small scream. I looked back at her with uncertainty.

“Allison!” Daniel yelled again. The girl looked over to him on my shoulder.

“…Daniel? Why does a g-giant have y-you?”

“Allison, this is Lynn. It’s okay; we’re going to try to get you out of this.”

I gave Allison a small smile in an attempt to reassure her.

“Lynn,” Daniel continued, “How do we get her out of these chains?” “I don’t—”

Allison interrupted me. “There’s a lever up there.” She nodded just above her. “It might be the release control…”

Sure enough, a miniscule lever was positioned just out of her reach. I held my hand out below her.

“W-what are you doing?” Allison asked as she gazed down at my immense palm.

“Well if this lever is the release,” I responded, “I doubt you’d want to fall to the ground.”

Her face grew red as she realized what I said. “…Oh. Right.”

With my other hand I placed my index finger and thumb around its handle and pulled down. The chains released with a small click and Allison fell right into my hand with a screech. However, the chains were not the only thing the lever triggered. A piercing noise filled the air as bullets shot out of the holes I noted earlier, all contacting with my ankles.

In reflex I closed my fingers around Allison and stepped back in surprise with a gasp. The bullets were much more painful than I would have expected such tiny pieces of metal to be, but there were many of them. Clenching my teeth, I kneeled to the ground, released Allison, and placed Daniel next to her. He ran up to her with a hug.

These bullets definitely weren’t simple bullets. They had to be covered in some sort of chemical to make it more painful for me.

I sat down and leaned my back against the wall, holding my ankles in pain. 

I quickly released my sister from the reuniting hug and looked up at Lynn with concern. She was grasping onto her ankle in pain, and the wounds didn't seem to look too good, even if they were small.

I should have expected the release of my sister would not be so easy, that it would be some kind of trap.

Turning to my sister, I beckoned her to follow me as I walked over to Lynn's foot. She obliged, though reluctantly.

"Lynn," I called up, "how bad is it?" 

"Painful...but I'll live" came her reply through grit teeth. Intrigued, I stepped onto the fleshy surface of her foot.

"Let me see it."

Lynn hesitantly removed her hand and lifted the ankle of her pants to reveal a series of consistent red dots along her ankle. I gently ran my hand along the wound and she lightly flinched back in response. It was clear to me that the weapon used were no simple bullets. Who were the people behind this, and what was the end to the alien technology they could obtain? Did we even have a chance of getting out of this mess, considering we were simply at the beginning?

I stepped back off of her foot and Lynn slowly stood to her full height, visibly uncertain of her balance with the new injury. Lynn experimentally moved her ankle to test for greater injury, but nothing bad looked obvious. She looked like she could do a fair job standing normally in the least.

Allison grabbed onto me from behind with a whimper as she looked up at the sheer size of Lynn towering above us.

I must admit, even I had to swallow a gulp of instinctive fear when I saw Lynn rise to stand. Everything inside me told me to run. She was massive. I would never completely wrap my mind around the fact, no matter how many times I saw her or how hard I tried. However, she was really sweet. Her personality was surprisingly compassionate and positive, even when she joked around. I hadn't thought about it much before, but I was taking a liking to her. The thought twisted around in my mind. If you'd told me about what I am doing now a few weeks ago, I'd have laughed at you and thought you were insane. If you'd told me you thought I'd be falling for a ...giant... in the future, I'd have recommended a psychologist. But at this moment...I couldn't be sure what my response would be.

Lynn looked down at us with a halfway forced smile. She kneeled down in front of us on both of her knees, examining my sister with an expression full of genuine concern.

"Allison, you can trust me."

However, my sister was on the verge of tears. While Allison had been an infant when my family was attacked, she took this event much deeper than I did. You could even say she was left with a true phobia. It seems sort of ironic that she and I would end up in a situation like this, but that seems to be the way life works.

"It's okay," I began in an attempt to sooth my sister, "at least trust me. Lynn won't harm you."

Allison returned my glance and shook her head, breaking into a full stream of tears. I turned and looked up at Lynn to see that she was biting her lip, unsure of what to say or do.

While I could pretty much handle Daniel's mixed fear and rage when he saw me, this was horrible. Allison was utterly terrified of me, just because of what I was. I didn't have a single clue as to what I should say or do. Would I make it worse? Kneeling down, I looked over to Daniel in hope that he could give me advice as to how I could approach this situation. He simply shrugged. I sighed and looked back down to Allison, hoping I would be able to talk enough fear out of her in order to continue on.

“Allison?” I began carefully. “I heard about what happened to your family. I can't imagine having to live with such torment. But I'm not like the giant that attacked your town. Words would not be able to express how absolutely terrible I think that was. I would never be able to even begin thinking about doing anything remotely like that.”

Allison looked up from her sorrow and I could easily see her raw eyes and frightened face. I felt awful. I hated that I could scare people so easily because of my size alone, though I honestly couldn't blame them. Gingerly, I reached down and scooped Allison's tiny form into my palm, closely watching her frantically look around my hand in sheer horror. I lifted her to my face and gave her a warm smile. She gaped at my gargantuan facial features for several minutes before looking down at the flesh she was sitting on. She placed her shaking hand down on mine, as if trying to compare the sizes, and silently gasped, barely loud enough for me to hear. Looking up at my face again, I saw her expression lacked the instinctive terror that it had moments ago, and was replaced by uncertainty. Progress! I smiled at her again. To my surprise, she stood up, walked over to my thumb, and grasped hold of my it in what seemed to be a hug. I was utterly shocked.

“...Allison?” I asked after a minute had passed by. Allison let go and wiped her eyes before looking up at me.

“I'm sorry,” she said with hesitation, “I don't know what came over me.”

“It's perfectly fine.” I said with a reassuring grin. “Are you still afraid of me?”

“Yes, but...not as much, I think.” She said, and actually returned my smile.

“Well, that means a lot.” I said and started to put her down, but I felt her tap on my thumb.

“Wait...could you actually hold me?”

I looked at her, bewildered. “Seriously?”

“I feel safe.” She said sheepishly.

“Of course.”

I looked down to see Daniel by my knee, looking up at us questioningly.

“Coming?” I asked, lowering the hand that contained Allison.

“I'm glad you two are managing to get along.” He said as he carefully stepped on next to his sister.

“Well.” I said, nodding to the newly opened pathway. “Are we ready to get on with this?”

My two companions glanced at each other before looking up at me and nodding.

I walked over to the entrance to the new room, eyes scanning the walls for signs of more traps. I didn't see anything, but I sure as hell wasn't going to overlook something like the holes in the other room again. Damn that hurt. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to keep walking; I hadn't expected the pain to increase so much from walking such a short distance.

Daniel's voice shattered my thoughts. “Lynn?”

“Yeah?” I asked, lifting my hand so that I could see him. Had he noticed my pain?

“Are you...sure you're alright?”

I didn't think I was being so obvious about my injury, but apparently he could tell.

“Lynn, look behind you.” He said as if he knew what I had been thinking.

I turned around and almost dropped Daniel and Allison in shock. A trail of blood followed my steps, and I looked down to see that my wounds had opened up when I was walking. Holy hell, it was worse than I had thought. Suddenly feeling dizzy, I stumbled back against a wall and sat down, placing the pair of humans on my shoulder. I tore off a small piece of my shirt and pressed it against the area where the bleeding was the worst.

“This is my fault.” Allison suddenly cried from my shoulder. “I'm so sorry, Lynn.

“Don't be silly, Allison. We had to get you down from there; it's my fault for not paying closer attention to the trap.”

“I think we're okay to rest here for a while. It's not much use to walk with that injury, Lynn.” Daniel said.

“I suppose.” I said as I stretched out my legs with a sigh.

I plucked Daniel and Allison from my shoulder and held them in front of me.

“What?” Daniel finally asked after a minute of sitting there while I observed him and his sister.

“Just looking at you. I've never really met any humans before.” I paused and gave them a grin. “You really are tiny.”

“Tiny?” Daniel asked, playing along. “We're not tiny. You're just enormous.”

I faked a pout. “Are you calling me fat, Daniel? That's not very nice to say to a lady.”

Allison quietly giggled, while Daniel's face grew red.

“I'm just teasing. Are all humans this easy?” I asked with a wide smile. I genuinely enjoyed talking with these two. It made it easy to forget about the situation we were in.