Sunshine relaxed inside her sleeping bag. Nap time was necessary before attempting any borrowing run. She had learned from her father that she needed every drop of energy for the job and thus was the best method Sunshine had for conserving her precious energy.

As she left her sleeping bag, she took a moment to reflect on her current home. It was actually, hardly a "home". The term "makeshift refuge" was much more fitting. 

She had arrived there a few days prior. After making a trip many would consider a true migration, when you had taken into account the fact that Sunshine was a bit over 3 inches tall. She had left the comfort of her little home in the countryside as the winters became ever more crude and unforgiving.

She had guessed that the human city was her next best chance of survival but she never expected it to be so… big. She arrived by riding uninvited inside a human car and dropped off where the humans inside dropped off.

This left her an inhabitant of High Bridge 819, a small apartment building for human college students. This was abysmal for the young borrower. Young humans were unpredictable beasts. With irregular sleep schedules, unannounced energy rushes, and their goddamn parties.

She spent the best part of her first week just trying to find the best apartment to settle in. Scavenging for food and water occasionally, she made her way across the seemingly endless maze of pipes and cables that was the world between the building's walls and floors.

Finally, she found her little refuge: a little space on the roof of the third floor and the floor of the fourth. She lamented the fact that it was so far from the ground, making her entering and exiting the building a hard thing to do, but the place was perfect. It was near the heating and water pipes, it was far from human eyes, and most specially, it provided an excellent base from which a large borrowing operation could be held, as it was sitting right below a closet. All Sunshine had to do was climb through an almost undetectable hole and she had full access to all the occupant of Apartment 43 had to offer.

And so, the borrower looked at her makeshift refuge, still lacking the furniture it needed to be a proper home. Right now, the only thing she had was her backpack with her tools, a sleeping bag, and a piece of glass she had made into a mirror. 

Sunshine took a long look at her own image for a while. Her short, blonde hair for which she had gotten her name, her aching, hard muscles, and the dirty coat she had been using since she arrived.

"First thing I'll get tonight will be some new clothes, and then a proper bed" she said, to no one in particular. 

So she gathered all the necessary tools in her backpack, climbed the bricks and planks and tubes, entered the small, almost undetectable hole… and emerged to a complete mess.

Each apartment had a built-in closet for their occupants, and as such, Sunshine had planned her first borrowing run starting from one of these closets. However, she wasn’t expecting the absolute chaos that was above her.

Sunshine had emerged into an old, unwashed leather jacket. It covered the whole of the little hole she was using as an entrance, effectively creating a small cave inside the closet. The little borrower was drowning in a smell combining sweat, cheap alcohol, and cigarettes. It was unbearable. Sunshine tried to find an exit, only to lose herself deeper into the jacket. It was like a giant tent and the black color and lack of light made the situation only worse.

After battling with the jacket for a solid minute, Sunshine finally found her exit: she reached one of the jacket's sleeves and ran straight through it. Trying her best to ignore the strong smell of the human’s armpit. She had had enough, the run wasn’t even five minutes through and already the human world was putting obstacles in her way. But the worst was yet to come.

Sunshine finally reached the end of the sleeve. “Finally!” she let herself exclaim out loud. But the poor borrower already felt something was wrong. Amid the confusion traversing the old jacket, she had become disoriented and didn’t correctly measure her altitude. In truth, Sunshine realized, the jacket was amid a pile of unwashed, dirty clothes, and the sleeve, more than a path to freedom, was but a gateway into another human obstacle.

As soon as she stepped out of the jacket, she fell. She rolled through a mountain of human clothes, just to end up inside a human shoe. 

“Oh… oh no…” sighed the borrower. If the smell inside the jacket was unbearable, this shoe was a true hell. Because, unlike the jacket, this shoe had been used recently and that meant…

Sweat. Genuine, human sweat. Sunshine had fallen into a poodle of it, half dried in the fabric of the shoe, but disgusting nonetheless. 

The borrower took a deep breath, and slowly, carefully, climbed out of it. She let herself fall to the floor after that. To her side, that shoe, now clearly what appeared to be one of those things humans called a “Converse” stood like a small house. Still, to the other side… the door of the closet.

Sunshine let herself a moment to breathe, and proceded with her quest. She crawled under the door, and emerged into a room.

“Fuck” whispered the borrower the very moment she noticed the room was, in fact, occupied.

Occupied by a human female, actually. Sunshine couldn’t see her face, she was facing her computer, playing one of those things humans called “computer games” and was screaming a series of genitalia related profanities to what was supposed to be her teammates. The woman was tall, even for a human, with a long, black mane and wore only a black top and yoga pants, but every fiber of her visible being screamed that she didn't actually do yoga, in fact she didn't appear to enjoy exercise at all. 

And if the closet was a mess, the room it belonged in was an entire different level of mess: energy drink cans littered the floor, along with the remains of different types of fast foods; the bed was obviously unkempt, and it's sheets sprawled throughout the floor; a thick layer of dust covered everything that hadn’t been recently used… suddenly, Sunshine’s small makeshift refuge didn’t seem such a bad place.

Sunshine thought of returning to her place. Things weren’t going as planned at all. However… the human was clearly distracted, and the huge mess in the room meant that things might easily be misplaced and lost… all her instincts called for her to press on.

And press on she did, she sprinted towards the underbed with a speed known only to her kind. There, she saw all kinds of treasure: lost coins; keychains; even jewelry made her way here, with necklaces and rings. All cheap, of course, but treasure nonetheless. But then she saw it.

At the end of the underbed was a hoodie. A simple black hoodie. Yet the color called to her. If she could cut a little piece of that hoodie’s fabric, she could fashion herself a cloak. A black cloak, perfect for her borrowing runs, warm for the winter, and oh how she could fill the cloak with pockets for tools and trinkets and…

A loud profanity from the giant occupant of the room broke Sunshine’s daydreaming and she set herself to work. She sprinted to the hoodie and carefully entered one of its pockets. The hoodie, as all the clothes of this particular human, smelled horrendous, but for this time, Sunshine paid no attention to it, all her focus was on cutting enough of the soft, cozy fabric to make her prized cloak.

So lost in her work was the little borrower that she didn’t notice the profanities, loud typing and the screams coming from the headphones stopping. Nor did she notice the phone of the human ringing, nor did she notice the booming steps growing closer and closer and…

She was flying.

No, the space she was in was flying, she was floating in it. 

“Oh no no no no no no no no no no” was the only thing Sunshine could think of. The human was, unfortunately for the borrower, about to put the hoodie on herself. 

Her first instinct was to escape, but the constant shifting of the ground as the human adjusted the hoodie around her chest and arms made escape impossible. Jumping away, from this height, could kill her. Her only option now, if she wanted to get away and remain breathing, was to simply sit this through, and beg that the human’s hands didn't come into the pocket for any reason.

And yet, it was the first thing they did.

----------------

Sophie’s first instinct was to think that whatever she had just grabbed was some kind of a weird rat. 

She flinched at the thought, but then again rats don’t tend to have… a human shape.

No, the thing she just grabbed appeared to be a tiny human form. A warm, soft, tiny human form. 

Carefully, Sophie walked around the mess to the bathroom of the studio apartment she inhabited. Once the door was locked, she delicately pulled her hand out of her pocket.

There it was, a tiny person. Looking at her with the most terrified look she had seen in anyone.

With her free hand, Sophie motioned for peace, trying her best to calm the little creature down. It wasn’t working. So Sophie let the tiny creature gently fall into the bathroom’s wash basin.

Oh my god, I must look like a fucking giant to them, Sophie thought. And indeed, looming over the tiny thing like this, setting them in a place they were unable to escape from… yes she did look intimidating.

“Now, calm down little thing” Sophie said out loud, trying her best to reach a conciliatory, soothing tone.

“Little thing!?” answered the little thing below.

Sophie was taken aback for a second, not only did the creature respond to her, they did so in perfect english. Unexpectedly, Sophie realized she was speaking to a tiny person.

A tiny person.

Her social anxiety kicked in like a mule.

“I-I-I mean… you are kinda small from my perspective so I only thought you…”

“I'm not small! You’re HUGE!”  said the creature.

Sophie stumbled upon her words trying to form a coherent response. But the creature went on.

“Besides what’s with that soothing, maternal act you were trying to pull. I'm an adult!” said the creature.

“W-Well you are tiny so…” said Sophie

“Ugh, AGAIN, with the tiny thing! Stop!” answered the creature.

“S-sorry…” said Sophie, biting her thumb.

The two stared at each other somewhat awkwardly. Sophie could tell that whatever had just happened wasn't whatever the creature was expecting. 

The creature broke the silence.

“My name’s Sunshine, by the way” she said.

“I-Im Sophie” Sophie answered.

“So, are you letting me out of here or what?” Said Sunshine.