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.