PenniBun

It was grey - no fancy headboard - with white sheets and a relatively thick, plain white comforter that was not even close to being neatly made on it’s surface. Francis had only just woken up. Her brain was fried from sleep deprivation, and her thought process was not steady enough to be able to properly ponder this oddity that materialized overnight barely a meter away from where her head lay in the middle of her sleep.

Had she been more lucid, she may have been more put off by it—she lived alone, after all, and the odds that her cat dragged it in and delicately placed it on the nightstand in the deepest hours of dark were slim. Had she been more lucid, a thought she may have had was that a stranger dropped by her house in the middle of the night, stole nothing, and left only a toy on her desk. Had she been more lucid, the thought that someone had been in her apartment may have scared her. However, Francis was not lucid enough to think these things. Her train of thought skipped over the “searching for an explanation” part and jumped directly into the “I must touch it and examine it” part.

She was tense, with no clear reason as to why. Just a general sense of “bad” in the air. Her hand reached passed her phone to grasp the sides of the bed. She lifted it up and made it a few centimeters before the bed screamed.

With little to no rational thought involved, she responded in tandem. She screamed as well, dropping the bed and leaping away from the thing on her nightstand, sitting on the farthest corner of her mattress. If she wasn’t awake before, she definitely was now. She was fully freaking out. She felt the familiar sensation of a dark, shadowy hand squeezing at her lungs, making every breath she took less fulfilling. Every muscle in her body tensed, and her jaw shivered in that way it does when you’ve woken up early and the adrenaline is pumping through you and your train of thought is a blur of incoherent babbling and was that a mouse or something that just screamed at her? And-

She dared not move as she saw movement from underneath the miniscule comforter. The blanket was thrown off the bed to reveal a very disgruntled-looking… girl.

Just a girl. No wings, no tails, no horns, nothing. Just a normal, tiny, human girl, probably around the same age as Francis, who looked very displeased with the premature end to her sleep. Or, at least, she did look displeased, until she looked up at Francis’ gawking face. Her expression very quickly shifted to terror after that.

The girl tried to stumble backwards, but had very little room to do so. She extended her left hand behind her and grasped at air, having reached the end of her small bed, and she slipped off the edge of the mattress, landing hard on her back. Her body was obscured from Francis’ vision for a few moments before an impossibly tiny head poked out from behind the bed.

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Rory was having the most wonderful dream. She couldn’t be sure, but it had something to do with a game show, and final exams, and maybe there was a hamster involved? It was one of those dreams that you don’t question while you’re in it, and you only realize how weird it was after you wake-

Rory was levitating. This was it. She’d finally died and was ascending to the afterlife—wait. No. The bed below her was still solid. She was… well, she was panicking now. She let out a shriek of terror and immediately dropped like a brick to the hard ground far, far below her. Now fully awake as a result of her rude awakening, Rory ripped off the covers in anger, ready to strangle whatever frat house or group of egotistical fuckboys decided to play a prank on her. Her eyes searched for a target, and eventually met one. A big one.

Her eyes widened as she moved backwards, no destination in mind, anywhere that was further away from, from that, that woman? That giant woman? That colossal creature that looked down at her with shock, that could not possibly be anything other than hostile, that-

She tried to place her weight on her hand, not realizing that there was no more mattress underneath it to support her. Her world flipped as she fell backwards. Her head screamed in pain as it clunked against the hard, unforgiving surface of the nightstand below. She lay there for a moment to catch her breath before slowly peeking out from behind the cover of her bed to look at the giant creature beyond.

The woman seemed… normal, given the circumstances. The room seemed normal. The posters and pride flags and tapestries on the wall seemed normal, all save for their sheer immensity. This broke uni student’s bedroom which, by the way, looked very similar to Rory’s own bedroom, was a building, a city, to the comparatively diminutive girl. It was a whole world on its own, and there, sitting on her proverbial throne, was its ruler. The colossal woman staring down at Rory in shock.

The giant was the first to break the silence. She spoke in between her panicked gasps of breath. “…hey.” The single syllable left her mouth slowly. Those impossibly distant eyes narrowed in confusion, and Rory followed suit. She decided to test the proverbial waters a bit too. “…hi there.”

Both women stared into each other’s eyes, searching each other, looking for an explanation. Each was waiting for the other to come out and address the elephant in the room, hoping that at least one of them had at least some semblance of an idea of what was happening.

Being given no information from the giant in front of her, Rory began to ponder her situation on her own. People don’t just… wake up like this, at this… height. Whatever had happened to Rory must have been done to her, by someone, right? And, well, the only real… suspect… that Rory had at the moment was directly in front of her.

She had been kidnapped, right?

A pit grew in her stomach. A pit that sucked all emotion that it deemed unnecessary. It absorbed all of Rory’s thoughts and feelings before corrupting them, perverting them, and churning out fear. It wasn’t a blind panic. Rory wished it was a blind panic. You’re not as aware of your actions in a blind panic—you act on instinct alone, abandoning rational thought. This was far worse. Rational thought was all there was left in her, and she was painfully aware of every move she made, every tremor in her knees, every thought that passed through her brain. It was a hollow fear that choked the breath out of her lungs.

She focused on what she could do right now. She’d been kidnapped. That was the only logical answer, but the giant seemed equally surprised to see her here, so maybe it was an accident of some kind? If nothing else, she definitely wasn’t supposed to be here, so there was a chance she could talk her way out of this… situation she found herself in.

She swallowed her anxiety and once again spoke to the giant. Out of fear, she tried to find the least confrontational and hostile way to make her accusation. “What, uh… what did you do? To me?”

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Francis was left speechless. She was far too deep into her panic to try and process such a loaded question, let alone formulate a reassuring, or even a coherent, response. The cold, dark hand squeezed tighter around her lungs, and those vital organs shrunk further. She opened her mouth to speak, to defend herself, but couldn’t find the words.

“Uh..?”

Apparently the lack of an outright denial in her response was enough of a confirmation for the small girl on her nightstand. “Listen, I’m, like, cool..? Like, I didn’t, you know, see anything today if that’s, um… how you wanna go about this.” Francis screamed at herself in her head, demanding a response of some kind, any kind, literally anything at all, yet she couldn’t come up with the words. Her chest felt yet colder, yet darker. The hand continued to squeeze. The miniscule woman swallowed hard before continuing. “Like, I barely understand what’s going on as is? So if this was a mistake of some kind on your end, I promise I’ll make it easy for you to, uh, fix? If that’s how this all works? Like, I’ll cooperate, is what I mean.”

For whatever reason, Francis finally regained control of her tongue. In her rush to defend herself, to prove that she wasn’t the evil monster that the girl clearly thought she was, she may have shouted a bit too loudly. “You think I did this?”

The doll-sized woman responded with widened eyes and furrowed brows. Her voice was suddenly more unstable and shrill. “Well how else would I have ended up here? You can’t expect me to believe I just teleported here in the middle of the night, right?”

Francis’ honour was at stake. She was sensitive to accusations like this. She knew that she was overreacting, that the other girl had every right to be scared, that it was impossible for her fear to be a comment on Francis as a person, yet the thought that she was being viewed as a malicious, evil threat was maddening. She knew what was going on—she was feeling and acting quicker than she could think. It was not an uncommon occurrence for her, yet she could do nothing to stop it. Francis jumped to defend herself faster than she could realize that calmly explaining her own perspective would have been a much better way to do things.

“You-you can’t possibly believe that. I’m not some kind of mad genius who shrunk and kidnapped you, or whatever you’re thinking! Don’t pretend you have some semblance of an idea of what’s going on here! I have no idea, and I’m certain you don’t either!”

The other woman shrunk further behind the tiny bed. Her voice wavered even more than before. “Okay! Okay! I’ve got it! We’re cool, everything’s cool, no need to, um… we can just calm down now, ‘kay? Let’s just calm down and breathe.”

Francis’ emotions got the better of her yet again. She was being talked down to, treated like a child by… by- How on earth was she being patronized by someone who was four inches tall? What the hell was going on? The stress of this insane situation drove her to the brink of a panic attack. “Don’t talk to me that way! Stop treating me like a threat.” The girl didn’t trust her. No one did. She would always be alone. She couldn’t breathe. When did her bedroom get so small? Her-

She looked at the girl again. She was trembling, eyes wide, staring at Francis as she broke down. She would’ve given anything, everything, for this to all go away.

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Rory was scared, of course. Who wouldn’t be? This was all so overwhelming, for anyone. And yet, her fear was only a blanket that surrounded what she truly felt in this moment—anger. It was obvious now that she hadn’t been kidnapped, and that brought her some fraction of relief, yet it paled in comparison to her rage.

This woman, this colossal titan sitting in front of her, was panicking. She was having a meltdown. How dare she? Rory was the one whose life may be forever changed. She was the one who felt every tremor the giant’s movements made throughout her entire body. She was the one who deserved to be panicking right now, to be comforted in this awful situation.

But she wasn’t some kind of cold-hearted psychopath. She had empathy. This situation was, admittedly, stressful for both parties. And, of course, it wasn’t like Rory hadn’t been there before herself. But she was still frustrated that, like always, she had to be the strong one. Had to suppress her own anxieties in order to help someone else deal with theirs.

God, how awful of a person was she? A woman is having a full-blown panic attack right in front of her and her first reaction is to bitch to herself about how it was affecting her. She needed to help this woman.

Begrudgingly, she stood up from behind the safety of the bed. She walked to the edge of the nightstand, making eye contact with the woman the whole time. The woman… she felt uncomfortable referring to her in that way. Her throat was dry, but she found the courage to speak despite it.

“Don’t worry, I don’t think you’re a threat. My name’s Rory. Can you tell me yours?”

The woman stayed silent, still breathing heavily, yet maintaining eye contact with Rory through it all.

“Okay… I get that this is… odd, and definitely very stressful. I know it’s scary—I’m scared too—but for now, we’re not in any danger. Let’s just focus on right now, alright? So what do you need right now?”

The woman’s breathing was still laboured, but she seemed to feel a bit better. Her voice was shaky. “…Francis.”

Rory blinked in confusion, taking a second to understand what was just said to her. “You need... oh, that’s your name! Okay, Francis…” Rory looked down at the abyss in front of her, at the gap between the nightstand and the bed, at the long, long trip down to the hard floor. Then she looked at the gargantuan mattress at the end of the pit. It was such a scary sight, that first step to getting closer to Francis, but…

She could probably make that jump.

Swallowing her fear, she ran and leaped over the gap, clutching the sheets as she landed to steady herself. Francis gasped from her vantage point far above. The hard part was over. It would be easier from here. There were no more gaps between them. She looked up at Francis as she awkwardly stumbled over the unstable surface of the mattress. “Do you want to give me your hand?”

Still staring in shock, Francis slowly lowered her hand and offered a fingertip to Rory. It took all her willpower not to flinch as it approached her. It was like a car driving uncomfortably fast towards the crosswalk, and as you looked at it you were pretty sure that it was going to stop—there was no way the driver didn’t see you, right?—but it was still unnerving. Francis laid her digit down on the bed in front of Rory. The tiny woman kneeled down and grabbed it with two hands, stroking it softly with her own miniscule fingers. She sat in awe of the sheer vastness of it. It was just a finger, identical to her own, and yet… it screwed with her mind, but she shoved those feelings down. She shoved it all down.

“You’re getting through this. You’re doing great. I want you to tell me what you need right now.”

Francis finally responded. “I-I don’t know.”

Rory didn’t press further. “Okay, then let’s just sit here for a bit. Will that help?”

Francis didn’t need to reply. They sat in silence for a while. Rory’s mind raced, her ears burned, and she resisted the desire to twitch and bounce around, not letting the anxious energy out, keeping it in for Francis’ sake. She didn’t let her thoughts take any coherent form, but that didn’t stop the general feeling of panic slowly coalesce deep within her. But she could hold out, she could push through it. She always had, maybe not with this stranger she just met, but… life had a funny way of shoving her into these situations. She could handle it, though.

It was a very long time before Francis finally spoke. “I… I should go take my meds.”

Rory met her gaze and smiled. “That sounds like a good idea. I’ll be here.”

Francis looked away and awkwardly shuffled to the end of her mattress before making her way out the door.

It was over, and yet at the same time, it was far from over. Rory laid down and twitched her foot, her knees trembling, her breathing shallow and shaky. “Oh god. Oh god…” her entire life as she knew it was over. This would be every day for her from now on.

How long could she possibly hold out for?

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Francis splashed warm water on her face, rubbing the calming fluid on the back of her neck. The hand’s grip on her lungs had loosened, and she could breathe once again. She looked longingly at the shower next to the sink, wanting nothing more than to be entirely soaked in warm water right now.

However, embarrassment repelled her from the shower knob, and pushed her back into her room to face the little woman—Rory. She let herself be so weak in front of this total stranger, dumped all her problems onto her shoulders… oh god, she’s four inches tall! She must be terrified! How could she not be? She must be so overwhelmed…

Francis opened the door to her bedroom and opened her mouth to apologize for her breakdown, but she stopped the moment she saw Rory. The moment she saw her sobbing, laying on her back, staring at the ceiling, trying and failing to control her breath. Francis heard it all, because she had just experienced it herself. Francis made her way to the bed and looked down at Rory. They met each other’s gaze, and Rory quickly sat up straight.

“S-sorry! Sorry about that, I’m fine, I was just…” She wasn’t fooling anyone. Rory knew it, Francis certainly knew it; Rory was not fine, and it was now her turn to collapse.

Francis wasn’t certain of what to say, so she just laid down on the bed next to Rory. “So I guess we both have our own shit to figure out…”

The small girl chuckled through her sobs. Francis turned her head to look at her, and watched as Rory raised one arm toward the ceiling. “It’s all so far away. I’d have to hike a mile just to get from one wall to the other.”

Francis struggled to find the most comforting words. “Uh, I… I’m sure we can figure this out. Y-yeah, we can figure this out, but we can do it later. We don’t need to tackle everything all at once. You’re safe for now.” Francis tried to find the spot on the ceiling that Rory was staring at. “We’re safe for now.”

Rory let out another laugh. “It’s been, like, 20 minutes, and I already miss when a room was just a room. You know, instead of a… like a football stadium.”

Francis smiled. She had an idea, but… no, it was stupid. It would be overstepping. She didn’t want to overwhelm the little thing. But…

“What if, um… like, if it’d make you feel more comfortable, I could… like, make a-a blanket fort for us? Or something?” She blushed heavily. She already regretted opening her big mouth, but she’d gotten this far… “Like, basically I could just pull my blanket over us, and it’d be, like, a more confined… space…”

She glanced over at Rory, who was giving her an… odd smile. Francis quickly tried to take it back, to shove the words back in such that they had never been spoken. “Okay, that was a stupid… I was just thinking of ways to help? Like-forget it, I didn’t say anything.”

Rory voice was a whisper. “I think I’d like that.”

Francis looked back with wide eyes, and quickly reached to pull the blankets over her head. The blanket was thick enough to block out most of the light, but she could still see Rory well enough to form a little den with the blanket such that the only things in it were the tiny girl and Francis’ face next to her. They sat in silence for a moment, but both spoke at once in the middle of the silence.

“Thank you.”

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Oh shit, that one kinda got away from me?? I swear that was meant to be a fluffy, romantic first meeting but I turned it into an anxiety vent somehow?? Wack