Chapter Three! And Yet Another Switch In Perspective, And A New Character!

Chapter three! And yet another switch in perspective, and a new character!

Chapter three

Atlas

There’s many ways to express panic, regret and remorse, but my personal favorite is loudly and repeatedly yelling “fuck.”

I've had my drivers license for less than a week and I've already managed to hit a person with a car that doesn't even belong to me! Just as I get out of the car Ronan is getting up and gently grabbing something off the ground. “que diable?! tu viens de me heurter avec ma propre voiture! Que fais-tu?!” he yells at me in french, so he's definitely pissed. Despite my fifty day duolingo streak I have no clue what he's saying at all. He lets out a loud sigh when I don't say anything back for about thirty seconds and he checks on the little. . . thing he has in his hands.

“Where's the girl?” I ask hesitantly, hoping he forgives me for hitting him with the car. He's too busy looking over whatever he's holding, trying to see if it's broken or not. Did he break his earpiece? He looks shocked for a moment, and I just kinda stand off by the car awkwardly. “You're. . . completely fine?” Ronan says, my curiosity peaks. “I cant get hurt.” a shy and tiny voice answers from his palm. Now I'm really interested. There is a tiny voice that I don't recognize coming from Ronan's hand and the girl we were sent to find is nowhere in sight. Still, I don't say anything. Instead I wait for Ronan to explain what is going on. “Atlas, get in the car and call the fire department, we kinda started a small forest fire.” Ronan tells me as he looks back at the forest, I just now notice the slowly spreading flames. “I told you that the fire was a bad idea! Did you at least get what the client asked for?”

I ask, not even phased by Ronan's idiotic use of fire. He's always been sorta a pyromantic, and it is usually near impossible to get him away from a flame once he finds it. So seeing him walk away from one must mean his mind is very focused on something else. “I'll explain in a minute, I'm driving so no one else gets hit.” I wince at the reminder of how I hit him a few minutes ago.

We both get in the car and he gently places what looks like a dirty tiny person into the cup holder. “Holy shit dude did you find a fairy?!” the fairy girl thing creature flinches at my voice, and i mouth an apology. Ronan chuckles and starts the car. “This is Isabelle liana, this is how i found her, as far as i know she's human.”

“No, I'm not human,”

Isabella's voice cuts through both of ours. She sounds somber and quiet, like she's hurt that we would consider her human. “What do you mean?” I ask, and Ronan looks concerned, she shrugs and turns away from me, as if she's offended I even talk to her. Does she not like me? I did hit her and Ronan with my car, but I don't think that would warrant her hatred seeing as she doesn't even have a scratch on her.

Ronan, who can see her expression looks slightly amused at whatever she looks like. Oh god she definitely hates me. Before I can fully spiral down that road of thoughts, I notice that she's covered in what looks like wet toilet paper. This situation just keeps getting weirder and weirder. Ronan and I exchange a glance before we both turn our attention back to the little girl who has still yet to answer the question.

The only thing about her that doesn't seem human is her size. “Um, do you have an answer to why you're not human?” she silent for a few minutes more before she starts to push the white mush she's covered in off her body.

“Humans can die.”

is all she says, her tone somber and her voice quiet. She curls in on herself and her question leads to a hundred more. What the hell is she talking about, of course about to start freaking out if no one starts telling me what's going on. “Atlas, can you get the wet tissue off isa so she can warm up?” Ronan asks as he turns off the highway. At his suggestion Isabelle quickens how fast she's getting it off herself, getting the majority off before I get a chance to reach for her.

I slap my hands onto my knees and click my tongue, not wanting to see how she's a hundred percent glaring at me. This thing hates me. This client may never hire us again if he learns that his sister hates me. She seems pretty fine with Ronan though, and I don't think he would stop hiring Ronan, over my mistake.

But then would Ronan fire me for making a mistake this big? He's not hurt, but I did hit him with my car, and that usually makes people hate other people. Before my spiral of thoughts can continue, Ronan is shoving a stale and half eaten croissant into my mouth. I immediately spit it out and shoot him a glare. “Where the hell did that come from?!”

“Pocket croissant.” he says as if it's the most normal thing in the world to carry a croissant in your pocket. “Why?” I ask incredulously. “You were clicking your tongue non stop, it was getting annoying.” he says with a stifled laugh, and i shake my head in pure disbelief with the situation. My attention turns back to the tiny girl sitting quietly in the cup holder, she seems scared and relieved all at the same time.

The moon is still high in the sky with stars scattered across in a way that's too beautiful to be random. If it weren't for the forest fire that's slowly spreading through the forest I would ask Ronan to pull the can over so we could star gaze. I bet Isabelle would like to watch the sky at this time of night too, i don't think she’s had a chance to do something like that in a while from the looks of her. She's pale and obviously malnourished. Her hair is unwashed and her clothes are dirty. She was obviously not well taken care of for the last few years she's been in that lab. Ronan hasn't told me much about her and I've been able to find her first grade school records and lab records from the last ten years. She was pulled out to be homeschooled but I haven't been able to find the normal things you would be able to find on a persone her age. School records, medical history, information on her parents, her childhood home. It's like none of it ever even existed. Like she hasn't existed. “So, why are you so small?” I ask while looking down to isabelle. Ronan pushes my shoulder and shoots me a friendly glare.

“You cannot just ask her that, no questions for at least three days.” At Ronan's words, Isabelle noticeably stiffened. I wonder if she's against the idea of staying with us for a while. I feel bad for her if she doesn't want to live, considering our client won't be able to pick her up for five months. He said he had very urgent business that had to be taken care of before he saw isabelle. I don't exactly know what could be more important than seeing your sister after ten years. “Let's stop for burgers.” I suggest shifting the tension out of the air. “It's on ronan.” Ronan mumbles a bit about how i should have to pay for once, but he quickly drops the attitude when isabella's eyes light up with the mention of burgers.

Chapter four of inhuman, were back to isabella's perspective, enjoy!

Chapter four.

Isabelle

I'm sitting on the dashboard of Ronan's car with a burger three times the size of my own body sitting in front of me.

It's the first time I've smelled something so good in so long, and it won't taste as good as I've spent the last ten years imagining. “You want me to cut that up for you?” Ronan asks while his mouth is stuffed full of half chewed food.

I've been living in a cage for the last ten years and have only been fed literal slop and I have better manners than this ghost man. I shake my head no, and look back at the burger in front of me. I pull off two pieces of the bun and rip off small pieces of the meat, lettuce and cheese to make a mini burger for myself. My hands are covered in grease and sauce, but I can deal with it after I eat.

The first bite tastes freedom, and the second solidifies that hope. After I finish the first mini burger, I waste no time ripping off more pieces to make another one,

and another, and another. By the time I realize that I can't eat another bite, there's a good chunk of the burger missing. I'm embarrassed to admit I'm a little proud of how much I was able to eat.

I look back over to the two towering people who have already finished their food, anxiety begins to pool in my stomach when I realize neither of them have said anything about Damien since we were in the lab. I was promised that Damien would be waiting for me, and it's just these two in the car.

The boy to the left of Ronan looks quite a bit younger than him, with fluffy brown hair he stuffed under his hood and a birthmark almost in the shape of a heart on his jaw. I don't like him. He hasn't sat still once in the entire car drive, and won't stop looking at me. I look back at the dark haired ghost man, he has a scar over his lip, and I think he might be wearing a bit of lip gloss.

I don't not like him.

His hands were pretty soft and warm. When it looks like the younger of the two is about to speak, I start before him. “Where's damien?” I ask quickly, and I wipe a bit of the grease off my hands and onto the thread bare dress I still have from the lab.

“He's in Italy, he’ll be back in-” he cuts himself off when his phone dings. He quickly digs his phone out of his pocket. He raises his eyebrows and looks up at me. “Next week, actually.” more dread pools in the pit of my stomach, and I clench the ends of my dress in my tight fists. “How do I know you're not lying?”

I ask, not looking up at either of them. As much s i try to hide it, I'm scared. If they're lying and actually are working with the people from the lab, there would be no one to blame but myself for believing them. This could all just be a test to see how I react to feeling hope, and then having it all taken away. “Two reasons.” Ronan starts, and he takes a sip of his unnaturally orange drink.

“One, our entire paycheck rides on whether or not you're safe, and two, you're the seventh kid weave rescued from these labs. You can ask the other six how even though we don't look very untrustworthy, were the most safe persons-”

“People.” The boy next to Ronan corrects him. “People, you'll ever meet. We can even call your brother so you know it's really him.” he says reassuringly, but i don't feel the least bit reassured. In fact, I feel an even higher sense of dread.

There's more labs like the one I was in, there's more people like me. How many more are there? Who are these two?

I shift my attention back to the younger boy,

Than to ronan.

Than to the giant pile of guns that took me a concerningly long time to realize were back there.

What. the. Fuck. I scoot back a bit and look between the two of them once more, before pointing at the pile of guns again. “What, what are all the guns for?” I ask, as I scoot back a bit more.

“Oh! Those are just in case there were people in the lab with you.” the boy whose name I really need to figure out says as he quickly throws his hoodie over them, most likely to hide them from my line of sight. “We're kinda like assassins but without the killing people part” Ronan gives him a skeptical look, his brows furrowed and his mouth slightly opened. “Except we do kill people.” Ronan adds on, and my eyes go wide with not exactly surprise, but more confusion that he would admit to a stranger that they kill people.

“Oh right, yeah, so we're kinda just assassins.” I'm guessing I'm not doing the best job at hiding my anxiety about being in a car with two murders fifty times my size with absolutely no escape route, from how Rowan's expression shifts to a reassuring and almost embarrassed look. “But we won't murder you, of course.” Rowan adds with a smile.

And that is possibly the least reassuring anyone has ever been while trying to tell someone they won't be murdered. But it's also not the dying part I'm worried about, since I myself cannot die. Its the torture i'm more scared off. If they are planning to get rid of me, the ways in which they could do so are horrifying.

They could bury me in a wooden box underground, and I'm too pathetically small to even be heard. Or maybe they would lock me in a steel chest and drop me into the ocean. Or maybe they'll just lock me up in a room to rot away.

What if all they told me about them being trustworthy and about my brother was a lie.

“Isa, why are you crying?”

Ronan's voice cuts through the never ending possibilities still screaming in the back of my head, and I'm suddenly all too aware of how close his hand is to me, his whole hand is twice the size of my entire body and is two seconds away from encasing me in its grasp.

Fight or flight kicks in and I make a run for it, “hey! Wait! Don't run-” running towards the rolled down car window. When I turn my head to see if his hand is still following me, I see that it's gone completely.

Confusion joins the overwhelming mix of emotions in my head, but it's immediately replaced by shock when the hand comes crashing down in front of me, blocking my only exit. My heart pounds against my ribcage and tears prick the corner of my eyes.

A familiar ringing sound fills my ears as I make a sharp turn to run the direction I came from. This attempt proves to be futile as well when i second hand lands in front of me on that side too. Fear grips my heart and all I can think about is the pain that's coming when the two hands start to move in on me from both left and right.

I brace myself for the crushing pain that will be my punishment for trying to run. I curl in on myself uncomfortably with Ronan's ring still loosely fitting on my waist digging into my chest. The promise that he made to me with this ring on must've meant nothing to him even though it meant the world to me. He scoops me into his hands and before I can even register any of the pain I begin to struggle.

No matter how pointless it is I struggle against his hold, if he's going to try and hurt me i will not make it easy. I wonder if it's possible for the addranile to block out all of the pain, or if he hasn't started to hurt me yet.

“oh mon Dieu- Isabelle! Calm down! I am not hurting you!”

Ronan says, but i don't listen, i don't believe his lies and i continue to struggle in his hand. He closes his hands around me so that I'm cupped between his hands in almost complete darkness, small bits of light peek through the gaps in his fingers and I freeze.

I stop for a moment and realize that he is being gentle, his movements are a bit clumsy, but he's not hurting me at all. I'm still shaking a bit but I'm not actively fighting against him anymore.

“I am really starting to run out of ways to express that we don't want to hurt you.” he says with a sigh, though his voice is a bit muffled through the flesh wall between us, i can hear his sincerity. I copy his sigh, “please. . . put me down. . . please.”

I say in a tone so quiet it almost counts as a whisper. To my almost surprise, he listens. Ronan sets me gently down in the cup holder beside him. It's only then that I notice the boy next to us with a mortified expression. He looks at me, then looks at ronan.

“Dude, you did not just grab her like that!?” Ronan gives him a quizzical expression. “She's fine with it, right isa?” I quickly shake my head no, agreeing that I am not okay with being grabbed like this.

“Oh, I'll stop doing that then.” he starts up the car again and i flinch, neither of them notice though and they start driving the car. I hug myself, and try not to think about the danger I could be in.

tiny that requires an exponentially more amount of validation n attention than the avg person

🤝

giant with adhd and cant stop fidgeting

being a writer is so funny. like my hobby is just lying. “the man walked across the room” no he didn’t i just made him up lol

Somebody should hire and pay giants just don't this

when im feeling Bad it always comes with an overwhelming urge to find a giant hand and press myself into their palm until their fingers loosely surround me and i’m just fully embraced while they gently pet my head with a fingertip w their other hand. is that too much to ask

Random idea I can't get off my mind-

A humans who's life has been hard and when they were ten wrote a letter without Stamps are an address or anything saying something along the lines of "if theirs anyone who's big and strong please help me" or something more poetic than that, and Years later when their like twenty and are kinda out of that situation, a giant just comes in and rips the roof off their apartment or house and is all like "I got your letter! I'm here to get out of here!" And without giving the human a chance to explain or even process what's happening, kidnaps them and takes them to their cabin in the forest. In the giants mind their helping the human get out of a dangerous situation, but in reality they just found a ten year old letter in the dirt on their way home and felt the need to be a hero.