An assortment of one-shots

HeartTale: Borrower AU pt 1

 Aine ran down the small corridor she and her sisters had crafted in this house's wall. She hated that they had to live like this but it was the best that they could do. When the barrier had broken and the monsters emerged all the myths and legends had proven to be true, with one exception. None of the stories mentioned the size of the monsters, they towered above humans like skyscrapers, able to hold grown men and women in the palms of their hands, even their children were huge. They had originally sought a peaceful coexistence with humans but as history proves with humans it didn't work.

War broke out between many countries on the planet, some calling it the third world war, and it was demanded of monsters to help fight using their size and magical abilities. They refused. When governments told them to fight or be exterminated they took the route that best enabled their survival, they fought not for humans but against them. All of them, and they won. All human governments and militaries that remained were disbanded and monsterkind ruled the globe. Rumors had it that they took any remaining humans either as pets or exterminated like pests, in a few outlandish tales said they used humans as a food source. None of the stories had happy endings however. After the monster take over the rest of the globe began adapting to the new dominant species. Plants and animals growing in size with the help of the monsters' natural magic humans being left miniaturized in a world no longer meant for them.

For once in her life, Aine had been grateful for her and her sister's abduction and torment when they were children. Those idiotic scientists that had made them into freaks had given them the power to escape and survive the monster invasion of their home. They could provide for themselves... mostly. The only thing they couldn't make or create on their own was food, and they had tried. This required them to stay near monster settlements and risk their lives almost daily.

Aine was currently on a mission to retrieve food and was breaking their one rule, never go alone. Madeline and Scarlett's birthday was coming up and she wanted to surprise them with something special. Scarlett always went on food missions for safety reasons and Aine didn't want to spoil her plans. She was in one of the monster houses that was nearby their setup. They had never seen the monsters that lived in any of the houses they pillaged from, staying well away from them, but they had crafted these tunnels into all the houses they could. The tunnels only went to where food was stored in the house and then back outside. No need for unnecessary troubles that could come with being turned around when trying to potentially escape danger.

She finally reached her destination, this house's pantry. She was going to try to find each of the twins' favorite snacks that they hadn't had in a while since Legacy insisted on only getting simplistic foods to stay healthy. Aine perused the items on the shelves she could reach hoping for something she could use. A half-eaten bag of cheese puffs caught her attention, Madeline loved those and they could fit in her bag pretty easily. Aine pushed the heavy bag over and winced at the sound when she unraveled the plastic. She groaned at the effort she had to put into this, life the size of a mouse was NOT fun or easy. When she finally reached the opening she crawled inside and began putting a few of the snacks into her bag. Then she heard it.

Footsteps were approaching where she was currently scavenging. She froze, she could either try to get back into the tunnel but risk getting seen or stay here in hope of the monster not noticing the tipped-over bag of food. The sound of the pantry door opening made her decision for her and she was stuck where she was. The plastic she rested on suddenly shifted and she was thrown into the cheesy chips she had been trying to steal.

She began to panic and struggled to climb out of the puffs, but the constant shifting of being carried made it impossible. She felt as gravity shifted again and a dim light came in through the bag's opening. A hand came into the bag and Aine involuntarily screamed. The hand froze and was retracted being replaced by a heart-shaped light floating amongst a terrifying blackness. The heart widened slightly and the hand returned and went straight for her, she tried to scramble away but was grabbed around the waist with ease and pulled into the light. She shuddered in terror as she was brought up to a skeleton's face. It blinked its mismatched eyes in surprise at seeing her and she realized the heart shape from before was one of its eyes.