A Giant's Grace

Chapter 1

Grace plucked one of the few regular sized berries off the ginormous bush and plopped it into her backpack. And another. And one more. She hummed as she completed her mundane task. She had been doing this for the past couple hours, so she was completely engrossed in her rhythm. So engrossed in it, in fact, that she didn't notice that she was dangerously close to the giants' territory. Normally, Grace was anything but careless. After all, tinies have to be very careful, as giants could kill them with a stomp of their feet. But when Grace got lost in thought, it could be very difficult for her to notice much of anything. And so she obliviously continued her venture deeper and deeper into the territory of the giants. She continued picking the sparse regular-sized berries off the huge bushes and continued humming her little tune. When she got to the end of the line of bushes, Grace rolled her neck and sighed.

It had been a long week of work, but it would be worth it. She would now have enough food to last her the winter. It had been a bit more work than Grace was used to because it was her first time living alone, and she had to do the collecting by herself. She looked around to get a general sense of where she was, and that's when it hit her. A wave of nausea seemed to sweep over her body. She had ventured into the giants' territory. And it was almost night. Then she made another realization. A few yards back, in the grass, stalking its prey, was a black cat. If she hadn't been already, now she was fucked. She stood very, very still, careful not to alert her predator. But she knew she would have to make a run for it sooner or later. Grace slowly moved her eyes to look at her escape options. To her left, there was a grass forest with large, wooden monoliths. If she went that way, the cat would easily outrun her. No, that wouldn't be an option. In front of her was the berry bush. She could hide in there, but she was sure that the cat would sniff her out in there eventually. To her right, she saw a ladder leading to a partially closed window on some humongous box. The hole was just big enough for her to fit through, so she'd be able to escape the cat if she used the side of the giant sized ladder as a ramp. The box was bright inside, and looked warm. Grace had realized that the boxes were probably where the giants lived, but right now it seemed to be her only viable option. Much to her dismay, Grace realized that she'd have to do it.

As she started sprinting faster than ever before, everything seemed to slow around her. The cat was closing the distance between them in swift leaps and bounds. She felt the cat's paw narrowly miss her as she started climbing up the side of the ladder. Her heart was pounding like a jackhammer and she was scared shitless, but Grace just kept running. The cat behind her was jumping from rung to rung, but she could tell it was struggling to keep its balance.

As she reached the window sill, Grace saw the cat give up and hop down to the ground. Her heart slowed and she fell to her knees, panting. She felt horrified and disgusted that the fate of her life could have been decided by some dumb beast. But it's not like she could have done anything about it. That's just how life is when you're four inches tall. And as much as Grace wished she could change her situation, she knew she couldn't.

"Best to just move on," Grace thought. She let out a shaky breath and assessed her situation. She was on top of a window sill about three feet above the ground. She would have to get down from there quickly before a giant could see her. Luckily, she saw some sort of cord running from just below the window sill to a pole that was emitting light from a bulb at its top. Grace slid along the cord down to the ground. She hid between the pole and the wall as she scouted for hiding places. Her eyes started to droop, but she knew she had to decide on a spot to spend the night first.

She ended up slipping underneath the door to a storage cabinet. After a bit of searching, Grace curled up on a pile of soft fabric and drifted into a peaceful sleep.