Perspectives

Chapter 7

It had been rather unwillingly that Kalen had risen out of bed at eight that morning. As he had predicted, his mind had been too preoccupied to find sleep until around two in the morning. Kalen would have gladly remained in bed much longer, were it not for the fact that he had been woken up by an alarm reminding him that he had a health assessment at nine.

Kalen was pretty used to having to wake up fairly early in the morning, whether it be for school lessons, appointments, meetings, or anything else. However, it was uncommon for him to get any less than eight hours of sleep. He usually didn't have a hard time getting to sleep, though he supposed usually he didn't have a tiny creature locked away in his bedside table to be thinking about.

Groggily, Kalen got dressed and ready, thankful he had chosen to shower last night rather than this morning. Before stepping out of his bedroom, Kalen spared a glance at his nightstand, where a four inch tall girl currently resided. He figured she'd probably still be asleep, there was no point waking her up just yet. He wouldn't be gone long considering his physician would be making a house call as per usual. Besides, she needed to be locked away while he was gone anyway, there was no way he could trust her not to get into some trouble when he was away.

Though it was unlikely anyone in the house would go poking through his drawers, Kalen made sure to set the lock on his room to not allow anyone but himself inside. The last thing he needed was the maid finding a human in his nightstand.

~

Total darkness was the only thing that greeted Piper's eyes as she was jolted awake by a sudden deafening ringing sound. Panic began to take over as Piper realized she had no idea where she was or what was happening. But then she heard a muffled, but still plenty loud groaning sound. 

"Shiiiiit." Piper moaned, throwing herself back down on the wooden drawer bottom with an exasperated sigh. "That's right, I'm trapped in the nightstand of an asshole giant." She recalled miserably, dragging a hand down her face tiredly. She really had been hoping it had all been some messed up dream, and that she'd wake up safe and sound in her bed. Piper scoffed, as if she was ever that lucky.

As Piper wallowed in her own self pity, she heard the magnified sounds of Kalen moving about his room, likely getting dressed and such. Piper wished that he'd hurry up and let her out already, not that she was particularly eager to be around the giant again, but she still needed to let him know exactly how she felt about him trapping her in a drawer all night. She was just about to call out to him when she heard the sound of the bedroom door closing with a click.

"He did not just leave." Piper growled, rising to her feet quickly, her head brushing against the 'ceiling'. "Hey!" Piper yelled as loudly as her voice would allow her. There was no response.

He was seriously just going to leave her confined in the drawer of his bedside table for who knows how long? Piper threw an angry kick at the wall of her prison, all it really accomplished was giving her a stubbed toe, but she didn't care, she was too pissed off not to take her anger out on something. 

There wasn't anything Piper could do but wait for Kalen to come back and finally let her out, so with a frustrated sigh she flopped down onto her back and began to think up all of the angry things she was going to say to that stupid giant when she saw him next.

Unable to keep track of time passed unless she literally counted the seconds in her head, Piper could only estimate that about twenty minutes that had gone by when she heard the sound of a door opening, followed by thudding footsteps. 

Piper sprung up to feet and instantly began pounding her fists against the front of the drawer incessantly. She was about call out to Kalen when her prison was jerked forward suddenly, causing her to slam into the front of the of the drawer from the force. 

Disoriented from the sudden sharp movement and the blindingly bright light that now streamed into the once pitch black space, Piper didn't notice the gigantic hand coming at her until it was upon her. She stifled the fearful squeak that tried to come out of her as massive fingers once again trapped her arms against her body. 

Remembering that she was supposed to be mad, and not scared out of her mind, Piper let out an angry grunt as the hand holding her rose up to hold her in front of Kalen's face. He wore an expression that was calm, but it was like he was using the calm to hide the fact that he was actually furious. Piper had to fight her natural instinct to respond with fear and instead put a dark scowl on her face.

"Are you completely clueless?" Kalen asked her icily. Piper let out an offended sound, glaring across at Kalen with narrowed eyes. "What if it wasn't me?" Kalen asked abruptly.

"What do you--" Piper began but was quickly interrupted.

"As far as you knew, it could have been someone else in the room, and they would have heard you banging around in the nightstand, and they would have found you." He told her coldly. Piper raised a questioning eyebrow. She had her quite obvious reasons for not wanting to encounter anymore giants, but what was Kalen so afraid of happening if another one found out about her? He was planning on handing her over to some council of people or whatever anyway.

"Why do you care anyway?" Piper asked, voicing her question. 

Kalen rolled his eyes. "Because a human being on Amasis is not something that should be public knowledge as of now." He said as though it should be obvious, though Piper sensed that there was something more there, however she was too busy being annoyed with him to pay much attention to it.

"Well maaaybe, you shouldn't have left me alone trapped in a drawer, or put me in a goddamn drawer at all!" Piper shouted angrily, her face going a shade redder as it often did when she was particularly pissed off. "You don't just get to imprison people in your nightstand!"

Kalen made a dismissive tch noise, lowering Piper away from his face so that he now held her in front of his stomach. "As long as you're in my possession, I'll do whatever I want with you." He told her as he began to make his way over to a tall dresser.

Piper felt her blood begin to boil. By lowering away from a place where they were face to face, Kalen was basically saying that he didn't care at all what she had to say. And had he just referred to her as being in his possession?!

"I am not 'in your possession'--I am not a possession!" Piper stuttered out angrily, her fists clenching so tightly at her sides that her fingernails were beginning to bite into her skin sharply.

Piper heard Kalen give a snort. "Fine, if you don't like that phrasing, how about as long as you're smaller than my hand, I'll do whatever I want with you, and you'll probably have a hard time stopping me." He responded, a sharp edge to his indifferent tone. He then dropped Piper down on top of the dresser, certainly not gently. 

Piper quickly scrambled up to her feet and glared up at Kalen's looming figure angrily. "You're such an asshole." She spat venomously, all fear at least temporarily abandoned, instead replaced with fiery rage.

Kalen flashed a quick and humorless grin before turning around and walking away. Piper really hated it when he did that. "Where the hell are you going?" She demanded. 

Kalen didn't turn around and instead continued towards the door. "Bringing up some breakfast. Is that something you want to get mad about too?" He asked, the acid remark causing Piper's face to turn redder than it ever had before. Never before had she wanted to punch someone in the face more, and this time she wouldn't even be able to reach it. 

Once the door had closed behind Kalen, Piper instantly began to look for a way to get down off of the dresser. She was now more adamant than ever to not do what Kalen wanted. However, as Piper searched, she realized why Kalen had placed her on top of the dresser rather than on the table like he had last time. There was no way down, not that she could survive. He had trapped her on top of the dresser.