The Next to be Taken

Chapter Twenty-Two

I pulled on my normal blue jacket, pulling my hair out of the way from behind trapped in it. Taking a towel, I rubbed my wet hair down. Trying to get it a little more dry where it's at least manageable.

I looked at myself in the foggy mirror, running my hand over it, clearing it.
I straightened out my old clothes, frowning at how they looked. I felt better after getting cleaned but now I feel like i'm going back down to square one when I put my clothes back on. I didn't have any other clothing. What else was I going to do? I tried to clean them the best I could, putting them in front of this huge vent like thing that acted as a hair dryer.

Slightly still damp, but it wouldn't do any harm and would dry quickly. Of course had very few holes here and there on them. I didn't even bother to put on my hat, so my hair would air dry faster. I picked it up from the sink and walked out. Dash and Kent did a really good job for making this place for both, humans and giants. He managed to turn a giant bathroom into one for humans. In this room, everything was my size, thank God. The room itself of course remained the same size, but everything in it was brought down. My size bathroom stalls and stalls for showers so more than one person could be in here. Had a huge circular vent on the wall, only slightly bigger than me, comparing height. You could flip a switch and it would start blowing warm or cold air on you, practically drying your whole body.

I twirled my hat on my hand out of boredom while I headed in the direction of my room. Something weird, it is about half way through the day and I have not seen Dash anywhere. Come to mention it, I haven't seen Kent either.. Where is everybody? I looked around the empty hall, but went into my room to at least put my hat down. Going in, I frisbeed my hat to the top of the bed. When it landed up there, I went back out the room to try to find someone. 

Walking by the main exit, I glanced at it, feeling a strange cool air from that direction. I looked at it, then my eyes traveled down, seeing light shinning through. What was that? The light is showing like there was an opening, a hole. Like it wasn't all the way shut. I stared at it, then made my way down the stairs to get to it. Upon closer inspection, I have noticed that the door was left open only slightly. I looked behind me, setting a hand on the door. I tried to push it open, putting all of my strength and body weight into the door to force it outward. It very slowly creaked open, I found myself outside.

I looked around the outside world, are they really getting this careless with making sure everything was locked up tight? I looked down the very few stairs, finding kids outside, playing. Wait what? Losing track of your children, Dash? I headed down the concrete stairs. Finding the rest of the children, playing in the tall grass. A shadow passed over me, making me look up and block the sun out of my eyes. Kent stood on top of a ladder, nailing up some type of outside netting.

He hammered it into the wall, holding some nails in his mouth.
"Hey, where were you?" Riley ran up next to me, all sweaty.

"I could ask you the same thing." I put my eyes back up onto Kent, watching him put up the netting that hung over where the kids played.

"Here, the whole time." Riley answered.

"What's Kent doing?" I looked to Riley then back up to him.

Riley followed my line of site, putting his hands onto his hips. "Well, this world is just like ours except for the size difference. We still have to worry about predators. He's putting that up to at least take care of the hawk or owl problem. So maybe we won't become lunch. It's just a precaution."

"Oh really....?"

"They couldn't really do it much before but we might be able to come outside more often. Since they were worried more about anything that would come after us like.. predator wise." Riley explained, making my full attention go to him.
"But they are just trying to eliminate some of the problems."

"Oh, and no one told me you all were out here?"

"We didn't know where you were!" Riley defended himself.

"Not making a fuss but if no one knew where I was I would have expected a search party." I crossed my arms. I was just thinking that they would be still watching me and would get concerned if they couldn't find me. Considering my record, and that I wasn't here as long as the others, I thought I would be still be closely monitored.

"Well Dash is out somewhere.." Riley looked back to the door.

"Okay! That makes more sense. Dash isn't here. Where is he?"

"Work." Kent responded for him, walking by me with the ladder under his arm.

I spun back around to look up at him, my hair partly smacking me in the face. "Work? Dash has a job?"

"How do you think we are able to afford this stuff?" Kent put the ladder away into a little storage shed.  "He deals with all the cannibals." 

"Cannibals?" I questioned, wanting him to help me understand.

Some of the children stopped playing at the mention of that word. They all stood still in their spots, looking back and forth from me to Kent.

"Are they animals?" I dared to keep asking about them.

Kent's blue eyes went to me, shutting the door. "They act like it, but no. They are like us, but live like animals. Why we call them cannibals is not exactly a coincidence."

I thought about it, looking down for a second then returned my gaze back to him. "So... Do they... just eat meat? Do they inhumanly kill to.." I looked around to the others for assistance. Knowing they knew exactly what he was talking about and what they are.

"Mavis," Riley stepped up from behind me, I turned to face him. "They are giants that eats humans."

It took me a minute for it all to settle in, I looked back and forth between Kent and Riley. "Wait what? H-how- Wha-" I stumbled with my words, not so sure how to handle this new information and how to word what I wanted to say.

Kent slowly shook his head, taking a few steps to us. "They go into the human realm and steal humans to take back to this world. Some even dares to live somewhere in the human world, hiding."

I tried again to say something. "H-how could they do s-stuff like that?!"

"Just like your world, you have screwed up people, we have screwed up people. That's just how it is." He headed for the door. "Everyone in. I'm done out here." He called for them all to come in, which they obliged.

"Well, how many are there?" I called up to him, marching a few steps closer.

"I don't know, it's a very small percent of our population. But it's against our rules to do stuff like that. It's murder. It's a big job to go after them, but you only have to go in if they call you in. Which isn't exactly everyday." He explained to me. "Now in, in." He urged me to go inside. I took my steps inside, thinking everything over.

"Does everyone has one?" I asked without being very specific.

"What?"

"The, light post, um-" I squinted my eyes, trying to form the right words. "The portal! Gateway to go in between worlds?"

"Not exactly, there is only very few in this world. We have one, I don't know who has the others. But they have to be very responsible if they own one." He started to walk past me and up the stairs.

I spun back around to face him while his back was to me. "Then could it be possible that those killers so happens to have one too?"

"No, they most likely know who has one and they use it without any of the owner's knowledge."
He left down the hall.

It's like nightmares became real, some giants are murdering humans. But in the most disturbing way. Maybe the human world isn't as safe as I thought. None of the two worlds are safe. Dash.. He's really helping us. He's trying to put a stop to the endless killing. He's really trying to do something for my kind. He's saving the children that were slowly dying on the streets and he's saving the others from the rest of the giants.