The Gentle Giant

I look down at the frail frame of the girl. I unlatched her cage and nudged her with my foot.

It seems cruel, but the other trainers would have done much worse to see her ignoring their commands to rise. "Wake up, you're being moved," I say to her, crouching down and shaking her.

She lies unmoving and a heaviness settles in my chest. I move her hair from her face and press my fingers to her neck, trying to find a pulse. I purse my lips, feeling the faint beating of her weak heart.

I look at the girl, watching her struggle to push air in and out of her lungs. I can tell she is sick.

Do I put her in the truck with the others, or take her to the doctor?

The truth is, nothing good awaits her in the truck. The only question is if it is crueler to go put her with the others, unconscious and barely holding on, or to take her to the doctor.

I feel sick just thinking about it. She either dies here, or will wish she would have. I can't turn a blind eye to her though, I can't stand and watch as the life leaves her. Perhaps she will be thankful for me saving her life.

----

Hazel. She's a pretty little thing, far too precious and fragile for the life she was born into. Having lived most of her life in a training facility, she knows little of the beauty of the world or the people in it. A punishment gone bad, forever mares her, leaving her crippled, undesirable.

Axel. He's an average man with an abnormal size. Being a Trainer, he is expected to be cold and cruel, someone he is not. It pays him money though, so perhaps living up to that expectation isn't that bad? When confronted with a choice he finally has to choose who he wants to be. Will he live up to others expectations? Or will he choose what may not be easiest, but what is right?