Even in sleep, her body kept working.
It had to.
Charity didn’t know what was happening inside of her, but something was. Something big. Or rather, something small, in ways her old life had never prepared her for.
She stirred slightly in the curve of her yoga shoe, her legs tucked against her chest, breath coming in short, quiet bursts. It sounded almost like she was sighing in her sleep. But this was just how she breathed now,faster, shallower, like a tiny bird nesting against a storm.
Her old body, the one that stood tall, that commanded attention when she entered a room, was gone. It couldn’t have survived here, not at just five to six inches tall. Not in a world where carpet was a forest, and even silence had weight. If her body had stayed the same inside, just shrunk down like a doll, she would have suffocated. Plain and simple.
But that wasn’t what happened.
The virus, Smallara, sd they called it, changed things. Slowly, painfully, invisibly. It rewrote the rules of being human, line by line. And now, inside her chest, things worked differently.
Her lungs, for one, were no longer just air bags inflating and deflating. They had become compact powerhouses, packed tight with folds and layers that squeezed every last bit of oxygen from the air she breathed. Each breath was tiny. barely a sip, but it counted. Her lungs didn’t waste space. They didn’t have space to waste anymore.
Even her skin had changed.
It was thinner now, softer in a strange way. If you looked closely, really closely, it shimmered ever so slightly, like dew on a petal. That wasn’t just moisture or oils. It was breath. Her skin could actually pull in tiny amounts of oxygen from the air. Not enough to keep her going forever, but enough to help. Enough to mean the difference between fear and passing out.
And her heart, oh, her heart.
It beat faster now. Much faster. Like a hummingbird’s wing. Every pulse sent blood racing through her, carrying oxygen wherever it was needed. Her muscles gobbled it up the second it arrived, because even simple things, standing, walking, pushing through the carpet, demanded more energy than they used to. Her blood had adapted, too. It was richer, stronger, able to grab and hold on to oxygen like it was gold.
Even when she was scared, and lately, she was always scared, her body had tricks to keep her going. When breathing wasn’t enough, it would pull energy from sugar stashed deep in her muscles. Not forever. Just long enough to run. Just long enough to hide. Just long enough to survive.
Scientists said Littles like her weren’t really human anymore, not fully. That they were something close, but reimagined. And maybe someday, if the shrinking kept happening across generations, there’d be children born with air sacs in their chests, or tubes like insects have, carrying oxygen straight to their cells. No lungs at all. Just a network of living straws built for life in a giant’s world.
Charity didn’t care about that.
She didn’t care about the science. About the theories. About what came next.
All she cared about was this: her body hadn’t given up on her.
It had fought to survive.
It had changed without asking her permission, without even telling her what it was doing, but it had done what she couldn’t.
It had kept breathing.
And that, for now, was enough.
She curled deeper into the curve of the shoe, the scent of her old life still clinging to the insole. Her chest rose and fell with quick, even rhythms. And inside, her lungs kept working. Her heart kept racing. Her cells kept clinging to every last drop of air.
Because down here, in this version of the world…
Every breath was a quiet miracle.
Charity looks so cute sleeping in that shoe.
thanks, she probably doesn’t feel cute though.
the littles being small mammal’s have been said to have advance hearing, eyesight and smell. I know smell is close and more important then sight sometimes to small animals and animals in general. I hope the advanced smell will be woven into little stories because I think it would be interesting to find out what they can smell in their environment and their owners that they couldn’t before. If a little got lost, they could smell out their owners body smell to get back like a dog and cat do but better because a little has a bigger owner and more sent coming off it .
you get a bit more details in the coming chapters on some of that.
0.1) That image is adorable.
0.2) Really liking the biology lesson.
1) “Her skin could actually pull in tiny amounts of oxygen from the air. Not enough to keep her going forever, but enough to help. Enough to mean the difference between fear and passing out.” What does that mean for Littles who end up coated in their guardian’s oils? Do they feel a slight suffocation?
2) “Maybe someday, if the shrinking kept happening across generations, there’d be children born with air sacs in their chests, or tubes like insects have, carrying oxygen straight to their cells. No lungs at all. Just a network of living straws built for life in a giant’s world.” interesting that scientists are already predicting the next steps of Homo Parvus evolution.
3) “Charity didn’t care about that. She didn’t care about the science. About the theories. About what came next. All she cared about was this: her body hadn’t given up on her. It had fought to survive” No, I can’t imagine the evolution would matter to her as much as the survival right now.
4) “It had changed without asking her permission, without even telling her what it was doing, but it had done what she couldn’t.” she at least had warning.
0.1) It was one of those everything comes out just right. I was actually going to do something slghtly different but once i saw her horizontal it just came together.
0.2) There are a few more of these that cover her change from human to little. I feel like this is a better way to demonstrate some of the differences and show how littles and people are different and not just the same as a person but smaller. While reinforcing why they are considered a different species. As there is actual merit to the argument. Where i felt before it was a bit to heavy handed on its just done for discrimaatory purposes.
1) Not exactly. i probably should have included this i kind of went back and forth as i wasn’t sure how deep to go with this. The little’s skin has an ultra-fine, micro-patterned surface, like a mesh of microscopic ridges or bristles, too small to see clearly but giving the skin a very soft, velvety feel. So the skin of the little becomes hydrophobic meaning it repels water. So looking at a little under a microscope you would see the liquid would bead off their skin instead of smearing and covering our pores how liquid does on our skin.
Beneath this top layer of skin is where the thousands of microscopic breathing pores actually exist. Each pore can open wide to absorb oxygen or close tight when clogged, contaminated, or at risk of dehydration. When closed, the skin’s outer texture acts as a physical shield, stopping oils and dust from getting deeper. At the same time, glands just under the skin can secrete a tiny amount of clear fluid that helps push away debris and restore moisture, keeping the skin clean and breathable.
This is why within the story when Jordan get pets by sara is depicted as being soft. As these change make the skin feel kind of soft like velvet. So when a little is held and if they were coated in their guardians oils to the point there pores closed they would be solely breathing through there lungs so it woudl be more laborious to breath. There chest woudl tighten a bit as the lungs are working harder. At most in a worst case scenario they were held where where fingers wrapped aroudn them for a long extended perioud of time they would get that breathless feeling a person can get. But they wouldn’t suffocate. Its more like if you ran as fast and hard as you could and then you had to run one more mile. But this entire time you can only breath throgh your mouth. Its not comfortable but its not going to kill you.
2) Thats what Generitech does. The little body will expierence rapid evolution comparitive to standard evolutionary improvements. Where they are being more adapted to new lives as they are expierencing the world differently. Which also goes further into this being a divergent point in society where the human species is splitting and humans and litles will develop seperately and further grow apart where biologically they have fewer simularties biologically. This is one of the core reasons Generitech doesn’t fight some of the dialog around humans and littles being different as they have ran thousands of simulations and have determined with a high degree of probability and accuracy how the litltes will evolve and are seeing validatiosn already. So the idea of little and people being similar or the same scientifically isn’t accurate to them. So while morally the argument is different in a pure logic argument its not 100% wrong either. So they look at it with a bigger picture.
its why little cities were developed and they spend so much time on little culture research. As they are fundamentally lookign at things on a different scale then what general populous is and what the government is. So their actions are generally to pursue the model they have developed internally. Which does also have moralistic component and weight to it.
3) The evolution would only matter once you are safe and have time to actually reflect and think and analyze the changes themselves.
4) She did it wasn’t like Jordan where it was more surprising. Although Jordan probably handled it bettered.
1), 2) You know you are making the Wiki harder 🙂
I’ve been thinking about how much info is in these comments and not the story. Going to need Lethal and others to get things right. 🙂
there is a good bit information in comments. Lethal asks pretty good questions. So often things get a bit of extra detail that I don’t put into the story because it would bog it down a bit or its additive but not necessary.
The general stuff you sometimes edit out flow purposes.
1) when a guardian pets or cuddles with their little, do they feel their little is like velvet soft. I would that would be a big plus for little getting time with their guardian lol.
It would feel a bit like velvet or suede. I could see how it may feel a bit like peach fuzz as well due to the cilia if the person was hypersensitive touch.
But yeah, It would feel soft and smooth, maybe a bit unusually smooth considering its skin.
I just got to Episode 60 and the text is missing on that page. Someone commented that it was too long and you replied.
Just a FYI, if you have 60 let me know. Thanks.
Smallara 60 has no text on purpose it never did. Lethal was being sarcastic
Lethal will be the death of me (pun intended 🙂 )
That does sound like something I’d do.
So were you.
So wait, do Littles kind of feel like they have fur?
No it feels like skin. They just feel soft and smooth