The Roomba had long vanished down the hallway, its soft hum now just a whisper somewhere behind her, but Charity remained pressed against the baseboard crevice, her back tight to the wall, knees hugged to her chest, breath coming in uneven pulls. Her fingers trembled slightly against her collarbone, where her heart thumped like it was trying to crawl out of her skin.
She wasn’t ready to move. Not yet.
The fear still lingered like static in the air. The thought of dying, not in some noble act, not even in some tragic twist of fate, but as a smear beneath a vacuum cleaner? That was too absurd to accept. Too humiliating to process. Her mind couldn’t stop playing it out, her body tumbling, being sucked into that pitiless machine, brushes catching in her hair, lungs crushed, limbs shredded. It was grotesque. It was possible.
She shivered.
Not from the temperature, though the hallway was colder than her room. The air brushed over her damp skin, whispering through her thin clothes like fingers made of ice. Goosebumps rose across her arms and legs, now streaked in dust and pinpricked with splinters of grit and floor grime. It didn’t help that she was still barefoot.
She waited several more minutes.
Only once she was sure, absolutely sure, that the Roomba had gone did she finally begin to wedge herself out of the gap. Her shoulder ached where it had scraped the molding, and her ribs still felt bruised from the fall. The narrow space had protected her, but it had also twisted her into shapes her new body wasn’t yet used to bending into.
Charity grunted as she straightened. Her arms were weak, her muscles tight with the ache of strain. Smallara had transformed her body into something that could survive, yes, but not something built for endurance. It didn’t make her a gymnast. It didn’t make her strong.
It just made her small.
She staggered forward on trembling legs, brushing more dust off her thighs, and turned her eyes toward the grand staircase.
The top of the stairs loomed like a cliff in the distance, still impossibly far, but visible. That was the path forward. The second floor, with all its bedrooms and vanity, had nothing she needed. She had to reach the ground floor. If nothing else, she needed food. Water. Shelter. Options.
She swallowed hard and began walking.
Each step across the hardwood felt like it echoed in the silence, though she knew it probably made no sound at all to anyone of normal size. Still, she kept low, skirting the wall. Her legs itched from crawling on the floor. Her skin felt stretched and raw.
But it was easier now than it had been before she slept. The recovery nap inside the shoe had helped. Her lungs worked faster now, shallower breaths that still pulled in what she needed. She could feel the hum of her heart beneath her ribs, quicker than she was used to, but steady. Functional.
Her eyes, too, were sharper. She could make out the wood grain in the floor beneath her. Each ridge and groove now looked like a crack in canyon stone. Her peripheral vision tracked every flicker of movement, every floating mote of dust that drifted in the hallway sunlight.
Still, the world felt impossibly large.
She hadn’t realized until now how few places there were to hide in the open. No furniture until the far end of the hallway. No cover. No help.
Just the expansive distance between her and the next uncertain place.
And the haunting knowledge of what waited behind her, should the Roomba return.
She gritted her teeth.
But it wasn’t the hallway that truly scared her.
It was the thought of what came after. If she survived. If someone did find her.
Sara.
Her feet faltered at the thought.
Not because Sara was the worst person to end up with. But because she was the most just.
The image came unbidden, Sara’s smile stretched wide in a way Charity hadn’t seen in years. That cool, collected grin she wore now. The one that said I’m not the victim anymore.
Charity shook her head, trying to clear it, but Chloe’s voice came slinking back like a ghost:
“You keep thinking the past is something you left behind. But it’s not. It breathes with us. It binds us. We all live inside webs spun long before we knew we were caught, desire, consequence, cruelty. You made yours. And now you want to crawl free like it never mattered.”
Charity felt a weight settle on her chest.
Not just guilt. Truth.
She remembered every insult. Every prank. Every smirk that followed a whisper in the hallway. She remembered calling her food stamps. She remembered oinking at her as she walked down the lunchroom aisle.
She had broken Sara, bit by bit. It had been fun, once. Easy.
Because Sara was soft.
Sara had been a lamb.
But not anymore.
At some point, the lamb had grown claws. And now she waited in the shadows, no longer afraid. Not looking for justice. Just waiting for the moment to close her teeth around Charity’s throat.
And Charity knew… she deserved it.
Still, that didn’t mean she could face it.
She couldn’t pretend to be brave. She couldn’t pretend to want a reckoning.
She didn’t want to be part of some morality tale. She didn’t want to be punished.
She just… wanted to live.
As she reached the edge of the hallway’s landing and stared down the staircase, her knees trembling, she whispered softly under her breath:
“As far as I can run… as far as I can go… it all comes back.”
And in the quiet, the words returned like a curse.
“I didn’t forget what you did to her.
And Sara hasn’t either.”
The truth of it carved a hollow space in her chest.
Charity Stevens, the girl who once ruled the halls with a smirk and a cruel word, was now five and half inches tall.
Alone.
Terrified.
And haunted.
Forever.
It was mentioned in an earlier episode that Charity laid off the staff of servants and such, and yet I wonder if some were loyal to the Stevens family who would’ve checked up on her in a situation like this.
She didn’t lay off all the staff she just drastically cut back as it was just her.
My mistake then.
That is a good point. If it was a nice Latin maid with great maternal instincts, that would be perfect for her. I have had many Latin woman friends through the years and they are so loving and nice to everyone so she could only hope to be that lucky.
Asuka,
Something I have thought about for stories and it looks like you may be close to this. Climbing up and down stairs for a Little does not have to be difficult. You basically have an inclined ramp where the railing is located, so traversing the stairs would not require navigating the steps. It also allows the Little to avoid any human feet that may be using the stairs at the same time. However it still makes good fiction if you do 🙂
Houses that are equipped for littles that could work.Depending on the staircase, the slope may get too extreme for upward navigation.
I do like the idea. I could see it working in a little friendly house. I can definitely picture myself incorporating that to a story at some point.
I do personally like a good staircase scene as its kind like free rock climbing to a little. So it can make for good content and heightened emotional situations.
1) “The fear still lingered like static in the air. The thought of dying, not in some noble act, not even in some tragic twist of fate, but as a smear beneath a vacuum cleaner? That was too absurd to accept. Too humiliating to process” That’d be a really shitty way to go.
2) “Only once she was sure, absolutely sure, that the Roomba had gone did she finally begin to wedge herself out of the gap” The Roomba could be back any moment, though.
3) “It didn’t make her a gymnast. It didn’t make her strong. It just made her small.” Very realistic way to look at it. Despite being proportionally stronger, she is actually much weaker.
4) “But it wasn’t the hallway that truly scared her. It was the thought of what came after. If she survived. If someone did find her.” Definetly something she should be worried about.
5) “Not because Sara was the worst person to end up with. But because she was the most just.” was that Sara praise? eww.
6) “Sara’s smile stretched wide in a way Charity hadn’t seen in years. That cool, collected grin she wore now. The one that said I’m not the victim anymore.” No, Sara has victims now, and she wants Charity to join them.
7) “You keep thinking the past is something you left behind. But it’s not. It breathes with us. It binds us. We all live inside webs spun long before we knew we were caught, desire, consequence, cruelty. You made yours. And now you want to crawl free like it never mattered.” except for people Sara, who gets to leave her past behind and avoid consequences like Karma’s never heard her name, exactly like Charity tried to.
8) “She remembered every insult. Every prank. Every smirk that followed a whisper in the hallway. She remembered calling her food stamps. She remembered oinking at her as she walked down the lunchroom aisle. She had broken Sara, bit by bit. It had been fun, once. Easy. Because Sara was soft. Sara had been a lamb.” Charity’s getting more and more pathetic every time her bullying gets details added to it.
9) “At some point, the lamb had grown claws. And now she waited in the shadows, no longer afraid. Not looking for justice. Just waiting for the moment to close her teeth around Charity’s throat.” well, revenge and justice are indistinguishable for some people.
10) “And Charity knew… she deserved it. Still, that didn’t mean she could face it. She couldn’t pretend to be brave. She couldn’t pretend to want a reckoning. She didn’t want to be part of some morality tale. She didn’t want to be punished. She just… wanted to live.” Charity’s very self-aware here, she definitely does deserve it, knowing she can acknowledge that is a surprise, but her desire to avoid what she deserves is understandable, even if she should morally not have that option.
11) “I didn’t forget what you did to her. And Sara hasn’t either.” It’s good that at least some people in this universe know how to hold a grudge.
1) I agree, dying in a vacuum cleaner wouldn’t be how I’d want to go out. Especially for someone like Charity, who had lived the highest of the highs to end up crushed and/or mutilated by a vacuum cleaner would be such a lowly way to go.
2) It could, but with her hearing, my thought was she would be able to determine it was in a more distant section so that she could climb out to relative safety. Not entirely out of it, but as safe as one could be in her situation.
3) That is what I was going for, a more grounded approach, and Charity being more self-aware of it. As I wanted to do all this time, later be able to, with more depth, go through what that transformation and process is like, a little with detail. With Jordan, you meet him after he has gone through some of this. He is already in the seeking help stage.
4) As inevitably every little gets a guardian. So it would be dwelling on her mind. Waiting for that other shoe to drop, where she is found or assigned a guardian.
5) Your favorite. I know how much you love yourself, some good Sara Praise. As she’s your number #1 smallara character.
6) Charity has more victims than Sara has friends and victims combined, though. While you do have a point, I think it’s hard to feel sorry for her, in my opinion. It’s not like in the brothers’ story or the Chrissy story, where the littles were pretty much innocent. Not faultless or pure Mother Teresa-type souls. However, they are generally good people who just happened to be infected. While I don’t think Charity is Cindy’s level of evil. She is
7) I wouldn’t say she gets to leave it behind. She’s not very old. She has a lot of years for consequences. However, it varies from person to person what she is facing the consequences for. As most of the things she has done have been more morally grey. Depending on the reader’s interpretation, things can be perceived as better or worse. Most of her things aren’t so cut and dry like she kicked a puppy down a flight of stairs and sat in a chair watching it struggle to breathe until it passed away. Nothing is that overtly evil.
8) Part of Sara’s story is how charity broke her and the person you see in Smallara is a version of Sara this being rebuilt on the ashes of her old self. So this story moreso gives readers perspective as to what charity did and how her bullying her led to Sara’s actions and how it created the person you see for better and worse. As charity murdered the Sara from then.
9) They are, as justice often is, unable to adequately punish the wrongdoer. I can only speak to U.S. laws, but what Charity did to Sara in bullying her to the point of self-harm. Even if Sara had been successful. Under US laws in most states and federal laws, nothing would happen to Charity. As there is no punishment for it. As its all mental health and mental health in the US is viewed as a you problem not a state or federal problem. Which is sad. Even the help and therapy Sara gets in story in US isn’t free its very expensive to go to therapy and get help. Its not covered by insurance so its all out of pocket. Meaning the people who often need it cant get it. Which only makes what Charity did even more insufferable.
10.) Wanting to avoid the consequences for your actions seems like a very human reaction that most people have. I feel like anytime anyone has done something wrong minor or major you have that thought of how do you get away with it without being caught.
11) Zero forgiveness from Chloe. As far as she is concerned, Charity is on her own. Generitech will do absolutely nothing to help her. They will merely do what is legally mandated in that jurisdiction if she is brought into the system.
1) Literally dying like filth, almost seems fitting for her.
2) Makes sense, I can already do that with normal Robot vacuums.
3) It’s fun to see.
4) Not every Little, surely some would stay in the system until death, or end up in Labs/work forces. She’s banned from the Little City but those don’t have guardians either.
6) I believe that Charity has more victims, I hope we learn more about them and their interactions with Charity as the story goes on. It actually sounds to me like Charity might be worse than Cindy, or that could just be my bias.
7) She could experience consequences in the future, but she’s been a karma Houdini thus far. She has been varied in her wrongdoing, I acknowledge that I’m more critical of her actions than most, I see many similarities between her and Charity.
8) That’s true, Sara is clearly a person who was bullied all throughout her formative years. She’s learned a lot from Charity. They both look down on people who they consider beneath them and take issue when that “lesser” person doesn’t immediately accept their place, Charity bases it in wealth and Sara does it based on species.
9) It is, but I very much meant in the other direction, often times people want criminals to suffer disproportionally worse than the crime they committed.
I’m not going to comment on the US justice or insurance system, but Australia’s isn’t perfect either. A few years ago, we had a prison that had to release over a hundred prisoners because they were falsely convicted.
With Sara’s suicide attempt, that was ultimately Sara’s decision, she had other options. I still sympathise with her on the matter; it’s the only time I fully put my critique of her character aside and see her as innocent and experiencing a moment of weakness. Holding someone accountable for pushing another to self-harm is easy to say, impossible to prove.
Sara’s suicide attempt actually has a lot of similarities with Jordan’s escape attempt (though I think it’s a moment of strength for Jordan). Both involved the victim (Sara and Jordan) trying to evade their abusers (Charity and Sara). While the abusers should rightfully be held accountable for their actions, the world will likely put the onus of responsibility on the victims. You yourself have said you mostly blame Jordan for his attempt as he had other options (though I question the legitimacy of those options), just like Sara had other options she could have done instead of her attempt.
10) Yeah, but Charity is fully admitting what she’s done and that it was wrong. In my experience, people often make excuses and explanations of what they did instead.
11) I could see Chloe shuffling her off to Preema Tech.
4) That is true not literally every little. I was looking at it form a store little point of view once a little has been categorized into a bucket based on aptitude and skill.
6) overtime, probably some. However, in the charity story it gets brought up less as time goes on as her character is established so to keep bringing up how she wronged different people and feels remorse or fear about it seems like beating a dead horse as they say.
Sara felt like the best touchstone as people are familiar with her and it builds both characters. When its some random person who the reader won’t ever meet it seems less effective beyond establishing that sara wasn’t the only person she did this too.
7) Yeah, the consequences are harder with Sara as it boils down to a persons view on littles. If you believe littles are still people then what Sara does is wrong. If the littles are viewed as lesser beings how they are pushed in this world its not really all that different then people do with pets.
So the level of consequence or karmic justice is interesting. As I get why you think she deserved to be punished for what she did. but I can also see a side where she hasn’t really done anything wrong based on the rules and societal structure of this world.
However, inevitably something bad will happen to Sara at some point as that’s just life. Chloe could get hit by a bus and she has to live with that loss as an example.
8) Im not sure I agree Sara looks down people beneath her. As most people shes pretty accepting of. Kayla would be viewed beneath her yet she went out of her way to help her for no real gain.
Only littles who based on the propaganda aren’t people and should be considered pets/property does she act differently. Howevver differently in there are things you do with a pet you woudln’t do with another person.
9) That is true I don’t disagree with you there. I will say my views on Jordan are more because I don’t view Jordan’s escape attempt as him escaping from Sara. He was running from his own reality, from Dayton, from not wanting to be a little, from having to accept there are things he could do before that he can’t do now. He needed to be able to accept that he does need to go people for help. He needed to see how dangerous the world can be. How lucky he was when he was running through the yard to get to Sara as it could have gone wrong in so many ways.
The intent to be a growth moment for Jordan as he gained a greater understanding. However that’s also whats fun about stories is you can write them with one intention and then people take different meanings from things.
10) It is, but its also because a horrible event occurred which she is forced to face it. Without Smallara she would never feel this way.
11)I could see that happening but not how people would view it happening. As companies get a manifest log of who is in what shipment. She would just have Generitech not place a bid on the lot of littles Charity is in. So inevitably Preematech would get that lot. As while minor in the u.s. Preematech does get a small amount of us littles but they get most of their littles overseas where they have a larger foothold in varying markets.
As Generitech logistically would only be able to process so many littles at a time and being living beings they can’t just sit in a warehouse until they can be processes like a crate of laptops. so in times overflow other companies would be able to bid on a lot. I could see her doing that to Charities lot.
(11) You know that could be an interesting twist to Charity’s story to go to Preema Tech instead of Generitech, being reborn as a nicer little thanks to the memory suppression trojan program in their chips
Another could be ending up with a guardian or (hint, hint) a junior guardian with whom she has no connection for he new life as a little.
I will say the charity story is entirely written. Its 79 or 80 episodes. Im at work so i cant check.
I will leave you to find out what happens.
I do plan on exploring the preematech side of things more as I feel like i have neglected their development.
That’s 12 more weeks, or 3 months, of Charaty’s story; it’ll end on 25 September 2025 or 26 September 2025, assuming no breaks happen.
4) That’s on me, I took your words too literally.
6) I see, using Sara makes sense.
7) That’s true, I’m very much of the opinion Littles are fully people and Sara’s treatment of Jordan should be judged as harshly as Charity’s treatment of Sara. I hope karmic things start happening to her soon.
8) I specifically said Sara looks down on people how are a different species then her, Meaning Littles, the same way Charity looks down on poorer people. I agree Sara was probably affected by anti-Little propaganda, I also believe Charity was influenced to look down on poorer people the same way, by her parents or rich friends.
9) I could see that, But Sara did still make it harder than it needed to be. Sara could have actually helped him come to terms with it sooner but was too preoccupied with bullying (or “pranking”) to do so, no matter how you slice it, Sara was a factor that pushed him towards his attempt, just Like Charity pushed Sara towards her attempt.
10) Interesting, she needed Smallara to learn empathy and guilt.