The joint burned slow between Alejandra’s fingers, the smoke curling toward the ceiling in thin, lazy ribbons. She took a long drag, her chest rising, then exhaled through her nose, letting the haze thicken in the stale apartment air. The TV flickered quietly in the corner, some old telenovela rerun she wasn’t really watching, just background noise. Familiar. Distracting.
On the coffee table, a tiny body shifted.
Alejandra’s eyes drifted down, lids heavy with the calm that came only after the first hit settled into her limbs. Charity was hunched over the papers, her knees pressed into the scratched wood, arms straining to drag flakes of ground weed into a semblance of a line. She was filthy already. Green resin clung to her skin, speckled like glitter after a school dance. Her little shoulders trembled under the weight of the work.
She looked ridiculous.
And yet… there was something else. Something satisfying. Something earned.
Alejandra took another pull and let it out slowly.
She hadn’t planned on keeping her. Not really. The girl was toxic, bullied some girl near to death, spoiled and rotten, mouthy in English, disgusted by the language around her, by the food, by the very idea of sweat. Like manual labor was contagious. Like poverty could be smelled.
But that was before.
Now, Charity was five and a half inches tall. A little, A pet. Submissive.
And working.
Alejandra smirked as she glanced down again. The little one was licking the edge of a joint, tongue dragging along the paper’s strip of adhesive with such delicate precision, it almost made Alejandra laugh. Not in a belitting way but seeing Charity Stevens doing manual labor. Her knees were red from kneeling. Her back was starting to curve the same way Alejandra’s had during her cleaning jobs, over-muscled, always hunched, always working.
“Así se hace, Patrona,” she muttered under her breath, her voice barely audible over the drone of the TV.
She picked up her phone, her thumb dancing across the screen. A text from Renata blinked back at her.
¿La tienes trabajando ya?
Alejandra chuckled to herself and typed back.
Claro que sí. Rolling like a factory niña. Está cubierta en weed.
A moment later, Renata’s laughing emoji came through, followed by:
Ya ves, told you they all break in. Just takes the right collar and enough boredom.
She didn’t disagree.
Alejandra adjusted herself on the sofa, one leg tucked under the other, the cushions creaking slightly beneath her weight. Her shirt clung to her skin, still faintly damp from the day’s heat. She’d meant to shower after work, but the high was coming on too smooth, and the sight of her little Patrona laboring was more compelling than she expected.
She watched Charity lean into the next roll. Her whole body was in it. Tiny fingers trembling, the paper crinkling slightly under the strain. It was messy work, slow and inefficient, but it was honest. Honest in a way Alejandra didn’t expect from a girl like that. Not after everything.
She remembered the smoothie incident, the stain that wouldn’t lift from the rug no matter how hard she scrubbed. Charity had snapped her fingers at her like a dog. Had stood there, watching, arms folded in disgust, as if her presence were an insult. Now? Now the girl licked glue strips and dragged leaf shavings with her elbows.
“Life comes for all of us,” Alejandra muttered, mostly to herself. She reached for her beer, a Corona, sweating beside her, and took a sip.
Still cold.
Her eyes flicked back to Charity, who had stopped mid roll. The tiny girl looked up at the bottle, then down at the puddle forming at its base. She approached it, cautiously, then dropped to her knees. She began to lap at the condensation pooling on the table.
Alejandra said nothing. Just watched.
It was strangely poetic. The girl had once paid more for a bottle of water than Alejandra spent on groceries for a week. Now, she was lapping at spilled condensation off cheap beer.
Alejandra’s fingers moved lazily across her phone again. She opened a job board app and scrolled without much purpose. Housekeeping. Warehouse. Janitorial. Always physical. Always underpaid. Always temporary.
She applied to two just in case, sending a templated résumé Renata helped her polish. Nothing fancy. Just real. Honest work. While sending her resume to one job posting on a flyer she didn’t expect to hear from.
The job didn’t matter. She only needed enough to send home and pay utilities on the apartment.
This, her, mattered.
Her little Patrona.
Not a real name, no. But fitting. The girl had ruled her world once. Had barked orders, judged every accent, every meal, every dollar.
Now she rolled joints for her. Cleaned for her, Sorted for her, labored for her. Reasonable amounts sure but the effort was what mattered not the production.
Alejandra tapped another text out to Renata.
No sé si está rota o si ya solo no sabe quién era antes.
Renata’s reply came back a minute later.
¿Importa?
She read it twice.
Did it?
Charity wasn’t crying. She wasn’t begging to be made big again not that it was possible. She just kept working. Kept licking. Kept rolling.
And when the joints were finished, she stumbled to the beer puddle again, licking thirstily at the edge. Like a dog. Like someone who’d forgotten how to ask for a glass.
Alejandra thought about getting her one. A real one. A thimble, maybe. Or a cap. Something more dignified.
But then she remembered the way Charity had looked at her that first day. That smug little smirk.
No.
This was better.
The weed was starting to wear off. Not entirely. But enough that her limbs felt heavier, her thoughts clearer. She stood and crossed to the closet. Pulled out the small dog bed she’d picked up from a discount bin, maybe even before Charity shrank. Funny how that worked out.
She grabbed a fistful of Renata’s pellets and dropped them on the edge.
Charity didn’t argue. She didn’t even look up. Just walked slowly to the bed and curled up, her breathing still shallow, her body sore. She picked up one of the pellets with both hands and bit down.
Alejandra lowered herself onto the couch again and reached for the shirt she’d tossed there earlier, heavy cotton, still faintly warm from her skin. She held it up, gave it a once-over, then lowered it gently over Charity’s curled body.
The girl didn’t resist. Didn’t flinch. Just burrowed deeper, wrapping the fabric around herself like it was a weighted blanket.
Alejandra watched her for a moment.
She looked… right like this.
Still.
Quiet.
Belonging to her.
She picked up her phone again and began drafting a note. A to-do list, maybe. Or just a thought. The cursor blinked in the empty field.
Need more papers
Pellets running low
Look into collar upgrade
Maybe teach her Spanish… eventually
She looked over the list, then closed the screen.
There was time for that.
She’d wake up tomorrow. Work. Smoke. Maybe roll a few more perfect joints. And Charity would learn to match them.
That was life.
That was balance.
And for the first time in weeks, Alejandra didn’t feel like she was slipping under.
She felt… whole.
With her little Patrona right there on the floor, wrapped in her shirt, sleeping like she belonged.
Because she did.
Drinking and getting high, Alenjandra is living the good life.
Looks like it plus having a little and her being her former boss must taste like sweet victory for her
Atleast a relaxed time.
Interesting and looks like in someway Al and charity are forming a partnership wouldn’t say it the greatest thing but it could build into something more positive for both side clearly
I think it also good that Al plans to teach her Spanish language even though I think that a task that seems almost impossible coming from someone who barely pass that class back then
Charity not fighting back might be beneficial granted difficult for her but will go a long way to earn some points with Al at this point
Now I honestly want to see a situation where Charity get lost, taken or hurt and see what Al reaction will be I honestly want to test how much she cares about Charity will be like Sara when Jordan was taken and she almost had a panic attack or more like was scared to death but doesn’t want to show it
As always great chapter
Learning spanish would be difficult. Charity would also have to want to learn it. You can’t force people to learn.
Charity doesn’t really have much to fight back with either at the moment and Alejandra hasn’t asked her to do anything unreasonable. I mean she has so far given her tasks she can achieve. Its not like shes having her organize her apartment or something.
Hard to say what her reaction would be if charity was lost, taken. If she was hurt she would just take her to the vet. Injuries happen. Its a part of life.
If she was taken she is chipped so she could track her. It would be difficult to lose charity when she can just follow an app directly to her.
Why she need to look for a job?
She now own her that mean all her house her bank account her property is now her like Jordan or she can’t because she from maxico or come here illegal ?
For all we know she could have 10,000.000$
my understanding is that charity’s relatives pretty much got everything. but yeah I’d say with Al being an illegal immigrant, she can’t really grab anything without drawing ICE’s attention (United States Customs and Immigrant management basically)
That what I need to know too dude where the author .
I know that a month and a half until this story end but some of us can’t wait .
you have to wait like the rest of us. Asuka has a life to lol.
I understand though, I jump on to see what is new everyday, even weekends to see if he surprised up lol..
She needs a job becuase she sends money home to her family, needs money for utilities and bills and such just like anyone else.
THe only issue is unlike Jordan charity didnt own any property. It was in her parents name. She is also not the oldest so even in a in heritence situation unless she was named aire she wouldn’t automatically get anything.
Charity most definately didn’t have ten million dollars. Most people who are rich don’t have that much money just in liquid assets. Its tied up in stock, real estate, etc. All things someone who is in the country illegally wouldn’t want to deal with. As she can be deported at any point. Hence why within the story she only takes things charity specifically owned that wouldnt be missed. She took a phone, a backpack, cash on hand, charity’s car. etc. Those are way more easily explained off as it wans’t even the nice cars charity had it was an old one no one cared about.
Its not like charity was some high roller. She was a teenager of a rich family.
A) day of a bake head
B) giving basically a food bowel of food pellets and not a water dish which is life’s most needed thing is evil. i hope she gets caught, stays in jail until she has to give up charity
You know I been thinking how long his the Shrinking Virus existed in the world for how long now ?
And what will the new generations after 30 years in the new world even though little can live longer then normal humans.
I have been thinking the same thing and asked a while back and Asuka had a answer I wasn’t clear was true so I have been trying to research when I have time to show Asuka what I was taking about in research. He is a smart guy and does a lot of research and like smart people he wants to get it right, not be right so I just have to present him with enough to change his mind lol.
I believe the virus will keep mutating and get more people that are less immune and there will be new non immune being born every year because two immune parents have littles and little parents have immune when they are big. The thing that makes a lot of us drawn to Asuka’s world is it has rules and when the rules don’t make sense , readers can call it out and Asuka will have a nice answer we can put in smallara wiki or he will agree and change it. Its a great way to keep people invested in his world and many of us Identity with one of the characters of this crazy alt world lol.
the issue with mutations canonically is the following:
Shrinking isn’t caused by the Smallara virus itself. The virus is just a delivery truck for a catalyst. Over centuries, most humans evolved to remove the biological “receptor” that catalyst needs. So the immune majority can still catch and carry the virus, but nothing happens to them. Even if the virus mutates, it can’t make immune people shrink because the required receptor isn’t in their bodies. Mutations would mainly increase risk for the small group who still have that receptor.
Immunity to Smallara isn’t like getting vaccinated. Immune people are biologically incapable of the change: the catalyst pathway, the cell types, and the genetic instructions simply aren’t present. There’s no way for their bodies to fabricate the organ suite required for Little-scale life. By contrast, when a non-immune host converts, like Charity did, the body rewrites itself at the systems level. You don’t just become “a small human”; you diverge: lungs that co-ventilate with skin, eyes and ears tuned differently, physiology remapped for micro scale survival. Littles can even subsist briefly without nose-or-mouth breathing because of limited dermal air intake, though it’s not a permanent substitute. These deep remappings do not, and cannot, occur in immune individuals because the underlying catalyst blueprint is absent. The virus merely trips a process latent in vulnerable hosts; it does not author that process in the immune.
If you want the Generitech white paper version that would have been delivered to the U.S. government canonically it would be the following:
In the Smallara model, the virus functions as a vector for a shrink triggering catalyst. Population immunity is receptor level, most individuals lack or suppress the pathway required for catalyst activation. Consequently, they may be infected and remain carriers, yet are phenotypically unaffected. Viral evolution may increase transmissibility or catalyst load, but absent the target pathway, activation probability remains ~0 in immune hosts; harm concentrates in the unevolved minority.
Immune cohorts lack the requisite receptor architecture and the gene regulatory modules (GRMs) that specify Little scale organogenesis. Consequently, forced conversion is biologically impossible. In non-immune hosts, exposure triggers CRP activation and a cascade of GRM programs, yielding systemic rewiring (e.g., mixed respiratory mode: pulmonary + limited transdermal exchange; sensory retuning; microcirculatory remodeling). Viral mutation may alter vector properties, but without CRP/GRMs, activation probability remains effectively zero in immune hosts.
could generitech create a something that could add what a immune person needs to shrink for population control or for prisoners? I sure the goverment would want something like that.
I don’t think they could, nor would they if they could.
Population control would only backfire into oppression as would using it on prisoners.
Correct on all accounts
what would she be caught for? Nothing she has done in this chapter is illegal. Everythign she took the from charity’s house was charity’s and she owns charity.
At most she would be deported for being in the country illegally but she wouldn’t go to jail.
1.1) “She hadn’t planned on keeping her. Not really” Then why did she?
1.2) “The girl was toxic, bullied some girl near to death, spoiled and rotten,” how’d she know about Sara?
2) “Así se hace, Patrona,” encouragement is always good, lol.
3) “Ya ves, told you they all break in. Just takes the right collar and enough boredom.” Renata’s encouragement seems mean.
4) “the sight of her little Patrona laboring was more compelling than she expected.” Can’t blame her for enjoying that.
5) “It was messy work, slow and inefficient, but it was honest.” Not so sure about that,
6) “Life comes for all of us,” We do reap what we sow, but is Alejadra ready for the harvest?
7) “No sé si está rota o si ya solo no sabe quién era antes.” “¿Importa?” Ale’s definitely liking bragging about this,
8) “Charity wasn’t crying. She wasn’t begging to be made big again not that it was possible. She just kept working. Kept licking. Kept rolling.” definitely got humbled quickly.
9) “Alejandra thought about getting her one. A real one. A thimble, maybe. Or a cap. Something more dignified. But then she remembered the way Charity had looked at her that first day. That smug little smirk. No. This was better,” Ale resisting her kind thoughts.
10) “The girl didn’t resist. Didn’t flinch. Just burrowed deeper, wrapping the fabric around herself like it was a weighted blanket.” So cute.
11) “She’d wake up tomorrow. Work. Smoke. Maybe roll a few more perfect joints. And Charity would learn to match them.” is it the end of day 3 already?
3) the cute giant girls have to be watched
6) i hope she goes to jail and charity goes to Sara
9) water is life’s blood and restricting it is evil. not even a water bowel like a cat
3) yes.
6) I hope Sara never learns Charity’s fate and if forever denied closure and revenge.
9) agreed, but it’s not like Charity’s not drinking.
1) She thought about it and decided too. Its not uncommon for someones first thought to be no and then they think, reflect, and decide differently when they have thought through the options and gained a better understanding.
1.2) She worked for charity and her family. Its not like Charity didn’t know what she did. She just came to the conclusion apologizing wouldn’t fix anything and she also didn’t want to admit she did something wrong on some level or show weakness.
However, its not like Alejandra wouldn’t have been in a position to hear things as charity barely acknowledged alejandra’s existence beyond living to fulfill the needs of her, and her family.
2) you always fault guardians for not being postive and encouraging. she is doing what you want here.
3) She isnt wrong though. Its not intended to be inherently mean just a realistic outtake when you play out the likely outomes.
4) The thought i had was it would be kind of like how peopel watch ant farms. There is a fascination in watching smaller things work. Seeing how they achieve things.
5) Well it is honest work. The way i meant honest in that she is doing a job and in exchange she is getting food, room, board, etc. Alejandra is also giving her jobs that she can reasonably do. SHe hasnt tasked her with anything impossible or a unreasonable timeframe.
6) That is true for everyone. I always liked that saying in life.
7) when one has had a lifetime of having little to brag about. It would be fun to actually brag that was kind of the point partly behind showing charity off a bit at the market. she had something to show for the first time in her life. Everyone deserves a moment and in life you never know if you will get another. So i dont think there is anything wrong with enjoying it within reason.
8) I do like how she is persistent to not use the water bowl to dampen the rolling paper to then seal it. She just licks. She got humbled but probably needed too. Everyone needs to hit rock bottom at some point when you are in charitys situation as only then can you actually grow, evolve, and change as a person. As you gain perspective.
9) I think it’s fair to be reluctant to show kindness to those who made every opportunity not to show you kindness. You could say that she should be the bigger person (no pun intended) but often times that just gets you taken advantage of.
10) Charity expierencing how resting after hard work can feel rewarding.
11) I believe so. off hand i dont recall if hte next chapter starts a new day or if somehting else happens.