Evan’s World: Episode 11 – A Madison’s World Side Story

Charity wasn’t sure when she woke up. 

There was no clock in the habitat. No rising or setting sun to track, no ambient shift in natural light to anchor her. Just the soft, artificial glow of the cage’s internal light system, diffused, static, eternal. A kind of purgatory light that made time feel like an illusion. Had it been five minutes? Five hours? Five days? 

Her fingers gripped the edge of the miniature blanket tucked around her. The fatigue that had gripped her earlier was gone, dissolved into the cushions of the plush Sarandipity designed bed. She sat up slowly, muscles relaxed but heart still guarded, the echoes of everything from the day before filtering back through the fog of sleep. 

Her thoughts drifted backward, to Evan’s hand. The memory settled over her like warm fog. 

She had been curled into herself, legs drawn to her chest, chin resting against her knees. Evan’s skin beneath her had radiated heat, soft, living warmth that rose and fell subtly with each breath. To Evan, the movement was imperceptible, but to Charity it was like being perched on the side of a whale as it slept, rocked gently by the rhythmic tides of a breathing giant. 

Then the voice. That woman’s voice. 

Evan’s mother. 

Charity had stiffened instantly. Another unknown. Another threat. Even if the tone had been casual, bordering on warm, she felt the tightness coil inside her like a spring. She was so small. So exposed. Her only defense was stillness, silence. 

She remembered daring to look up. Just for a second. Enough to see the mother’s eyes searching her, assessing her. Not cruel. Not hostile. But not exactly safe, either. Not yet. 

“Who is this? DId you rename her?” Jean asked knowingly 

The words had clung to her ribs. She had heard questions like that before. Loaded. Dismissive. Dangerous. 

And then Evan had said it. 

My little, Charity. 

Not a Little. Not this Little. My. The word rang with ownership, but not the kind Alejandra used like a leash. Evan said it with a brightness in her voice, a thrill that cut through Charity’s instinct to recoil. 

Evan hadn’t meant it to trap her. She’d meant it to show her off. 

It made Charity’s stomach flutter, confused, uncertain, but not repulsed. 

Jean’s questioning had made her shrink again. The rhythm of instinct was hard to break: Get small. Get quiet. Stay still. Let the big people talk. 

But Evan hadn’t stayed quiet. She’d cut in, sharp and loud, her voice pitched with annoyance and protectiveness. Evan was loud, bratty, even, but something in her tone had been sincere. She’s been through hell, she had said. Not as a throwaway line. As a truth. 

And in that moment, Charity had felt something strange. Something rare. 

Seen. 

Not as a Little. Not as a burden. As someone who hurt. 

She didn’t know what to do with that. 

She had wanted to speak, to introduce herself with dignity. But what would she say? 

Hi. I’m Charity Stevens. I was given away like a piece of luggage. My guardian kept me in a torn-up purse and fed me table scraps and pellets. I’ve been bathed in store brand body wash and slept in a hoodie pocket for the last two weeks. But I used to be somebody. 

Instead, she said nothing. 

She let Evan’s words surround her. Let the warmth of Evan’s palm keep her anchored. And when Jean had backed off, when she had softened, Charity exhaled. She hadn’t even realized she was holding her breath. 

They weren’t Alejandra. Neither of them. 

That didn’t mean she trusted them. Not yet. 

But, for the first time, she didn’t feel like running. 

A flicker of movement stirred her thoughts. Her eyes adjusted quickly to the dim space inside the habitat, and she noticed it: a slight lifting of the corner of the cage cover. A sliver of light pierced the gloom. Then more. Until the whole cover was lifted off. 

Evan peered in, her eyes wide and bright, a grin tugging at her lips. 

“Hey, sleepyhead,” she said, already dressed in what looked like cozy loungewear, short shorts, a cropped sweatshirt with a glittering logo across the chest. “You slept forever. You missed an entire day.” 

Charity blinked up at her, the enormity of that statement settling in her chest like a stone. 

“You’re safe here,” Evan continued, her voice soft, almost tender. “You’re mine now, Charity. That collar means you’ll always be with me.” 

Charity instinctively reached up and touched the band around her neck. The smooth leather was warm from her skin, the engraved ID tag slightly cool in the air. It jangled softly every time she moved, an audible reminder of who she belonged to. 

“I already got a little injection,” Evan added cheerfully, waving a hand dismissively. “So the fact yours got used isn’t a big deal.” 

Charity didn’t fully understand what she meant, but the casual tone made her uneasy. Evan, oblivious, kept talking. 

“I figured we’d start slow. The girls and I are going to the movies later, so I thought you could help out while we’re gone.” She plucked a small clear box from a nearby shelf and set it beside the habitat. Inside were dozens of lip gloss tubes, each in a different shade of pink or red, some glittering with tiny embedded flakes. “You can organize my glosses. Wipe the tubes down. They get gross when I use other makeup.” 

Charity stood slowly. “Evan—” 

“I know you want to come with,” Evan interrupted, waving her hand. “But you’re not ready yet. It’ll take a few weeks of training, probably just a month, until you can go out with me.” 

Her tone wasn’t cruel, just matter of fact. Like she was describing a dress code or a meal plan. 

“I’ve seen how fast you pick things up. You’re smart,” Evan added. “But we need to be careful. Littles like you need to know how to act before they go out. I need to know that you’ll respond properly.” 

Charity swallowed the rising lump in her throat. 

“You’ll still get your little fragrance bath in a couple weeks, though,” Evan said brightly. “You smell so good. Like potpourri. It’s addicting.” 

Then she reached over and gently placed a shallow dish of water and a small pile of breakfast blend pellets inside the enclosure. Charity looked at them, feeling the stirrings of hunger return. 

“This is what you’ll eat from now on,” Evan said firmly, already turning toward her bed. “I had Mom pick up a bunch of flavors when she went shopping. Pellets for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. No people food. If you’re good you can have little food outside of holidays and special events. We have a few meals on hand.” 

“Evan, please,” Charity said, voice soft and pleading. “Just a little. Just some real food, here and there. Alejandra let me have scraps sometimes…” 

Evan stopped mid step. She turned back, her expression serious for the first time. “No.” 

Charity flinched. 

“People food isn’t healthy for Littles,” Evan continued, her tone gentler but unyielding. “It messes with your digestion, your metabolism. You eat pellets now and you’ll get little food and treats. If I catch you with people food, you’ll be punished.” 

She leaned closer, eyes narrowing. 

“And it’ll mean you don’t want your vocal cords fixed.” 

The words dropped like a stone in a still pond. Charity’s shoulders slumped. 

Charity didn’t move. 

Her breath caught in her throat, held like a secret. Evan had said it casually, like a reminder about curfew or grades, but it landed with the force of a prison gate slamming shut. 

Her voice. 

Not just her ability to speak normally, but her autonomy. Her tone, her wit, her sarcasm. Her name, spoken aloud. All of it, now reduced to a dangling reward. A leash. Something Evan could grant or withhold based on behavior. 

She reached instinctively for her throat. The collar’s soft leather met her fingers first, warm from her skin, but underneath she felt it, the faint, unnatural weakness in her vocal cords. Like they were sleeping. Like something vital had been unplugged. 

And suddenly, she wasn’t sure if they could be turned back on. 

A tremor passed through her. Not from fear. From realization. 

This is how silence begins. 

Not in a single, dramatic gesture. But in tiny choices. Not speaking to avoid punishment. Choosing quiet because it’s safer. Then forgetting how to raise your voice at all. One day she’d open her mouth and nothing would come, not because Evan hadn’t fixed her, but because she had forgotten how to be heard. 

She swallowed hard, eyes burning. 

What if Evan never fixed them? 

Worse, what if Evan did, and Charity had already lost the instinct to speak? 

Her silence wasn’t just physical anymore. It was becoming a habit. A learned behavior. Pavlovian. Conditional. Like a puppy taught to whimper instead of bark. 

With that, Evan flopped onto her bed, grabbing her phone. Her long fingers tapped and swiped effortlessly across the screen. A group chat pinged, her voice recording a quick audio message. Then a cascade of short video clips scrolled past, each one lighting her face with changing colors and flickers of laughter. 

Charity clenched her fists. 

She wasn’t going to beg. Not now. Not yet. 

But deep inside, a war had begun, between the part of her that wanted her voice back… and the part that had already started letting it go. Adjusting to her new voice. 

Charity sat in her habitat, staring at the water dish. 

Then at the collar around her neck. 

Then at the girl on the bed, tall and unaware of the weight she carried in her palm. 

Slowly, Charity reached for a gloss tube and a microfiber cloth and began to wipe. 

She didn’t rush. 

Every swipe was deliberate. Not because she was being thorough, but because she could. Because in this one small thing, she still had choice. The tempo of her obedience. The pressure of her fingers. The order in which she cleaned them. Tiny things. But hers. 

Her eyes flicked toward Evan on the bed, thumb flicking her screen, laughter bubbling up at videos Charity couldn’t see. She watched how Evan’s brow furrowed when she concentrated. How her legs tucked slightly when she was cold. How her phone never left her right hand. 

Observe. Catalog. Remember. 

It wasn’t much, but it was something. Her brain, at least, was still hers. So, she used it. 

She’d start tracking time, mentally, counting glosses, cycles of meals, changes in clothes. If Evan always wore her galaxy print pajama shorts on Sunday night, that would mean it was Sunday. A pattern. A foothold. 

She cleaned another tube. And another. 

You haven’t broken me. 

She didn’t whisper it out loud. She didn’t need to. She just wiped the next tube a little slower. A little steadier. Like it was a ritual. Like it mattered. 

Charity reached for a gloss tube and the microfiber cloth Evan had left beside her. It was a dusty rose shimmer, the kind she used to toss aside as too juvenile. Now, it gleamed like a relic from a lost civilization, hers. 

Her fingers curled around it carefully. The plastic was slick, still smudged from Evan’s fingertips, as if even the residue on the packaging refused to forget who it really belonged to. 

She began to wipe. Slowly. Deliberately. 

Not because it needed care. 

But because it was the only thing she could control. 

She used to have an entire vanity, crystal dishes for bracelets, velvet lined drawers for palettes arranged by season, a backlit mirror with adjustable hues. Now she had a plastic tube and a square of cloth, and she was expected to clean makeup she’d never wear for a girl who had no idea how much she’d lost. 

A sudden image flashed in her mind, throwing the tube at Evan’s giant, glowing forehead, watching it bounce harmlessly off and roll under the dresser. But even in her imagination, it felt petty. Pointless. Evan wouldn’t even notice. She’d just pick another gloss and move on. 

So Charity kept wiping. Each pass of the cloth was a silent act of resistance. A whispered refusal to disappear completely. 

This wasn’t obedience. Not yet. This was survival, polished in pink. 

Charity had arranged the glosses in a neat gradient, light to dark, shimmer to matte, each tube resting like a jewel in a velvet-lined tray. It wasn’t for Evan. Not really. It was for herself. A signal that she could still do things well, even in captivity. 

The shadow of movement passed overhead. 

Evan’s face appeared above the habitat, lit from below by the cool glow of her phone screen. She peered in with a casual glance that sharpened when she saw the array. 

“Whoa,” Evan said, setting the phone aside. “That looks… seriously good. Like, better than I would’ve done. You’re a natural. Thanks” 

She leaned closer, her chin resting on folded arms against the habitat’s edge, eyes sweeping over the organized glosses. “I knew you’d be useful. I mean, I thought you’d be cute and obedient, but this? Bonus points. You’re just so darn cute.” 

Charity’s breath caught. Useful. Obedient. Bonus points. 

Words like barbs, dipped in syrup. 

But she said nothing. She couldn’t trust her voice. Not yet. Not with the surgery still hanging over her like a guillotine, controlled by the same girl now complimenting her. 

Evan didn’t seem to notice the silence. She reached down, tapping one of the glosses gently with her pinky. “Seriously though, you killed it. I’m so glad I have you now. I think I made the right choice.” 

The words hung in the air. 

Charity glanced up at her, really looked at her. Evan’s wide grin, her glittery sweatshirt, the messy bun half-falling from its scrunchie. She looked every bit the tweenager who thought she was playing house with something soft and precious. 

But she meant it. 

Charity could see that. 

That’s what made it worse. 

Her throat tightened. She wanted to scream You don’t own me, I’m not your project, I used to have my own assistants. But the words caught behind her tongue like glass shards. 

So instead, she nodded. A small, polite nod. Practiced. Safe. 

Evan beamed. “See? You’re adjusting already. We’re perfect for each other.” 

Charity turned back to the glosses. Her hands resumed the rhythm of cleaning, slow, precise. But inside her, a new rhythm beat louder. 

Not surrender. Not yet. 

Just enough to survive. 

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