Ezra J. Harris wanted to scream.
He wanted to yell so hard it punched through the polished cafeteria windows, splintered glass across the courtyard, and ricocheted down the halls of Roosevelt Middle School like a fire alarm nobody could ignore. He wanted his voice back in its old dimensions, old range, old authority. He wanted the sound to fill a room the way it used to, the way it used to make thirty kids go quiet without even realizing they’d done it.
But all of that lived behind the thin, fragile wall of a Little throat now.
The scream festered in his chest instead, hot and trapped, a pressure with nowhere to go.
He sat in a “Little sit.”
Not because he wanted to.
Because the posture was stable. Because the booster pad beneath him was soft in that humiliating way that wasn’t meant to comfort but to position. Because if he shifted wrong, his center of gravity would betray him. Because if he looked “difficult,” Dayton would correct him in that calm, sweet voice that made everyone around her assume she was being patient and responsible.
Sit this way, or risk tipping.
Sit this way, or risk a correction.
Sit this way, or risk becoming a spectacle.
The cafeteria buzzed with the deaf, bright violence of adolescence. Fluorescent lights. Sneakers on tile. Lunch trays clattering like castanets. It was the same soundscape he’d walked past for years, coffee in hand, barely registering it as a place.
Now it was everything.
It pressed on his ears. It filled his body. It made him feel like he was drowning in air.
In front of him sat the water bowl: translucent green plastic, shallow and wide, cool to the touch. The kind of dish you’d see beside an animal food mat. When he leaned closer, his reflection warped in the rippling surface, collar shimmering faintly around his throat. The little charm twitched each time he moved, a tiny jingle that announced his existence like a warning bell.
He lowered his mouth to the water.
And lapped.
Not because he wanted to. Not because it felt good. Because he was thirsty.
Because thirst didn’t care about dignity.
The water tasted clean, filtered, clearly Roosevelt water he had gotten used too.
He hated the way his tongue had to flick the surface. He hated how slow it was, how unnatural. He hated how it made him feel like a toddler.
But the method worked.
It didn’t rush through him the way it had earlier when he tried to sip from something upright. It stayed. It settled. It soaked into him gradually, like his body understood this rhythm. Like it had been built for it.
Like it had adapted.
He swallowed and felt relief spread through him in a slow, traitorous wave.
He hated that even more.
He hated that Dayton understood his body better than he did.
Not guessed. Not improvised. Understood. Like she had read him the way she read instruction manuals. Like she had studied him. Highlighted him. Annotated him.
That smug, academically precise little monster.
She wasn’t guessing when she told him bowls were safer.
She knew.
The worst part was how often she was right.
Ezra sat up, wiping his chin with the back of his wrist. His mouth felt less dry now. His mind felt… clearer. The fog in his mind he had been living with continued to lift thinning more and more, and it made him angry because it meant the system worked, even when it was humiliating.
Across the table, Dayton’s friends ate warm cafeteria food like it was normal. Plastic cups of fruit. Chicken tenders. A bag of chips. Human food, wrapped in paper and routine. Dayton’s tray looked like the trays of every other eighth grader, except for the clipped-on feeder bowl and the tiny dishes that made the whole thing look like a traveling kit.
And him.
He was chewing dry, beige nutrition pellets that turned to paste and tasted like responsibility. They were easier on his jaw than cafeteria food. He hated that, too. Hated how his new body had preferences he hadn’t approved.
The day had unraveled like a nightmare narrated in paperwork.
Dayton had walked into his class. Sat down. Students had been talking, restless, ordinary. He’d opened his mouth to start, and then the door swung wide and SEA agents stepped in like the room belonged to them.
Black uniforms. Hard expressions. The quiet mechanical authority of people who didn’t need to raise their voices because the law did it for them.
It had happened so fast he still couldn’t get his mind to line it up into a clean sequence.
There had been words. “Transfer.” “Guardian.” “Documents.” “Standard procedure.”
And then, somehow, he was on Dayton’s palm. On his way to the office. Reduced to an object that had to be carried because the building was too big to navigate alone.
Signed and sealed somewhere between one hallway and another.
Cassie Whittaker had already been assigned the moment his account shifted. That was what it had seemed like from teh way Cassie was talking earlier. That was what the portal probably showed.
And now Cassie stood in his classroom.
Not observing.
Teaching.
His students. His plans. His prompts. His carefully structured units that he’d refined for years, suddenly up for revision because he was no longer in the room to defend them.
He’d tried to reclaim something when she stopped at the lunch table. He’d spoken her first name without thinking, because for a flicker of a second his brain still believed he was an adult in an adult world.
Dayton had cut that illusion cleanly in half.
Ms. Whittaker.
And Cassie’s eyes had slid over him like he was a paperweight.
He could still feel the sting of it.
Like he didn’t exist.
Hannah’s tablet chimed, and she glanced down, reading aloud with the careless confidence of a thirteen year old who hadn’t yet learned how words could be weapons without even trying.
“She’s already modifying your units,” Hannah said, eyebrows lifting. “Ms. Whittaker says they’re a little dense. She’s breaking them down so people actually get it.”
People.
Ezra’s stomach turned.
As if he weren’t one anymore.
As if he’d been moved into a different category, a footnote. A cautionary example.
Dayton laughed at something Nicole said, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear with that practiced preteen motion that looked casual until you realized it was also a signal: I’m fine. I’m normal. Don’t look too closely.
Her tablet sat beside her iced tea. Her water bottle, bedazzled with a glittering letter D, threw tiny flashes of light onto the tabletop like it was celebrating.
She looked content.
Content.
As if this day, this first day with him officially hers, was just another Monday.
Ezra clenched his jaw until it ached.
He tried not to think about the bowl. Or the collar. Or the booster pad. Or the way every other student who glanced over didn’t look horrified, just… approving. Like: aw, she’s doing it right. That Little is well behaved.
A model.
A success story.
A product demonstration.
His world of lectures and journals and careful adult arguments had shrunk alongside his dignity, and he could feel the future closing in like a hallway he couldn’t turn around in.
Because Dayton wasn’t cruel. Not the obvious kind. She didn’t yank his collar. She didn’t shout.
She was worse.
She believed she was helping.
She believed she was doing the right thing.
And the terrifying part was that she might be.
The girls’ conversation drifted, easy and quick, like they were stepping around a puddle without naming it.
“Okay, but did anyone see what Quinn was wearing?” Nicole said, dragging out the word see like it was a felony.
Hayden snorted. “The sweater vest? Yeah. She looked like she got dressed in her grandpa’s closet, with the lights off.”
“I don’t get it,” Hannah said, biting into a chicken tender. “She’s rich. Like… pre-Smallara Stevens rich. She can afford not to look like a middle school librarian.”
Dayton shrugged, chewing. “Some people think ugly is a personality.”
Nicole giggled into her palm. “She probably thinks it’s aesthetic. Like, ‘I’m vintage. I compost. I’m better than you.’”
“Don’t knock composting,” Hayden said. “My sister does it and she still wears Nikes and has a boyfriend.”
Nicole’s eyes narrowed playfully. “Your sister is the one who moved to Orlando, right?”
“Yeah,” Hayden said. “And she has a Little, and she’s actually… nice about it.”
Ezra’s ears tuned in without permission.
“She has this setup in the kitchen,” Hayden continued, hands moving as she described it. “Like a little corner. It’s cute. It’s like… a breakfast nook but tiny.”
“Like a dollhouse?” Hannah asked.
“Exactly,” Hayden said. “Except it’s like… bowls and a beanbag and a tiny lamp. She says it makes him feel included but appropriately managed.”
Included.
Appropriately managed.
Ezra pressed his palm flat against the booster pad. The table felt enormous beneath him, smooth laminate with tiny scratches that looked like grooves on a highway.
They weren’t being unkind. That was the problem.
This was just how people talked now.
He wasn’t a man eating with them. He wasn’t a teacher among students.
He was a scenario.
Furniture that could speak.
Dayton wiped her fingers neatly on a napkin, then flicked her eyes toward Ezra. He sat silent beside her tray, back straight, legs tucked, eyes low.
He realized he’d stopped eating. Not because he was full. Because he’d noticed something that made his stomach drop.
No one watched him unless he moved.
No one remembered he needed to be watched. They trusted Dayton to handle it.
Which somehow made it worse.
“Okay,” Nicole said suddenly, grin tugging at her mouth. “But can we talk about the cup thing?”
Hannah laughed, cheeks full. “Oh my God, right? That tiny voice. ‘Could I just get a glass?’”
Hayden tilted her head, going solemn in a mock serious tone, “Pardon me, ma’am, I’ll take my sippy cup now, thank you.”
The girls burst into quiet laughter.
Ezra’s fingers curled tighter against his thighs.
Dayton smirked but didn’t fully join in. The humor in her settled in her underneath the surface. She nudged the water bowl a fraction closer to him. The rubber base squeaked softly against the tabletop.
The sound made Ezra’s skin crawl.
“It’s funny,” Dayton said, and the way she said it made it clear she was letting them have the joke because they needed it, “but you’re not used to any of this. No one taught you. They just… left you to figure it out.”
Her voice flattened into Guardian cadence again, calm and factual.
“Littles gulp,” she continued. “Gulping makes you choke. Bowls slow you down. And cups are expensive because they’re engineered for reduced flow, and they break, and they get lost. At school? There’s no point.”
She glanced at her friends. “And if I have to explain to my mom why you spilled water all over my tablet because you wanted to feel dignified, she will literally evaporate.”
Nicole nodded with mock solemnity. “My sister spilled once,” she said. “It got all over her tablet. My mom was patient but… scary.”
“I don’t even think my mom lets her touch a glass,” Hannah added. “She’s like, ‘If it’s not rubber or composite, it doesn’t come out.’”
Hayden grinned at Dayton. “And you love your systems.”
Dayton shrugged one shoulder. “They work.”
The conversation drifted again, back to weekend plans and who might be going to the Generitech Youth Showcase in Manhattan and whether it was going to be “actually cool” or “corporate cringe.”
Ezra sat beside the bowl like a footnote.
Not ignored. Not exactly. Just… peripheral. A thing that requires occasional management, like a phone with a low battery.
He looked down at his lap, hands folded tight.
There was no venom in their voices.
That, somehow, made it sharper.
Dayton took another sip of her tea, then glanced at him like she was checking a meter.
“You should drink more,” she said casually. “You haven’t had enough to keep your electrolytes balanced.”
Ezra swallowed. His voice came out small without amplification, and he hated that it sounded like obedience even when he meant it as cooperation.
“Y-yes,” he murmured.
Dayton’s mouth twitched, satisfied.
Hannah groaned at her tablet. “Ugh. AP Math quiz tomorrow.”
Nicole groaned back. “If Ms. Campbell makes it as hard as the last one, I’m actually going to cry.”
“Cry while passing,” Dayton said, brushing a crumb off her skirt. “It’s just ratios.”
“Oh, thank you, Calculus Queen,” Hayden said.
Dayton tilted her head. “Fractions are just baby decimals.”
Their laughter rose again, bright and easy, bouncing across the table like wind chimes caught in a gust.
Ezra leaned down to the water bowl and took another small lap.
One at a time.
Careful. Controlled.
Learning the rhythm.
Learning how to exist in the periphery of his own life.
A: He hated that Dayton understood his body better than he did.
I hate that too. I don’t understand the benefit of that basically being a secret to littles other than it being another way to keep them submissive and subservient, which sucks
B: Its weird how this is the 6th time i’ve seen someone go through grieving from losing their life and it still feels bad. Like Ezra, Jordan, and Charity aren’t too far off in their emoitions and behavior post-being claimed, but you’d think it wouldn’t bother me as much with how much time we spent with Jordan and how recently we had Charity’s pov, but it still sucks haha Ezra at least has the benefit that Dayton is doing things differently from Sara. With Jordan, it felt like Sara would go out of her way to make him feel the way Ezra currently does, not that that she did on purpose, but it was hard to not see it that way with how casual she was. With Ezra and Dayton though, most of the shame and humiliation and whatnot are coming from how casual her friend group is about it with Hannah being the only one that has some form of empathy for him. Meanwhile, like i said the other day, Dayton is being clinical and detatched, even if she’s getting satisfaction from it, she’s not showing it. it’s honestly the way I’d want a gaurdian to be if I were in ezra’s position. I wouldn’t have to deal with my guardian seeming to enjoy the process on top of the pain of losing everything, so i’d be able to process the latter a lot more.
(B) I’d probably be the same way as a little, just let me grieve the loss of my life, although I wouldn’t mind a guardian like Chrissy, or Hailey, or Oakley, who would treat me well.
A) nothing stopped him from learning the same things Dayton did. It wasn’t kept from him like it wasn’t kept from Jordan.
Choosing to be uneducated or u informed is a personal choice and the fault of the person who is making that choice if they regret it later.
B) more time has passed. People are used to seeing littles. They are accustomed to the laws and rules. So it’s not some shocking thing to them. It was probably more shocking seeing the sea come in as that’s not normal.
I kind of wanted to highlight and show how Daytons world doesn’t revolve around Ezra. Her little isn’t the North Star.
Not that she doesn’t care but it’s normalized. She knows what she wants to do. She has one now. So she is executing what she taught. It’s a different look at a similar situation.
A) Oh, I was under the impression that info wasn’t public knowledge. like i thought only guardians and like approved vets knew about little biology and whatnot. i wish i could find the chapter where Ellie said something to Jordan that potentially violated whatever it was they signed during guardian training. If i’m completely misremembering then that’s on me lol
B) That’s a good point, i get the time at when these occur goofed up so much lol part of me just would think there’d still be some kind of understanding that Ezra basically just lost everything he thought he had and that he’s having a hard time with it. Granted, they’re barely teenagers, so empathy for things like that isn’t necessarily in the forefront of their mind lol that’d come with maturity
Well there is unreleased info but nothing that Ezra has encountered.
They don’t hide eating pellets is healthy and people food is bad.
They don’t hide littles should drink from a
Bowl because it’s better for them.
But it’s also not front and center just like in real life.
When I got a dog I had to seek out what is good and bad food and why. I had to seek out why rawhide can be bad. It’s not kept from me by a conspiracy but it’s also not in my face.
Most is what Ezra is seeing is things like that.
ahh i gotcha now. yeah i thought a lot of it was meant to be hidden from anyone that wasn’t a guardian or approved by Generitech lol it’ll be a bit less empathetic about that going forward.
This is not a fun story to read, but somehow I can’t stop reading it. It’s a very dystopian world you’ve created here. The idea of ownership, forced indenture, for all people who are victims of this disease, is very difficult to read about.
it can be tough for sure, but that’s also what makes it compelling. I like the Kayla and Kelli story when we get them cause its a lot more heart warming, more empathetic to Kelli from Kayla, but at the same time if all the stories were like that, it’d be boring.
For the Dayton story specifically, though, this is going a bit better than i expected.
I like the ups and downs like life. As much as I love Kelli, I am waiting for Kayla to assert herself as the boss with Saras teachings so Kelli doesn’t get hurt thinking she can do stuff her little body isn’t safe to do.
I like their dynamic as it is tbh, it’s like the best pairing cause it feels more like team work and open communication than rules being enforced by Kayla. Not to say that Kelli makes wise choices in what she tries to do, like living in her own room alone or trying to eat food that doesn’t work for her body anymore, but i think Kayla cracking down would make things a lot more strained between them. Like it was already tough cause Kelli wasn’t really respecting Kayla as a guardian, but Kayla doing things like how sarah does would take some respect for Kelli and her autonomy away. Plus Kayla’s already put Kelli in Harms way with letting her ride on her skateboard without being secured and letting Tallisa take her for a bit when she isn’t a guardian. They’re the only two that seem to know there’s a real middle ground and are trying to find it, imo.
Well I needed and wanted a more realistic outlook.
The reality of a situation isn’t always as fun as the idea of it. Lots of people write about being small but few focus on the systems that would need to be in place.the reality of not everyone wants to pay for the systems it would take for small people to live normally.
People try to be nice but are also cruel and greedy at times. Good people can have a bad belief.
So it makes you question things. Like your neighbor maybe a great person but what if they don’t believe in god. Maybe that feels sacrilegious to you. This plays on that same idea where no one is truly bad in these stories.
They are people who have a belief set which is different from most readers which is what makes it uncomfortable.
As we are trained and presented media that is for the most part feel good media. The good guy wins, the bad guy loses. The victim is always morally just. The bad guy is always mean or cruel or has an underhanded or dark reason for doing what they do.
In this case for example. I presented dayton to you all as an immature child and who viewed Jordan like a child would. He’s small he’s toy like. He’s not like me. Not equal to me. So that’s how she treated him. She didn’t know any better and it wasn’t inherently wrong. Just not how you would treat a person but he’s not a person and littles aren’t presented as people.
So now years later we are seeing Dayton as a person who has motives and wants and is a realized person who you can see aspects of who she was but you also see more of her then the 1000 foot view.
So it’s uncomfortable because it’s normalized in this world. It’s not torture fiction. It’s not sexualizes in a fetish way. It’s presented as a down to earth these are people.
These are smaller people. These are the rules of the world as the world has had to adapt
To this reality.
People like to think the world would cater to the small. But people are starving now in real life.
People are homeless now. It’s cold, and cruel at times but it’s not something people think or dwell on. It’s not presented as the reality but the exception.
These stories more focus on the reality then the pretend. I do have more lighthearted stories as well in this world. But they feel better because of how the world is depicted and is. Niceness is a commodity just like
In real life. And it’s not always appreciated.
If it’s explored, I am most interested in seeing how Dayton and Ezra interact at Dayton’s home.
Dayton does go home with Ezra at the end of the day.
Dear god I already feel so bad for Ezra like why does Dayton make me dislike her more as each hour passes like damn and I’m trying to see the bright side I really am but the future feels so brim for Ezra
I’m sure we’ll get a chapter of them talking things out and trying to figure out if this can be a positive for both and not just one but I have a hard time believing that going to happen
I hope Sara sees this and offers some advice for Dayton or something because damn I just feel like it’s hopeless for most Littles in this world
Overall great work
I’m sure it will get better. Dayton with Ezra, imo, is light years better than sara with jordan when comparing their first few hours as guardian and little. Sara did a lot of stuff to like actively get a reaction out of Jordan and treated it like Jordan should have been grateful and already had accepted everything from the get go, while dayton isn’t really being like that. yeah she’s explaining stuff as if they’re facts, but it doesn’t really go further than that, it’s just a sanitized explanation with little emotion behind it. She could be treating it the way Evan had been, which was a bit condescending toward charity like she should already have accepted everything the moment she changed cause it’s the easiest thing in the world to do (its not lol)
I think Dayton is doing fine, Prof fluff needs to understand he is basically a little werewolf not a human and has to live different and stop crying.
Also didn’t know Dayton went bare foot today at school kinda wild lol
Lol, I’m guessing her shoes didn’t render, or she kicked them off to be more comfortable for lunch.
The later I notice girls like slip shoes on and off. So i was wanted to present Dayton in that light. As she is depicted with shoes in other scenes.
When the feet aren’t visible I do not always put shoes on as it’s extra data you won’t see.
1) “Ezra J. Harris wanted to scream.” understandable
2) ‘Because if he looked “difficult,” Dayton would correct him in that calm, sweet voice that made everyone around her assume she was being patient and responsible.” She’s set it up in a way that won’t make her look like the bad guy to the uninformed, that’s for sure.
3) ‘He hated that Dayton understood his body better than he did. Not guessed. Not improvised. Understood. Like she had read him the way she read instruction manuals. Like she had studied him. Highlighted him. Annotated him” Ezra could have researched Little bodies any time he wanted, he knew he was vulnerable.
4) “And now Cassie stood in his classroom. Not observing. Teaching” opportunistic fucking vulture she is
5) “She’s already modifying your units, Ms. Whittaker says they’re a little dense. She’s breaking them down so people actually get it.” Translation: Ms Whitaker is dumbing down your lessons because she thinks students aren’t smart enough for them.
6) “Ezra clenched his jaw until it ached. He tried not to think about the bowl. Or the collar. Or the booster pad. Or the way every other student who glanced over didn’t look horrified, just… approving. Like: aw, she’s doing it right. That Little is well behaved” Blocking all that out is a fair response. Like most Littles we’ve seen he’s gonna need to get used to his guardian getting undue praise from others who don’t care to see his suffering.
7.1) “Because Dayton wasn’t cruel. Not the obvious kind. She didn’t yank his collar. She didn’t shout. She was worse. She believed she was helping. She believed she was doing the right thing.” Dayton didn’t just drink the Kool-Aid, she’s gorged on it. But ultimately the right thing was never her goal, she wanted to belittle and humiliate him, correct his behavior to suit
7.2) “And the terrifying part was that she might be” and now Ezra’s taken a sip
8) “Yeah, And she has a Little, and she’s actually… nice about it.” bold thing to say infront of two guardians, especially one like Dayton
9) “They weren’t being unkind. That was the problem. This was just how people talked now.” just because it’s currently normal talk doesn’t mean it isn’t unkind
10) “But can we talk about the cup thing?” “Oh my God, right? That tiny voice. ‘Could I just get a glass?’” “Pardon me, ma’am, I’ll take my sippy cup now, thank you.” This is the kind of bullying I was expecting from them, though I’d thought Dayton would be leading it.
11) “Dayton smirked but didn’t fully join in” Not what I thought she’d do; she must be working some angle.
12) “I don’t even think my mom lets her touch a glass,” Hannah added. “She’s like, ‘If it’s not rubber or composite, it doesn’t come out.’” Is there a Little at the Merriweather household?
13) “The conversation drifted again, back to weekend plans and who might be going to the Generitech Youth Showcase in Manhattan and whether it was going to be “actually cool” or “corporate cringe.” I’m leaning towards the latter.
I would think little training would teach them to cuddle with their owners like cat and dogs do to Aleve stress because their biology seems so close. It would help Prof puff a lot so he doesn’t have to think so much about being focused on.