Dayton: The Junior Guardian Chronicles: Episode 50

The enclosure wasn’t a cage. 

That was what Dayton had called it when she’d shown it to him earlier, like she was unveiling a new phone. Bright-eyed. Proud. Clinical in the way only a kid with a certification and a binder full of laminated checklists could be. 

“It’s a habitat,” she’d said, fingers sliding along the sleek polymer frame. “Custom-designed. Climate controlled. A two speaker/microphone. Everything you need.” 

Everything you need. 

Ezra stood in the center of it now, motionless, as Dayton’s bedroom loomed outside the clear walls like a museum he wasn’t allowed to touch. The habitat’s panels were seamless, transparent, and too perfect. No screws. No joints. No weak points. Just smooth, unbroken polymer that caught the light from the window and scattered it into faint rainbows on the miniature floor. 

It didn’t feel like care. 

It felt like a verdict delivered in acrylic. 

Outside the enclosure, Dayton moved with the brisk efficiency of someone who had already decided what reality was and was now just arranging it. She knelt near the desk, rummaging in a tote bag, checking items off on her phone. Her backpack waited by the door. She had her shoes on. She was leaving. 

She was leaving him. 

Ezra’s stomach tightened. Not fear of being alone in a room, not exactly. Fear of what “alone” meant now. Alone meant “contained.” Alone meant “out of sight.” Alone meant the world continuing without him, perfectly capable of forgetting he existed for a few hours. 

Dayton glanced down, meeting his eyes through the clear wall. 

“You sure?” she asked, and her tone was almost casual, like she was asking if he wanted fries with his order. “You can come. It’s not a big deal.” 

Ezra’s jaw clenched. He could still smell the outside world on her hoodie from earlier. Wind. School. Bus vinyl. Freedom that wasn’t his. 

“It’s a big deal,” he said, and hated how small it sounded against the smooth, expensive walls. 

Dayton exhaled through her nose like she was counting to five. “Okay. Then you stay.” 

She tapped the top edge of the habitat with a fingernail, a light tick tick that vibrated through Ezra’s feet. 

“Door stays latched,” she said. “Heat stays on. Water is full. Bedding is clean. I won’t be gone long.  Mom is downstairs and she is not coming up here to hang out with you, so don’t be dramatic.” 

Ezra’s hands curled into fists. 

Dayton’s expression flickered, something almost human slipping through the Guardian calm. 

“I’m not trying to be mean,” she said, quieter. “I’m trying to not come home and find you under my dresser because you decided to do a prison break for your pride.” 

“Being contained like this isn’t pride,” Ezra snapped. “It’s humiliation.” 

Dayton’s eyes narrowed, not angry, just steady. “It’s safety.” 

That word again. Safety. The holy water they splashed on everything until it looked like righteousness. 

Dayton straightened and slung her tote bag over her shoulder. 

“I’ll be back,” she said. “Couple hours. Nicole, Kinsley and their dad just pulled up. We’re getting supplies, not sightseeing.” 

Then, because she couldn’t resist making it procedural, she added, “Stay warm. Drink water. Don’t hurt yourself.” 

As if those were normal things to say to a former teacher you’d collared. 

She crossed the room, turned off the lights, then paused at the door to glance back. 

Her face was unreadable, a thirteen year old trying on responsibility like a jacket that didn’t quite fit but still looked good in the mirror. 

“Ezra,” she said. 

He looked up. 

“I really am doing my best.” 

The words landed wrong and right at the same time. 

Then she left, and the door clicked shut with the soft finality of a rule being enforced. 

Silence rushed in. 

Not absolute silence. The house still breathed. A distant hum of the central air unit. The faint, rhythmic thrum of a dishwasher in the kitchen. Somewhere far below, a cabinet door opening and closing. The muffled sound of a woman moving through her own home, doing normal afternoon things, unaware that a four inch man was standing in a transparent box in he daughters bedroom staring at the place where her daughter’s footsteps had been. 

Ezra turned slowly, taking in the habitat again like it had changed while he wasn’t looking. 

The floor was a miniature hardwood laminate, scaled and polished. The bed was insultingly perfect. Memory foam, just firm enough, just soft enough. The blanket folded with clean corners. A tiny water dock clipped into the wall. A feeding unit with a sealed dispenser, empty right now but ready. 

Everything optimized. 

Even his captivity had good taste. 

He pressed his palm against the front wall. 

Cool. Smooth. Unyielding. 

He pushed harder. 

Nothing. 

A weak, pathetic little squeak escaped him, not from his mouth but from somewhere inside his mind, like his brain didn’t know how to process effort that had no effect. 

He tested the corners anyway. He tested the latch, though he already knew he couldn’t reach the release mechanism from the inside. He traced the seams that weren’t seams. He searched for gaps that didn’t exist. The habitat had been designed by people who understood exactly what a desperate Little would do first. 

They’d built it for him before they ever met him. 

He drew back and punched the wall. 

The sound was a dull tap. 

Pain flashed through his knuckles immediately, sharp and humiliating. He sucked in a breath and held it, refusing to make a noise that would prove how small he was. Refusing to let the room hear him. 

The room didn’t care. 

The house didn’t care. 

The only person who cared was a thirteen year old girl currently walking toward the front door with a tote bag and a shopping list. 

Ezra backed away from the wall and sat hard on the edge of the bed. The mattress gave beneath him like it was welcoming him. Like it was glad he’d finally stopped struggling. 

He stared out through the clear panel at Dayton’s room. 

Her bed, made with irritating precision. 

Her desk chair, pushed in. 

Her Guardian certificate on the wall, framed like a diploma and shining faintly in the late afternoon light. 

A life in neat lines and clean categories. 

And now he was one of the categories. 

He swallowed and felt the collar shift, that constant reminder that even his throat had been claimed. The charm chimed softly. A small, delicate sound that used to be associated with pets. 

He had taught Fahrenheit 451. He had taught dystopias. He had asked students to identify the moment when a society stops noticing its own cruelty. 

He had not imagined he would become the example. 

Downstairs, something beeped. A microwave, maybe. A timer. A normal sound. 

Then Mrs. Harris’s voice floated up the stairwell, distant, not directed at him at all. 

“Dayton? You home?” 

Ezra went still. 

For a moment he thought he might answer. A reflex. A human reflex. I’m here. I exist. I’m not what the paperwork says I am. 

But Dayton wasn’t here, and Mrs. Harris hadn’t asked him. 

He listened, breath shallow, as footsteps moved through the downstairs hallway. Another cabinet opened. A fridge door. The soft clink of a plate. 

Mrs. Harris called again, closer to the stairs this time. “Dayton?” 

No response. 

A pause. 

Then, faintly, Mrs. Harris remembering that Dayton had said she was going with Nicole to Little Mart as she checked her phone seeing a message from Dayton.  

The footsteps retreated. 

The house settled again into its steady hum. 

Ezra’s shoulders slumped as something cold and heavy slid into place inside him. 

He had been a person who mattered in a building full of people. He had been a name that made students groan and laugh and sometimes, rarely, think. 

Now a mother could stand directly below him and not even consider that he might answer. 

Not because she was cruel. 

Because the world had trained everyone, gently and thoroughly, to stop expecting Littles to be part of the conversation. 

Ezra lay back on the tiny bed without meaning to. 

The ceiling light above him glowed soft and constant, calibrated warmth without warmth in it. The air stayed perfect. The habitat stayed perfect. His heart kept beating. 

Outside the walls, Dayton’s room sat empty, waiting. 

Hours to fill. Nothing to do. No control. 

He turned his face toward the clear wall, watching the giant world beyond it like a man watching rain through a window he couldn’t open. 

And for the first time since the collar had clicked shut, the thought came to him with quiet, terrifying clarity. 

This wasn’t the beginning of a punishment. 

This was the beginning of a routine. 

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