Her breath hitched as the world around her expanded at an impossible rate.
Her clothes sliding from her body as fabric suddenly became too heavy, too loose. A chill prickled her bare skin as she shrunk past the size of a doll, past the height of a flower stem, until—
A single drop of water, fallen from a leaf above, splashed onto her shoulder like a wave.
Panic seized her.
Mira scrambled, her tiny hands grasping at the nearest shelter—a broad leaf, soft and curling like silk. She pulled it around herself, her breaths coming fast and uneven.
Everything was enormous.
Everything was dangerous.
And she—she was the smallest, most fragile thing in this entire, living forest.
Mira pressed herself deeper into the leave’s embrace, heart hammering against her ribs. The enormity of her situation hadn’t settled fully yet—but then, the ground trembled.
A slow, wet croak echoed through the air.
She turned her head—and froze.
Towering above her, no more than a few giant strides away, was a frog.
No—not a frog.
At this size, it might as well have been a monster.
Its slick, green skin glistened under the dim glow of the fungi, its round, unblinking eyes locked directly onto her. The slow expansion and contraction of its throat sent ripples through its bulging skin, and the sheer size of it made Mira feel as insignificant as an insect.
Her fingers dug into the velvety edge of the leave surrounding her, clutching it as though its delicate surface might somehow shield her from the unblinking gaze of the creature before her. For a fleeting moment, she dared to hope—if she stayed completely still, if she became nothing more than part of leave itself—maybe, just maybe, it hadn’t truly seen her.
But that fragile hope shattered the instant the creature shifted.
Its thick, muscular legs tensed with a slow, deliberate readiness, and the rhythm of its throat quickened, pulsing faster with each breath it drew. Mira didn’t need to be a zoologist to understand the message etched into that sudden, predatory stillness—it wasn’t simply watching her. It had chosen her.
A low gasp escaped her lips as instinct overrode thought, sending her scrambling backward, the petals rustling beneath her—but she moved too late.
A sharp sound sliced through the air—THWIP—startling in its clarity.
The frog’s tongue shot forward with violent speed, a blur of motion that cracked the silence like a whip, and Mira barely managed to hurl herself to the side in time, crashing into a thick, damp patch of moss as the sticky appendage struck the exact spot she had occupied a heartbeat earlier.
The realization clawed at her—had she hesitated for even a fraction of a second, it would’ve been over.
Her chest rose and fell in quick, uneven gasps, the pounding of her heart nearly drowned out the rustle of leaves around her. She didn’t need to look back to know the creature was readying for another strike.
She had to run now — if she stayed still another breath, the frog would strike again.
And then — a sound.
Footsteps.
Someone else in the forest?
Panic clamped around her chest. She couldn’t let anyone see her like this — but she also couldn’t survive alone. Her heart skittered between terror and desperate hope.
Leaves parted.
A huge hand pushed through the green, splitting the foliage in her direction.
Mira froze.
Adrian.
Why was he here?
The frog inched closer — throat pulsing, tongue poised — and Adrian just stood there, staring down at her as if this scene belonged inside a research journal.
Was she really going to die while he observed?
“Adrian! Are you seriously just going to stare? Help me!” she screamed, her arms flying up in helpless outrage.
The frog’s tongue snapped through the air — and in the same instant her body lurched upward, weightless in the sudden safety of Adrian’s hand.
He looked enormous — like the giant from that old fairy tale with the beanstalk — towering over her with impossible scale. And his expression — seriously, what was that expression? There was no frantic worry, just a strange gleam like he had found a rare theorem proven true.
“Fascinating,” Adrian said under his breath.
The word — and the spark in his eyes — felt like a needle stabbing straight into her vision.
He didn’t pause.
“Can you tell me exactly what happened? Did you ingest anything unusual? Any contact with foreign particles?” His tone carried the smooth cadence of an academic question — more conference panel than crisis.
Her breath trembled inside the leaf wrapped around her like a makeshift cloak. Every blade of grass around her loomed like a tower. She could barely grasp the scale of the world anymore — and yet Adrian crouched there like a scholar before a revelation.
“Adrian,” she whispered, her voice stretched thin with disbelief, “I am two inches tall. Do you really think this is the time for an interview?”
She could tell the moment it happened — his focus wasn’t on her anymore. His eyes rested on her shape, but his mind had already raced ahead into some silent framework she could never see. He wasn’t treating her like a terrified girl in her tiny sizel. He was processing her — slotting her into theories, patterns, equations — as if she were the most extraordinary result he had ever witnessed.
In that instant, she understood.
He wasn’t standing inside her fear.
He was standing inside his revelation.
And she — whether she wanted it or not — had become the center of whatever new universe he was building in his head.
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