*****

"Keja! Boss says he needs you to fix another forklift and tractor! The newcomer broke them again!" One of Jake's colleagues yelled at him, informing him of the task he needed to complete.

"Again!? That's the third time this week!" Jake replies.

For the past 15 years, Jake's life has been characterized by working in a factory filled with unhealthy people and fumes, doing a job he dislikes. He barely earns enough money to cover his expenses and have something to eat. It's been a difficult journey, but at least he's doing honest work.

Jake never graduated from high school due to neglect. His family abandoned him, choosing to favor his younger sister over him. This has been the case since he was 10 years old when he failed his first entrance exam. Their treatment of him changed so dramatically that it's as if they're not even family anymore. They treated him as if he didn't exist after they threw a set of apartment keys at him.

His family never even told him which apartment the keys belonged to. They simply didn't care about him, as if he wasn't their own kin. Jake's life has been a misery. He's never been able to make genuine friends because he's been too busy trying to survive and feed himself to worry about others. In the end, he couldn't find where those keys belonged.

However, there's no point in dwelling on the past now. That's what Jake thought before he tried to get off the seat of his tractor that also needed fixing. He attempted to detach the belts that were wrapped around his torso, but he couldn't get off. No matter how many times he tried, he still failed.

Suddenly, Jake's vision changed and he found himself facing a mouldy wall in what appeared to be an alleyway. It all happened in an instant, with no warning. One moment he was struggling to get off his seat, and the next instant he is standing in front of a wall. Like a bad cut in a movie. Sudden, with no plot relevance, just instant, not even a blur or fade out. As if a bubble popped, that fast.

As Jake looked around the alleyway in confusion, his head was filled with questions. His tired and sleep-deprived brain couldn't make sense of what was happening.

As a final attempt to understand the situation, Jake's brain finally provided him with a possibility: it's a dream. To confirm this, he pinched his cheek hard, only to yelp in pain like a girl.

He thought to himself, "Like a girl?" Jake's head was flooded with even more questions when he finally realized the changes in his body. He had long, lustrous white hair that flowed down his shoulders, almost touching the ground. He was still wearing his work clothes, which consisted of jeans and a white polo, they were massively oversized now probably because of his height changing along with his body.

Before he could fully comprehend what was happening, he - now she - heard a pair of voices from the deeper end of the alleyway. There, she saw two men wearing what looked like small pieces of leather armor. She instantly realized the danger of the situation. Combine a small girl and a dark alleyway, and it wouldn't be strange if it ended in a kidnapping or probably worse.

In an effort to avoid any harm, she ran as fast as she could towards the street and escaped from the alleyway. She ignored the strange looks of the people, who looked different from what she was used to seeing - some even had animal ears. She didn't even register these differences in her panic to get away.

Finally, she discovered a sense of serenity in what appeared to be a deserted church. Her new size enabled her to conceal herself under one of the benches.

Once the rush of adrenaline subsided, it all hit her. For some inexplicable reason, she was now in an unfamiliar place, possibly even in a different world. It was a place where she knew nothing and couldn't even communicate with others or comprehend how to live there.

Before she knew it, she was crying uncontrollably. She couldn't help but think that she could have handled things differently and that she had relatives like her grandmother and aunts and uncles, but she was too consumed by depression to even consider reaching out to them. She was so consumed by self-hatred that she didn't even stop to consider whether she was truly alone.

Now, she was simply crying out of self-pity, wondering why she was there and what she had done to deserve any of this, trying to figure out where she had gone wrong in life. There were so many questions and so few answers.

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While she was in the midst of crying, she heard voices from outside the church and began to shake with fear, wondering if the two men knew she was hiding there. She couldn't even comprehend the pain she was currently experiencing.

She took off running again, shedding the heavy jeans and just wearing the oversized polo shirt that thankfully covered everything that needed to be covered and more. A short distance from the door, she saw a group of people in various outfits. She ignored them and ran in a different direction.

The group was puzzled but decided it wasn't a big deal as the girl who ran out of the church didn't look like she had stolen anything. In fact, they thought she might have left some things behind after seeing the pair of jeans they saw abandoned under a bench.

As she ran blindly, the girl began sobbing again. She realized that perhaps she shouldn't have run away like that, but she couldn't think straight at the moment. Her emotions, particularly fear for her safety, were clouding her judgment.

She took shelter behind a toppled pillar, hugging her legs as she lay on her side, tears streaming down her face. It was as if all the sadness and grief she had unconsciously bottled up while struggling to survive just poured out of her heart all at once.

That night, she spent the entire night releasing the dam that had formed within her hurting heart as she gradually fell asleep.

When she woke up, she saw that it was dusk again. She must have slept the entire day after crying all night.

She was still at a loss as to what to do, but her now calm state of mind helped her realize that she needed to eat and she needed it soon.

As she thought about her bleak circumstances, she couldn't help but get teary-eyed again. It was strange, she never knew she could be such a crybaby. So she steeled her resolve and wiped the forming tears from her eyes.

Even though she knew what she needed, she didn't know where to obtain it. As a result, she resorted to the only option she could think of at the moment: stealing.

It's not that she wanted to steal, but she was desperate. She couldn't even understand a single word that was being spoken, let alone read any of them. She had no idea how much anything cost or what was even being sold, so she decided to steal what she recognized as food.

Although skeptical, she stealthily ran back to the church where she had seen the group of people. She saw the same group of people exiting the church and snuck in, hoping that maybe they had left something edible behind. However, she was disappointed to find that it was just a ruined, empty church.

She returned to where there were more people, running around and hiding as she searched for anything that might help her fill her stomach. Thankfully, water wasn't a problem as she spotted a small pond next to the church.

That's also where she discovered her inhumane appearance. She had the ears of a cat and even the tail of one. Her eyes were heterochromatic. Her left eye was a fiery red while the other was lush green. But she has no time to worry about that just yet, no. She must make sure she lives first before she could begin to inspect her own body.

Eventually, she came across what appeared to be a small restaurant. She hid and snuck around to the back of the building, hoping to find anything that had been discarded. This wasn't new to her; she had done this frequently back in her early teens when she can't get a job due to age.

Even now, she was surprised that she had managed to make it through 11th grade.

She snuck over to where the restaurant's trash bin was located and was thrilled to see a large chunk of bread sitting next to it. She grabbed it quickly and returned to the church.

From then on, she would do this every day. She moved from restaurant to restaurant, stealing discarded scraps of food. She knew that she couldn't live like this forever and that she would eventually be caught, but she had no other choice.

And eventually, the fateful day arrived. A giant woman who was at least twice if not thrice her size stood in front of her and blocked the exit while she held onto another piece of bread. It's over. She would be beaten up and ostracized by the rest of the community, just like when she was caught stealing in the past.

As soon as she saw the intimidating figure, she began to shake with fear, clinging to the bread she held close to her chest as if it were a lifeline. She was terrified that it would be taken away from her.

As she realized that this might be the only piece of bread she would be able to obtain, she began to frantically eat it, even though the process was difficult and made her choke.

After she finished eating, she suddenly remembered that the tall woman was still standing in front of her, looking down at her small frame.

Not knowing what to do, she cowered and covered her head, anticipating a harsh beating. However, to her surprise, the beating… never came. Instead, she felt a warm embrace. She was confused - in her experience, those who caught her would always beat her up. But this time was… different.

The woman held her head against her chest with one hand and gently stroked her back with the other, trying to comfort her.

She was confused by this display of kindness, as she was used to being mistreated. Despite the strangeness of the situation, she felt her racing heart begin to slow and calm down.

She had never experienced anything like this before, and it felt foreign to her. But at the same time, she didn't want to let go of it…

She didn't want this moment to end, and her small hands clutched at the woman's apron, afraid that she might disappear and leave her alone again.

Contrary to what she expected, the woman hugged her more tightly, reassuring her that she would not go anywhere, that she was safe now.

As she felt the woman's reassurance, the tears that had been welling up in her eyes finally spilled over and she began to cry in the woman's embrace.

The woman whispered gentle, warm words into her ear, and although she couldn't understand the meaning of the words, she knew that they meant to say that…

"Everything is okay now…"

*****