The axe in his head woke Sage up.

  Or. Wait. Was it an axe?

  Something was splitting his head open. It had to be some kind of weapon. There didn’t seem to be a lot of blood though. Maybe a psychic axe?

  What was a psychic axe?

  He should probably just open his eyes to see what in the Eilwood was happening.

  Hang on.

  Eilwood?

  What was the Eilwood?

  Sage opened his eyes.

  Why was everything so big? Was everything always this big? That didn’t seem to be right. But he didn’t it ever being different.

  Maybe he was just small? That didn’t seem right either, but judging from the size of the leaf he was lying on, that had to be what it was. The leaf was longer and wider than he was. The tree he was lying under reached up so high that he wasn’t sure he could see the top. Why was that so weird?

  Sage reached up and gently massaged his temples. His brain needed to get in gear. The wind blew by him, tugging at the edges of the leaf he was sitting on. Thankfully it wasn’t a strong wind. Otherwise, his negligible weight wouldn’t have been enough to hold the leaf down.

  His brain finally kicked into gear. That’s right. He was a beteenie. That’s why everything seemed so huge. It was because he was a tiny person living in a world that had been made for the giant humans that seemed to run everything. Details started filling themselves in. He was out here because he’d been checking to see if there were any signs of his parents returning. It felt like his parents had been gone forever. They wouldn’t normally leave him alone this long. But there’d been no sign of them. Then he’d seen this leaf and decided it was time for a nap.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Sage’s heart started racing. That had been unusually dumb, even for him. To sleep outside like this? Exposed to anything or anyone who happened along. What if a cat or a snake had come along? Or, even worse, a human? An animal would just eat him and then he’d die. A human though. They did all sorts of horrible things. Not to mention that he then might reveal the existence of beteenies to them.

  All in all, this had been a horrible plan and a worse trip. Time to get back inside.

  Which involved remembering where the inside was.

  Sage winced as he stood up. The splitting headache had faded, but the pounding lingered. Maybe he’d been hit on the head with an acorn or something. That would be a much better explanation of what was going on than that he’d just decided to lay down a take a nap outside in the middle of the day. That was definitely what he was telling everyone else. Not that he knew who else he’d tell. He didn’t remember anyone other than his parents. That seemed odd. He ought to have known someone else right?

  Sage shook his head. He needed to get in the game. Step one: Find shelter so that he wasn’t eaten. Step two: To be figured out after step one has been completed.

  Sage nodded. Planning successful. Now time to make it happen. He set out to find somewhere safer than outside. He was lucky. He literally tripped over a sign pointing him in the right direction. It was a human footprint. Sage refused to make any comparisons about how much bigger the footprint was than his entire body.

  He turned to follow it. Whether the human had been heading away from home, or toward home, they had almost certainly been heading to some kind of building. Which meant that Sage was on track for completing step one.

  Sage started running. Hopefully, it was close. As dangerous as it was to be outside during the day. It was about a thousand times worse night. He did not want to be out here at night.