They were woken up by the sound of an alarm.

A small lamp on top of the entry door shone a pulsing, red light. After a few seconds of panic, a distorted and metallic voice that seemed to come out of the walls uttered:

“Stand back from the iron door. If you don’t we’ll immediately use lethal force. This is the last warning you’ll get”

As everyone was petrified in terror, a hole in the lower part of the door opened up, and a tray was pushed into the room. Then, the hole was sealed again and the alarm stopped.

All of this didn’t last for more than 10 seconds.

For a while, Ann, who had sprung up since the noise started, didn’t move, as if waiting for something else to occur, keeping her breath for the whole time.

When she realized that nothing was happening, she started to breathe again, trying to slow down her spiking hearbeat.

After a couple of minutes, she catiously got down from the bed, her bare feet making contact with the cold floor. 

Then she removed the sock from her right shoe, picked it up and peered inside  “Are you guys all right?” 

8 eyes stared back at her, and Rick gave her a thumbs up

“What happened? We couldn’t see anything” asked Al

“I’m not sure, they just pushed something in here and it ended as suddenly as it started” Ann answered

Dan looked interested “We should probably check it out. Just wait for us to get out. Actually, can you help us?” 

Ann carefully laid the shoe on its side, so they could easily walk out of there, and did the same with the other one.

Then she got up and went to check the group in the box, walking slowly and carefully, in case someone got already out.

She opened the box and peeked inside. They looked a little upset and agitated but fine. 

She smiled, relieved. “Don’t worry, nothing dangerous happened. Did you sleep okay in there? I hope my jacket was comfy enough” 

“It wasn’t half bad” A young man answered, returning the smile “We decided to nominate a spokesman, and i was the lucky one. Nice to meet you, i’m Niel!”

“Ann, it’s a pleasure! Sorry, could you get out of the box? They just pushed something in here and we were just going to check up on it, would you mind going with us?”

“Sure!”

Ann watched him walking, noticing how agonizingly slow tinies were “Can i… Pick you up? It will be faster this way”

Niel gave her a puzzled look, and she blushed “Well, if you want to i mean, sorry if i was rude”

Niel relaxed “Don’t worry it’s okay. You’re right though, you’re a lot faster than us, just… be careful”

She tensed a bit “Okay, here i go…”  She delicately pinched his chest between her index and thumb, and cautiously lifted him up.

Then she stood up and noticed that the tinies in her shoes had almost reached the entrance door, and with a couple of strides she approached it as well.

On the tray there was a piece of paper, an empty glass, and a tiny pile of tiny energy bars, still wrapped.

Ann picked up the paper and read aloud 

“The water from the sink is potable. You will get food (and in case of extreme necessity medicines) everyday, once a day, like this time, at the same time as today”

“is that… all?” Dan asked

Rick burst laughing “What a bad joke, there is no way that food is going to be enough for all of us, right…?”

Nobody answered, dead serious.

Al sprinted to the tray, climbed on it and took one of the bars. He quickly skimmed through the nutrition values and stated “well, given our size, one of these a day should be enough food for one of us. Ann on the other hand… “

Everyone turned to look at her, and she gulped. The whole pile to her wasn’t even the size of a cookie.

After a few seconds of silence, Niel cleared his throat, and said “We need to talk about this with everyone. Please wait here until everyone arrives, you can count the bars in the meantime”

The bars were 70, and after a long discussion, they came to a compromise: Kids under the age of 16 as well as people who formerly were under the weight of 60 kg got half a bar, the rest a whole bar, so the remaining 30 bars would be given to Ann. 

After all the tinies received their own food, Ann was left, sitting on her knees, with that meager pile of bars in front of her.  Her friends gathered near her left leg.

“There is no way i can unwrap those on my own. I doubt i can even pick them up without smushing them all together” she muttered, demoralized

“So what, you want us to unwrap them for you and throw them in your mouth?” Al snickered, while the other two rolled their eyes at his lack of tact.

“No, no, it’s enough if you unwrap them and put them on my hand” She blushed, placing her right hand on the floor with her palm upwards

“Sure, no problem” agreed Rick, and immediately got to work.

He picked up as many bars as he could and climbed Ann’ pale and soft hand, and soon began unwrapping. In a few minutes the food was ready for Ann.

She waited for Rick to get down from her hand, then lifted it up in front of her face.

“There is no way this is enough. How am i going to make it?” she thought, then she opened her mouth and poured the tiny meal down her throat.

After closing her mouth, she swallowed.

“Ugh… i barely felt it on my tongue” She muttered, looking down.

They were staring at her with an odd look on their faces

They seemed honestly worried about her, but in their eyes there was also a hint of … fear?