Big Corp Inc. (G/T)

Part 11: Cold and Hot

Candy figured, since she was inside a refrigerator and not a freezer, that she wouldn't literally freeze into a solid lump of ice. Even so, she was extremely cold. Her scant clothing did not protect her at all from the frigid temperature. Her teeth were chattering loudly as she shivered convulsively. Each breath came out as a visible puff of vapor. Her flesh became alive with goosebumps and her lips and fingernails started to turn blue. She might not freeze, but she could still suffer hypothermia.

Candy realized she was in serious peril. The lunch hour was over, meaning any workers who had their food in the fridge had already taken out their lunches. She might be trapped for hours if nobody was hungry enough to check inside. Worse, today was Friday: If no Giants needed to get into the fridge by the end of the day, she might be stuck in here the entire weekend. She could die. She knew Ronny, being heartless enough to stuff her inside a fridge, wouldn't bother to let her out. Her boss expected her to stay late for overtime, but she doubted he'd search for her in the break room fridge. He would assume that she left early.

She huddled up, rubbing her arms vigorously for warmth, and surveyed the shelf she was on in the hopes of finding something to help keep her warm. There was nothing that she determined useful. All she found was a giant bottle of ketchup, some sealed containers of various shapes and sizes, and a colossal subway-style sandwich wrapped up in paper. She didn't have any hope of staying warm with those items, or opening the enormous fridge door by herself.

She paced back and forth, trying and failing to stay warm. The minutes dragged into hours. She was having more and more trouble just struggling to stay awake. Her limbs felt like heavy lumps of ice. Her body heat was slowly sapping away, leaving her flesh all the way into her bones horribly, agonizingly cold. She felt like frost was burrowing under her skin and chilling her blood. Her extremities started to go numb. Feeling herself fading fast, she realized she needed to do something, anything, to keep herself alive until a Giant could open the door and save her. She might not be able to last much longer.

She investigated the shelf she was on for the hundredth time for anything she could have missed. In an act of desperation, she peeled some of the paper off of the sandwich, hoping to make a blanket for herself. Unfortunately, the paper, like everything else around her, was cold to the touch, even colder than her skin since it had been in the fridge longer. She stuck her hand inside the sandwich to sense the internal temperature. It was cold too, of course, but slightly warmer than the exterior. After a moment of hesitation, she crawled inside, huddling up on a bed of crisp lettuce with a giant slice of tomato over the top of her. She enveloped herself in the bread and pulled the paper back over, trying to block out some of the icy air. She curled into a ball and shivered.

It was an increment warmer inside the sandwich, but she was still bitterly cold and miserable, to the point where the feeling was unbearable. Over time, she got so cold that she couldn't move anymore, and her limbs felt like immobile chunks of frozen meat. She tried to stay conscious, but she experienced a dullness in her senses and thoughts, as if her mind was freezing along with her body. Soon enough, she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer, and she passed out.

The rest of the office, meanwhile, was entrenched in the languid atmosphere of a Friday afternoon. The Giant office workers wrapped up their tasks for the week, procrastinated on projects that could hold off until Monday, and pretended to look busy until they were allowed to go home. The lovely, sunny weather outside looked irresistibly enticing to the Giants stuck indoors at their desks. Nobody noticed that the little human was missing from her cubicle. Even Ronny, the Giant who heartlessly threw her into the refrigerator, forgot about her as he thought about his plans for the weekend.

In his cubicle across from the human elevator, the gray-eyed Giant with the short dark hair finally ceased his feverish typing. He was trying to finish his project today so he could enjoy his weekend without stressing over it, even if all he did was sit at home and feel lonely as usual. He checked his watch with the realization that it was much later in the day than he expected. In fact, he had worked through his lunch without even noticing. His stomach growled with hunger. He got up from his chair and lumbered over to the break room. He had a big sandwich waiting for him in the fridge that he couldn't wait to wolf down.