As soon as Tal reached the top of the hill, he knew that he was too late. He could see the small village down below, or to be more accurate, what remained of it. There was little left of the buildings besides broken wood, and the fires that burned everywhere were quickly consuming even that. How long ago had Idaria been here? Tal wondered. It couldn’t have been that long. A few hours at most. His right hand unconsciously tightened around the hilt of his sword, his fingers constricting until they ached. He wanted very badly to draw the sword from its scabbard. And even more than that, he wanted to kill her with it. Soon, he told himself. After years of waiting, what was a day or two?

Tal guided his mare toward the ruins of the village, trying to locate any survivors. Not that he really expected to find many of those; after all, Idaria usually killed almost everyone that she encountered. That he had survived one of her rampages was little more than dumb luck.

Eventually, he found an elderly man with a dazed expression. There was a purplish bruise on his wizened forehead and he was clutching his arm, holding it against his chest, but other than that, he seemed to be unscathed. The villager looked up at him, his filmy eyes wide and confused.

“What happened here?” Tal asked him, although he already knew the answer. The old man studied him, looking first at his antique armor, dulled by age and neglect, and then up at Tal’s squarish face.

“It-it was a giant woman,” the villager replied at last. “Bigger than anything that I’ve ever seen. She just showed up out of nowhere and started to…to…” His voice drifted off and he looked down at the ground, still grasping his injured arm. Tal didn’t say anything, chewing thoughtfully on his lower lip.

The old man glanced back up, an angry edge to his voice. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

“Of course I believe you,” Tal said. “She attacked my town a few years ago. I know firsthand what she is and what she’s capable of doing.”

The villager nodded slowly, obviously relieved that someone believed him. Once more, Tal longed to unsheathe the sword, but he ignored the urge.

“Now,” he said, “tell me which way she went.”

***

The mare’s hooves clopped rhythmically against the dirt road as Tal became lost in his memories. He had told the old man the truth; several years ago, the sorceress Idaria had visited his town and left behind ruin and despair. It was times like this, when he was by himself, that he relived that awful night over and over again.

Tal gazed upward at the cloudless night sky. The moon hung overhead, full and golden, just like it had the night when Idaria attacked. He had been one of the guards patrolling the town wall, not paying much attention because nothing exciting ever happened during his shifts. And just like tonight, he had looked up at the full moon, surprised by its startling size and brightness. He had considered pointing it out to Rien, one of the other guards, but something else had caught his attention.

In the far distance, a shape had appeared. It had seemed like the outline of a woman, but it couldn’t have been possible. After all, what person was that large? As Tal had stared in astonishment, the shape had become even larger, swelling and expanding as it moved closer to the town. He hadn’t believed what he was seeing until he felt the ground quake underfoot. All around him, the other other guards had panicked, shouting at the strange sight.

Tal had watched the shape as it came closer and closer, until he could make out the details of the woman. Yes, it had been a woman, impossibly immense, but clearly female. She had looked like a member of the northern barbarian tribes, dressed in robes of thick fur, her light brownish-blonde hair braided and glittering with silver adornments. Other than her massive size, it had been her eyes that had caught Tal’s attention. They had been as golden as the moon, the pupils a dark and terrifying red.

Anything that had been in the gargantuan woman’s way had been obliterated; Tal saw entire trees uprooted like dandelions, smashed against the huge walls of the giantess’ shins. Looking back, he wished that he could have claimed that he was brave, that he heroically stood his ground while the gigantic being thundered toward him. But he had fled with the rest of the guards, running faster than he ever had before. Behind him, he had heard a deafening rumble and when he had snuck a glance over his shoulder, he had seen a brown leather boot the size of a small castle crash down onto the town wall.

The sight had been absolutely horrifying and because he wasn’t watching where he was going, he tripped and went sprawling on the ground. Little did he know at the time but that fall had saved his life, because a moment later, the giantess took another step, her foot landing on top of the fleeing guards. She had crushed them instantly, not even bothering to look down or acknowledge their existence. Another step and then she had pulverized several buildings, the shoemaker’s shop and the bakery and several others. It had been like watching a woman destroy ant hills.

He had laid there, too paralyzed by own his terror to even stand up, as the giantess had devastated everything around her. It had seemed as if her actions were mindless, driven only by a need for destruction; then, as he had continued to watch, he saw how deliberate she was. The way that she had crouched down, the vast expanse of her furred cape spreading around her, and ripped open a house, rooting around for the people inside…that had been the action of a cruel and calculating mind, not a beast.

Tal had felt completely impotent at that moment, watching as the giantess had withdrawn her hand and squeezed, dark streams of blood running down between her fingers. Afterwards, when he had recalled that night, he had felt a sort of disgust at his reaction and at his own powerlessness. He had only been able to watch.

In the end, she had killed almost everyone, slaughtering them with impunity. It wasn’t until much later that he had discovered her name, a name that he associated with terror and burning hatred. Idaria. From what he understood, she was a sorceress and a powerful one at that. During a trip to a tavern, an old soldier had informed him that she had once been the leader of a barbarian clan.

“What happened to that clan?” Tal had asked as he sipped his ale.

The soldier had regarded him with his one remaining eye. The other had been nothing more than an empty socket, outlined with heavily scarred flesh. “All dead. Idaria killed them, every last one.”

“I don’t understand how she could do that, though. Weren’t they her own people?”

“Some people are just monsters,” the soldier had answered with a shrug.

Idaria certainly qualified as a monster, and a powerful one at that. As Tal finally pulled the horse over to the side of the road to allow her to rest, his fingers touched the sword’s hilt. He had his own source of power right here. It wasn’t much to look at; like his rusted armor, the sword had seen better days. But it was imbued with magical power, enough to kill an ogre or a dragon.

Or a giantess.

The sorcerer who had sold it to him had charged a hefty price, but it had been worth it. As Tal had carefully inspected the sword, feeling its solid weight, he had once again asked the sorcerer whether it would kill Idaria.

The other man, who had been sitting cross-legged on a mound of velvet pillows, had smiled at him. Most of his teeth had been discolored from years of smoking and red wine and the lips were thin and diseased. It had been an awful and unnerving smile.

“You’ll get what you’re seeking,” the sorcerer had told him.

And now, as Tal stood outside, lightly caressing the hilt and staring up at the huge moon, he hoped that the sorcerer was right.

***

After following the trade route for several days, Tal arrived at the large city of Gerveen. It was an ancient city which had been passed between many hands. The southern desert tribes had ruled here once, as had various city states. The city’s architecture reflected this; the buildings had a variety of architectural features, ranging from overly-elaborate spires to heavy columns.

Tal had a very strong feeling that this would be where Idaria attacked next. For years, he had studied her patterns, her moods, her motivations. By this point, he felt like he understood her better. And this old city, which was the only human settlement for miles and miles, was the perfect target for her.

He checked into a boarding house near the edge of the city and once he was alone in his room, he did what he did almost every night: he unrolled faded maps and examined them, making marks here and there. Each mark represented a town or village or city that the giantess had leveled. Tal traced the marks with his fingers, lost in thought. In his mind’s eye, he once again saw Idaria, her inhuman eyes glittering with sadistic lust. His hatred for her had burned brightly at first; then, as time had passed, that hatred became something like a terrible affection. She consumed his thoughts in the same way that a lover would.

Tal fell asleep at the battered desk, sprawled over his maps. As usual, he didn’t dream, but rather drifted in the blank darkness. It was almost as if all of his mental energy was used up during the day, when he was awake and thinking about Idaria. He had fantasized about killing her in hundreds, no, thousands, of different ways. The satisfaction that he always felt was euphoric, better than sex.

He slept until a series of rumbling quakes and screams woke him. For a moment, Tal was disoriented, glancing around the small room in confusion. Then he heard more shrieks and he ran to the window, his heart hammering with a violent excitement.

Just beyond the opposite row of buildings he saw her, a titanness towering high above the city. Even though Tal had seen her countless times in his head when he was replaying that night from years ago, he was still astonished at how vast she was. The tallest structure only came to her lower calf so that she appeared to be wandering through a city of toys. He saw that her eerie eyes were as he remembered them, gold with those awful red pupils.

Idaria was looking down at the swarms of people who were fleeing into the narrow streets. Cradled in her hands was some kind of immense weapon. It resembled a mace, its steel head as big around as a temple and intricately decorated with magical runes. As Tal stared in horror, the giantess casually swung the weapon around, aiming for some of the buildings at her feet. The mace struck with the force of a meteorite, the buildings disappearing beneath the colossal metal head. Tal was thrown backwards from the impact, the entire boarding house shuddering.

As the building groaned and cracks ran down the length of the walls, he pulled himself up. Another impact shook the boarding house but he gritted his teeth, snatching up the sword. He dashed through the door, down the staircase and out into the street, where chaos had erupted everywhere. A woman with several crying children pushed past him, nearly bowling him over. There were numerous people clogging the streets, fighting to get away as Idaria obliterated entire blocks with her mace, sending debris and tiny bodies flying in all directions. Now and then, she hunted down clusters of survivors, reducing them to splotches of blood and blobs of meat beneath the deadly mace.

What made the wanton destruction even worse was the vicious smile on her face, as if razing cities was the most exhilarating thing in the world for her. Perhaps, he realized, it was.

Tal fought against the panicked mob, trying to work his way toward the giantess. For every step that he made toward Idaria, however, he seemed to be shoved back two more. He shouted in frustration, pushing aside terrified people as he struggled toward his target. Idaria, meanwhile, had become bored with smashing buildings and dropped the massive mace onto a stable, crushing the structure instantly. She stood there, hands on her hourglass hips, staring down at the people far below. Then she raised one foot, casually hovering it over the street. Some of the people, seeing her terrifying shadow, glanced up and cried out when they saw the sole of her boot hanging overhead. They couldn’t do much more than scream before she brought her foot down, flattening her victims with cruel glee.

The frenzied noises of the crowd was suddenly drowned out by the thunderous footstep and the sharp cracking of human bones. The terrible sounds spurred Tal on and he finally made it to the outskirts of the mob. Rising like a gargantuan column was Idaria’s leg, stretching impossibly high into the air. When she lifted her foot again, all that was left was a crater-like footprint and the smeared remains of people.

The giantess glanced at the awful mess on the ground, then at the bottom of her boot, which was still dripping with viscera and pulverized flesh. She grinned horribly, scraping off the mess onto a row of buildings. Tal was now so close that he could smell the leather of her boots and the metallic tang of blood. So close. Each step made his heart pound with desperate anticipation. As he reached for his sword, Idaria slammed her other foot into a lavishly-decorated temple. The building imploded, collapsing into itself with a deafening crash. Shockwaves radiated outward, knocking Tal to the ground.

He wasn’t injured but he found that he couldn’t stand back up. For some reason, his legs wouldn’t respond and as he laid there in the street, his steely resolve gave way to panic. It was just like that night all over again. He would lie there, helpless, looking on as the sorceress destroyed yet another city.

Something incredibly huge soared by overhead. Still paralyzed, Tal watched as Idaria’s leg swung through the sky, landing somewhere in the distance. Her other leg swiftly followed, the displaced air rushing over his body. How could he possibly stop someone who was so colossal, someone who could flatten entire armies like termites? Perhaps it was best if he simply fled with everyone else…

Absolutely not. He shoved those thoughts aside and pushed himself up, trying to determine where Idaria had gone. It didn’t take more than a few seconds to spot her, towering over another neighborhood. Blackish-gray clouds of smoke curled around her lower legs, partially obscuring them. Raging fires had already broken out in numerous places, and those buildings that hadn’t been leveled by the giantess would eventually be destroyed by the ever-growing flames.

Idaria hardly seemed to notice the fires burning at her feet and the wide trail of destruction that she had created. It was almost as though the city of Gerveen and its citizens were nothing more than a trifle to her, a small source of amusement that she would use and then obliterate. Nothing would be left of this place, not when the sorceress was finished with it.

An image flashed into Tal’s mind, of Gerveen a few hours from now. The ancient buildings would be toppled, the city’s inhabitants crushed beneath gigantic feet. A once-thriving city would be completely dead, sacrificed for a monster’s entertainment. Like so many other towns and villages. He saw Idaria, her golden eyes blazing with inhuman cruelty as she stomped across the landscape, always hungering for more destruction. The thought filled him with seething rage.

No, he couldn’t allow that.

Tal followed her path of destruction, which was more difficult than he would have predicted. Collapsed buildings and all kinds of debris was in his way, and he clambered over the remains of entire neighborhoods. All around him were the ghostly shrieks of the dying.

In the distance, Idaria had squatted down, her forearms resting upon her thighs as she inspected the tiny people all around her. She seemed to be contemplating something, and from her devilish expression, it was probably something horrendous.

Just as Tal reached the top of a crumbled building, its bricks strewn all over the street, the giantess sat down. She did it with a slow deliberateness, giving those below a view of her mammoth buttocks. Had she been normal-sized, it would have been an erotic sight. Her ass was perfectly-proportioned, the skin tawny and gleaming with a light sheen of sweat. At her current size, however, it was horrifying.

Idaria sat down, pulverizing a small section of the city beneath her. Tal held onto the building as the ground shook, several more bricks sliding free. He hoped that anyone who had been beneath her butt was dead. At least it would have been a relatively-quick death. To be trapped and half-crushed beneath those gargantuan buttocks would be nightmarish.

There were some survivors, he saw, scurrying and cowering between Idaria’s legs. In comparison to the titanic woman, they were nothing more than multicolored dots, running around chaotically. She leaned closer and to his astonishment, spoke to them.

At last, he heard her voice. When Tal was alone and fantasizing about his final battle with the sorceress, he frequently imagined the way that her voice would sound. Surprisingly, it was similar to the voice that he heard so many times in his dreams, a thunderous and imperious voice that befitted a goddess.

“Hello, citizens of…” she paused for an instant. “…whatever the name of this pitiful city is.”

Silence fell over the crowd between her legs. Dozens of people stared up at the giantess, amazed that such a godlike being would actually address them.

“Listen carefully,” Idaria said. “I decide whether or not you live today. So you will all do as I say.”

Frightened murmurs of assent rose up. Perhaps some members of the crowd believed that the giantess would spare them, but Tal knew better. Idaria never spared anyone. Not on purpose, anyway.

“Good. I’m your goddess now, and I desire worship.” The enormous eyes glittered lustfully. “I want to feel your hands, your lips and your tongues against my flesh.”

No one moved until Idaria swatted her hand down, pulping a few people beneath her palm.

“Now!” she barked. Everyone rushed forward to fulfill her command, caressing the mountainous walls of the giantess’ thighs. Idaria smirked, watching their desperate attempts to please her. Then she begin to select people at random, dropping them here and there on her body. One overweight man disappeared into the deep crevice between her breasts; several other people landed on her stomach, near the huge pit of her belly button.

“I can’t feel your tongues,” the sorceress growled, and the tiny people on her abdomen dropped down to their hands and knees, licking at the plain of flesh beneath them. There was no way that she could have felt them. Even thousands of people couldn’t have produced much of a sensation for such a gigantic creature.

Still, she groaned with pleasure, a rumbling noise that vibrated everything within a mile. The giantess shifted just enough so that several of the men and women rolled off of her body. The ones who managed to hold on renewed their fearful worship, kissing Idaria’s flawless skin. Despite their attempts to please her, however, Idaria soon grew restless, flicking the ant-like people off. Some tried to flee, only to be smushed under a single fingertip.

Tal was half-climbing and half-sliding down the remains of the building when Idaria stood back up. She casually brushed off rubble and bodies from her ass, although he still spotted bright spots on her buttocks, hideously red against her skin.

This was it, the moment that he had dreamed about for all of those long years.

The searing heat from the nearby fires made him sweat, droplets of perspiration running down into his eyes. Tal took a deep breath, unsheathed his sword. The weapon gave him a dose of courage as he marched toward his massive adversary.

Idaria paid him no heed. She had bent down, scooping up howling victims. Often, she was careless in plucking them up and so she squished them between her tremendous fingers. The few people who managed to avoid being mashed were ushered into the center of her palm. They stood there, trembling, gaping up at the giantess who held them in her cupped hand. With a devious grin, Idaria stood back up and raised her hand over her mouth, spilling dozens of people into the void between her lips. One older woman bounced off of the giantess’ plush lower lip, leaving behind a streak of scarlet, and then plummeted to the ground.

Tal reached his opponent just as she was swallowing her mouthful of living, shrieking snacks. Her other foot was resting upon the remains of a shop, splinters of wood littering the area around her titanic boot. He gripped the sword tighter, wrinkling his nose. Being this close to someone so immense was overwhelming. The giantess practically radiated heat, warming the air around her, and she gave off normal human smells that were amplified by her great size, acrid sweat and the earthy odor of flesh.

He inhaled slowly, the air tinged by her scent, and shouted up to her. “Idaria!”

Again, the giantess ignored him, and the resulting anger pushed aside the last traces of doubt and fear. Tal lunged at her boot, slashing at the dark brown leather. That seemed to finally capture her attention and she made a noise of disdain.

“And what do you think that you’re doing, insect?” From this angle, all that he could see were her two colossal legs and the lower section of her torso. Her face was too far away for him to make it out.

“I’m here to kill you,” Tal announced, and even as the words left his lips, he realized how laughable they sounded. The giantess uttered a harsh, deafening laugh. When the vast body began to lower, crouching, he backed away. He caught sight of Idaria’s face at last, surrounded by those thick, swaying braids. She wore a smile but her eyes were lacking any sort of warmth.

“Is that right? You’re going to kill me?” Again, the giantess chuckled. She reached for Tal with her index finger and thumb, trying to pinch him between them. He swiped at her thumb, bellowing with fury. The sword swung in an arc, flashing as it came down on the tanned skin just below the thumbnail. He expected to see the blade slice deep into the flesh, to see gushing gouts of blood.

Nothing happened.

Tal refused to believe what his eyes were clearly showing him. Once more, he slashed at the massive thumb, using all of his strength. And once more, the sword couldn’t penetrate the armor-like skin.

“No,” he whimpered. “The sword is supposed to be magical!”

The thumb and finger closed around him, twin walls of ridged flesh and muscle that threatened to squash him into bloody goo. Somehow, he clung onto the sword, as useless as it seemed to be. Idaria picked him up as if he were nothing more than a beetle, holding him close to her face. The giantess’ grip was incalculably strong and he couldn’t move his arms or legs as he hung there, squeezed between her mammoth digits.

“ ‘Magical’? That’s nothing more than a cheap sword,” the giantess said, her humid breath washing over him. To Tal, her breath smelled like death, heavy with the stink of decay. It made his stomach churn, his eyes water.

“But the sorcerer said—,” Tal started, arguing more with himself than her.

“I’m sure that he told you many things to sell you that sword. It’s a pity that none of them were true.”

Tal made a low noise of rage and despair.

“It’s hilarious to think that someone as small and pathetic as yourself tried to stop me,” Idaria sneered. “Now, what should I do with you? Eat you? Pop you between my fingers?”

He began to wiggle, trying futilely to free himself.

The giantess’ smile became lascivious, her white teeth gleaming between her blood-red lips. “Oh, I know!”

His stomach dropped as she lowered him down at an alarming rate, past her long neck and the enormous hills of her breasts. Below him, he saw Idaria’s other hand grip the top of her loin cloth, pulling the strip of leather away from her toned abdomen.

Realizing what she was doing, Tal began to shriek threats, then pleas, then prayers. Nothing that he said stopped the descent of Idaria’s hand, though. She lowered him down into her loin cloth, bringing him face-to-face with the frightening sight of her sex.

Like the rest of the giantess, it was unbelievably huge, a living cavern of purplish-red. Curly brown hair, each strand the thickness of his finger, grew like a thicket around it. As she brought him closer, he saw the slightly distended inner lips, fleshy and deep crimson like huge rose petals. They glistened with a fragrant slime and he jerked his head back, disgusted.

“Put me down! Put me down!” Tal howled.

His captor laughed yet again. “With pleasure.”

Idaria did put him down…on top of her clitoris. He slid on the slimy surface, the sword slipping from his grip and tumbling down the cliff-face of her outer labia. Desperately, he clung onto the clitoris, his gloved fingers digging into the dark bulb of flesh. Tal’s movements evidently pleased the giantess, because she let out a deep, unearthly moan that rattled his body.

He glanced down, which he shouldn’t have done. The ground seemed so very far away, tiny blossoms of scarlet and orange fire illuminating the miniature buildings. Spasmodic shudders ripped through him as he tried to pull himself up, although the weight of the armor made it difficult. His grip loosened, and he felt himself sliding down…until Idaria pinched him between her fingers once more.

Tal twisted, fighting her even as she pushed him into the gaping chasm of her vagina. He roared in anger and humiliation, the noise echoing around him. All around him was soft, pinkish flesh, although it was too dark to see much. He wanted so badly to hurt her, to make her suffer, but as he clawed at the slimy living walls, he realized that was impossible. His feeble movements did nothing more than arouse her, the massive tunnel filling with thick, pungent liquid.

If that wasn’t bad enough, her finger returned, blocking the last of the light that had been filtering into the hellish place. It bashed him against one of the vaginal walls, hard enough that he felt something snap in his torso. Coppery blood filled his mouth and he wheezed in pain, trying to push the finger away but failing. Once again, it rammed into him as the giantess pleasured herself. The flow of the sticky secretions increased and he tasted them on his tongue, mixing with his own blood.

Tal tried to curse her, but he couldn’t breathe, not with the fluid choking him. The finger withdrew and then the walls around him began to contract rhythmically as the giantess orgasmed. His bruised body was dragged upward, toward her immense cervix, and he was certain that he was going to die there, in this living tomb.

Something grabbed him unexpectedly, yanking him out of Idaria’s vagina. The giantess held him between her fingers, savoring his pained expression, and then she placed him on the ground. Tal remained still, fighting to breathe. His ribcage throbbed, sending ripples of pain throughout his body. When he was able to draw some air into his lungs, he snuck a glance at Idaria.

The giantess’ eyes hung high above him, glowing with malice. Tal tried to crawl away, leaving a snail-trail of blood and viscous love juices as he pulled his broken body along. Darkness descended over him; shaking, he looked upward. The sky was now a boot sole, caked with dark soil and the gruesome remains of people. Even though he slithered away as quickly as he could, the foot still came down on top of him. He felt the hard sole press down into his back, forcing his face down into the dirt.

All those years spent waiting for this moment, and it was nothing like his fantasies. Everything was so very wrong. Something began to break inside of his mind.

He tried to cling onto his dream of vengeance until the pain became too great. Suddenly, the agony was everything, overtaking every single nerve in his body. Something cracked sharply; it may have been the rest of his ribs, or perhaps his pelvis. Tal opened his mouth to scream out Idaria’s name, but then she stepped down and he knew nothing more.

***

When the giantess lifted her boot, there was a ruined little body in her footprint, its blood slowly seeping into the ground. Myna remained where she was, hidden behind the segment of wall that had once been part of a building. Her heart galloped in her chest and she prayed to every god and goddess that she could remember, begging them to shield her from the giantess’ eyes.

Perhaps a deity heard her prayers, because the huge woman turned away. Smiling, she reached for her mace, picking up the weapon with effortless ease. As Myna looked on, the giantess purposely plowed through a few surviving buildings, smashing them like sandcastles. She strode toward the edge of the city, seemingly pleased with all of the mayhem and carnage that she had caused. The young woman continued to watch her as she disappeared over the horizon, the earth still trembling with her footsteps. Myna should have felt relieved by the knowledge that she had survived, but her thoughts were occupied by something else.

Already, she was dreaming of revenge.

Dylan was having a very pleasant dream.

He was in a haute cuisine restaurant, the sort of ridiculously-expensive place that he could only afford for special occasions. Very, very special occasions. That night certainly qualified…it was his five-year anniversary, and Aimee had insisted on celebrating “somewhere very nice.” His girlfriend was seated across from him, looking deliriously happy. At that moment, her cheeks slightly flushed from the glass of pinot grigio in her hand, Aimee seemed like the most beautiful woman in the world. The flickering light from the candle on the table illuminated her high cheekbones, the golden waves of her hair. And those eyes, large and long-lashed and the color of sea glass, were irresistible. That was what had made him notice her on the subway in the first place: those mesmerizing eyes.

As Dylan smiled at her, she reached out and took his hands into her own. Her hands were always so exquisitely soft, scented with shea butter lotion. She wasn’t particularly vain about her appearance, but she did like taking care of her hands, particularly the nails.

“I love you so much, Dylan,” Aimee told him.

He opened his mouth to say something but that was when someone shook him awake. One moment he was in the expensive restaurant, reliving that night from years ago; the next, he was lying on the tiled floor of a department store, a haggard woman with short brown hair bending over him. Who the hell was she? Frantically, his mind searched for her name. Rachel. That was it. He had just met her a few hours ago, when he had dragged her out of the wreckage of a building.

“What the fu—,” Dylan started, dazed. Rachel’s hand whipped out and covered his mouth. When she raised one finger to her lips, he suddenly understood. He remained quiet as well, the two of them listening intensely. Thank God that there weren’t the rhythmic, rumbling booms that would have signaled her presence. Or the shrill, soul-rending shrieks, the sounds of suffering that would haunt him for as long as he lived, however long that may be.

But there were faint scratching noises, along with footsteps on the sidewalk. Which meant that her minions were lurking outside, ghoulish things that were like something out of a zombie movie. Except that they weren’t dead, even though Dylan got the impression that they wished that they were.

It was dim inside of the department store; the power had probably gone off days before, when she had first entered the city. He peered through the gloom, trying to see past the racks of clothing. If he squinted, he could make out the two glass doors and the makeshift barricade that he and Rachel had hastily constructed. Perhaps the people outside didn’t know that they were hiding in the store. Perhaps they would go away to find new victims. But Dylan knew with a terrible certainly that she was searching for him, using millions of stolen eyes to find him. A deep voice, masculine but with her distinctive speech patterns, confirmed this.

“I know that you’re in there, Dylan. Why don’t you just come out?” The voice belonged to someone else but the words were hers.

Rachel shot Dylan a confused and frightened look. He wished that he could explain everything to her, but honestly, he didn’t understand it himself. How someone could gain godlike power, for one thing. Whether it was some sort of black magic or innovative technology, he couldn’t be sure. All that mattered was that an otherwise normal person had gained incredible power and she was now hunting him.

Fists, dozens and dozens of them, began to pound at the doors, rattling the glass.

“Dylan!” It was another voice, this time feminine and higher-pitched. “Let me in, you worthless little shit!”

He shuddered, his eyes darting around, trying to locate a weapon. When the glass began to shatter and a mass of bodies pushed the barricade away, he was seized by animalistic panic. Run! Run! His brain was howling at him. And he certainly tried to do that, sprinting down the aisles of clothing with Rachel close behind him. A virtual sea of people chased after them, men and women and children, all of them screaming with her voice.

Dylan almost made it to the emergency exit. Almost. Then someone grabbed onto the back of his t-shirt, pulling him backwards. It was enough to slow him down and then they were upon him, swarming like angry fire ants. Dylan glanced up into countless faces and felt a jolt of mind-numbing terror.

The faces that leered back at him were awful to behold. Once, when he was eight years old, his father had taken him to see a ventriloquist. At first, he had been bored out of his mind, until the performer had shown the audience his dummy. The doll had been horrible, with big, blank eyes and a smirking mouth. That’s what all of those people resembled: ventriloquist dummies. And they were about to bring him back to the ventriloquist.

“Please, don’t,” Dylan pleaded, but it was too late. The horde was already dragging him toward the door.

***

All around him, the city was in ruins. It looked like a large-scale war had been held in the middle of downtown, with buildings crumbled and thick black smoke rising everywhere. And it was all because of her. That someone could cause such massive destruction was almost incomprehensible.

The silence was the worst part. On a normal day, there would be all kinds of urban noises, cars honking and people talking on cell phones and dogs barking. But except for their echoing footsteps, Dylan couldn’t hear anything else. He supposed that it made sense. Besides Rachel and himself, everyone in the city was either dead or enslaved to her will. He considered trying to reason with his captors, but he knew that it would be futile. The only person that he could try to reason with was her, and he didn’t believe that was even possible anymore.

They paused at an intersection and Dylan gawked at the sight before him. It looked like deep quarry pits had been randomly dug into the street, some with crushed vehicles embedded in them. But these weren’t pits. No, they were immense footprints and it was clear that they had been made with deliberation, that each deadly step had been meant to maximize the number of causalities.

His captors began to pull him across the street and he tried in vain to avoid the huge patches of blood that marked the pavement. At one point he had to step over the remains of a body, so thoroughly crushed that it looked like red jelly leaking out of rumpled clothes. When his gorge rose, he fought back the urge to throw up.

Beside him, the color had drained from Rachel’s face, small beads of perspiration dotting her forehead and cheeks. He realized that he knew nothing about her, except that he had saved her life. She could have been a teacher or a doctor or a stay-at-home mother. If circumstances had been different, he would have liked to get to know her better. The only thing that he could do was grab onto her hand, trying to offer what little reassurance he could.

They turned a corner and what lay ahead of them was incredible. Almost every surviving person in the city (and there had to be thousands and thousands of them) were on their hands and knees. They were all so still, as if they were carved from marble rather than made of flesh.

And towering high above them, so impossibly gigantic that she seemed more like some Hollywood special effect than an actual person, was the giantess. Dylan had seen her on the news, of course; CNN and MSNBC and every local channel had been playing footage of the rampaging giantess nonstop. It was amazing and terrifying to see someone that large, so enormous that she rivaled skyscrapers in height. And the worst part was that he knew the monstrous creature with her sea-glass colored eyes.

Far above him, the giantess’ face tipped downward as she stared at him. When she spoke, his entire body reverberated with the thunderous sound of her voice.

“Hi, Dylan,” she said, her mouth splitting open in a demonic smile.

He wasn’t certain how to react. All around him, her mindless slaves shifted and turned to look at him. Their gazes were unnerving, but hers…hers was absolutely horrifying.

“H-hello, Aimee,” he managed to choke out.

***

When Dylan had broken up with her a few months prior, Aimee hadn’t taken it well. Then again, she had never taken bad news well. When her boss gave her a less-than-perfect review, when a package was delivered to the wrong apartment, when he forgot to send a thank-you card to her parents…all these things were utter disasters to her and he caught glimpses of the raw rage that lurked below her calm exterior. That anger had been one of the contributing factors to the break-up.

Although she hadn’t blown up at him when he had told her that it was over, her eyes had smoldered with that familiar rage. It had made him uncomfortable sitting there on the park bench, watching her ball her manicured hands into tight fists.

“You’ll regret this,” Aimee had growled, blinking back tears. It had seemed like such an empty threat at the time. But now, standing before the looming giantess, Dylan understand how real the threat actually was. He wanted very much to run, but he knew that her minions would catch him with ease. So he was forced to just stand there and gape up at his ex-girlfriend, trying to comprehend what she had become.

Aimee was seated amongst her tiny slaves, a living goddess amongst insects. She was nude and although Dylan had seen her body many times before, its new size made it seem like the body of a stranger. Almost shyly, he glanced up at her bare breasts, each one large enough to dwarf their old apartment living room. To his shock, he spotted a wide streak of dark crimson on the left breast. Dried blood, he saw, and it wasn’t hers.

“It’s so good to see you again, Dylan,” Aimee purred. His teeth began to chatter, as if it were frigid outside instead of sultry. The giantess glanced at him expectantly, so he answered, “It-it’s g-good to see you too.”

A terrible lie. The sight of the giant woman who had callously caused such death and destruction made his skin crawl. But what else could he say? She could have squashed him beneath her thumb if she desired. And maybe that was what she was planning to do. He looked again at the blood painting the gentle curve of her breast and he couldn’t help but cringe.

Without any warning, the giantess moved, stretching out her hundred-foot long legs. Dylan was too petrified to move a muscle as one of her mammoth feet barreled by him. The foot acted like a steamroller, rolling over numerous people and pulping them beneath its murderous weight. Her minions didn’t move, allowing the giantess to pulverize them as she made herself comfortable. It was only when she plowed her foot over a parked SUV and through the exterior of an insurance agency that she stopped moving.

“Aimee, why are you doing this?” Dylan demanded, concrete and shards of glass from the insurance agency building crashing down behind him.

His ex-girlfriend laughed. How many times had he heard that laugh before, at parties and on vacations and even when they were watching a sitcom together? Except now it had taken on a sinister quality.

“Because it turns me on,” she replied, as if the answer was obvious. “You have no idea how exhilarating it is to be this powerful. Do you see all of these people around me?”

Tentatively, Dylan nodded.

“Their lives are mine. They can’t even run away if they wanted to. I control their minds and I decide whether they live or die.” As if to demonstrate this, she pointed at three people, a middle-aged woman in a business suit and two young men.

“I think that I’m going to kill the three of you,” Aimee announced. None of her chosen victims moved, not even when her vast shadow swept over them. With delicate precision, she pinched the head of one man between her thumb and forefinger, lifting him up from the crowd. He didn’t struggle; his limbs dangled loosely as the giantess held him above the others. One of his sneakers fell off, tumbling down into the crowd, but no one reacted. Their attention was on the giantess.

“No!” Dylan protested, but she had already applied a small amount of pressure. To her, it was negligible, but to the tiny man in her grip, the pressure was lethal. Almost instantly, his skull imploded and blood and grayish brain matter squirted out. The body convulsed and then fell from Aimee’s grip, landing with a splat on the sidewalk.

Although he had witnessed her rampages on television, actually seeing his ex-girlfriend slaughter someone was appalling. Even worse, she did it with such cruel delight, her eyes widening with excitement. Aimee was grinning lustfully, sadistically, as she plucked up the other man. Again, there was no objection as she ripped him in two, his body separating at the abdomen and spilling viscera in long, glistening streamers.

“Aimee, stop it!” Dylan was screeching this time. She eyed him, waggling her blonde eyebrows slightly, which had always amused him in the past but now seemed grotesque.

“Why? I’m having such fun,” Aimee said, picking up the middle-aged woman and cupping her against her right breast. A normal person would have screamed as they were shoved against the soft flesh, but the woman was eerily quiet. The only noise that she made were her bones breaking as the giantess mashed her against her breast. Aimee giggled almost girlishly, removing her hand and revealing the pathetic remains of the woman. Dylan watched the gore slowly dribble off of his ex-girlfriend’s breast before he tried to bolt.

Several of her minions tackled him simultaneously, knocking the breath from his lungs and sending bright lights flashing before his eyes. They held him down on the street, so that all that he could see were their stupidly blank faces and the twilight sky overhead. By the time that they finally released him, Aimee’s chilling gaze had settled on Rachel. The other woman flinched; then, as Dylan looked on in wonder, her body sagged visibly, although she never broke eye contact with the giantess. It’s eye contact, he realized. That was how she did it. Once her victims looked into those eyes, she invaded their minds.

Aimee leaned forward slightly, the ground shaking with the intensity of an earthquake beneath her. She peered down at Rachel, who swayed back and forth.

“Would you like me to eat you alive?” The giantess inquired in an almost gentle voice.

Rachel smiled far too broadly, so that it resembled a grimace. “That would be lovely.”

It was almost too ghastly to watch. Rachel marched toward the waiting giantess, still wearing that hideous smile. To Dylan, she looked like the worshipper of some primal goddess, the sort who would gleefully slit the throats of her family in order to please her deity. Or her own throat, as the case may be.

Rachel reached the canyon formed by the giantess’ towering legs. Without any hesitation, she began to climb up one of the calves. Against the pale expanse of Aimee’s flesh, she looked completely small and insignificant, a minuscule speck. Dylan feared that she would fall, but she scaled the leg swiftly, pulling herself up onto it with unnatural determination.

As the tiny woman clambered over the knee and ran down the long length of the thigh, Aimee reclined backwards. Her expression was devilish as she watched Rachel’s steady progress. Would she actually eat someone? At first, Dylan didn’t think so. But as he looked from her bloodstained fingers to the debris that surrounded her body, including the rubble that had once been buildings, he wasn’t so sure.

“That’s a good girl,” Aimee said as the other woman ran up past her navel. She reclined her body further, lowering her head so that her chin touched her upper chest. Rachel moved between the giantess’ titanic breasts, the same breasts that had been used to murder other people. Once, she slipped on some sweat or oil on Aimee’s skin, but she quickly regained her footing.

When the tiny woman was close enough, Aimee’s grin disappeared as her mouth yawned wide open. It was terrifying to see the human mouth at such a scale, the huge slabs of white teeth like tombstones, viscous strings of saliva clinging to the pinkish-red upper palate. Like the entrance to Dante’s Hell, that’s what it resembled.

Yet Rachel crawled over the giantess’ lower lip, right onto the awaiting tongue. She crouched there on the slimy surface, looking out past the immense teeth and lips. At first glance, her face was serene. But Dylan saw a brief flash of the person still inside, the real Rachel, and that person was absolutely terrified. That was the last time that he saw her before Aimee’s dark lips closed and the giantess swallowed the tiny woman.

Dylan’s head spun. He probably would have collapsed if Aimee’s minions weren’t holding onto him tightly, their fingers burrowing painfully into his arms. He wanted to vomit, to sob, to scream. All that he could do was stare at the ground.

“Dylan,” the giantess said. “Look at me.”

He didn’t want to look at her. If he did so, he would be lost, turned into a mindless slave like Rachel. But he knew that if he didn’t obey her, she would squash him into a bloody splotch on the asphalt. His head seemed to weigh a million tons as he lifted it, looking up at the giantess.

Her eyes. Dear Lord, they were so…magnificent. And welcoming, like two warm pools of deep blue. Dylan’s breathing slowed down as he stared into them. The terror was replaced by something else, something that was almost love, but not quite. Like some fiendish mockery of it.

“Come here, Dylan,” Aimee ordered and as the multitude of hands released him, he did so. He teetered toward her, his legs moving on their own accord. She smiled down at him benevolently, her eyes glittering from a far distance. When he was close enough, Dylan dropped down to his knees. Everything was becoming so oddly detached, as if reality was merely something that he was watching instead of experiencing.

The giantess lowered her hand to the ground, her scarlet nails gleaming atop the pillars of her fingers. Dylan glanced at the gargantuan hand, then at Aimee’s faraway face. Gathering up all of his willpower, he said in a slow, emotionless voice, “Aimee, get out of my head.”

“I don’t think so,” she sneered. “Now, get in my hand.”

Even though Dylan tried hard not to, he obeyed, climbing up into her waiting palm. It was so soft and warm and alive, throbbing in time with her powerful heartbeat. He stood near her gigantic lifeline as she lifted him up several stories, bringing him toward her face. When she addressed him, her hot breath buffeted his face, stirred his hair.

“You love me, don’t you, Dylan?” She spoke quietly, but his eardrums still ached from the volume and proximity of her voice. Dylan couldn’t tear his gaze away from her colossal eyes and he saw his own slack-jawed expression reflected in them. Once again, that horrible feeling of love surged up in him, stronger this time. It was like a tidal wave, washing aside all other thoughts and emotions. The only thing that he could do was kiss her palm, once, twice. As Aimee smirked at him, he moved onto her oak-trunk fingers. She bent them languidly and he saw that they were still caked with the blood of her previous victims. But it didn’t matter. They were so very beautiful and he wanted to worship them, forever and ever.

Dylan kissed each of her five fingers, relishing the sensation of her skin against his lips. He could taste the awful mixture of blood and hand lotion on the enormous fingertips, but he kept kissing and caressing them with complete abandon. Aimee was his world now, his everything.

“I love you so much, Aimee,” he heard himself saying. And it was true.

He did.

Fresh snow crunched under Greg’s feet as he placed both hands on the window and pulled. As snowflakes settled on his ski mask, the window slid up easily. Good, it was unlocked, just like the client had said it would be. He lifted himself up and crawled inside, where the air was stiflingly hot and aromatic with the scents of cinnamon and fake pine. As soon as Greg was through the window, he surveyed his surroundings.

He had seen lavish mansions many times before, the palace-like residences of drug lords and crime bosses, but this place put those others to shame. Raymond Dodd, the tech guru and CEO who lived here, certainly spared no expense. Everything was tastefully decorated and obscenely expensive, to the point where he wondered if the Grecian vase across the hall was actually thousands of years old. It explained why Raymond hadn’t blinked an eye when Greg had named his price.

The huge house was eerily silent and despite his best efforts, Greg’s footsteps echoed down the long hallway. He paused when he entered the living room, where a Douglas fir gleamed and sparkled with tinsel and ornaments. The sight of the tree reminded him that today was Christmas and that he should have been at home, still in bed with Karen, his girlfriend. What sort of guy hired someone to murder his wife on Christmas? Raymond’s face had been emotionless as he had explained what he wanted Greg to do. Not that Greg could really judge him too much…he had been a hit man for the last eleven years and his soul was far from being squeaky-clean. Still, it bothered him as he stared at the glittering tree and the velvet stockings hung over the sprawling fireplace. It would be nice when this job was finished and he was back at home.

He turned to go back into the hallway, cursing as he bumped the edge of the tree by accident. One of the ornaments, a gleaming golden angel, tumbled from its branch and shattered on the floor. Shit, shit. Had anyone heard the crash? Greg held his breath, listening. There weren’t any footsteps or voices, thank Christ. It seemed like he had been lucky this time, although he was still irritated with himself. Normally he wasn’t so goddamn clumsy.

Greg continued down the hallway, remembering the blueprint of the house, the one that the billionaire had showed him during their last meeting. “Moira will be in the pool,” Raymond had told him. “We just had it installed a few months ago and she seems to spend all of her time in there.”

The sweet cinnamon smell gave way to the sharp chemical odor of chlorine, and the wooden floor became tiles. Greg spotted light shimmering off of the walls at the end of the hallway and when he cocked his head and listened, he could hear faint splashing. Bingo, he had found the indoor pool. Taking a deep breath, he reached down and pulled out his pistol. If he did this quickly, he could be back at his apartment in time for all of those maudlin Christmas movies that Karen forced him to watch every year.

As Greg approached the indoor pool and his target, he heard singing. The voice was low and he could barely make out the words, but it was distinctly feminine, a rich contralto that sent shivers down the length of his spine. He peered around the doorway, his eyes gradually adjusting to the dim light. He spotted the white and sapphire-tiled pool first, then the woman swimming in it, her body tall and slender and very much nude. A necklace gleamed from around her neck, thick bands of silver and gold woven together. It was unlike any other piece of jewelry that he had ever seen, and he wondered whether Raymond would miss it if it happened to disappear into Greg’s pocket.

Beneath the ski mask, Greg licked his lips and started to raise the pistol, preparing to shoot Moira in the forehead. Just as he was starting to squeeze the trigger, she stopped singing and spoke, startling him: “I can see you there. Raymond sent you, didn’t he?”

Moira was looking in his direction, strands of mahogany-brown hair plastered around her face. Something about her eyes was unnerving him. There was no fear there, he realized. Not even the slightest hint of doubt. For the first time in years, Greg’s heart began to beat faster and the pistol wobbled almost imperceptibly in his hands. Just shoot her! an internal voice shrieked, and so he gritted his teeth until they ached, aiming the gun. As he pulled the trigger, Moira reached up with a dripping hand and touched her necklace. There was an ear-splitting bang from the pistol, then a flash of brilliant light that completely blinded him. He cried out, bewildered, the gun clattering to the ground beside him.

He groped at his face, instinctively rubbing at his eyes and trying to restore his sight. What the hell had the bitch done to him? To his great relief, his sight slowly returned, colors coalescing together into definable objects. Except everything was so…wrong. For one thing, he seemed to have been transported somewhere else, although he could still smell the sharp odor of chlorine. Greg glanced around, frightened, and then froze when he heard a tremendous splash of water. It sounded like a tidal wave crashing against a shore and as he looked up, he saw something immense rise up in front of him.

It was Moira, and she was colossal.

Greg gawked up at the woman who towered above him, water cascading down from her bare breasts and belly. How the hell had she become so gigantic? But as he noticed his surroundings, it dawned on him that she hadn’t become huge. No, he had shrank, as improbable as that seemed. A quick mental calculation later and he estimated that he was no more than three inches tall, the size of a mouse.

“What did you do?” He choked out and far above him, Moira laughed. Or at least, he was fairly certain that the deep, rumbling noise that she made was laughter. It sounded absolutely terrifying at his new height.

The giant woman leaned forward in the pool, gripping the tiled edge.

“I shrank you, of course,” she answered with a nasty little smile. On second thought, there was nothing “little” about that smile. Her crimson-lipped mouth stretched as wide as he was tall.

“Turn me back!” It was half-demand, half-plea. Moira continued to smile as she climbed out of the pool with another great splash of water, the sound making Greg cringe.

“No, I don’t think so,” the giantess replied, and to his horror, she began to stride toward him, the floor vibrating with each incredible footstep. He watched the titanic pillars of her legs swing toward him; then he lunged for his gun, which had also shrunk. As he snatched it up, one of Moira’s feet slammed down dangerously close to him, close enough that he could feel the rush of air. It was astonishing to see the human body at such a scale and Greg’s eyes slowly moved upward from the high-arched foot to the long legs to the dizzyingly-gigantic torso. He briefly caught sight of that strange necklace, shining in the distance.

When her foot shifted, Greg reacted instantly, firing at the curvature of her ankle. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was expecting. True, it was impossible to kill someone that huge, but he hoped that the shots would at least hurt her, like bee stings. But she didn’t even flinch and as he ran out of bullets, he dropped the useless gun and fled.

***

Moira observed the tiny hit man as he darted across the floor, disappearing back out into the hallway. She considered stomping after him, then decided that she would dry off first. It wasn’t like she had to hurry, either. The shrunken man couldn’t possibly get very far, not at his size.

She picked up one of the nearby towels, running it along the length of her body. Although she was no longer the spring chicken that she had once been, she still took care of herself, exercising regularly and watching what she ate. Most men were attracted to her beauty, to her plush lips and honey-colored eyes, but not Raymond. Her husband had recognized her keen intelligence and encouraged it, using her inventions to build his tech empire.

It was too bad that he had become so greedy in the end.

The towel swept toward the necklace and Moira stopped drying herself, running her fingers along the metallic bands. At first glance, it resembled a simple piece of jewelry; in reality, it was her greatest invention. No, not just her greatest invention, but all of mankind’s. She had discovered what she called the Threads several years back, the invisible strings that made up the fabric of reality. Moira had designed the supercomputer shortly thereafter, focusing all of her incredible talent on developing it. And although she could have given the computer a number of forms, she had loved the aesthetic that the necklace presented. It was beautiful and elegant, and Moira had always craved those things.

With this necklace, she could interface with the Threads, manipulate them and rewrite the underlying code of the universe. Raymond had wanted it, enough that he had apparently sent this assassin after her. What an asshole her husband had been. Moira couldn’t say that she regretted what had transpired a few days earlier.

They had been seated at the gigantic dining room table, Raymond trying to bribe her for the thousandth time. “Anything that you want,” he had said, and his eyes hadn’t been on her but rather on the necklace around her throat. But what could he have possibly given to her, when she was virtually a goddess? Raymond had only seen the tip of the iceberg when it came to her invention’s potential.

“The answer is still no,” she had told him, secretly enjoying his indignation. She had never been able to stand up to him before, not even when he embarrassed her at parties, calling her his “nerdy little wife.” It had felt so wonderful to say what she wanted, to do what she wanted.

He had finally lost his cool, waving his fork wildly in her direction. “Don’t you understand that I made you, Moira? If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be some pathetic engineer trapped in a lab somewhere. You owe me.”

That had done it. Almost on its own volition, Moira’s hand had reached up and tapped the necklace, activating the supercomputer. It was connected neurally to her, and all that it had taken was a single thought to reach out and touch one of the Threads. Reality had bent to her will. Smaller, she had thought. I want him small enough that I can finally deal with him…

Raymond had seemed to vanish into thin air and Moira had remained where she was, surprised that she had actually done it. Ever so cautiously, she had stood up, approaching her husband’s chair. She hadn’t known exactly what to expect, but when she had spotted the pinkie-sized man, she couldn’t help but laugh with pure delight.

“I don’t owe you anything, Ray,” she had said coolly, plucking him up from the chair. Her tiny husband had been so ridiculously light as he had hung there in her fist, his face darkening with fury and fear. Beneath her fingertips and palm, she had been able to feel the frantic fluttering of his minuscule heart.

“P-put me down, Moira!” His high-pitched, squeaking voice had made her giggle again.

After a moment, Moira had bent down and released him, watching as he struck the carpeted floor. It had probably hurt like hell and he had wheezed as he slowly sat up, looking stunned. The barrage of insults and threats had come next, and she had quietly listened until his rage no longer amused her. She hadn’t been angry with him when she poked him in the belly with the toe of one shoe, causing him to grunt in pain. No, she had just wanted to hurt him.

“Fucking cunt, I’ll—,” Raymond had started to snarl, his words fading away as he saw her expression. The bright redness had disappeared from his cheeks as the blood drained from them.

Moira had sneered down at him, showing her teeth. “Get on your hands and knees, and I might let you live.”

The CEO of the largest tech firm in the world, the man who had appeared on the cover of Forbes magazine and who had been invited to banquets with several presidents, had stared up at her, quivering. Then he had fallen to all fours, his head hanging in utter shame. She had allowed her eyes to trail over his tiny form before she raised one foot over him. That moment she had felt vastly powerful, unstoppable. Her breathing had slowed as she lowered her high heel, the lights reflected off of the glossy patent leather.

“Or I might just kill you,” Moira had declared, and her husband had let out a horrified squeal as he felt the sole of her shoe touch his head and back. She hadn’t hesitated, bringing her weight down upon him, delighted when she heard the first sharp crack. Raymond had continued to shriek, wiggling on the carpet, until his body had exploded under the pressure. The loud pop! had been unbelievably satisfying, and when she had glanced down, she had spotted the thick clump of organs oozing out from beneath her foot, a disgusting mass of purplish-pink meat. It was amazing to think how very effortless it had been to end Raymond’s life.

And she was certain that she could deal with the hit man just as easily.

Humming a Christmas carol beneath her breath, Moira pulled on a satin robe and strolled after the shrunken man.

***

Greg was trying not to hyperventilate as he looked up at the window, impossibly far away. The damn thing didn’t even have curtains that he could climb, and as he was considering his next escape option, he heard heavy footsteps. His head whipped around and there she was, heading toward him with a smirk on her enormous face. Greg took off, sprinting aimlessly, trying to get away from the approaching giantess.

He ended up in the living room again, where the Christmas tree rose up like a sparkling mountain before him. Panting, he ran toward it, thinking that he could hide in the branches. But Moira’s shadow swallowed him up and a millisecond later, her immense foot crashed down, blocking his path. Greg stumbled backwards and tried to run the other way, but once again, she corralled him in with her foot. The giantess was playing some sort of game, that much was obvious. So he tried a new tactic, scrambling up over her huge toes. That didn’t work, either; with a contemptuous snicker, Moira shook him off, back onto the floor.

Greg had barely enough time to roll over before she lowered her foot onto him, pressing his body into the plush carpet. His vision darkened, and all that he could feel was the soft, oppressive flesh of her sole. Panicking, he tried to push her foot off, his hands clawing desperately, but it was like trying to lift a building. The giantess laughed at his attempts, then rolled him beneath the ball of her foot. Greg screamed, his body battered and dragged against the carpet.

“Stop! Stop!” He cried out as the foot assaulted him. But his pleas seemed to fall upon deaf ears, and Moira started to apply more weight, a little at first and then enough to squeeze the air from his lungs. She’s going to crush me! His mind screeched over and over again, and agony radiated outward from his face and chest and pelvis. He thrashed, trying to free himself, surprised when the pressure abruptly abated. His tormentor raised her foot, allowing him to gasp for breath and tremble uncontrollably.

“You call yourself a hit man? You’re pathetic.” Moira’s godlike voice assaulted his ears. Gazing up, he saw her reaching for him, her amber eyes narrowed.

“No! Stay away from me!” Greg protested, beating at the gargantuan fingers as they tried to curl around his body. “Leave me alone, you crazy bitch!”

He continued to hammer at the fingers until his hands throbbed and swelled. Despite the relatively soft skin covering the huge digits, it was still like punching fleshy oak trees. Moira’s fingernails, painted a festive cherry-red with flecks of silver, clamped down hard, digging through his winter coat. Greg wailed as she picked him up, his legs kicking feebly.

The giantess’ other hand came for him and he twisted, cursing as she peeled off his ski mask. She held him near her face, studying him. Apparently, she wasn’t impressed with what she saw. Then again, Greg wasn’t much to look at, not with his thrice-broken noise that resembled a smushed blob of Silly Putty. Moira frowned as her fingers tightened painfully.

“I’m really, really sorry. If you let me go, I’ll make it up to you, I swear,” he babbled. When she didn’t reply, he whimpered, “I promise I won’t tell anyone about this.”

The giantess’ frown became a smile again. “It doesn’t matter whether you tell anyone or not. The world will know about my little secret soon enough.”

Greg shivered in her hand.

“Shrinking people is just one of my abilities,” Moira said. “I can bend the universe to my will, you see.”

As he watched, terrified and astonished, the giantess touched the strange necklace and the carpet beneath her feet began to move, stretching and reforming into tiny buildings. The burgundy and cream fabric became steel and concrete and glass, a street snaking its way across the floor. Suddenly, there was a miniature city in Moira’s living room, so small that the largest skyscraper was only as tall as a matchbook. As Greg continued to watch, snow appeared in the streets of the city, dusting the speck-sized cars.

“Jesus,” he whispered.

“It’s real, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Moira said to him. “I’m sure that in a few minutes, it’ll be all over the news. After all, major cities don’t vanish everyday, do they?”

Greg stared at the multicolored dots as they moved in the microscopic city around far below. People…there were real, living people down there as well. Shuddering, he looked up at his gigantic captor. “What the fuck are you?”

Moira’s expression was utterly terrifying, and even though she didn’t speak, he knew the answer right away. She was a human transformed into a deity, and not the benevolent type, either. The miniature city continued to spread out across the floor, growing around her legs so that she was suddenly standing in the middle of it. Greg wondered how the hell she was going to walk away without causing massive devastation.

When she took the first step, her foot crashing down upon an entire section of the city, he realized that being careful wasn’t one of her priorities. In fact, she seemed to relish the mayhem that she was causing. The smile that appeared on her lovely face was shamelessly hedonistic and sadistic, and it chilled Greg’s blood as she raised her foot back up. Grayish dust coated her sole, the remains of buildings and cars, and there was a perfect footprint where she had stepped down. Deep cracks, probably as wide as rivers to the microscopic people, zigzagged outward from all around the foot-shaped crater.

“Look at them trying to run,” Moira said gleefully, her eyes on the tiny city below. Greg saw the footprint and the wisps of smoke rising up from it, but it was difficult to make out what else was going on. He didn’t doubt that the minuscule people were fleeing for their lives, though, trying to outrun the titanic menace that towered high above them.

Moira bent down, and the sudden movement jolted Greg enough that he instantly felt light-headed. The giantess’ robe opened to reveal the curves of her large breasts and the dimple of her belly button, her skin shining ever so slightly with sweat. To him, the view was impressive and yet horrifying; to the unfortunate inhabitants of the city, it was simply horrifying.

“You know, Ray used to tell me that I was too meek to ever make anything of myself,” she said, and Greg wasn’t sure if she was addressing him or the tiny city. Or maybe she was merely talking to herself. “I think he was wrong, don’t you?”

Frightened, Greg murmured in agreement.

Moira’s manicured fingertips grazed the tops of skyscrapers, crushing steel girders and shattering windows. With incredible precision, she scooped up a handful of city. The buildings in the center of her palm more or less remained intact, but the ones near the edge of her hand crumbled, dust-fine debris dissipating into the air. She appraised the minute office buildings and tenements and stores, her immaculately-plucked eyebrows lifting. “It’s funny. I should be bothered by the knowledge that I’ve already killed thousands of people.”

Her fingers curled inward with a horrible deliberateness, the immense digits pulverizing the section of the city with a loud crunch. When she opened her hand, she blew the wreckage from her palm, her eyes shining with cruel glee.

“But it’s the opposite. I’ve never been so happy in my life,” Moira said to him. She stood back up, sweeping one foot through entire neighborhoods, annihilating countless lives. Worse, she chuckled as she did it, a husky, excited noise that reminded Greg of Karen’s laughter. Except his girlfriend laughed like that when she was aroused, usually during foreplay. Maybe destroying this city was foreplay for Moira, which was a hideous thought.

It didn’t take long for the giantess to trample most of the city, the floor littered with the smashed ruins of a major metropolis. A look of contempt spread across Moira’s face, and she opened her mouth, lowering her head a little. Saliva dripped down from between her lips, catching the multicolored lights from the tree, and then it plummeted into the ruins of the city, exploding everywhere and coating several streets in warm, sticky liquid. If there were survivors down there, they were no doubt drowning in the viscous goo.

Greg had seen lots of atrocities during his lifetime; hell, he had committed many himself, like the time when a target’s girlfriend had unexpectedly shown up and he had shot her before she could run away. But all of those things paled in comparison to what the giantess had done. A million people were dead, merely because it amused her.

Moira strode back onto the floor, leaving a trail of dusty footprints behind her. One of her maids would come by tomorrow or the day after and vacuum up the prints, unaware that the ash-like residue wasn’t ash at all, but flattened cars and buildings and people. Greg’s gorge rose, and he felt close to vomiting as the giantess looked down at him. As her fingers loosened, he found himself in the middle of her hand and he kneeled reflexively, his posture one of desperate supplication.

“D-don’t kill me,” he pleaded. Beneath his knees and hands, he could feel the steady, powerful heartbeat of the woman who had destroyed a major city, simply because it amused her to do so. The odds that she would spare him, the man who had tried to murder her, were close to nil. Cold beads of sweat dribbled down into his eyes.

Moira grinned viciously at him. “Kill you? Oh, no. I’m not going to kill you. Not now, anyway. I’m going to have some fun with you first.”

Those words filled him with dread, and as her honey-colored eyes moved from him to the shattered angel ornament on the floor, his heart thundered in his chest.

“It looks like someone broke one of my ornaments,” she said, smirking down at him. He started to deny it, but she interrupted him. “You’re going to replace it, right?”

“S-sure, I’ll get you a new one,” Greg agreed frantically.

“Good.” The giantess once again touched the necklace, and for one second, he thought that she would restore him to his normal size. But he remained the same height, and as fear began to set in, he noticed that his body was rapidly stiffening. Terrified, he glanced down and saw that his hands had taken on a golden sheen, the flesh hardening. At the same time, his clothes had become unbearably heavy and they shimmered, turning silvery-white.

“Wait, don’t—,” Greg started, before his vocal cords and tongue hardened too much for him to speak. He tried to flail in her gargantuan fist, but he couldn’t. His muscles could no longer move, not even to blink his eyes. As Moira looked on, amused, Greg’s face froze into a permanent expression of horror, his mouth a wide “O.”

“Not bad, if I do say so myself,” the giantess commented, examining him. The knowledge that she had transformed him into this wretched thing made him want to shriek and shriek, but he couldn’t make a noise. All that he could do was watch helplessly, keenly aware that he wasn’t breathing, that he should have been dead.

And when Moira’s pitiless eyes locked with his own, Greg wished that he was.

***

She hung the new ornament on the tree, using a small scrap of silk ribbon. For a minute, Moira silently admired her handiwork. The little assassin wasn’t the most attractive man, but she liked how she had captured him in a moment of raw terror, his arms outstretched, desperately grasping at something.

With one index finger, she flicked him in the torso, giggling as his body made a metallic ting sound. The shrunken man swayed on the branch, unable to cry out or even move his head. Perhaps she’d change him back into a human eventually, or perhaps she’d change him into something else, something that was wonderfully humiliating. Or perhaps she’d crush him like Raymond, turning him into nothing more than a smear of bloody meat, fat and bone.

Moira settled down into one of the plush chairs by the Christmas tree, feeling regal, like a goddess upon her celestial throne. Through her peripheral vision, she saw the pitiful remains of the city that was once Philadelphia. Even now, plumes of smoke curled upward from a hundred tiny fires. Aware that the assassin was listening, that he couldn’t help but listen, she said, “I’ll let the world have a merry Christmas.”

Lovingly, she caressed the necklace around her throat. “And then tomorrow, I conquer it.”

Serai could sense the man’s nervousness.

Then again, she was used to people being uneasy around her. She was the ruler of an entire world and a ruthless one at that. Ever since her father had passed away five years ago, she had faced numerous uprisings, mostly noblemen who wanted to take control for themselves. Serai dealt with them swiftly and with no mercy.

Like this man here, from the Ori District. He wasn’t a nobleman but he was the CEO of a robotics company, powerful in his own right. When Serai had heard that he had been funding some terrorist groups, she had ordered him brought before her. Normally, she would have waited until morning to deal with him, but tomorrow was the Jubilee to celebrate her five years as Empress. So the guards had dragged him to the throne room where she sat upon a simple stone bench. The bench had her father’s idea. He had never been one for luxury; Serai would eventually need to replace it with something more ostentatious.

The businessman was still dressed in his suit, the fabric wrinkled and stained with his blood from when the guards had beaten him. He watched Serai with fear and a small amount of lust. She wasn’t surprised about the lust part, either. The Empress knew that she was breathtakingly beautiful, tall and voluptuous with raven hair that she always kept in a thick braid. Her outfits were purposely fashioned to complement her beauty, and as she sat before her latest victim she wore a low-cut indigo dress, her wrists and neck gleaming with jewels.

“P-please…I-I can explain-,” the man started before Serai kicked him in the jaw. She was wearing high-heeled sandals and the heel hit him hard enough to add another bruise to his mangled face.

“There’s no explaining to be done. You and your family will be executed tomorrow morning,” she replied, secretly pleased by his horror at the announcement. She had to hide the smile as he was carried away by the guards.

“Well, that was particularly brutal of you, wasn’t it?” Someone said to her right and Serai glanced over. Dren stood by the arched windows, an amused expression on his face. He had been her advisor for four years, her lover for three. He was a powerful man, both physically and intellectually, and as much as Serai hated to admit it, her only true friend. She had quickly learned that empresses didn’t have many friends, only allies and enemies.

“Examples must be made,” Serai told him and he shrugged.

“I never said that I disapproved, did I?”

Serai smiled. “That’s why I keep you around.”

They were the only ones in the throne room so no one saw when the Empress wrapped her arms around Dren, her bracelets jangling. He really was her perfect match, devilishly handsome with his hazel eyes and aquiline nose. He was not nearly as flamboyant in his clothing, preferring the charcoal gray uniforms of the military elite, but he still shared in her hedonistic outlook. And oh, what pleasures they had indulged in together.

“I have a surprise for you,” Dren whispered and she pulled away from the embrace.

“Oh?”

“A gift for your Jubilee. It’s in my quarters,” he explained as he saw her excited smile. She was more than eager to follow him down the dark hallways. The palace was an ancient building, easily a thousand years old, and although it had been updated with the latest technology, Serai still considered having the whole thing torn down. Perhaps she would someday.

When they reached his quarters, he covered her eyes. Usually, Serai would have protested this but she decided to play along, allowing him to guide her. When he took his hand away, she saw that they were standing on the threshold to one of his rooms. It was a gigantic room, minimally decorated with tapestries that hid the interfaces to the palace computer system.

“And here it is!” Dren announced. Serai just frowned. She saw nothing at first until a sparkle caught her eye. She glanced down and noticed the tiny crystalline structures everywhere, glittering even in the dim overhead lights. Every inch of the floor was carpeted with them, laid out in regular patterns. Serai was curious and bent down to get a closer look. There was something oddly familiar about the minute objects. She squinted and then gasped when she saw the pepper-grain specks moving around. Realization struck her hard.

It was a tiny city.

***

Jeremy and the other inhabitants of the city never could have imagined what Fate had in store for them.

The day had started our normally for the lawyer. He had spent the morning with clients and as he was heading out for lunch at one of the trendy new restaurants near his office, everything changed all at once. It started with a strange feeling of disorientation that made Jeremy’s head spin. As he grabbed for a parking meter to hold onto until the vertigo passed, the sky rippled and darkened. He looked up in disbelief as the sun and clouds vanished, replaced by an eerie artificial light.

All around him, people were having similar reactions. Those on the sidewalks gawked upwards at the strange sky and the vehicles on the congested streets all stopped as their drivers peered out. Jeremy’s first reaction was to call the police but when he took his cell phone out, there was no reception at all. A quick glance around showed him that no one was able to make a call; people stared stupidly at their phones or muttered to themselves.

Jeremy was a take-charge sort of man; he hadn’t moved up quickly in his firm by being passive. The police station was only a few blocks away and he pushed through the crowds of confused people. But just as the station came into view, Jeremy felt the first tremors. He had been in San Francisco during the Loma Prieta earthquake and he recognized what it was. Or, at least he thought he did.

The quakes intensified, the ground beneath his feet rocking and heaving. On the street, taxicabs and cars and city buses rolled and smashed into one another, the pavement cracking like eggshells. Jeremy was more worried about the skyscrapers around him, which hadn’t been built to withstand earthquakes and which swayed dangerously.

Then, without warning, the tremors stopped. Jeremy’s relief was short-lived, however.

He could see her in the distance. At first, he thought that a mountain had mysteriously sprang into existence on the outskirts of the city. It was certainly on that scale, rising up a few miles up into the air. Then he noticed the wide golden straps crisscrossing over the tanned flesh and he looked up and up, realizing that he was looking at an improbably large leg. When he looked over to his left he could see the other leg, equally mind-boggling in its sheer size.

It was evident that everyone in the city saw her. Except for the occasional car alarm or police siren, a hushed silence had fallen over everything. Jeremy held his breath, marveling as the gargantuan being bent down, her vast face filling the sky like a beautiful moon. It could have been a dream except for the fact that that the sensations were too vivid to be anything other than real. He could feel her warm breath as she exhaled, which even from this far away felt like hurricane-force winds.

Her lake-sized amber eyes watched them for what seemed like an eternity. It was amazing and horrifying at the same time. Jeremy now understood what a human must look like to a dust mite.

When the giantess’ crimson lips stretched in a smile that was wider than several city blocks, Jeremy felt cold dread seize his heart.

***

“Where did you get it?” Serai asked as she crouched down, admiring the little city before her. Everything was so small and delicate. The tallest of the skyscrapers was the length of her pinkie finger. Even more astonishing were the speck-sized vehicles, so tiny that she couldn’t even make out their color. She suddenly felt huge and utterly powerful. The feeling was sinfully delicious.

“One of the military R&D programs, actually. They were working on a device that could teleport soldiers or equipment anywhere in the world. That’s when they discovered this other plane of existence. It’s surprisingly similar to ours…well, except their technology level is more primitive. And there’s the whole scale thing,” Dren explained.

“So you teleported an entire city here?”

Her lover grinned. “I thought it’d be an appropriate present for you. I know how much you adore power, after all. Just think, an entire city for you to play with…”

Serai contemplated this, the city at her feet. There were microscopic people down there, probably staring up in horror at her. She must be terrifying to them, a living mountain in the shape of a woman. The feeling of power increased dramatically as she considered all of the things that she could do to them. And they were helpless to stop her…

Slowly, deliberately, Serai reached out one hand, the shadow covering entire neighborhoods. She wiggled her fingers, knowing that the mite-sized people must be panicking even now. That thought filled her with a dark and awful lust. It also gave her a wicked idea. She touched one of the gleaming skyscrapers with one finger, the structure crumbling to dust almost instantly. Her finger smashed into the street below, bulldozing through smaller buildings with incredible ease. Serai smirked as she wrote four letters across the span of several blocks:

“MINE.”

Then she carefully pressed her hand down onto the letters, the minute buildings crunching and turning to powder beneath her palm. When she lifted her hand, there was a perfect five-fingered crater left behind, thin wisps of smoke rising from it.

Serai stood back up, wiping her dusty hand onto her dress as she studied the massive damage that she had caused with such a simple action. Oh, yes. She was going to enjoy this.

***

When the giantess casually gouged a deep furrow through several city blocks, Jeremy knew that he was going to die. Entire rows of skyscrapers simply vanished, obliterated as the titanic woman dragged her finger through them. He was far away from the destruction but he could still see the debris and the clouds of dust as neighborhoods were simply wiped away. His mind was screaming at him to run but he just stared in terror as the giantess’ hand lowered onto the city, descending like some kind of flesh- colored landmass. He could see the immense lifeline, like some dried-up river, meandering across the huge palm.

Then the hand landed and the resulting shockwave knocked him from his feet. He hit the sidewalk hard and pain blazed through his body. But he didn’t have time to concentrate on the pain because he saw the most horrific image of his life, something that turned the blood in his veins to ice water.

The giantess was taking a step.

He scrambled backwards as the mesa-sized foot lifted, the pointed heel taller than any structure in the city. As the gargantuan foot sailed over several streets, bathing everything in ominous shadow, Jeremy tried to stand up and run. All around him, people had the same idea, fleeing for their lives. As the shadow fell over him, blocking out the light, he trembled and looked up just in time to see the scuffed sole of the sandal, filling his vision. It was obscenely huge, so gigantic that he couldn’t even see the entire thing at once. No, he thought. No, God, no…

That was his last thought before the foot crashed down onto him, crushing him and several hundred other people underneath its astronomical weight.

***

“So I take it that you like it?” Dren asked, admiring the way that Serai’s shapely ankle twisted and turned as she ground the section of the city underfoot. He had to admit that the sight of her annihilating the helpless beings made his heart race and it took all of his self-restraint not to join her right away. This was her toy, after all. And it wasn’t like he couldn’t teleport a tiny city of his own when he was alone…

“It’s amazing,” Serai replied, her voice thick with lust. She was looking down at the small section of the city that she had razed, the fine gray powder of buildings dusting her indigo-painted toes. Almost daintily, she strolled back onto the floor, leaving her deep footprints in the city.

“I feel like so powerful,” she continued, rubbing at her throat absentmindedly. Her hand moved down to her right breast, caressing it through the silky fabric of her dress. Dren felt himself grow hard, partly because of the way that her fingers touched the soft bulge of her breast, party because of her words. He loved power as much as she did, if not more. And she was correct…they were basically deities made flesh to the inhabitants of this city.

Serai began to slip off her dress, allowing it to fall around her feet. She still wore her bra and panties, black against her tanned flesh. Unlike every other citizen on the planet, the Empress’ body was unmarred by tattoos. Even Dren had the bright scarlet tattoos of the military elite across his broad back and arms, but one of the previous emperors had long ago decreed that no member of the royal family would be marked. Serai’s flesh was perfect, without even a single blemish.

“Let them look upon a goddess,” she sneered, facing the city. “I hope they’re pissing their pants right now.”

The erection between Dren’s legs was now almost painful. He moved her braid aside and kissed her neck, the flowery scent of her perfume lingering in his nose. What he wanted more than anything was to simply push her down onto the city and fuck her then and there, but he knew not to rush it. They would savor the terror and agony of those microscopic people at their feet.

Serai turned her head and her lips met his. Her hand was still on her breast and he grabbed the other one, hard enough to make her yelp in unexpected pain and pleasure. The Empress grinned wickedly and reached up, unbuttoning his uniform.

“Undress,” she said and he obeyed, taking off his own clothing. He was muscular in all of the right places and Serai ran her fingernails lightly over his impressive chest. His penis stood straight out, quivering with anticipation. She saw it and grinned, addressing him and the city at the same time.

“Your dick is bigger than several neighborhoods. I wonder how many people you could squash under it?” Serai pondered.

“We’ll have to see,” he replied with a roguish wink.

“That we do. But first…” Serai put her hands on her hips and called out to the palace AI. “Ki, connect me with one of the servants.”

The AI spoke in an androgynous yet polite voice. “Of course, Empress.”

A split second later a tiny hologram of a servant appeared, projected by the sentient computer surrounding them. The little woman could see and hear them perfectly, her mind linked with the AI, and she gazed up respectfully at the Empress.

“Bring us some food. We’ll be here for quite awhile,” she told the hologram of the servant. As soon as the projection vanished, Serai undid her bra, her breasts swinging free before the little city. She had never been a modest woman and this display thrilled her. Her panties were already wet; she could feel that even as she tossed the bra away. Luckily for the minute people, it landed on the very outskirts of the city, doing minimal damage. When she took off her panties and threw them, she was more deliberate in her aim. They landed on the park, completely covering the entire area in sodden black fabric.

Serai laughed at this.

It didn’t take the servant long to arrive with a tray of food, bread and fresh fruit and a small clay jar of honey. She had been at the palace for several years and the sight of her Empress’ nudity didn’t bother her. The strange sight of what appeared to be a tiny city did give her pause, however, and she stared for a minute too long.

“You would be wise to keep you month shut about what you saw, or I’ll make sure that it’s sewn shut. Permanently,” Serai snarled at her. The servant’s eyes grew wider and she frantically nodded as she backed away toward the door. As soon as she left, the Empress turned her attention back to the city. Dren was crouched down and she saw that he was lifting up several blocks, holding the fragile buildings in one hand.

“I have an idea,” he said and indicated that she should lie down on the cushioned bench behind them. Serai did so, biting her lower lip and wondering what he had planned.

When he dipped two of his fingers into the clay pot and spread the honey from her navel down to her pubic mound, she quickly figured it out. The knowledge filled her with a dark and terrible pleasure.

***

There was pandemonium everywhere when the giant reached down, his immense fingers plunging down deep into the ground. The hand formed an unimaginably-huge cage that spanned dozens of blocks. Trish had been outside walking her dog when the city had been transported to this strange and awful place. She had watched the giga- sized woman as she caused wanton death and destruction with a few movements. Her pug, who normally barked his head off, had just cowered on the sidewalk, whining pathetically.

Now the giant man was lifting up an entire chunk of the city, the people who were trapped on it shrieking with primal fear. Trish was thankful that she wasn’t near the edge; entire skyscrapers tumbled and fell into the void as they were raised up and up. She still held on for dear life, looking up at the monstrous being who literally held her life in the palm of his hand. She would have liked to say that he was handsome, but the human mind wasn’t constructed to process such a tremendously gigantic creature. Nor did she have much time to stare because her world was suddenly moving. The giant was tilting the segment of the city.

The ground shifted beneath Trish and she found herself tumbling. Other people were also rolling toward the edge, men and women and children. To her left, a tractor trailer flipped end over end, crushing a few unfortunate souls. Trish screamed wordlessly as she fell into space.

She expected to die, crashing into the unforgiving ground. Instead, she landed on a vast plain of sticky sludge that smelled sweet, almost like honey. It was worse than being in quicksand, the thick yellow liquid holding Trish and thousands of others in place. Feebly she squirmed, managing to move her head enough to see the two mammoth breasts rising up like twin mountains in the far distance. They were on the giantess, she realized. Then the sky darkened and she gazed up in horrified wonder as the giant’s face loomed over her. His mouth was open, a gargantuan black abyss, endless. Trish began to shriek as a tongue larger than a strip mall slipped out, licking at the honey on the giantess’ flesh. The writhing people who were mired in the goo were also swept up, disappearing back into the giant’s mouth. There was an unearthly sound and she knew that the people were being swallowed. Tears blurred her vision but she could still see the tongue as it darted back out, a massive and dreadful thing that scooped up everything and everyone before it.

Trish tried to raise her hands from the sticky honey in a last-ditch effort to ward off the colossal tongue. But she couldn’t lift them and she simply wept as she was licked up as well.

***

Serai moaned as Dren gently licked the honey and microscopic people from her lower abdomen, starting with her belly button and then working his way down. She cried out in pleasure as his tongue found her clit, skillfully stimulating her. She grabbed fistfuls of his dark hair and sat up, gasping.

“Do you realize how many people you just killed?” She asked.

“Quite a few, I’d imagine. But they’re dying for your pleasure…for our pleasure.”

That drove Serai over the brink, her orgasm wild and amazing. It was better than anything she had ever felt before and she relished every second of it, her inner muscles pulsating even as Dren forced his tongue deep inside of her. As she basked in the afterglow, her lover selected a ripe strawberry from the plate and sprinkled more of the speck-sized people onto it. She opened her mouth and he placed it onto her tongue. When she bit down she tasted the strawberry but nothing else. That was disappointing. Still, the thought that she was consuming tiny people was intoxicating. They would die in her stomach, sacrificed to a being that was millions of times their size.

Serai came again.

Dren was still erect and so she lightly ran her ringed fingers along the underside of his cock. He trembled, sucking in his breath at her touch. Serai smiled and then reached for the segment of the city, most of the buildings fallen over like dominoes. She placed it on his throbbing cock and then opened her mouth wide, taking in both his member and the doomed buildings. This time she tasted something, an not-entirely pleasant mixture of concrete and diesel. The neighborhoods in her mouth were obliterated, smashed between her hard palate and Dren’s mighty cock. When her lover orgasmed, she gulped down the detritus along with his salty semen.

***

The bathroom in Dren’s quarters was enormous and Serai sat on the edge of the tub, watching as hot water steadily filled it. Steam rose up as she added scented bath oils to the water. She was taking off her sandals when Dren came in, holding another piece of the city. The glass and steel buildings glittered like diamonds as he placed them beside her on the side of the tub.

“Are there more cities like this in that other dimension?” Serai asked as she stepped into the hot water. Dren got in slowly after her, taking a second to adjust to the water temperature.

“Several, actually. We could always teleport another city here,” he said.

“Oh, I’d like that.” She leaned toward him, kissing his bare chest. Her soft lips tickled his skin. “So many helpless cities for us to play with. Speaking of which…” Serai reached out and grabbed a bottle of liquid soap, squirting some of it into her hand. Then she pinched a pinkie-sized skyscraper between her thumb and forefinger, shaking out some more victims. If she held up her hand and squinted, she could detect faint movement in the citrusy soap, the teeny people paddling for their lives. They would eventually drown in the fragrant stuff, but she wasn’t going to give them that choice.

Serai began to lather Dren’s chest and abs, moving her hand in slow circles over his powerful muscles. The people in the soap were probably squished into atoms against the skin of her palm and her lover’s granite flesh, so she refilled her hand with new soap and new sacrifices. This time she slid her hand between his thighs, washing his penis and scrotum. She thought that she saw specks in the foam, fighting for their sad little lives.

When it was her turn, Dren filled his hands with living soap and cupped both of her large breasts, his thumbs playing with her hardened nipples. Serai savored his ministrations, goosebumps crawling over her skin. He washed her entire body, from her graceful neck down to the soles of her feet. If she concentrated, she could almost feel the untold numbers of people on her skin. Despite the heat of the water, she shuddered.

Once they were both clean, Dren unceremoniously dumped the remaining buildings into the tub. Most of the microscopic people were pulled down into the water, unable to escape the skyscrapers as they sank. A few survivors floated on the sudsy water, looking like particles of dirt. To the Empress’ amusement, several of the people tried to climb up onto her or Dren, like the victims of a shipwreck trying to crawl onto islands. Except these islands were alive and cruel, as Serai demonstrated when she flattened hundreds of people underneath her thumb.

Eventually the bathwater grew cold and so they stepped out. As Serai wrapped a towel around herself, she watched the corpse and debris-littered water as it swirled down the drain.

***

“I wonder where they went to.”

Christine’s voice, normally so confident, was strangled with terror. She was the head of the publishing firm and Beth had never seen her so panicked before. The young administrative assistant watched her boss as she peered fearfully out of the office windows. Beth wished that she could offer some words of comfort but there was nothing that she could say. So far, the two immense beings’ actions had seemed capricious at best and trying to communicate with them seemed damn near impossible. Perhaps the military would show up, but what could they do to stop creatures that big?

Christine was pacing, her perfect hairdo slowly becoming undone, when they felt the familiar tremors.

“Shitshitshit,” she muttered under her breath. Beth had been sitting and she stood up, wringing her hands. Through the tall windows, like something out of a horror movie, she could see the colossal hand approaching. It was the giant’s hand, she was sure of it; the fingers were too thick to be those of the giantess.

Christine started to shriek when the skyscraper-length fingers pressed up against their building, blocking out the light. Beth just stared at the windows with a calm detachment, almost as if some part of her had accepted the inevitable. The glass was already cracking, the loops and whorls of the titanic finger strangely fascinating to her. It was not until the giant uprooted the entire building that she moved, and that was only because the entire building was shaking violently and she was catapulted from her position. She collided with her boss and the two of them fell to the floor together.

For forty seconds, the violence was incredible. Huge cracks ran up the walls, framed black and white photographs smashing against the floor; Christine’s expensive oak desk was thrown halfway across the room, spilling manuscripts everywhere. Then, abruptly, it all stopped and the colossal fingers withdrew.

They were on the second to the top floor of the skyscraper, so Christine and Beth had a good view of where they had been placed. Or rather, inserted. Dark red flesh surrounded them, glistening wetly. The temperature had risen rapidly, the air hot and humid and tainted with a distinctive odor. Beth had enough familiarity with her own body to recognize the smell of pussy, except this odor was overwhelmingly pungent, filling her nose and making her wince.

“We’re not in her…” Christine started, looking out the window with horrified eyes. Beth didn’t know what to do, so she nodded grimly.

***

Serai was reclined on the cushioned bench again, looking on as Dren selected another miniature skyscraper. It was like watching a man pick a small and delicate flower and she was impressed with his dexterity. He knelt down in front of the bench, presenting the little building to her. She didn’t even have to be told; she spread her labia, already moist from her arousal. When he inserted the skyscraper in, she had to fight back the urge to compress it into rubble with her inner muscles.

Dren straddled her, his own arousal evident. As he leaned forward, his rockhard cock mere centimeters from her vagina, she grinned ferociously.

“Kill them, Dren! Crush them inside of me!” She hissed between clenched teeth.

“With pleasure, Empress,” he said.

***

Behind her, Christine had started to wail again, although she had been screaming so much that her voice was now hoarse. Beth stared with wonder at the world’s largest penis, close enough that she could see the millions and millions of gallons of precum flowing from the monstrous slit. Perhaps it was the incredible amount of pheromones that both of the titans were giving off, or perhaps it was just because her sanity had long since disappeared, but Beth was aroused. She felt like she was in the presence of some awful deities who were the cross between fertility and death gods. Without thinking, she dropped down to her knees as the giantess’ thick sexual fluid dripped down through the spiderweb cracks in the glass.

“My God,” she whispered, her hands outstretched. And then the giant thrust.

***

The skyscraper offered absolutely no resistance as Dren rammed his cock forward, deep into Serai’s inviting sex. The Empress was moaning like a thing possessed and he was certain that she had climaxed multiple times. Whatever was left of the skyscraper was probably little more than dust and some organic matter. It thrilled him to know that he had murdered all of those people just to make his lover come. He thrust harder, Serai groaning each time that he slammed into her. Behind him, the inhabitants of the miniature city were probably watching, knowing that the giant and giantess would come for them next. They were specks, microbes, to be used for whatever purposes that their masters deemed fit.

“I’ll kill them all,” he growled and with that he experienced the most intense orgasm of his life.

Underneath him, Serai’s body also quivered in pure sensual bliss. He kissed one of her breasts and then the other, feeling like the most powerful man in existence.

When Dren withdrew himself from his lover, a small amount of their intermingled fluids dribbled out from between Serai’s swollen netherlips. He was pleased to see that their little sex toy had been thoroughly pulverized, the remains of the building mixed into the milky fluid. Serai stretched lethargically, looking exceptionally pleased.

“I must say that I’m enjoying this present,” she said, gazing over at the beleaguered city. They had done significant damage to it, entire high-rises ripped up from the ground, her hand and footprints still visible. And there were her panties spread across the park, probably suffocating anyone unfortunate enough to be caught beneath the thousands of tons of fabric.

She wrinkled her nose. “Still, it’s quickly losing its charm.”

“Shall we put them out of their misery?” Dren offered Serai his hand, his smile utterly vicious as he helped her up. The Empress placed her finger on her lips, thinking. While she wanted to raze the city in a vicious display of power, she also wanted to relish it. As she glanced at the bright tapestries that hid the AI, a thought occurred to her.

“Ki,” she said. “Do you think you could project holograms of us into the city? I want to view the end of this city firsthand…”

***

It looked like Armageddon had arrived and Serai supposed for the minuscule inhabitants of the doomed city, it had. They were standing in what was once a financial-district, except half of the high-rises had toppled from the earthquakes that she and Dren had generated. In the distance she could see one of her mile-long footprints, an immense canyon pressed deep into the heart of the city.

Serai shivered from the thrill of knowing that she had done all of this.

Dren stood beside her, looking amazingly realistic for a hologram. He was dressed in his uniform again, looking dashing even as panic-stricken people ran for their lives. No one paid them much attention, not when two mammoth beings stood at the edge of the city, living embodiments of the Apocalypse.

She admired her true-self from a distance, the sensation of being in two forms slightly disorienting. As she watched her gigantic real self, she realized how awe-inspiring they were. Behind her colossal naked body, Dren studied the city with immense and cruel eyes. Serai wondered if he felt the same sort of orgasmic pleasure as she was feeling, staring up at herself.

Evidently he did, because she could see the monstrous erection between his legs, large enough to bring the city to its knees. Just staring up at it almost brought Serai to her knees and she could feel the wetness between her thighs, pleasure tightening her lower belly. She watched her gigantic self take a step forward, the ground heaving from the violence. The holographic version of Dren was nuzzling the back of her neck, his index finger sliding up into her pussy as he pleasured her.

“We’re incredible, aren’t we?” He asked, and she whimpered a reply. Neither of them heard it because the two gigantic versions of themselves were moving across the city, leaving twin trails of destruction. Buildings simply disappeared beneath titanic feet and Serai saw herself simultaneously step down and cower before herself.

She was more aroused than she would have thought possible and when the real version of herself spread her pussy lips, her clear secretions sliding down her legs. A single drop glistened on labia large enough to smother a residential block; the holographic version of the Empress looked on as it plummeted, smashing into the city with the intensity of an asteroid. Anyone unlucky enough to be directly underneath the drop was reduced to red paste; those nearby were engulfed by the thick goo and drowned.

Both versions of Serai gasped in cruel delight, the larger version deafening everyone within the city. Her real self slowly lowered herself, giving the screaming citizens below a horrific view of her cavernous vagina and well-toned ass. The little buildings crumbled like stale crackers beneath her, crunching loudly as she first sat down, then sprawled her body across the city. The way that everything turned to ruin beneath her back and legs was exquisite. Her limbs reached out, devastating miles of the city as she made a snow angel in the midst of an entire population.

The real Dren knelt down beside her, running his hands over her taut belly and breasts.

“My Empress, my Goddess,” he murmured. When he mounted her it was with the utmost tenderness, although the movements were catastrophic to the city below. The tiny holographic version of Serai watched as her true-self fucked the real Dren, each mighty thrust causing the city to heave. As the earthquakes shook the surrounding skyscrapers to pieces, the city sacrificed to the lust of two larger and more powerful beings, the Empress howled with savage ecstasy.

***

After their holograms had vanished and their minds had been completely returned to their bodies, Serai and Dren laid together in post-coital bliss. Most of the city was now reduced to gray dust, to be swept away by the servants when they came to clean the room. Millions of people gone, just to sate their sexual appetites, and the Empress felt nothing but a terrible satisfaction.

Reluctantly, she stood up, brushing off the detritus from her body.

“I must rest…I have to be up early for my Jubilee tomorrow,” she said as Dren sat up. Honestly, after all of the deviant fun that she had had that night, she was not looking forward to the formal celebrations, where the nobility would give long and boring speeches about her glorious reign.

“Well, perhaps we can do something special after the celebration,” he said. Serai paused in the doorway, glancing over her shoulder at him.

“The teleportation device works both ways,” Dren told her with a wicked grin. She raised her eyebrows and then returned the smile.

I knew that something was wrong as soon as I saw Zoey’s face.

She was studying her phone, pulling and twisting her lower lip. It was one of those nervous habits that she had had since college, and she only did it when she was really upset. Like when her grandfather had died, or when her boyfriend had dumped her. So whatever she saw on her phone was most likely terrible.

“What is it?” I asked, and when she finally glanced up, I noticed how pale my friend had become. Every one of her freckles stood out starkly against her skin, and behind her glasses, her eyes were wide with fear. As she pushed the phone across the diner table, I caught a glimpse of a news website on the screen.

“Another one showed up. I think they said it was Chicago this time,” Zoey replied, still wringing her lip between her fingers. I didn’t say anything as I picked up the phone. The first thing that I saw were the photos, dozens and dozens of them. Some of them were candid shots, taken with cell phones; others were obviously done by professional news photographers. They all showed the same thing, though: nightmarish scenes of carnage and destruction. Skyscrapers leaned and tilted crazily, and a few had even toppled, filling the streets with rubble and grayish-white dust. There were cars and trucks upside-down, like huge, dead beetles, or completely flattened, as if they had been run through a compactor.

As I scrolled down through the page, I saw the photos of survivors, their faces and clothes caked with ash and dirt and blood. They wandered through the streets, stunned and horrified, probably searching for missing family members or friends. I could only imagine their confusion, their despair. No one gets up in the morning and expects that their city will be razed to the ground.

I finally glanced at the headline. “GIANTESS ATTACKS CHICAGO, THOUSANDS DEAD,” it screamed. Zoey had been right. Over the past few months, there had been seven other incidents, giant people appearing from out of nowhere and annihilating everyone and everything in their path. The authorities had been investigating, but so far, they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) say what these giants and giantesses were. Aliens? Beings from another dimension? Normal people who spontaneously mutated?

The answer was none of the above, but I didn’t want to share that bit of knowledge. No, that was my little secret.

I had seen enough, and so I gave the phone back to Zoey. She was picking listlessly at her caesar salad, her cheeks still drained of color.

“This is horrible, Joan,” Zoey whimpered. “They just keep coming out of nowhere. What if one of them shows up here next?”

I smiled as reassuringly as I could, reaching out to take her hand. “Don’t worry. I’m sure that won’t happen.”

She had no idea that I was telling her the truth, of course.

***

When I arrived home, I grabbed my laptop and began to read more about the disaster in Chicago. The giantess was described as a young blonde woman, and like the others, she had appeared without warning in the middle of a busy intersection. Survivors stated that she had acted like a bloodthirsty maniac, crushing cars and people indiscriminately. Even when the police had opened fire, she had continued stomping until the asphalt was stained a deep crimson.

I tried to remember what the young woman had looked like. Yes, she had been blonde, that was correct. Blonde and slender and beautiful, but with a fury that attracted me to her. I had followed her rage all the way to the pub where she had been bartending, sensing it the way that sharks could detect blood in water. I had ordered a beer, but I didn’t drink it, instead watching her discreetly from one of the tables. She had certainly been angry, all right. I had always been able to pick up on darker emotions, rage and sadness and fear; it was one of my many gifts, and as I had sat there, I had felt the waves of hatred radiating outward.

Fucking asshole, she had thought, shoving a rum and Coke at one of the customers. I had continued listening to her thoughts, eavesdropping. The young woman had been perfect for what I had in mind, and when she had finally closed up the pub and drove to her dingy apartment, I had followed her. I had waited until she had swigged some tequila straight from the bottle before I had appeared before her. My target hadn’t seemed particularly surprised to see me, just mildly annoyed.

“Who the hell are you?” Her voice had been slurred, and she had blinked drunkenly at me. The alcohol had dulled some of her anger, but it had still been lurking there, terrible and dangerous.

I had laughed and spread my arms wide. “I’m your guardian angel.”

“Uh-huh.” She had taken another sip of tequila, her green eyes never leaving me. “You don’t look like an angel.”

“But I am, and I’m here to make everything better.”

The young woman had snorted dismissively. “Right. How are you going to do that?”

“I’ll show you,” I had told her, and so I had. My instructions had been brief: drive as far away from here as you can, and do whatever you want. When she had grown, she had no longer been just another bartender, living in a hellhole of an apartment and silently holding back that lust for violence. She had been transformed into an immense giantess, capable of destroying entire cities and inspiring terror amongst millions.

And now, as I laid there on my bed, glancing through footage of the devastation, I imagined myself as her. When I closed my eyes, I could almost see myself there, as tall as a twenty-story skyscraper. The buildings around me would rock and creak and on their foundations as I strolled by, each step catastrophic to the tiny people far below. Vehicles, people, street lights…anything small enough to fit beneath my feet would be pulverized beyond recognition. If I concentrated, I could feel the small bodies pulping beneath my soles, the pavement cracking and crunching loudly. It was exhilarating to imagine myself so huge and powerful, and my hand explored my body as I relived the destruction and mayhem.

That sense of power was better than anything that a lover could provide, and ripples of pleasure coursed through my lower belly. Become like them, that old voice whispered to me. Make yourself into a goddess.

But as usual, I pushed it aside.

***

I can’t say when my powers first manifested, because I honestly don’t remember. They had always been there, and as I grew older, they became a terrible secret that I hid from my family. But even if I didn’t use them, my powers were constantly on my mind, tempting me. Wouldn’t it be nice to shrink Mrs. Alten, my grouchy third grade teacher? What if I could make myself grow into a giantess and take what I wanted, a new bicycle and everything else in the toy store?

It would have been so easy to simply give into those desires.

The closest that I came was when I was a teenager, staying at my grandparents’ lake house for the week. It had been a particularly hot night in late August, and I had wandered outside by myself. For awhile, I had stood there in the pitch blackness of the forest, listening to the multitudes of crickets as they chirped to one another. My grandparents had been asleep for a few hours, and the closest neighbor was a few miles away. Why not try your abilities out? An internal voice had whispered. Come on, there’s no one here. What harm would it be?

So under the cover of darkness, I had used my powers on myself, feeling both elation and guilt as my body had expanded. Each inch that I had gained was thrilling, and I had watched as the big oaks and maples seemed to shrink away. I had stopped when I had reached twenty feet, although I had wanted to grow even larger.  That internal voice had shouted at me to continue. But if I hadn’t stopped at that point, I never would have. I would have grown larger than the lake house, than a skyscraper, than a mountain. It had been a terrifying realization.

I think that I would have been more frightened if I hadn’t been so fascinated by what I had become. Okay, I hadn’t been Godzilla-sized, but I had still been huge enough to push over small trees. I remember knocking them over with ease, delighted by the cracking noises that they had made as they had crashed to the ground. I had felt so strong and powerful, and I had gloried in it until I had heard something. Faint footsteps, barely discernible above the crickets. I had shrank back down and dove behind a bush as quickly as possible, watching as my grandfather inspected the fallen trees.

I’m still not sure if he had spotted me; if he had (and if he actually suspected that I was somehow responsible), he never mentioned it to me. So for fifteen years, I had been able to keep my little secret to myself.

Until I met Max.

***

“You look kind of stressed, Zoey,” I commented as we took our places in front of the yoga mats. The instructor hadn’t shown up yet, so we were just standing there with the rest of the group. Almost sheepishly, Zoey stopped tugging at her lower lip.

“Well, yeah. I mean, all these attacks are sort of bothering me.” She started to yank at a stray strand of dark brown hair, curling it around her index finger.

“I wouldn’t worry so much,” I replied, and I almost said that there probably wouldn’t be another rampage. Except that I would have been lying, and I couldn’t muster up the courage to deceive my friend like that. For the past few days, I had been craving more action, more wanton destruction. No matter how many times I tried to divert my thoughts, they always returned to the subject of creating another colossus. I suddenly understood how an ex-smoker must feel, aching for the sensation of a cigarette in their mouth.

The power was pulsating through me, making my skin tingle. I shivered and glanced at Zoey, standing there in her blue shirt and yoga pants. She was my best friend in the world, but at that moment, I wanted so badly to hurt her. No, not just hurt her. I wanted to do something awful to her, for reasons that were too primal to explain with words.

A horrible idea crept into my brain. I could shrink her right there, down to the size of a jelly bean. She’d scream and scream, but I’d just laugh as I leaned down, pinching her delicate body between my fingers. How soft she’d be, not hard and chitinous like an insect. I’d dangle her over my open mouth, relishing her terror, and then I’d drop her between my lips. Maybe I’d chew her up, crushing her into bloody pulp between my molars. No, wait. I’d swallow her like a pill, so that she was sent to the acidic depths of my stomach. Her last feeble movements would be nothing more than twitches inside me, and then she would be gone. Forever.

“Joan?” Zoey’s voice interrupted my awful fantasy. Her eyebrows were knitted together in an expression of obvious concern.

“I’m okay. It’s just been a long day,” I told her, my gaze on the other members of the yoga class. What if I grew right now? What would their reactions be like? I was willing to bet that they’d be surprised and confused. Oh, and absolutely horrified. They would cower in the darkness of my colossal shadow, panicking as I burst through the ceiling and rained pieces of drywall and splintered wood down upon them. I would scoop them up eagerly, feeling their squirming bodies in my hands, and then I would constrict my fingers, tighter and tighter…

“I see,” Zoey said quietly, and I looked down at my yoga mat, my cheeks burning. Even as I took deep, calming breaths, adrenaline pounded through me. Just imagining those terrible things filled me with such excitement. I couldn’t wait much longer, I decided.

I needed to make another monster soon.

***

Max had been the first, and I had met him at an airport during a business trip. As had I flipped halfheartedly through a novel, he had sat down near me, and I had taken a moment to look him over. He had been incredibly handsome, with wavy black hair and gray eyes that reminded me of river stones. His business suit had been impeccably tailored, showing off the powerful, masculine curves of his body.

“I’m Max,” he had said with a charming smile.

“Joan.” I had shaken his hand.

“Like Joan of Arc?”

“Yeah, like that,” I had replied, admiring his good looks. We had started to chat, mostly about where we had gone to college, the weather, that sort of thing. Then, perhaps because I was so exhausted from my travel, I had asked him something that I never would have asked anyone else.

“So what would you do if you were given godlike power?” The words had slipped from my mouth.

“I don’t know. Probably try to help people, I guess,” Max had answered, and at the same time, I heard the dark and hellish thoughts churning wildly through his brain: I’d fuck everyone up. Leaning closer, I had studied all of these horrible fantasies, feeling excitement growing deep within me.

He had been so perfect, and it was at that moment that I had made my decision. I had given him some of my power, allowing it to flow into his body. There had been a visible change, and I could see the way that his eyes had lit up with elation. He had swaggered out of the airport, and an hour later, he was all over the news, two hundred feet tall and destroying everything around him. As those around me had watched the airport televisions in shocked disbelief, I had shivered in pleasure.

***

And now it was time to choose another one.

I wandered through the streets, casting my telepathic net out. What about the skater leaning against a fence, his face hardened into a contemptuous sneer? Or the middle-aged woman in the designer clothing, screaming at someone on her cell phone? It was so difficult to choose.

Then I found her.

She was standing outside of a shoe store, obviously an employee on her break. A cigarette hung between her long fingers, and she silently observed everyone as they walked along the sidewalk. Her thoughts were delightfully wicked: if only I could stomp on them, I bet they’d scream. When I crossed the street, her eyes narrowed, watching me warily through the curls of cigarette smoke.

“Hey,” I said, and she didn’t answer at first, just kept studying me. She was slightly older than I was, her long hair dyed auburn.

“What do you want?” She sounded irritated.

“To offer you something.”

Both of her dark eyebrows shot up. “I’m not interested in buying anything.”

“It’s free,” I said, and before she could tell me to go to hell, I continued, “What if I could make you powerful? Like in your fantasies?”

Her surprise was comical, and the cigarette nearly tumbled from her fingers. “How do you know about that?”

“I just know. Now, how about it? Would you like to become a giantess to these insects?” I leaned a little closer, and she blinked rapidly, too amazed to move.

“I-I-I…this is fucking crazy,” she choked out, although I could see a gleam in her eye. Deep down, she wanted this, craved this. In her hand, the cigarette shook wildly, and this time, she did drop it.

“I want you to go far from here,” I told her. “Wreck whatever you want, do whatever you want. But not here. Understand?”

Her tongue darted from her mouth, slowly licking her pink-painted lips. “Yes.”

***

Feeling strangely satisfied, I met Zoey at the diner for lunch. She was talking about the new guy that she had met at work, but I wasn’t paying attention. My thoughts were on the woman from the shoe store, and what she was going to do with her newfound power. I could hardly wait to see her in action, to live through her like I had with everyone else.

Zoey froze in mid-sentence, and she glanced around quickly. “Did you feel that?”

“Feel what?” I asked, and then I felt it, a powerful tremor that shook the entire diner and knocked over our glasses of water. Before I had a chance to say anything else, there was another quake, and this one was even stronger. No, it couldn’t be…but it was. Through the diner window, I saw an immense foot slam down, the pavement buckling outward around it.

“Oh God,” Zoey whispered, and we both watched as the other foot crashed onto a line of parked cars. The vehicles collapsed with a spectacular spray of glass and metal, and the foot sank deep into the ground as if it were wet clay instead of asphalt. Shrieks rose up, but they were drowned out by booming, feminine laughter. In the diner, everyone was panicking, some people diving beneath the tables, others petrified in place. I was the only one marching toward the door.

“Joan, what are you doing!? We need to hide!” Zoey screeched, grabbing at my upper arm. I ignored her, shoving open the door and stepping out onto the sidewalk. Pandemonium had broken out, terrified people running in all directions, and when I turned my head, I saw the source of the chaos.

The giantess, the one that I had recently created, was towering above the skyline. I had never seen one of the titans up close, and I gawked at her for a long time. Every part of her was enormous, her nude body more like a living, breathing skyscraper than an actual human being. As I continued to watch in amazement, she plunged her hand into the side of a building, smashing through the exterior as if it had been made of tissue paper. When she withdrew her hand, tiny people and furniture were also dragged out with it. But she didn’t notice the office workers plummeting to their deaths; she was too busy inspecting those unfortunate souls who were trapped in her fist.

Almost tenderly, she pressed them against her right breast, and I could hear their muffled cries. Biting her lower lip, she began to caress herself, her hand moving in wide, languid circles. As I fought my way through the frenzied mob, the giantess moaned loudly. Nearby windows vibrated and rattled, and I covered my ears, cringing.

The giantess grinned, and then cupped her breast, squeezing it hard. Those who were imprisoned in her hand were pulverized, their bodies breaking beneath her unbelievable strength. When she removed her hand, a gruesome five-fingered print was painted in dark red across her breast.

That was it. I strode toward her, my anger nearly blinding me. Thunderous crashes rumbled above me as she dug through the building again, trying to find more victims. A huge chunk of masonry fell to the ground, crushing a mailbox and nearly crushing me. The giantess pulled a wailing man from the gaping hole in the skyscraper, pinching him by the back of his black suit. His keening cries ended when she dropped him into her mouth and then swallowed with a quick gulp.

Suddenly, the giantess froze, like a dog sensing a rabbit, and her head slowly turned to look at me. Of course she sensed me. My power was coursing out in almost tangible waves.

“You weren’t supposed to grow here!” I screamed at her, rage strangling my voice. “You’re ruining everything!”

She scowled down at me from an impossible distance. “Fuck you, you little bitch.”

To my shock, she raised her foot, hovering it high above me. Her face disappeared behind her enormous sole, and I found myself staring up at a huge expanse of pinkish-brown flesh. Apparently, she had stomped on several people, because I saw what remained of their bodies, blood and pulped organs smeared in all directions. The mammoth foot lowered down toward me, and I knew that she intended to add me to her list of victims. I raised both hands, as if I could hope to ward off something so massive.

And then the power exploded in me.

I had never grown so big, or so fast before. It was incredibly disorienting, the world becoming a crazy blur of colors. By the time that I recovered, I saw that the city had changed. Everyday objects such as trees, buildings, and the vehicles parked on the side of the road were all scaled down, as if I had wandered into a monster movie set. Except that these weren’t reproductions. Everything was so breathtakingly real, and as I stood there, glancing around, I saw all of the minute details. There were leaves on the trees in the neighboring park, so tiny that I could barely make them out except as various shades of green, and splotches of engine oil discoloring the street.

I took a minute to take in the shrunken world around me. No, the world wasn’t shrunken…I was immense. It was incredible to believe, and apparently, the other giantess was astonished as well. She stood there, dark blood dripping from her breast, staring at me with wonder.

Then she threw herself at me, her hands outstretched, trying to claw out my eyes.

I wasn’t prepared for the attack, and she plowed into me, knocking me into the side of a skyscraper. It was like being pushed into an incredibly flimsy box, and I felt the exterior crumble away beneath me. But I didn’t have time to reflect upon the sensations further because the other woman was punching and slapping at me. I gazed into her furious eyes, and then my own anger melted away. Grinning, I pushed her away, hard.

I stepped away from the damaged skyscraper, concentrating my power inwards. Bigger…I wanted to be much bigger. And so I grew again, but this time, I luxuriated in the thrill of becoming more powerful. The skyscrapers became smaller and smaller, and the streets seemed to narrow into thin bands. Cold air prickled my skin as I rose higher into the atmosphere, passing through cottony wisps of clouds. Down below, the once-towering giantess looked like a tiny, two-legged cockroach.

She shouted something; I think it may have been “I’m sorry!” although I couldn’t hear her voice that well. To be honest, I didn’t care what she said. I merely smiled down at her, my hands on my hips.

“Better start running,” I sneered, and this time, she cowered at the sound of my voice. I’m sure that the speck-sized people in the city below were deafened by my words, and that sent a delicious shudder down the length of my spine. My creations had been terrifying, but I was the sort of thing that brought humanity to its knees.

The giantess took off, dashing down the street and flattening anything in her way. I watched her sprint away, barreling through buildings and sending deadly showers of debris all over the mite-like people. When I finally decided to pursue her, I didn’t run, but instead walked at a leisurely pace. I was easily a few several miles tall, and each time that my foot came down, it sent cataclysmic shockwaves in all directions. Tiny buildings, most of them no longer than my thumb, collapsed and spilled into one another with each deadly footstep. I left behind a trail of footprints that looked more like meteor craters, and I knew that there weren’t any survivors in them. Anyone who had the bad luck to be underneath my foot when it fell was now reduced to mere organic components.

My attention shifted from my feet to the fleeing giantess. She had made it to the river, and was now racing through the water, capsizing the boats floating there. Once or twice, she stopped and looked at me approaching, her tiny face blanching. I smiled and waved to her, and she ran faster, destroying the docks along the river. I simply strolled over the little tannish strip of water. Four more steps later, and I was able to block the giantess’ escape route with one foot.

She tried to run the other way, but she skidded and toppled over. Minute tendrils of smoke rose up, and I thought that I saw a brief flash of yellowish-orange as something caught on fire. My little creation stared up in me in abject fear, her mouth trembling violently.

“Please, I wasn’t going to actually step on you!” She screamed. At least, I think that’s what she said.

“Well, I plan on stepping on you.” My reply clearly horrified her. A stream of pleas burst from her lips, but they abruptly stopped when I lowered my foot into her body. I felt her wiggling beneath my sole, and it was at that moment that I realized how wrong I had been all of these years. I had lived my fantasies through others, but to experience them myself was a million times more exciting than I would have imagined. I glanced down, saw the world at my feet…literally. Nothing on Earth was more powerful than I was, not humanity, not even this puny giantess who was slowly being smothered underfoot.

My smile became more serene as I applied more of my weight, crushing my creation. She let out a high-pitched howl of agony, and then her body burst violently beneath my foot. To the microscopic people still alive, her death must have been awe-inspiring, thousands of gallons of warm blood jetting outward and roaring down the streets in a red tidal wave.

I ground out the remnants of her body, smearing them in a gory swath that was hundreds of feet long. Those who were eventually tasked with rebuilding the city would be finding gigantic bones and huge clumps of rotting flesh for several weeks.

Still smiling, I glanced over at what remained of my hometown. Entire districts had been reduced to rubble and strangely, I realized that I didn’t care. I watched the black smoke and clouds of dust rising up over the destruction for awhile, and then several tiny specks buzzed by my ear, almost too small to be seen. Fighter jets, no doubt dispatched to take out the giantess, were now circling me like gnats. They couldn’t hurt me, although I knew that they were certainly trying. I concentrated, and then my power enveloped them. The jets seemed to disappear into thin air, but in reality, I shrank them down so that they were no bigger than grains of sand. When I started to walk again, they were most likely smashed into pieces against my body or blown away by the violent winds that my movements generated.

I sauntered forward, gradually dwindling down to a more manageable size. I still loomed above most of the buildings, but at least I could see people now.

A small crowd had formed, and they stared at me with awe and curiosity and terror. I was only vaguely aware that I was naked, that I hadn’t bothered to make my clothing grow as well. Perhaps I’d do that in the future; for now, I didn’t care if onlookers saw me when I was nude. Let them see me as I truly am, I decided.

I stopped near the crowd and crouched down. Several members of the crowd bolted when they saw how close I was, but some of the braver people stayed where they were. As I studied them, I saw how pitiful they looked, with their soiled clothing and traumatized expressions.

“Don’t worry,” I said to them. “She’s gone.”

One balding man with a filthy, ash-stained polo shirt rushed forward, sobbing. “Th-thank you! You saved—,”

I reached out and flicked him, the tip of my index finger burrowing deep into his torso. It was only a light flick, but his tiny body still catapulted through the air, splattering into the side of a delivery truck.

“Enough.” My voice was coolly detached. “Believe me, I’m a thousand times worse than she could ever be.”

There were frightened murmurs from the crowd.

“Now, you can serve me, or…” I lifted my hand above several people, engulfing them in the ominous blackness of my shadow, and then brought it down with a resounding boom. They squished easily beneath my palm, blood and glistening viscera squirting out from between my fingers. “…You can die as well.”

I raised my hand back up, globs of meat and scraps of clothing plopping to the ground. To my delight, most of the crowd took my threat seriously. Some even knelt, their hands clasped tightly together. I grinned, knowing that I didn’t have to hide my powers anymore. No, I fully embraced my abilities, and what I was.

I wouldn’t have to live vicariously through anyone ever again.

The brisk autumn wind stirred up the litter at my feet as I stood there, shivering. I was wearing a hoodie, but it wasn’t enough to keep out the cold. The next time that I was in a department store, I’d have to find a decent coat. For now, I tried to ignore the chill in the air, glancing down the street.

It was deserted, just like all of the neighboring streets. Abandoned vehicles clogged the road, a thick layer of rotting leaves and grime coating their exteriors. Several car doors were left open, as if their owners had dashed out and forgotten to close them. As I passed by a black Mercedes, I peered in and saw that the keys were still in the ignition. For a brief moment, I thought about getting into the car and trying to start the engine. But honestly, where would I go? I had already spent the last month driving from town to town, trying to find another normal human being. But everywhere, it was the same: ghost towns, completely devoid of people. After I had made it to the city, I had given up hope.

But it could have been worse. At least I had food and shelter. In fact, I had my pick of any apartment in this city. Or any hotel room or condo. Hell, if I felt like strolling into the mayor’s office, I could do so and no one would say anything. The freedom had been exhilarating at first, although I was beginning to become accustomed to my new life. It now seemed normal to take what I needed, when I needed it.

Today was one of my errand days, when I went out searching for supplies. I had taken my backpack with me, although it technically wasn’t mine; it belonged to whomever had the initials “CEM,” the letters embroidered onto the faded red fabric. I figured that CEM wouldn’t miss the bag, wherever he or she was. The backpack was currently empty and I shifted it easily on my shoulders as I made my way down the street.

There was slight movement in the front pocket of my hoodie and I paused, slipping in one hand. I didn’t feel anything at first; then, as I wiggled my fingers, they brushed up against denim and soft hair.  Aha, there he was. My hand seized him, dragging him out of my pocket and into the fading sunlight. He blinked up at me, as tiny as a shrew but obviously human, his auburn hair tousled from being in my pocket. 

“I wish you wouldn’t just grab me like that, Amelia,” he said in that shrill, squeaky voice that always made me snicker.

“Aw, stop being such a baby, Owen,” I teased, watching as he sat upright in my open palm. “It’s not like I’m going to hurt you, right?”

He glanced up at me, opened his mouth, and evidently decided not to answer that. It was simultaneously amusing and sad to think that at one time, he had been a head taller than me. Now he could fit in one of my hands.

“Where are we?” Owen asked, changing the subject.

“Downtown, somewhere.” We passed by the entrance to the subway station, a flock of pigeons strutting along the ground. I hated to think what one of them could do someone as small as my boyfriend. Owen watched them warily from between my curled fingers. As I felt a shiver tear through his body, I continued, “There’s got to be a convenience store around here.”

He tore his eyes away from the pigeons. “Have you seen anyone else?”

“What, someone normal-sized?”

“Yeah.”

I carefully stepped around a bicycle that was laying on the sidewalk, its chains rusted and its tires deflated. “No.”
 
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw sudden movement. But when I turned my head, there was nothing there except for trash blowing in the breeze. Rats, probably. I still stopped for a moment, squinting across the street. My heart galloped in my chest, the same sort of wild excitement that came from seeing the winning lottery numbers printed on your ticket.

An empty Starbucks coffee cup rolled down into the gutter and I finally gave up, continuing down the street until I finally spotted a small organic grocery store. Bingo, exactly what I had been trying to find. I kept my fingers crossed that the glass door wasn’t locked. It squeaked loudly in protest, but it opened easily.

I took a step inside, allowing my eyes to adjust to the gloom. The first thing that I searched for were animals, feral dogs in particular. There had been one instance when I had met up with a vicious pit bull mix in a supermarket, its yellowed teeth bared in a snarl. I had ended up heaving soup cans in the animal’s direction until it had backed away.

Luckily, there weren’t any stray dogs around. The air smelled faintly of decomposing food, and I  wrinkled my nose as I walked past the register at the front of the store.

“Hey, Amelia?” Owen called up to me.

“What?”

“I need to, uh, you know…go.”

I sighed. “Didn’t you go an hour ago? You’re worse than a little kid.”

Owen’s tiny face turned as crimson as my backpack, but I decided not to taunt him anymore. Instead, I propped open the door with a box of canned pears and set him down outside.

“Call me when you’re done, okay?” I said, turning away as soon as he had sheepishly wandered out of view. I unzipped my bag and moved my cell phone to the front pocket. Sure, it had been dead for several months, but having it around was strangely soothing. I think that a part of myself believed that it would turn on one day, that everything would miraculously return to the way that it was before.

It’s always good to have a little hope.

I made my way down the closest aisle, my sneakers slapping against the linoleum floor. Back when everything wasn’t completely insane and I was working as a secretary in a law office, I wore high heels all the time. But now that I was a nomad, I had traded in the pumps for unisex Chuck Taylors, and my feet were grateful for that. Eventually, I would need to grab a new pair, especially since these ones were becoming more and more worn each day. Not to mention the stains, including the brownish-red splotches that discolored the white tips of the shoes.

I added “Get New Shoes” to my mental checklist as I studied the food on the shelves. Unfortunately, I had to stick to non-perishable items, since things like fresh meat and vegetables had long since rotted away. One by one, I placed cans and jars and boxes into my backpack: a jar of all natural peanut butter, some vegetarian chili, a box of cereal. I couldn’t fit that much into the bag, but fortunately, Owen and I didn’t eat much. Especially Owen. Two pieces of cereal was an entire meal for him. It was funny, because I remember him being able to eat an entire small pizza once upon a time.

The zipper on the backpack was stuck and I fiddled with it, yanking and pulling. Fucking CEM and their shitty fucking backpack. Just as I finally managed to zip up the bag, I heard the high-pitched scream from outside.

***

The Event (because I had to call it something, right?) happened a few months back. I wish that I could say that there had been some sort of indication that it was going to happen, that locusts rained down from the clouds or the oceans turned to blood or something batshit crazy like that. But it had been a completely normal spring night, and I remember opening the bedroom windows before I laid down in the bed next to Owen. I had fallen asleep to the normal street sounds, but when I had woken up, everything had been so eerily quiet. For the longest time, I had remained motionless, overcome by a deep, instinctual dread. Then, when something had moved on Owen’s pillow, I had bolted upright.

You can imagine my surprise when I had realized that the tiny thing on the pillow was my boyfriend.

I hadn’t reacted that well. Mostly I had screamed and screamed, until my throat ached and I could only manage a hoarse little cry. Owen had stood there, his minuscule hands clapped over his ears. Thinking back, my shrieking had probably deafened him, and as frightened as I had been, his terror had been a million times worse. Eventually, I had calmed down enough to cautiously approach him. He had been naked (his clothing hadn’t shrank with him, although I’d later find doll clothes that were a suitable replacement), and he looked horrified and vulnerable as he cowered atop the pillow.

“Owen, what the hell happened?” I had asked him, still refusing to believe what I was seeing.

“I don’t know.” He had sounded completely lost.

So that had been it. One minute, Owen had been a normal-sized human being; the next, he was smaller than my pinkie. And he hadn’t been the only one. Everyone had either disappeared or been reduced to tiny homunculi. Well, except for me. I was still immune to whatever had shrank the rest of humanity, at least for now. 

Outside, the frantic screams continued and I charged through the open door. My eyes immediately searched for Owen, who was on the sidewalk, surrounded by a group of other shrunken people. There were about a dozen or so, most of them scruffy-looking, their clothing assembled from scraps of fabric. They were slowly circling my boyfriend, and I spotted the minute slivers of wood and metal in their hands. Weapons, no doubt. Goddamn little bastards.

In unison, the group of thugs all glanced up as I strode toward them. Either they were too paralyzed with fear or too stupid to run, but they didn’t move as I towered over them, my hands clenched. They did crane their heads to look up at me, their eyes widening as they took in my size. To them, I was probably the size of a small skyscraper. That thought made me smile a bit.

“What’s going on here?” I demanded. Of course, no one answered. They continued to gawk up at me as Owen elbowed his way forward, looking dazed and frightened. I bent down, placing my hand on the concrete so that he could climb onto my palm.

“Hey, lady,” the leader of the thugs finally said. “We didn’t mean anything, I swear.”

I peered down at him. If he had been my height, he would have been impressive, the sort of ham-fisted bruiser who could have knocked me down with a single punch. As it stood now, I could easily push him over with a single finger. Or pop his head off. Just a little twist and pull and he’d be dead.

I shivered pleasantly at that thought.

The tiny man glanced up at me, except he was so small that I couldn’t make out much of his face besides the fact that it was tanned. It also seemed to be framed by some sort of dark blue fabric, either a crude bandage or a bandana, I wasn’t sure which. I did manage to make out the gleam of his little eyes, bulging with apprehension.

He was waiting for me to answer, I could tell. But I wanted to see him sweat, and so I didn’t say a word as I lifted Owen up. I transferred my little boyfriend into the pocket of my hoodie, still watching the gang at my feet. The remnants of humanity had gathered into groups like this one, and most of those groups tended to be violent toward one another. You’d think that people would work together, especially considering how terrible the world had become, but they hadn’t. They weren’t much better than that feral dog from the grocery store.

Fucking disgusting little monsters. The tiny man with the bandana disappeared from my view as I raised one foot over him, although I could still hear his choked gasp. I let my sneaker settle down atop him, and if I concentrated, I could feel the desperate pummeling of his fists against the sole. The scratching abruptly ended when I pressed his body against the sidewalk, allowing some of my weight to bear down on him.

“Does that hurt?” I asked him, grinning. His response was a strained “Umph,” followed by a piercing bleat as I stepped down. He was so soft, so fragile, and I felt something bend and then break beneath my foot. The shrieking increased, and it made me smile even wider. I noticed that none of his companions were helping him; they just stood there, watching with shocked expressions as I slowly ground their friend against the concrete.

The man was starting to plead with me, his squeaky voice muffled by my sneaker. “Jesus Christ, yes! It hurts! It hurts! Let me go! Let me goooo!”

I smiled down viciously at him. “I don’t think so.”

Ever so slowly, I applied more and more weight. The screams rose higher and higher, then ended all at once, replaced by a sharp, wet crunch. A thin stream of blood squirted out, bright red against the sidewalk. When I lifted my foot, I saw that the man was on his back, his limbs spread out as if he had been trying to make a snow angel. His right side had ruptured, intestines and other organs spilling out in a glistening, scarlet mess.

My eyes moved to his face, where his mouth gaped open, blood trickling from between his lips. Disdainfully, I brought my foot back down onto the corpse, this time grinding and smearing it across the sidewalk. By the time that I was finished, the thug was nothing more than mashed flesh and shards of bone, a small and pathetic stain on the pavement.

The other thugs finally reacted when they saw me scraping the mutilated remains of their leader onto the curb. They scattered in all directions, running for the safety of storm drains and other hiding places. Maybe they would have made it, if they had been bigger and faster. But at their reduced size, it was easy for me to catch them. One by one, I snatched them up, cupping them in my hand. Some of them fought me, but even those with weapons couldn’t do much more than annoy me. One man with a greasy blond ponytail tried to stab me near my thumb nail, and so I nudged him until he plummeted from my hand. He splattered near the flattened corpse of his friend, adding to the blood on the sidewalk. Just to be spiteful, I crushed his body underfoot as well, smashing him like a cigarette butt.

I placed the nine survivors, two women and seven men, into my backpack. They made faint scuffling sounds, probably clawing at the fabric. But there was no way that they were getting out, especially after I had zipped up the bag.

“I think we have everything that we need,” I told Owen as we headed back home.

***

Our current home was the penthouse of a billionaire, one of the most expensive residences in the city. Back when I was working as a secretary, I couldn’t even imagine living in such luxury. Owen and I had shared a tiny efficiency apartment with a bathtub that never drained properly and windows that often jammed. Now I could live anywhere I wanted, and so I chose the most opulent place that I could find.

It also happened to be on the top floor, and since the elevators didn’t work without electricity, I had to take the stairs. I was exhausted by the time that I stumbled through the doorway of the penthouse and dropped the backpack on the floor. I wasn’t particularly gentle when I put it down, but then again, I didn’t really care about the tiny captives inside.

Once I had closed the door, I collapsed onto one of the leather couches and gazed out through the huge floor-to-ceiling window at the setting sun. Soon it would be night, which meant that I would have to go around and light candles everywhere. Being able to flip a switch and turn on the lights was yet another thing that I sorely missed. Oh, and television. And the internet. Most nights, Owen and I kept ourselves entertained by reading or playing cards (which was hilarious, because it was a monumental task for him to flip a card over).

But tonight, I had other entertainment in mind.

I removed Owen from my pocket, wrapping my fingers around his little form and pulling him out. The first few times that I had picked him up, I had nearly broken his ribcage, but I had quickly learned how to hold his body so that I didn’t damage it. Other people I wasn’t so careful with; in fact, I purposely squeezed and pinched whenever I grabbed them, listening to the pained sounds that they made. They never sounded like people, more like frightened little animals, yipping and howling and squeaking.

“Are you okay?” I asked Owen, holding him up to my face so that I could inspect him. He looked shaken, but I didn’t see any bruises or other signs of injury.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he replied.

“I can’t believe those bastards had the balls to attack you.” I glanced over at the backpack, which was now half-hidden in shadow.  “I can’t believe that humanity’s been reduced to that. A bunch of subhuman degenerates.”

Owen was silent, and his expression was…sad? Angry? Disappointed? I couldn’t really tell.

“I’m going to get changed,” I said, putting him down on the couch and standing up. By that time, the sun was almost below the horizon, and I could barely see the silhouettes of the skyscrapers through the window. It was amazing how dark everything became when there wasn’t a single light in the city. Picking up a box of matches, I went around lighting an assortment of candles, scented candles and holiday candles and everything else that I had been able to find during my scavenger trips. Then I headed into the bathroom.

It was a beautiful bathroom, probably designed by a highly-paid interior decorator. It even had a jacuzzi tub, which, like so many other things in this world, was useless without electricity. So I had to use the buckets of rainwater that I had collected and stored in the tub. I stripped out of my dirty clothes, and using a rag and one of the buckets of water, I carefully washed the grime from my body. The sneakers came off last, and I could see the dried blood caked on the soles. There was a scrap of fabric there as well, a ragged piece of my victim’s clothing.

As I examined the bottoms of the shoes, I had to admit that crushing those tiny fuckers had felt good. Months ago, I never would have admitted that. Back when the Event had first happened, I had tried to convince myself that I hadn’t changed at all, that I still had the same moral compass as before. I had stolen what I had needed, but it wasn’t until the incident at the rest stop that I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t the same as I had been.

The incident had occurred six weeks after the Event. We had been moving from town to town in search of people. That particular day, I had found a motorcycle and we had driven down the highway for miles and miles, avoiding the abandoned cars that were all over the road. We probably would have kept going if Owen hadn’t said that he was hungry, and so we had stopped at the first rest area that came into view.

We had been lucky; there had been a row of fully-stocked vending machines in the rest stop. I had left Owen behind while I went in search of a crowbar or something else that was heavy enough to smash the machines open. I had eventually found a big rock outside, and I was carrying it back to the vending machine when I heard the strangled screeching sounds. Of course, I had been curious, and when I investigated the noises, I had spotted two shrunken men. There had been a tiny woman as well, sprawled out on the ground with her brightly-patterned dress hiked up around her hips. Everything about the scene had been wrong: the way that one man had held the woman down, the way that her mouth had been contorted into a grimace of suffering, the way that the other man had been trying to take off his pants.

It hadn’t taken a genius to figure out what they were doing to the woman, and my first thought had been to smash the men with the rock. But I hadn’t done that. Instead, I had dropped the rock, startling all three tiny people. One guy had tried to run for some overgrown grass, but I had pursued him with dogged determination. Without even slowing down, I had stepped on him, my foot landing on his little body with tremendous force. There had been a wet, disgusting crunch, and my sneaker had skidded slightly on the man’s blood and jellied flesh.

The other man had started to plead when I snatched him up, but I don’t even remember what he had said. I do remember the horrified look in his eyes, though. It had been the look of a small prey animal, one that understood that it was doomed. I had felt nothing but predatory satisfaction as I squeezed his minuscule head between my thumb and index finger, his brains exploding out through his face. At my feet, the shrunken woman had shrieked like a possessed thing. In retrospect, she probably had been more terrified of me than the men. I had ignored her, wiping my crimson fingers on the grass and retrieving the rock.

I should have experienced an intense, all-consuming guilt. But strangely, I had only felt a weird sense of longing, like a starving woman who had only been given a small nibble of bread. I replayed the memory over and over, always wanting to feel guilt, and always feeling none. The only thing that I felt was that grim and yet wonderful sort of satisfaction.

And now, standing in the bathroom, studying the blood-smeared sneakers, I experienced that satisfaction again.

***

By candlelight, I dressed in clean clothes and then stared at myself in the mirror. It was astonishing to see how much I had changed in just a few months. I had always kept my brownish-black hair short, but since I was too lazy to cut it, my hair was beginning to grow in an unruly sort of way. I had also lost a significant amount of weight, so my cheeks were sunken, my eye sockets cavernous. In other words, I didn’t look all that great. Did Owen notice the change? Possibly, although he had never said anything. He never said anything about the other changes, either.

Owen was still on the couch when I walked back into the living room. He started to say something, but I strode right by him.

“Amelia?” He asked as I bent down, unzipping the backpack.

“What?” I peered into the darkness of the backpack, and then dipped my hand in, pulling out the boxes and jars of food.

He hesitated for a second, then said, “What are you going to do with them?”

Good question. I could see movement in the bottom of the backpack, which meant that my captives were still alive. When I reached down, I felt tiny hands hitting my fingers, but the blows didn’t hurt at all. I must have used too much pressure when I tried to grab the first person, because I felt something squish against my palm. Warm, sticky wetness splashed over my fingers, and I released whatever was left of the shrunken person. That was too bad, but at least there were still several captives left. I snatched up another thug, this time making sure that I didn’t crush them by accident.

It was one of the women, her long tangles of raven hair dirty and unwashed. She was clearly terrified, quivering so hard in my hand that I thought that she was having a seizure at first. Even when I relaxed my grip, she continued to twitch and shiver, breathing hard through her mouth.

“Hello there.” I grinned at her, and she began to cry, her sobs loud and barking.

“I’m really sorry! I-I didn’t have anything to do with it! I was just there! D-don’t hurt me!”

I pretended to be concerned. “Did I say that I was going to hurt you?”

The tiny woman stopped crying and glanced up at me hopefully, her face slick with tears. “S-so you’re not going to hurt me?”

I didn’t say anything. Instead, I studied the tiny woman in my hand. She was so light, so small and inconsequential. It wasn’t like holding a living doll at all…I was keenly aware that she was a person, one with delicate bones and a frantically beating heart. When I moved my hand too quickly, she gasped, and that little noise filled me with wicked delight. I realized that I wanted her to scream until her throat was raw and her voice was hoarse.

“What’s your name?” I tried to make myself sound cool and aloof, but I was too excited to pull it off.

“Ph-Phoebe.” The tiny woman looked like she was about to faint. “L-listen, it-it was all Mike’s idea.”

“Uh-huh,” I replied, reaching for one of the candles with my free hand. I honestly didn’t care who this “Mike” person was. He may have been one of the captives in the backpack, or he may have been one of the corpses smeared all over the sidewalk. Moreover, I didn’t care whether he had coerced Phoebe into helping him or not. She had been there, she was guilty, she was going to be punished.

I held the candle near the small woman, illuminating her frightened features. To me, it was nothing more than a tiny flame; to her, it was as large as a roaring bonfire. Instinctively she pulled her head away, terrified of the fire.

“I’m s-s-sorry! Don’t huarrrgghhhh!” Phoebe’s pleas transformed into anguished howls as the flame touched her head. The tangled clumps of hair burst into flame, and she writhed spasmodically in my hand. I watched her batting at her fiery head for a few seconds; then I set her on the floor. Phoebe had managed to put out the fire, but her scalp was a blackened, hairless mess, and she didn’t move much when I put her down.

I prodded her with a fingertip, expecting her to turn her head or moan. When she didn’t react, I dismissed her and went for her companions in the backpack. I was only vaguely aware that Owen was observing everything. A year ago, I would have been horrified at the notion of committing such atrocities in front of him. But now I didn’t feel any shame, and it was powerfully liberating.

Once again, I peeked into the backpack. Several of the little captives were trying to climb up the sides of the bag, and failing miserably. They started to panic when they saw my face far above them. I reached in with both hands, plucking up two more thugs. They were young men, no more than nineteen or twenty years old, and I leered at them as they struggled feebly in my hands.

“Hey, put me down, you big bitch!” One of them shouted. I don’t know if he was trying to be brave, or if he was just stupid. His face blanched as I brought him eye level, my fingers constricting tighter and tighter until he couldn’t make a sound.

As he fought to breathe, I studied him. I briefly wondered who he had been before the Event; then I realized that I didn’t care very much. Whoever he had been was long gone, and he was now reduced to a pathetic, wiggling thing. I liked watching him slowly suffocate, and a tingle of pleasure coursed through me. Then another thought occurred to me, something dark and primal and awful, and I shivered as I considered it.

But I was free to do whatever I wanted, anything at all. So why not just do it?

I eased my grip, and the man gulped down breaths greedily. Tilting my head back, I lifted him over my head and opened my mouth wide. It must have dawned on him what I planned to do, because he started to shriek and protest, thrashing in my hand. His cries were driving me wild, and I savored them as I lowered him down toward my mouth The tiny man lashed out, drumming his legs against my lips, kicking with all of his strength.

Once I could feel him against my incisors, I bit down. Not hard, but with just enough pressure to sever his legs. Salty, coppery blood pattered down onto my teeth and tongue as he howled hysterically. I laughed at his anguish before I let him go, his body bouncing against my tongue and inner cheek.  He didn’t squirm as much as I thought that he would (probably because he was bleeding to death), although I did feel his tiny hands scratching against the roof of my mouth. I imagined that it was horrifying for him, to be trapped in a hot, humid prison of flesh, his legs reduced to ragged stumps.

With my tongue, I rolled him underneath my molars, positioning his body as if it were a morsel of food. I bit tentatively, then harder and harder, feeling the man’s soft squishiness as he exploded between my teeth. I had never been a fan of raw meat; dishes like sashimi had always disgusted me. But I didn’t care about the taste as I carefully chewed the man up. No, it was the sensation of ending him so brutally that delighted me.

I paused, deliberating whether or not I wanted to swallow his remains. But I had a better idea. I bent down over the backpack, where the shrunken captives huddled inside, their beady eyes gleaming in the candlelight. I looked down at them, smiled horribly. They flinched at the sight of my bloody teeth, and they shrieked when I spat the chum-like remains of their companion at them. Still smiling, I wiped my lips with the back of my hand.

Man, they looked like shit. For some reason, that cracked me up. I giggled as they frantically tried to wipe the pulverized chunks of flesh from their clothes and hair. One woman retched and dry-heaved, bent over double.

I turned my attention to the other man in my fist, who seemed completely shellshocked.

“Don’t worry…I haven’t forgotten about you,” I told him. He was too petrified to reply as I tore off his clothes, not bothering to be gentle. I flung the scraps of fabric aside, gazing down at the minuscule, naked body on my palm. He was athletically built, muscular without being overly buff, and he was too frightened to even bother to hide his nudity from me. I raised him to my lips, my tongue darting out to lick his entire body in one sweep. That must have dragged him out of his stupor, because he screeched something incoherently as I sucked him into my mouth.

His cries became muffled as I closed my lips, and I felt them more than heard them as they reverberated up through my skull. Working up a mouthful of saliva, I concentrated on what I was about to do next. It wasn’t easy swallowing an inch tall person, but I did it quickly, before he got a chance to fight too much. It was like gulping down a huge, living pill, and I felt a small burst of triumph as my tongue and throat muscles overwhelmed my victim.

The tiny body tumbled down the length of my esophagus, then into my stomach. To my amusement, I felt his struggles, although they were faint and fluttery. I tried to picture him, trapped in humid blackness, shrieking at the top of his lungs until he suffocated within me. When his movements ceased, I stretched, feeling oddly sated. There were still some captives in the backpack, but for now, I ignored them. I sat down on the couch, next to Owen.

Most of the time, he would come over to me and climb up onto my leg. But he remained where he was, staring up at me. I started to ask him what was wrong, then I noticed that his expression was identical to that of the shrunken woman at the rest area. The same disgust, the same terror, the same distrust. His lips were peeled away from his teeth in an awful rictus, and he cringed when I reached for him.

“Jesus, Owen, what’s your problem?” I demanded, annoyed. He said nothing, so I grabbed him. The piercing scream that he let out startled us both, and I almost dropped him. Fortunately, I managed to hold onto him.

Owen trembled between my fingers. “Amelia, please, don’t…”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t kill me.”

“Kill you? What are you talking about?” I chuckled at the ridiculousness of the idea, but my laughter sounded forced. In my hand, Owen looked away, refusing to meet my eyes. It was worse than anything that he could said. My heart sank, but only for a moment. How dare he judge me? Those people were just vermin, nothing more. I was doing the world a favor by getting rid of them.

“Amelia—,” he began, and I jammed him into my pocket, not wanting to hear it. He was reduced to a small, squirming lump in my jeans as I sat there, watching the backpack. I thought about the tiny people in there, most likely whispering to one another, trying to devise an escape plan before I came back for them. What if I just let them go? That was certainly an option, but I realized that I didn’t want to let them go. No, I wanted to hear them scream like their companions.

I shifted on the couch, uncomfortable aroused.

Fuck it, I was going to do what I wanted. I stood up, Owen’s minuscule body pressed up against my thigh. He mumbled something, but I couldn’t make it out as I grabbed the backpack and a candle. The shrieking renewed in the bag, high-pitched trills that only sounded vaguely human.

I brought them into the bedroom, the blood rushing in my ears. The candle didn’t provide much light, but that was fine. I preferred the darkness as I removed my clothes, being careful not to squash Owen by accident. I left him in my jeans pocket, struggling under the weight of the denim. Once I was finished with this, I’d fish him out.

The screams intensified as I upended the backpack over the king-sized bed. Tiny figures tumbled down onto the bedspread, their expressions filled with horror. Two of my captives dashed for the edge of the bed, but I moved swiftly, cutting off their escape. They stared up the length of my body, although they didn’t dare to meet my eyes.

“Aren’t you guys gonna beg?” I slammed my hands down on either side of them, bouncing them violently. They didn’t make a sound, just stared up at me in shock. I leaned forward, and they quickly crawled backwards, toward the others. I climbed up onto the bed after them, moving with a slow deliberateness. Let the little bastards know that they were trapped, that I was coming for them. The futility of their situation thrilled me.

Feeling more aroused than I had in months, I bared my teeth at the thugs lustfully. Most of the time, I felt too uneasy to do anything sexual with Owen, afraid that I would break every bone in his little body. But since I didn’t care if I smashed these insects, I showed them the full brutality of my desire. I slowly lowered my torso down onto them, and one man didn’t get out of the way in time. He crunched beneath one of my breasts, his frail form unable to withstand my weight.

I laughed at the survivors dashing across the bed, and then I grabbed them, their limbs sticking out from between my fingers. Rolling over onto my back, I gave my captives a small squeeze to make them shriek. Every nerve in my body seemed to be hypersensitive, and my lower belly tightened with warm pleasure.

I clenched harder and harder, and blood sluggishly dribbled down my wrist, black in the candlelight. I saw it, and I saw myself, and I felt only delight. The orgasm tore through me a minute later, and I clung onto the pleasure for as long as I possibly could. Once it had faded, I was only left with an empty feeling and cold, tacky blood on my fingers and palms.

Rising up, I trudged to the bathroom, washed my hands in a bucket. I went to retrieve my clothes and Owen, although as soon as I pulled him from the jeans pocket, he began to wail.

“Stay away from me!” He screamed, punching at my fingers as I picked him up.

“What’s wrong with you, Owen?” I placed him on the bed and put my clothes back on. 

“What’s wrong with me?! You should be asking what’s wrong with you!” His voice was strangled with almost crazed terror.

I narrowed my eyes. So this was how it was, huh? I had taken care of him, protected him, and he repaid me with this insolence. My hands balled up into tight fists, and I thought about how easy it would be to flatten him, just like I had with the others.

And then the thought passed, and I stared down into his fear-struck face. Jamming my hands into my hoodie, I spun around and stomped from the room, leaving Owen behind. Let the little fucker starve to death, or be eaten by rats. I was out of here, off to somewhere else.

It may have been my imagination, but I thought I heard him call out to me once last time. But I didn’t stop to listen; instead, I lowered my head and kept walking.

The guard didn’t bother to look closely at Elaine’s ID card as she pulled up to the gate. It was dusk, the last orangish-gold rays of sunlight filtering over the horizon, and she was probably tired and ready to get off her shift. Besides, Elaine was a familiar face, with her dirty-blonde hair and freckles scattered over her upturned nose. The guard waved her through and she found a parking spot right away. Not a lot of people worked this shift, which always made parking easy.

Elaine took a moment to gather up her things, placing her worn paperback novel into her purse. Technically, she wasn’t supposed to be reading on the job, but most nights were so uneventful and boring that she figured that she could break a few rules.

She slid out of the car, startled at how frigid it was outside. Considering that the base was high up in the mountains, she shouldn’t have been surprised. Still, as her breath steamed up around her mouth in white clouds, she shivered and pulled her coat closer to her body. A few more minutes and she’d be inside, where it was warm.

The building where she worked was the largest on the base, built into the side of a mountain. Through the iridescent sparkle of Barrier 2, she could see the structure, impossibly huge and utterly featureless. It looked like something that the federal government would build, dark gray concrete with only a handful of tiny windows. A passerby, someone who wasn’t aware of its purpose, would just view it as a colossal waste of tax dollars. In reality, it was a critical facility, especially considering what was contained within it.

When Elaine reached the guard shack outside of Barrier 2, she took out her ID again. The proximity of the force field made her skin tingle subtly. The physicists had once explained what it was to her but since she didn’t understand most of what they said, she still referred to it as “the force field.” She looked over at the barrier, which shimmered with all kinds of colors, ice-blues and pale-pinks and deep-greens, and then back at the guard.

Today it was Lucy Walters, a short, sturdy woman who reminded Elaine of a Tolkien dwarf. She was extremely friendly, though, and she talked Elaine’s ear off after a cursory glance at the ID card.

“Did you know that today is National Carrot Cake Day?” Lucy asked. She had a pronounced Minnesota accent, although she always argued that she didn’t.

The cold was beginning to get to Elaine and she shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Nope, I had no idea.”

“It sure is. Did I ever tell you about my low-cal carrot cake recipe? It doesn’t taste as good as the original recipe, but it’s not too bad. I’ve been trying to get my husband Carl to eat it, but gosh, he’s so picky. ‘Carl,’ I said to him, ‘You really could stand to lose a few pounds.’”

“How’s the prisoner been?” Elaine tried to change subject. The other woman’s round face visibly darkened and her brow beetled.

“Oh, you know. The same. He doesn’t do much, besides just sit there. It’s hard to believe that a fellow like that could do all of that horrible stuff.”

Elaine nodded. That was certainly true. She hadn’t expected Lucy to answer differently, but at least it had ended the conversation. She finally made it through Barrier 2 and hurried into the immense building, her teeth chattering.

The inside of the facility was as dismal as the outside, with long beige corridors and cheap tile floors. But at least it was warm. Elaine headed to the locker room and changed into her guard uniform, her flesh chafing under the stiff tan fabric. She pulled her blonde hair back, inspected herself in the small locker mirror. Okay, so she wasn’t a super model. Or even a model. But she wasn’t bad looking, was she? Maybe if she started wearing some foundation and a little lipstick, she’d look less worn-out.

Elaine closed the locker with a bang, shoving those thoughts away at the same time. She took a moment to look at her romance novel, something that she had picked up at the small grocery store in town. There was a tanned cowboy on the cover, the sort of man who was almost unbelievably handsome. A ten-gallon hat was pulled down roguishly over his face, but what she could see of it was ruggedly attractive, with a well-defined jaw and a white-toothed smile. Elaine tried to imagine what he’d sound like, whether he would have a Texas drawl.

“Why, I’d love to take you out for a ride, Miss Kolbeck,” he said in her fantasy, reaching down for her hand.

Then Elaine noticed the time, panicked, and scurried out of the locker room. Fortunately, the security room was nearby and she made it with a few seconds to spare. Mya Harnett, the other security guard, glanced up as she slid into her chair. She was a slender brunette who looked like she might snap her own bones by accident, her dark eyes wide-set like a pug’s.

“You’re late,” Mya declared, a smug little grin on her face.

“I’m not late. It’s 5:00 PM right now.”

Mya’s self-satisfied smile didn’t waver as she pushed up her sleeve and pointed at her thin wrist. It was 5:06 PM, according to her coworker’s watch.

“Your watch is fast,” Elaine replied, putting her book out of sight.

“It’s not fast, and I’m going to have to let Dr. Nichols know that you were late again.” Mya pretended to sound concerned, but Elaine noticed the mean-spirited glee in her voice. “You know, if you keep this up, you won’t have a job.”

Elaine didn’t bother to fight with Mya. Arguing with her would only make it worse, and besides, Dr. Nichols was too busy with the prisoner to listen to her coworker’s constant complaints. So Elaine went through her nightly routine, checking all of the cameras and pretending that she didn’t dislike Mya. The worst part was that she didn’t even know when the animosity between the two of them had started. It just always seemed to be there.

She studied the screens in front of her, where the prison cell was displayed from various angles. It was a vast cell, as large as several football stadiums, and crouched in one corner was the prisoner. At first glance, he looked like a normal man dressed in a short-sleeved gray prison outfit, his head bent so that his face was out of view. But considering the size of the cell, the prisoner had to be colossal, more on the scale of Godzilla than a human being.

It was difficult to believe that one person had caused such carnage. It would have been understandable if he had been a general or a dictator with thousands of soldiers at his command, but the idea of a single man wiping out entire cities was difficult to accept. Elaine had seen the news footage of his rampages; in fact, she had followed them with an almost unhealthy obsession. She still had some of the bloodiest footage on her tablet and she’d watch it with a guilty fascination.

“He’s still unresponsive,” Mya told her. “He pretty much sits around there all day. Personally, I think they should just kill him.”

Elaine continued to study the screens. “I think they’ve tried.”

***

Most of the personnel at the prison were women; Dr. Nichols believed that the giant would probably act less aggressive toward females than other males. Once, Elaine had overheard her talking about primate territorial behavior and she wondered what that had to do with anything. But the psychologist was the one with all of the fancy degrees, and so Elaine assumed that she was correct.

Dr. Nichols was an energetic and overwhelming woman, always gesturing and waving her hands whenever she spoke. From the security room, Elaine watched her hands jerk and quiver as she tried to speak to the giant for the thousandth time. The questions were the same each night, as was the prisoner’s silence.

“I’m Alexandra Nichols. Can you tell me your name?” the psychologist asked from behind the shimmering barrier that surrounded the cell. Not surprisingly, the giant didn’t answer. Elaine’s gaze shifted from the silver-haired woman to the gargantuan prisoner, who completely dwarfed everything around him. Although he was hunched over, she could still see the broadness of his shoulders, the thick cords of muscles in his arms. He would have been a powerful man, even if he hadn’t been the size of a skyscraper.

“Are you comfortable? I’ve noticed that you haven’t eaten much,” Dr. Nichols continued. Actually, the giant hadn’t eaten anything. They brought him truckloads of food, enough to feed hundreds of people, and he never touched any of it. Perhaps he didn’t need to eat anymore. Or perhaps his diet had changed. Elaine remembered seeing a gruesome video in which he had ripped open a subway car and ate the screaming people inside, devouring them like gummy bears.

“We could get you something else to eat, if you prefer,” the psychologist said. Right, like panicked commuters. Despite herself, Elaine smirked. When Mya glanced over at her, she quickly adjusted her expression to one of carefully-cultivated indifference. On the screens, the giant didn’t even bother to acknowledge Dr. Nichols. Shaggy reddish-brown hair, the color of rust or dried blood, hung down in front of his face and so Elaine couldn’t even see if he was looking at the woman.

Dr. Nichols’ hands fluttered. “I just want to let you know that we are more than willing to work with you.”

The giant said nothing.

“You’d think that she’d figure out that he’s not going to talk to her,” Mya commented. Elaine didn’t answer; her eyes were on the giant.

***

During her break, Elaine went down to the lunch room to get something from the vending machine. She spent a minute trying to choose between the trail mix and the pretzels, and then decided that she wasn’t hungry. Since she still had some time, she wandered down the hallway until she reached the impressive steel doors with the warning “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY” on them. Since she was considered authorized personnel, she swiped her ID card and stepped inside.

The air inside was refrigerator-cool and made her skin prickle slightly; she suspected that was due to the iridescent barrier that filled most of the space. There weren’t many people around, a few techs and guards. Dr. Nichols had probably gone home for the night, discouraged once more. Elaine fit right in with the other guards, and no one said anything as she walked along the perimeter of the gargantuan cell.

She stopped when she was directly across from the giant. Even though she had seen him this close several times before, it was still incredible to see someone that big. It was difficult for her mind to accept that what she was looking at was a living, sentient being. Even when he stirred slightly, she continued to have some trouble reconciling what her eyes were seeing and what her brain expected to see.

Just think, a few months ago, he had been striding from city to city, leaving nothing more than smoldering ruins in his wake. One brave (and very foolish) news crew had followed him in a helicopter when he had left Los Angeles, his muscular body painted with grime and blood. He had looked so inhumanly monstrous in that video, his mouth stretched in a demonic grin. Elaine had shivered as she had paused the video, wanting and needing to see every inch of him.

Now she stared at him with the same intensity, her heart hammering so hard that she almost missed the slight tingle in her head. The sensation was almost like the electric current of the barrier, but much more subtle. Sort of like a microscopic person was crawling around inside of her skull, caressing her brain with his minute hands.

Ever so slowly, the giant raised his head and gazed directly at her.

His enormous eyes were a deep, rich brown and she saw the barrier reflected in them. The knowledge that he was staring at her, that he had noticed her existence, was terrifying yet exhilarating. Elaine’s heart sped up and when she tried to swallow, her mouth was suddenly too dry. All she could do was gape stupidly as the corners of his lips turned upwards.

The giant smiled at her.

Elaine had had men smile at her before. True, they had been guys at the bar that she sometimes visited, and most of them were so drunk that they were practically falling off the barstools. But the giant’s smile was so warm and inviting and vaguely familiar. Like the cowboy on the cover of her novel, she realized. She shuddered pleasantly.

“Hey, Elaine!” One of the techs called out and the giant’s smile vanished instantly, his head and shoulders drooping back down. The weird mental itching ceased as well, leaving her vaguely confused. Slowly, Elaine waved to the tech, all the while wondering if she had imagined the whole thing.

***

When Elaine got home from work, her Jack Russell terrier came bounding up to her, practically jumping up and down.

“Oh, hi, Fred,” she said, stroking the dog’s back and thinking about the giant. During the rest of her shift, she had replayed the scene in her mind, trying to decide whether he had purposely smiled at her. So what if he had? People smiled, even if they were five hundred feet tall. Except the giant had never displayed any sort of emotion before. He never grinned or frowned or grimaced. Instead, he usually just sat there, a blank expression on his titanic face.

“It probably didn’t mean anything,” Elaine told the dog, who continued to wag his stumpy tail. “Right?”

Fred’s tongue lolled out of his mouth.

She fed him and then went into her bedroom. The dog tried to follow but she shooed him away, closing the door and locking it. As Fred whimpered pitifully, Elaine turned on her tablet and sprawled out on the bed. Most nights, she would pretend to be interested in things like the weather or reading her email, but tonight, she didn’t even bother. She found the folder on her desktop, opened it, and began to scroll through the files.

Most of the more violent and controversial videos had been removed from the various news sites, although Elaine had saved many of them before that happened. She chose one of the clips that she had watched dozens of times before, feeling simultaneously excited and disgusted at what she was about to do. Propping the tablet up on her pillows, she pressed play, watching with rapt fascination. Where had this taken place? San Francisco? Annapolis? It was too dark to see much except for the police officers, zigzagging and screaming to one another. In the distance, an immense and ominous shape loomed, its head lowered, glaring down at them.

Elaine closed her eyes, pretending that she was there. For a moment, she could feel the warm wind against her skin and as she watched, the police officers crouched behind their vehicles. They looked like cornered animals, their pale faces lit by the flashing red and blue and white lights. Even if she hadn’t watched the video, she would have known that they were doomed. The giant took one step, his massive foot landing atop one of the police cruisers and crushing it as though it were made of flimsy tinfoil instead of steel. Anyone unfortunate enough to be in that vehicle was now an unrecognizable mass of bloody jelly, their body permanently melded with the flattened remains of the cruiser.

As the huge foot sank deep into the asphalt, Elaine slid her hand down into her pants, instinctively finding her clitoris. She listened intently to the sounds of mayhem, the dying screams and the reverberating booms. Her mind was fractured at that point; one part of her understood the awfulness of what she was doing, while the other part didn’t care. All that she felt was a blissful pleasure, and she came just as the video ended.

***

The next day Elaine was ten minutes early for work, so Mya couldn’t say anything. They ignored one another for the most part, trying to make themselves look busy. Elaine was in the middle of reorganizing several folders on her computer when she heard a whispery voice: “I saw what you did.”

Elaine glanced over at Mya, who was sifting through a stack of papers. “What did you say?”

“I didn’t say anything.” The other guard frowned, annoyed.

She must have been hearing things. At least, that was her excuse until she heard the voice again, too distinct to be a figment of her imagination: “I saw you watching that video of me. You enjoyed it, didn’t you? What I did to that city.”

The chair almost tipped over as Elaine leapt up, her body trembling. Mya didn’t ask if she was okay, just threw a disapproving look in her direction. She made a soft grunt as Elaine pushed by her on the way to the bathroom. Normally, she would be irritated with Mya, but her thoughts were focused entirely on what she had heard. Was she going crazy? As she stumbled down the empty hallway toward the bathroom, she imagined a concerned psychiatrist seated at his desk, his hands clasped together as he informed her that she had schizophrenia.

“But you don’t,” the voice said, and Elaine looked around wildly, trying to find the speaker. As she searched in vain, the voice continued, “You’re not insane at all, and I can prove it.”

Elaine didn’t move, not at first. The hallway took on a dreamlike quality, the harsh fluorescent lights becoming soft and muted. Almost on their own accord, her legs moved, carrying her down the corridor toward the steel doors and the “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY” sign. Elaine watched her hand rise up and swipe her access card, the doors unlocking. She blinked, her mind still foggy, as she stepped over the threshold into the vast room.

It was only when she saw the prisoner that she snapped out of the bizarre trance. She shivered in the frosty air, feeling horribly and inexplicably violated. Maybe it was the stress, she thought. That could definitely be it. If she took a long vacation, someplace nice but not too expensive, that may do the trick…

Through the barrier, the giant was staring at her, the shimmering, pastel lights reflected off of his cheekbones and forehead. Elaine felt her palms start to sweat, and she unconsciously wiped them on her uniform trousers. The sight of the gargantuan prisoner filled her with so many conflicting emotions. Fear, but also desire, and excitement. Nervously she licked her lips, tasting the cheap, cherry-flavored lip gloss.

“Pick a number between one and five,” the voice told her. This was ridiculous, she thought. She needed to get back to her desk before someone asked why she was here. Her eyes still on the colossus, she started to back away, toward the doors. For some reason, a number appeared in her head: three.

The giant shifted slightly, which was incredible to see, given his massive size. His right hand moved, and Elaine’s eyes widened as he held up one huge finger, the digit as long as a canoe. Then a second finger, and finally a third. Three, just like she had thought.

“Y-you,” Elaine quavered, and the voice in her head whispered, “Yes.”

***

When she was back at her desk, Elaine halfheartedly watched the monitors, her mind on the giant. Had he really communicated with her? If so, it had to be some sort of telepathy. But was telepathy even possible? Elaine thought about all of the late-night shows about psychics, and how she had laughed at them. It had seemed utterly impossible, but then again, so was the idea of a skyscraper-sized person.

For several hours, she hadn’t heard anything else from him. Then, when she was about to go on her lunch break, the voice invaded her mind once more:

“You think about what I did a lot, don’t you?”

Elaine snuck a glance at Mya, who was busily scribbling something on a pad of paper. It was evident that she couldn’t hear the voice, and she continued to write, head bent, as Elaine swallowed hard.

“No, I don’t,” she thought, which was an outrageous lie. Eerie laughter bubbled up in Elaine’s brain as he chuckled at her, and she felt her cheeks burn like two hot coals.

“Oh? Is that right? I bet when you go home, you’ll sit on your bed and watch those videos again. You’ll tell yourself that it’s harmless, won’t you? But you’ll think about them, and about me,” the voice replied.

Elaine’s cheeks were still flushed crimson, and she pretended to study her fingernails, hoping that nosy Mya wouldn’t look at her. She had bitten the nails down to the quick, and they looked stubby and ragged.

“What are you?” She thought, and when there was no answer, she figured that he had severed the telepathic connection.

“I was a person, once,” he said at last. “But not anymore.”

“Why did you contact me, and not someone like Dr. Nichols?” Her hands started to shake, and so she curled them up into tight fists.

“I know a kindred spirit when I see one.”

Mya’s shrill voice interrupted the telepathic conversation. “Elaine, have you seen last week’s activity report? You should really clean up your desk, by the way.”

Stupid bitch, Elaine thought furiously, and the giant apparently heard it, because he laughed again.

“You hate her, don’t you?” He asked, almost gently. Slowly, she unclenched her hands, her fingers now as red as her face. Elaine didn’t respond, but he already knew what she was going to say. His telepathic voice was seductive, soothing, as he said, “I can help you.”

***

Elaine often fantasized before she drifted off to sleep, lingering on all kinds of scenarios as she laid there with Fred at her feet. Most of the time, the fantasies were spin-offs of the novels that she was reading, and so they involved rugged cowboys or moody vampire pretty boys fawning over her. But ever since she heard the captive’s telepathic voice, she imagined him instead. He would hold her in his palm, or on his shoulder, and she would watch as the world was slowly crushed beneath his tread.

Because that was the other aspect of these new daydreams: the giant was always free.

***

He began to tell her more things, usually at random intervals, carefully feeding her bits of information. Elaine listened avidly to everything that he said, watching him through the monitors. Even with his neutral expression he was so handsome, his powerful shoulders slouched as he sat there in a semi-comatose state.

“What a big freak,” Mya commented one night, popping a piece of gum into her mouth. As Elaine glared at the other guard, the captive’s voice crept into her head: “Wouldn’t it be better if she were gone?”

“Yes,” Elaine silently agreed.

“Then bring her to me.”

***

“What’s taking so long?” Mya demanded, her hands on her hips. She pursued her lips as Elaine unlocked the prison doors, her eyes gleaming with suspicion. When Elaine had lied to her, saying that Dr. Nichols needed them, she hadn’t said much. The psychologist was around tonight, so the lie wasn’t completely implausible.

“Sorry about that,” Elaine said, smiling insincerely. She allowed Mya to step through first, then followed her. Their breaths fogged in the air as they approached the mammoth cell, where the giant huddled in the corner as usual. He was so still that Elaine could hardly tell that he was alive; only the slight rise and fall of his chest indicated that he wasn’t dead. There were enormous containers of food piled up, untouched as usual.

“So where’s Dr. Nichols?” The other woman glanced around the room, searching for the psychologist.

“She’s coming.” They were right near the barrier, so close that Elaine could feel the tingle of electricity. The control panel was nearby as well, and as Mya stood there, loudly snapping her gum and watching the giant, Elaine’s punched in the access code. Barrier 1 flashed brilliantly, the colors darkening and swirling together; then, a human-sized doorway emerged. No one had used it for weeks, and Mya seemed confused as to why Elaine had opened it.

“Why did—,” Mya started, her sentence interrupted when Elaine shoved her roughly through the opening. She stumbled, the wad of gum falling from her mouth, and Elaine saw the rage and confusion on her face just before she closed the doorway. A second later, Mya sprang forward, pounding at the barrier with both fists.

“What the hell, Elaine? Let me out!” She shrieked, baring her teeth like some crazed animal. “I swear to Christ, I’m gonna make sure that you’re fired!”

But Elaine wasn’t watching Mya anymore. She looked on silently as the giant suddenly became animated, his head swiveling around. Mya didn’t even notice that he was inspecting her, his dark eyes focusing in her direction. Shouting, she continued to bang at the force field, stopping only when the colossal shadow bathed her in blackness.

Mya made a frightened whimpering sound as the giant stood up, towering high above everything like a mountain of flesh. Her anger had dissolved into terror, and she pressed herself against the barrier, scratching desperately.

“Elaine! Let me out! Let me out, Elaine!” Mya howled, her face so close to Elaine’s that they could have touched one another if the barrier wasn’t there. Never had she imagined that her coworker could look so terrified, her eyes bulging from the sockets. Elaine didn’t respond, not even when the gargantuan hand swooped down. Titanic fingers pinched Mya’s body with a surprising delicacy, lifting her up. She squealed horribly as the colossus cocked his head and examined her. Far below, Elaine shuddered, morbidly fascinated at the drama unfolding before her.

Mya’s cries abruptly ended when the giant began to squeeze her, the mammoth fingers constricting and mashing her flesh. He continued to study her as if he were a scientist, calmly observing a test subject’s pain threshold. There was a wet, awful crack, followed by another, and another, like twigs being broken in succession. Then Mya exploded in a shower of dark red, the giant crushing her with ease.

Elaine watched the whole thing, not bothering to blink until her eyes burned. That dreamlike quality was overtaking reality again, and she peered through a haze as the titan knelt down in front of the barrier. He placed one huge hand on the force field, and she found herself gazing up in awe at a palm that could have held her car, along with several others. The skin glistened, crimson with Mya’s blood, and Elaine stared at the huge lines and creases.

“Take down the barrier,” the giant told her telepathically, and her eyes hesitantly met his. There was warmth in there, kindness. It was difficult to reconcile the gentleness in his eyes with the shredded tissue and flecks of bone that now streaked his hand. She started to key in the access code, then stopped. What the hell was she doing? The giant would tear her into ragged bits if she freed him.

He was looking down at her expectedly, and when she froze with her hand on the access panel, he smiled. “I know that you’re frightened and that you don’t trust me, and I don’t blame you. But everyone just saw what you did, and when the other guards get here, you’ll be arrested as an accomplice to murder.”

Coldness washed over Elaine, and her skin prickled painfully. The prisoner was right…she had had a part in Mya’s death. She saw herself standing on trial, the accusatory eyes of the jury boring into her. Then she imagined herself in a prison somewhere, living out the rest of her days surrounded by concrete walls. Nothing but a dull, dreary existence, the remainder of her life spent waiting to die.

“But if you let me out, I’ll save you.” The giant sounded so charming, even in her head. “Like I said, we’re alike, you and I. Don’t you want to see me conquer the world?”

Elaine’s head began to pound, the stress of the situation crashing down upon her all at once. She stood there, wishing that she could go home and take an aspirin. If only she could curl up and sleep for awhile, everything would be better. Behind her, she could hear panicked shouts as the others figured out what happened, and she understood that it was all over.

Tearing her eyes away from the giant, she finished entering the access code.

Barrier 1 disappeared, and a split second later, the ear-splitting alarm began to wail. The sound ripped her from her stupor, and she stared down at the control panel, shocked that she had actually done it. The giant was free…well, except for Barrier 2. The second force field was still in place, although that wouldn’t help her now. She was trapped in here with the monster.

Something colossal moved overhead, and when Elaine glanced up, she saw the giant’s leg as it swung by, the dark gray fabric of the pants clinging to the powerful musculature beneath. He almost stepped on her; she felt the floor heave violently beneath her as his foot landed. It was astonishing to see him in motion, to observe the way that the mammoth tendons in his foot shifted as his weight settled. Elaine probably would have continued to gawk if he hadn’t reached down and grabbed her in his fist.

The giant’s grip wasn’t gentle, and she gasped as the fingers dug into her belly and thighs, mashing her breasts uncomfortably against her chest. Even worse was the sensation of being lifted upwards, her stomach churning violently in protest. Elaine body tensed, every muscle becoming completely rigid as she saw how high off the ground she was. The technicians and guards scuttled around madly, as small as cockroaches. And like insects, they were flattened underfoot, unable to scurry away quickly enough to avoid the giant’s footfalls.

He left behind a trail of pulverized bodies, so thoroughly crushed that the victims could only be identified by their dental records. Some of the guards tried to fire, but even their largest weapons were useless. The giant was squashing them one at a time, hunting them down like animals and grinding them out beneath the balls of his feet, when something caught his attention. Elaine saw the gargantuan head turn, and she followed his gaze to where Dr. Nichols stood.

The psychologist was gaping up at the giant, watching him with stunned disbelief. She must have been in shock, because she didn’t make a sound until he reached down and curled his fingers around her body. He lifted her up, and it was only then that she wailed, a thin, reedy sound issuing forth from her throat. Her turquoise and silver jewelry rattled noisily as she began to struggle in the giant’s fist.

He said something, but his voice was too low and thunderous for Elaine to comprehend. She heard his telepathic voice a few seconds later, and she now understood what he had said: “So you thought that you could keep me imprisoned, did you?”

Dr. Nichols stopped screeching when he brought her up to the soft fullness of his lips, tilting her squirming body as if he meant to kiss her. But his lips peeled away from his teeth, and as Elaine looked on, he bit down on the psychologist. Gigantic incisors the size of guillotine blades punctured through her clothes, sinking deep into her flesh. The sound of living tissue ripping was terrible; the woman’s howls of agony were worse.

Elaine blinked slowly, captivated by the gruesome sight.

Popping Dr. Nichols’ bleeding body into his mouth, the titan chewed her up, her bones crunching loudly. The immense man looked pleased, as if he were eating a delicious treat. He even licked at the blood seeping from one corner of his mouth, his broad tongue sweeping out. Elaine was jostled roughly as he raised her upwards, toward his lips. He’s going to eat me, she thought, and she wiggled between his mammoth fingers, frightened.

But he didn’t shove her into his mouth, to her relief. Elaine was close enough that she could feel his breaths, which were hot and smelled coppery, like blood. Through her peripheral vision, she saw the index finger of his other hand, and a moment later, it gently brushed against her hair. She was keenly aware of the power behind the huge digit. If he so chose, he could have smashed in her fragile skull like an egg.

As he traced the curvature of her face with his finger, Elaine experienced a pleasure that was more intense than she would have thought possible. It filled her entire body, made her nerves tingle, and as she gazed into the colossus’ dark brown eyes, she wanted nothing more than to be with him. His mind swept over hers, and he showed her his plans, what he would do to the world. Nations would fall, and he alone would rule, a terrifying god-emperor.

“That would be wonderful,” Elaine told him as he continued to tenderly stroke her face. She remained lost in his dark fantasies until he strode forward, gradually picking up speed until he was sprinting across the floor. In his hand, Elaine held on for dear life, watching everything pass by in a blur. Ahead of them was the wall, and the giant pivoted his torso, crashing into it shoulder-first. The wall crumbled upon impact, and suddenly they were outside, cold air blasting Elaine’s exposed skin.

She shivered as he lowered her to the ground. Ahead of them, the last barrier shimmered in the darkness, the only thing still keeping the giant here. Elaine didn’t need their telepathic connection to know what he wanted. Still, she hesitated, gazing up at the immense man as he stood back up. He gave her another winsome smile, like the cowboy on the cover of her novel.

All around her, sirens blared and shrieked. It was so unreal, as if she were at home, watching some sort of action movie. Elaine walked toward the guard shack and the barrier access panel, hearing the thunderous thumps behind her. They were firing at the giant, throwing everything that they had at him. But how could they possibly hope to stop him? It was laughably pathetic.

“Elaine!” A familiar voice made her pause, and when she glanced over, Lucy was standing near Barrier 2, her gun drawn. The other woman’s face looked like cottage cheese; only her round cheeks had any sort of color.

“Put your hands behind your head,” Lucy ordered, the gun shaking slightly in her hands. Elaine stood motionless, her arms still down at her sides.

“I said, put your hands behind—,” the guard started to scream. Then she spotted the giant marching toward her, smoke rising from the ruined tatters of his prison uniform. Yet both Lucy and Elaine could see that he was otherwise unscathed, the flesh unharmed beneath the burnt cloth. The ground trembled as he approached, his towering legs filling their vision.

In one last desperate attempt, Lucy shot at the titan. He didn’t seem to even notice her attempts, snatching her up in his massive fist. Inside the remains of his pants, a huge bulge appeared, evidence of his arousal. Cupping the tiny woman against his growing erection, he growled and pressed down. Lucy didn’t stand a chance, not against such tremendous pressure. She smashed messily, her blood smearing all over the monstrous bulge.

Elaine turned away at that point, heading toward the access panel. Her breath steamed in puffy clouds as she tapped in the code. The giant’s fantasies and her own were intertwined, and one minute, she saw him seated atop a throne made from the ruins of cities. The next, she saw herself, loved and cherished and pampered. Everything would be wonderful, everything would be—

And then the fantasies faded abruptly, and she was alone in her head. The dreamlike quality left, and she found herself standing near the access panel, feeling horribly unnerved. Too late, she understood exactly what the giant had been doing.

He had been crawling around her head, infiltrating her brain like some godawful parasite. Using her own desires against her. The thought made her stomach cramp, and she felt a wave of nausea threaten to overtake her.

“Y-you tricked me,” Elaine whispered hoarsely. “Y-you used me. Like a p-puppet.”

The giant glanced down at her, his gargantuan eyes shining brightly. The smile on his face was amused and yet strangely sad.

“Yes,” he said.

Choking back a sob, she backed away. The same thought raced around her head, circling relentlessly. What had she done? Jesus Christ, what had she done? Somehow, she had to stop him. She couldn’t allow him to escape back out into the world.

But it was too late. Panicking, Elaine watched as the last barrier went down.

“Nick’s always had great taste,” Peter said, raising his champagne flute into the air. Candlelight twinkled in the glass as he continued, “Unlike me. I mean, I’m lucky if I buy a shirt that actually fits.” There was polite laughter from some of the tables. “But even I know how wonderful a woman Charlotte is.”
 
Charlotte smiled, the warm summer breeze stirring her veil; beside her, Nick was watching the best man as he gave his speech. At that moment, everything was completely perfect: the violet sky over the vineyard, the musicians in their tuxedos, even the centerpieces on each table. This was the wedding that Charlotte had dreamed about, and as Peter finished with his speech, she reached over to take her husband’s hand.  
 
But just before their fingers touched, there was a brilliant flash of white and a loud sizzling sound. Her head whipped backwards and she blinked rapidly, blinded; then, as her vision slowly cleared, she saw that most of Nick’s face was gone. There was a gaping hole where his eyes and nose and mouth should have been, and the surrounding flesh was ragged and blackened, smoke slowly curling upwards in gruesome tendrils.  
 
Gasping, she tried to rise, but her heavy wedding dress slowed her down. She knocked over a glass of wine, burgundy liquid splattering across the tablecloth, and as she looked up, she saw the figures approaching. They were clad in gleaming golden armor, their features hidden beneath faceshields that sparkled like opal. Charlotte trembled uncontrollably as they came toward her, slaughtering anyone who stood in their way.  
 
“Oh God, please, no,” she moaned, praying that this was just a terrible nightmare. But even as Nick’s murderer paused before her table and raised its strange weapon, she knew that it was hopeless.
 
They had finally found her.
 
***
 
They called themselves the Sisao; humans called them Fay, because of their resemblance to the creatures from legend. Two decades ago, they had appeared in their beautiful golden ships, and within a matter of a few months, they had conquered humanity. Not only was their technology superior, but the Fay were ruthless in a way that mankind could never hope to be. Entire cities were now gone, reduced to nothing more than ash and rubble.  
 
But there was some resistance, secret groups of people who fought back. Charlotte was one of them…or at least she had been, until the Fay had shown up at her wedding reception with their guns blazing. Now she was a prisoner, and as she sat in a dingy jail cell, still dressed in the remains of her bridal gown, she contemplated her future. Or rather, her lack of future. She had no doubt that the Fay would kill her, and her death would most likely be painful and awful.  
 
Charlotte was picking at one of the crystal beads on the bodice of her dress, trying not to recall what had happened to Nick, when the cell door swung open. Three armored Fay strode through, followed by a huge female. She was enormous, easily eight feet tall, and she had to duck her head as she passed over the threshold. From what Charlotte knew about Fay culture, their social status was reflected in their physical size and power. Soldiers and workers were the same size as humans, but if rumors were to be believed, some of the Fay leaders were truly massive.
 
Despite her best attempts to put on a brave face, Charlotte still shivered as the Fay woman strolled up to her. It was impossible not to be intimidated by the aliens, with their otherworldly beauty and inhuman attitudes. This Fay wasn’t wearing a faceshield, and so Charlotte could see her large, expressive eyes, the sculpted angles of her cheekbones, her plush lips. Her hair was a color not found on Earth, a shimmering silvery-violet, and it was cut in long, sharp spikes. She glanced down at Charlotte, tilting her head; several hoop earrings flashed on her pointed ears.  
 
“Stand up, human,” the Fay ordered in accented English, and Charlotte reluctantly rose. Her captor reached out and seized her chin, her gloved fingertips digging into Charlotte’s flesh. Charlotte tried not to flinch as the amazonian woman studied her and said, “I am Lady Ateinia, and you will address me as such.”
 
Numbly, Charlotte nodded.  
 
The Fay scowled down at her. “If it were my choice, you would be dead at my feet. But the Lord has requested to see you, and I cannot disobey him.”
 
She snapped her fingers, gestured toward Charlotte. One of the armored Fay dashed forward with shackles, the black metal glinting in the dim light. Lady Ateinia continued to glare as Charlotte held out her hands. The shackles felt cold against her wrists, but she didn’t protest as the guard put them on her. Even when he yanked hard, leading her like a dog, she obeyed. What else could she do? If she made a wrong move, she knew that Lady Ateinia would shoot her. The image of Nick’s ruined head, smoke rising from the charred flesh, made her shudder.  
 
They led her down a long hallway, the walls covered with elegantly-flowing patterns. Charlotte assumed that these patterns were Fay writing, but she could neither read nor speak their language. She had heard the beings speak on occasion, and their tongue was musical and lovely. Like the voices of angels, she imagined.
 
One of the armored guards shoved Charlotte through another doorway, and she tripped over her long dress. She fell to the floor, pain shooting up the length of her arm as her elbow connected with the marble. Gritting her teeth, she stood back up and slowly swept her eyes over her surroundings. Where was she, a stadium? The room was colossal, stretching out so far that she could barely see the distant walls. Torches and candles provided the only light, and as Charlotte gradually became accustomed to the darkness, she saw them…and him.
 
There were dozens of human women, all of them silent, their eyes cast downwards. They looked like the priestesses of some primordial god, their bodies clothed in diaphanous dresses. Seated amongst them was the biggest Fay that Charlotte had ever seen, a colossal creature that defied all belief. It was difficult to judge, but he had to be several hundred feet tall. His sheer size was terrifying, and Charlotte instinctively took a step backwards, away from the giant.
 
The guard barked something at her in the Fay language and then prodded her in the lower back. Hesitantly, Charlotte stepped toward the colossus. She was horribly aware that he was watching her with gigantic eyes, the orange irises ringed in red. Even though he was incomprehensibly huge, he was still as attractive as any other Fay, dressed in a formfitting black bodysuit that contrasted with the paleness of his alabaster skin. A gold and ivory cloak hung from his broad shoulders, and upon closer inspection, Charlotte saw that there were all kinds of nightmarish scenes embroidered on it in crimson thread. Most of the scenes involved giants and giantesses (Fay, she guessed) brutalizing tiny people, tearing them apart or stomping on them like vermin.  
 
Lady Ateinia dropped down to one knee before the titan, and his ethereal gaze shifted to her.
 
“I’ve brought you the human, as requested,” she announced, and the giant nodded languidly, as if he were bored. He didn’t say anything, instead reaching down for a titanic goblet that was as big as a water tower. His fingers were long and thick and enclosed in leather, and a variety of rings glittered on them. To Charlotte’s horror, she saw that the immense rings didn’t have gemstones, but rather, bones. Skulls and femurs and vertebrae, all bleached white and all undeniably human. Someone made a low, terrified cry, and Charlotte realized that the noise was coming from her own throat.
 
The giant’s hand wrapped around the mammoth goblet, lifting it up with ease even though it must have weighed a few tons. Inside, the dark liquid sloshed slightly. Wine? Except it didn’t smell like wine…it was more metallic, organic. Charlotte had an idea what it was, but she refused to accept it until the titan grabbed one of the women, pinching her body between his thumb and index finger. She squealed pitifully as he held her over the goblet, and then popped her like a grape. Blood and pulped flesh splashed down into the cup, and Charlotte watched in mute disgust, resisting the urge to gag.

“So you’re part of the Resistance,” the giant said, wiping away the woman’s intestines, which clung to the lip of the goblet. Charlotte realized that he was talking to her, and she croaked out a feeble “Yes.”
 
He raised the goblet to his lips, took a sip of the repulsive liquid. Charlotte’s stomach did violent somersaults all the while.
 
“We’ve caught some of her comrades,” Lady Ateinia said, her voice dripping with venom. “The scum gave in so eas—,”
 
The giant’s hand moved downward, and he gently but firmly placed a gargantuan fingertip against Ateinia’s lower face, silencing her.  
 
“I didn’t give you permission to speak, Lady Ateinia.” The gargantuan Fay’s eyebrows quirked in amusement. They were a dark, unnatural crimson, like the rest of his hair. “Now, unlock the human’s shackles.”
 
He removed his finger, and Lady Ateinia sputtered, “B-b-but Lord! I don’t think—,”
 
The massive gloved fist seized her, cutting off her sentence as well as her air supply. The Fay woman’s face darkened, her silvery eyes bulging from their sockets as he lifted her upwards. One of her arms was still free, and her hand clawed desperately at the mammoth fingers wrapped around her body. But the digits continued to squeeze, tighter and tighter, until there was a loud, sickening crunch. Lady Ateinia’s mouth stretched open wide, as if she wanted to scream, but any noise that she was trying to make was muffled by the stream of blood pouring from between her lips. The arm that had been pounding at the titan’s fingers jerked wildly, then went limp.
 
“Unlock the human’s shackles,” the giant repeated, and the armored guards hurried to carry out his orders. As one of them freed Charlotte, she gazed up in time to see his hand open. She tried not to tremble as Lady Ateinia’s lifeless body tumbled to the floor.  
 
The giant smiled down at her, his sharp white teeth bared. “Come here.”
 
Heart hammering in her chest, Charlotte reluctantly walked toward him.
 
***
 
Hasiron, the Lord of the Seventeenth Sector, the Ruthless One, the Conqueror of Humanity, studied the tiny woman as she trudged in his direction. She was wearing a white matrimonial garment, the cloth stained and ripped. For twenty years, he had lived amongst humans, and yet he still found that their behavior and customs were bizarre. Monogamy, for example. Sisao formed partnerships purely for political and societal reasons, and as soon as a partner was no longer useful, they were abandoned. The idea of dedicating one’s self to another, purely out of affection…well, Hasiron didn’t understand it at all.  
 
But they intrigued him, these ugly creatures with their short, sad lives. Like this one, this Resistance fighter. She was swallowed up by his large shadow, yet she was still brave enough to meet his eyes. In a way, Hasiron admired her, which is why she wasn’t dead. Yet.  
 
He took another sip from the goblet, swirling the salty blood around on his tongue. The captive’s face blanched and she looked away quickly, her gaze falling upon Lady Ateinia’s pulverized body. Drying blood caked the dead Sisao’s chin and neck, and her glassy eyes stared into the distance. What a foolish woman Ateinia had been. Foolish and ambitious. She had drank of the masea, the elixir that gave the Sisao lords and ladies their incredible power and size. And he knew that she had longed for more, to be larger and stronger. Unfortunately for her, Hasiron didn’t suffer his rivals to live.  
 
His tiny human pets scattered when he put down the goblet. Hasiron had dozens of them, and they rarely lived past a few months. They were so fragile, and broke far too easily. On the other hand, there were so many humans, so he had a nearly limitless supply.  
 
The woman in the white dress balled up her little hands into fists and jutted out her jaw in an obvious display of bravado. “I’m not going to tell you anything.”
 
“About the Resistance?” Hasiron smirked. “Don’t worry, you won’t have to. Your friends have already told us everything that we need to know.”
 
She looked utterly despondent upon hearing those words, her hands unclenching. Hasiron reached out and picked her up, delighted by the surprised little cry that she made. He ran one finger possessively over her diminutive form, starting at her thick mop of raven hair and ending at the soles of her high-heeled shoes. The human was smart enough not to thrash as he examined her, but she did whimper when he began to peel off her dress. Soon enough, she lay naked in his black-gloved palm, trying to hide her nudity from him but failing. Hasiron pushed aside her arms with his finger and then poked at her minuscule breasts. They purpled and bruised when he pinched them too hard. He touched her sex next, caressing the dark triangle of hair. All the while, she kept her eyes squeezed shut, her mouth stretched taut, like a bow string.
 
His body was reacting to the overwhelming power that he possessed, but he resisted the urge to curl his fingers around the human and squeeze her until her insides exploded in a spectacular shower of red.
 
No, he was going to savor this.  
 
***
 
When the Fay ceased his probing, Charlotte cautiously opened her eyes. To her left, a silver ring glinted on one of the colossus’ fingers, as big around as a temple column. There were several human skulls embedded in it, the empty eye sockets focused on her. Sickened, she turned her head and looked up. The giant’s immense, handsome face loomed over her, and she squirmed, feeling exposed beneath his reddish-orange gaze. She considered trying to crawl out of his palm, but the drop to the faraway floor would kill her. Besides, he would probably just crush in his fist if she tried.  
 
The giant’s fingers clamped down on her leg, and she suddenly found herself dangling upside down, her face turned toward the towering wall of muscle and bone that was the Fay’s chest. Charlotte began to wail, which earned her a hard, violent shake. Every bone in her body rattled painfully, and she immediately stopped screaming. It took a few seconds for the dizziness to pass, and by then, she realized that the giant was lowering her down slowly, past the huge rounded hills of his abs.  
 
He put her back down on the ground, and she scrambled up, noticing that she was trapped in the corral formed by his legs. His mountainous thighs rose up on either side of her, and before her was the bulge of his malehood, visible through his pants. Much to her dismay, she saw that he was obviously aroused, and he ran his hand over the immense outline of his erection. The other hand scooped up several of the other women, dumping them down into the valley between his legs.  
 
They crashed to the floor, yet still pulled themselves up quickly, prostrating themselves before the giant Fay. Only Charlotte remained standing; that is, until the titan glanced down imperiously at her and uttered a single word: “Kneel.”
 
She knelt down on the floor, the marble cold beneath her bare legs. At that point, she wasn’t even considering escape, merely survival. The Fay smiled down at them, his expression boyish and almost carefree. Then he snapped his fingers, the sound reverberating throughout the vast chamber. The other women seemed to know exactly what to do, crawling toward the towering alien and, to Charlotte’s amazement, onto him. They were like field mice scrambling up onto a man. No, smaller than that. Like insects, completely dwarfed by the giant.  
 
“You know, most Sisao despise humans,” the giant said, looking straight at her. “You’re such small and weak and pitiful creatures. But I find you to be intriguing. You create such beautiful things, and it’s such a pleasure to destroy them.”
 
Charlotte sucked in her breath, horrified.
 
“When I first came to this world, do you know what I did?” The Fay asked, not paying attention to the human women on his legs and lap.  
 
“Wh-what did you do?” Her tongue felt unbearably thick in her mouth, and she found it difficult to speak.  
 
“I visited one of your largest cities. London, it used to be called.” The name sounded horribly familiar to her, and then she recalled what had happened to it. Dear God, so this was the monster that had leveled the city to the ground. The giant had a horribly pleased expression as he continued, “The city’s defenders were already overwhelmed by our star cruisers by the time that I showed up, so there was little resistance. I remember walking down the street, admiring the little buildings and then reaching out to topple a few. They crumbled so easily in my hands, like dry sand, and I was suddenly holding fistfuls of debris and bodies.”
 
Out of the corner of her eye, Charlotte saw the giant’s monumental cock twitch, throbbing against the tight leather of his pants. He was clearly enjoying the memories.  
 
“They all panicked so much when they spotted me. I could hear their screams and shouts, and when I looked down, I saw them swarming in the streets. There were so many of them, and they were trapped by their sheer numbers. Helpless. I could have just trampled them all, ended them quickly. But I wanted to hear their cries, so I stepped on clusters of them at a time,” the Fay told her. “They seemed to explode beneath my boots, popping and bursting all over the others. You should have seen the reaction of the survivors, covered in the blood and viscera of their companions. The rush that I felt was absolutely exquisite.”
 
He once against grabbed her in his hand, moving with such swiftness that the world blurred around her. Charlotte started to scream, the sound muffled when he pressed her up against his groin. Her nose and mouth were suddenly shoved against soft leather. Beneath that, she could feel the hot hardness of his flesh, the musky scent overloading her senses. With both fists and both legs she pounded against him. But it was in vain. She was trapped between his palm and his genitals, and she stopped fighting as she understood the hopelessness of her situation.
 
***
 
Hasiron kept the human against his bulge until her fluttery movements ceased. As soon as he undid the thick straps on his pants, his erection sprang free, throbbing in time with his heartbeat. With a creaking groan of leather, he leaned back more. His tiny pets immediately knew what to do, stroking him with their minuscule hands and licking with their little tongues. Long ago, before he had drank of the masea, he had been capable of normal sex. Now he was simply too large for most partners. Not that this particularly bothered him. He liked knowing that he could kill a human or Sisao just for the sake of pleasure.  
 
Slowly, Hasiron dragged his captive along the underside of his cock, toward the swollen head. At one point, she dug her fingers into his skin, turning her flustered face to look up at him in horror and humiliation, and that only enticed him more. Up and down, he manipulated her tiny body, mashing her breasts and belly and limbs against his erection. Hasiron’s breathing became faster, shallower, and he groaned in pleasure as the human woman stared at him with anguished, wide eyes.
 
He stopped thinking about her, and allowed his mind to drift back to those earlier memories. How he had appeared from one of the Gateways, stepping through the portal and into a city that was already black with ash. The star cruisers had razed entire blocks, although there had still been some buildings standing. To Hasiron’s delight, he had noticed how small everything was. Small, and flimsy. Once he had ripped apart the delicate structures, he had turned his sights on the frightened humans at his feet.  
 
One little blonde had fallen to her knees on the sidewalk, her hands clasped tightly together. Had she been praying to some primitive human deity to save her? Or perhaps she had been praying to him? Either way, it hadn’t mattered. Hasiron had smiled at her, and then positioned his boot directly over her. The little thing hadn’t run, not even when he had lowered his foot down. It seemed as if she had accepted her fate, and when he had shifted his tremendous weight onto her body, the only noise that she had made was a wet squelch.  
 
Since then, he had drank often of the masea, enjoying its complex flavors and its incredible gift of power. But it was never enough. No, he needed more. Hasiron would conquer more worlds, and rise up in the Sisao ranks, and drink endlessly of the elixir. He would grow, larger and larger, until he was as immense as a red giant star. The entire galaxy would quake in terror before him…
 
That thought drove him over the edge, and he arched his back, his powerful muscles tensing all at once. Several of the human women spilled out onto the floor, and he felt a slight crackling crunch as he flattened them beneath his legs and buttocks. But he was too focused on the ecstasy gripping him, and he growled as his milky semen splattered on the floor, then onto his abdomen, and finally onto the captive clenched between his fingers. She choked and sputtered as his seed coated her hair and face. He relaxed his hold so that she could reach up and try to wipe away the viscous liquid from her cheeks and forehead.
 
The human saw him observing her, and he felt her quiver. A devious smile spread across his lips as he lifted her up to his mouth. She began to flail in his hand, obviously frightened; her little hands struck feathery blows to his lips and nose. Hasiron chuckled at her feeble attempts, and then licked her, his tongue slithering over her chest. He tasted the saltiness of his own semen, as well as the sublime sweetness of the human’s flesh. The tip of his tongue found the area between her legs, and it forced her thighs apart. His tiny captive went completely rigid, her muscles stiffening beneath his probing tongue.  
 
He relished every sensation: the human’s taste, her desperate cries, the way that her soft, naked skin felt against his tongue and lips. And at that moment, he felt hungry; no, more like ravenous, as if he hadn’t eaten for days. Laughing, he began to gradually suck the woman into his mouth, inch by inch.  
 
***
 
Worse than the violating tongue was the way that the giant chuckled, the thunderous sound rumbling all around her. Charlotte’s hands lashed out when she felt herself being dragged into the sweltering cavern of his mouth, but even when she dug her fingers into his upper lip, she couldn’t stop him. she couldn’t even see the giant’s eyes anymore, just his nostrils and the shallow groove of his philtrum. That was when she began to panic, jerking and thrashing. Already, the Fay’s pale lips were up to her waist, and she could feel the razor points of his teeth slicing into her skin, drawing blood.  
 
“No! Don’t!” Charlotte howled just as he drew her completely into his mouth.  
 
His lips were still parted enough so that she could see the red, ridged ceiling of his palate and the ominous blackness of his enormous throat. Thick globs of saliva dribbled down onto her body, and she found herself covered with the warm goo as she tried to squirm back out. No matter how much she tried to crawl forward, the massive tongue just pushed her back into place, occasionally pressing her up against the giant’s inner cheek or the roof of his mouth.  
 
Then the Fay closed his lips, and the light faded away, leaving her in dim darkness. It was like a nightmare from her childhood, imprisoned within the maw of a huge and terrifying beast. With horrifying clarity, she knew that she was going to die, that the giant planned on eating her. That knowledge gave her renewed strength, and she redoubled her efforts, pummeling anything that was within her reach: the giant’s gums, his tongue, his mammoth teeth.  
 
Again he laughed, and the sound reverberated eerily all around her. The Fay could probably feel her struggles, and they no doubt amused him. Then the tongue reared up and undulated beneath her, throwing Charlotte backwards. Her head slammed into something, and she saw a brief burst of white; then it became dark again, and she shrieked over and over as she realized that she was plunging into the abyss of the titan’s throat.
 
“Pleaaasssse!” Charlotte screamed, trying to stop her descent and failing. The esophageal muscles squeezed her unmercifully, nearly crushing her bones with their strength, and she couldn’t find any traction as she slid further and further down, toward the giant’s stomach.  
 
She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting…an all-encompassing darkness, maybe. But when Charlotte landed in the large chamber of the giant’s belly, she saw that everything was illuminated with an unearthly glow, the same bluish-green color of (ironically enough) fairy fire. She knew little of the Fay’s physiology, although it was clear that this was some sort of bioluminescence. As she slowly regained her bearings, Charlotte realized that she would have preferred darkness.  
 
There were people, or what was left of them, dissolving in a noxious soup. Everything was lit by that hellish blue-green light, bodies and parts of bodies, the skin eaten away by acid to reveal dark tissue and gleaming bone. Seized by an overwhelming terror, she began to pound at the glowing walls of the stomach, her hands sinking into the fleshy folds.  
 
Her anguished shrieks and the giant’s cruel laughter were the last things that she ever heard.
 
***
 
The remaining human women (the ones who weren’t reduced to bloody meat and bone shards on the floor) were climbing all over Hasiron’s body, showering him with adoration. Normally, he’d be amused by this, but he was concentrating on the wiggling in his stomach. The captive’s movements were becoming fainter and less frequent, and he knew that she would be gone soon.
 
As his little pets kissed his leather-clad flesh, vying with one another for his attention and hoping to save themselves from his sadistic lust, he blinked his eyes, tired. The Sisao guards watched Hasiron nervously, afraid to upset him. It was difficult to believe that he had been like them at one time, tiny and vulnerable. With a casual gesture, he dismissed them, and they quickly left, dragging away Ateinia’s mangled body.
 
Hasiron closed his eyes, thinking of the masea and of the homeworld. Someday he would return, unfathomably immense, and he would seize the power of the Council for himself. The Council members would fight one another for the privilege of getting to lick his boots…
 
Eventually, the woman stopped moving in his belly, and Hasiron slipped away into a pleasant dream.

The fishing village of Futomgata was remarkable for only one thing: the legend surrounding its daimyo. Peasants were eager to whisper it to any visitor who would listen, recounting how, many years ago, the dark god Amatsu Mikaboshi had visited the village. According to the legend, the local daimyo, Ugimitsu Michio, had a wife whose beauty was matched by no other. Ugimitsu Gin was so lovely, in fact, that even such a bitter being as Amatsu Mikaboshi could not resist her, and one night he came to her disguised as her husband. If the legend was to be believed, Michio’s only child had been sired not by the daimyo, but by a deity.

His daughter, a willowy girl with strange, haunted eyes, did not live past the age of twenty. After giving birth to a son, Yukio, she went mad, screaming about the monster in her head. A slash from a dagger ended her suffering and left her son motherless. Yukio grew up to be very handsome, but with a temper as destructive as a tsunami. Some of the peasants thought that he would be the death of them and they turned out to be right.

The daimyo desired only one thing in life: a courtesan named Komubishi Takara, who was not exceptionally beautiful but whose soft voice and gentle hands made up for it. Unfortunately, the woman’s affection was for another daimyo who was higher on the social ladder than Yukio.

Now, all he could think of was Takara even as another courtesan giggled at his side, irritating him. For the past hour her feeble attempts to arouse him had failed; all he could think of was Takara, in the same building as he was, probably making love to his rival at that very moment.

It infuriated him.

“Would you like some more sake, Yukio-san?” The courtesan interrupted his thoughts as she practically pushed the porcelain cup in his face.

“No thank you, Kameko-san.”

Kameko, well aware of the man’s legendary anger, did not press this and instead went back to playing her koto, the music from the instrument somehow managing to annoy him more. He went to the door, pulled aside the silk screen just in time to see Takara pass. When he smiled at her she did not return it, instead lowering her eyes and quickening her step.

Angrily he pulled the silk screen shut, ripping the delicate fabric as he did so. Kameko looked away, frightened by the daimyo’s rage. Yukio ignored her, gathering up his belongings and storming outside. Night had arrived, bathing everything in darkness. He could hardly see as he walked, not towards home but in the direction of the ocean.

For some reason, being by the ocean always calmed him. But this night, as he stood on a cliff overlooking the churning water, he found that not even this could sooth him. His mind kept wandering back to Takara, to the sure knowledge that she would never love him. Fury and sorrow welled up in Yukio as he faced the ocean and, perhaps due to all the sake that he had drank earlier, he began to shout.

“Amatsu Mikaboshi! If you really are my grandfather, then help me! Please!” His voice echoed around him and he stopped, realizing how foolish he sounded. Just as he was chiding himself for being intoxicated, the opaque water beneath him begun to bubble violently. Frightened, he tried to back away, only to slip and plunge into the black water below.

Somehow he survived the fall and the swirling water dragged him under. Yukio was a good swimmer, but he found that not even he could fight the ocean, which sucked him further and further down. Just as he was losing consciousness and was so far underwater that the light was almost completely gone, he heard a voice in his ear. Soft and raspy, the voice nevertheless filled him with an unnatural fear.

“You have the same gifts as your mother, my grandson. Use them.”

Amatsu Mikaboshi. The voice belonged to him.

The fear was replaced by exhilaration and he could feel his body reacting to it, changing.

The three elderly fishermen, packing up their equipment for the evening, were the first to see the giant raise up from the ocean, standing taller than even the emperor’s castle in Kyoto. Dressed in samurai armor the color of black onyx, the same shade as the Death God’s symbol, the living mountain looked around, first at the village, then at the men on the docks. Wisely, they fled.

Yukio smiled. His new size was truly a gift from the gods and he intended to use it. Not even his rival could keep him from Takara now. He began to quickly move toward the shore, dragging several boats under the water with his passing. The dock splintered as he stepped ashore, his expression one of intense focus.

Many of the peasants in Futomgata saw or heard their titanic lord approaching, and they ran for their lives. Some, for whatever reason, could not flee and were crushed along with their houses. He cared little for the peasants who suffered a grim fate as he moved through the village, leaving behind crater-like footprints and scenes of carnage. The only thing that was on his mind was the woman that he had been pining for.

It didn’t take him long to reach his goal. Yukio knelt before the tiny Tea House and, very gently, as not to cause the building to cave in on itself, he removed the roof. Inside, the frantic movements of the tiny courtesans reminded him of a colony of ants in an anthill. He bent down closer, his gigantic face looming far above the women and blocking out the sky as he searched for Takara. Spotting a courtesan who was clad in the peach kimono that his beloved always prized, the giant reached in, flicking aside the other women and killing most of them under fingers the size of fishing boats. Unfortunately for the courtesan he was after, she tripped, giving him ample time to gently snatch her up.

Bringing the struggling woman closer to his face in order to inspect her, he saw that it wasn’t Takara at all, but an older prostitute wearing a similar kimono. Disappointed, Yukio crushed the little courtesan almost reflexively, her blood staining his fingers, and peered back into the Tea House. It was almost empty by that point, except for one woman who was paralyzed by the sight of the murderous titan. He recognized her as Kameko, the courtesan that had been with him earlier that night, and he looked straight at her.

“Where is Komubishi Takara?” Yukio demanded, his voice as loud as thunder. Kameko winced at the deafening sound of his voice, afraid to even move. But when the scowl quickly spread across his massive face, she answered.

“T-the garden! She’s in th-the garden!” The courtesan shouted.

How Yukio could hear her tiny voice was beyond him. He decided that it didn’t really matter. After all, he had the information that he needed and with that, he stood back up, smashing the Tea House (as well as anyone still inside) under one foot. Then he turned his attention to the garden and the prize that he was sure to find there.

He had been in the garden before, with its cherry trees and carefully-tended flowers. Much to his annoyance, Yukio couldn’t see past the trees to the people who could have been hidden beneath them. When he had first visited the garden, he had thought it was beautiful; now the vegetation stood between him and Takara. So he stooped down and began to rip the cherry and spruce trees up with the same ease as a normal man pulling out weeds. It didn’t take long for him to find the object of his desire and her lover.

The other daimyo was brandishing a katana, which was comically small. Cowering behind him was Takara, her face contorted in terror at the approach of the giant.

“Don’t worry, Takara-chan! I will protect you!” Yukio’s rival told the courtesan, who was both awed and frightened by the sheer size of the giant.

Yukio simply watched as his rival charged at him before he slowly lifted one foot, hovering it over the tiny daimyo and relishing the scream of horror that resulted from it. Then he brought his foot down on the man but restrained himself from putting any weight on it. Takara let out a shrill cry and she ran to her love, who was trapped but still alive. She was almost in a frenzy as she foolishly tried to move Yukio’s sandaled foot, throwing her whole body against something the size of a large building.

Smiling wickedly, Yukio put some pressure on the man beneath him, pleased when his victim gave a high-pitched yelp. Takara raised her hands to her mouth, tears streaming down her face and ruining her makeup. She glanced up at the armored titan who was quietly watching her with dark eyes.

“Please, let him go!” She begged.

There was no response whatsoever from Yukio. The other daimyo continued to shriek in pain and terror, the sound mingling with Takara’s sobbing. She dropped to her knees before the giant in a position of supplication.

“O please, spare him! I beg you!” Her weeping increased, and Yukio found that he rather liked it. This newfound power was wonderfully arousing and his eyes gleamed with lust as he looked down at Takara. Forgetting about the man under his foot, he moved toward the courtesan. Yukio’s rival crunched like an insect, his end coming so quickly that he didn’t have time to even cry out.

Takara did scream, however, a high wail of anguish at losing her love. Yukio hardly heard her, though. The thought of the pleasure that he would soon be experiencing had fogged his senses. In the bright moonlight, Takara saw the massive hand reaching down to grab her. The giant may have been faster and bigger than she was, but he had lost the dexterity that he had had when he was normal sized. The courtesan was too small for him to pick up without seriously hurting her, and he growled in anger as she avoided his fingers.

She ran toward the edge of the garden, only to be stopped by Yukio’s other hand, which came down and blocked her path.

“Aizen-Myoo!” Takara shrieked out to the patron god of courtesans, a plea that went unanswered by the deity. Instead of trying to pick the woman up with his fingers again, Yukio dug his hands deep into the earth, lifting the very ground that the courtesan stood on. She clung futilely to the chunk of earth as he tipped it, eventually slipping onto his waiting palm.

Far, far above her, Yukio’s eyes glittered as he studied his prisoner. Whenever he had looked at her before, any lust that he had felt had been thoroughly disguised; now, that lust was very apparent. Takara shuddered under the scrutiny of those gigantic eyes. There was no way for her to escape; he was holding her far above the ground and a drop from that great height would kill her instantly. Still, she couldn’t bear to be near the monstrous colossus who had robbed her of her true love…

“You’re mine now, Takara-chan,” the giant informed her. Much to his irritation, she was trying to climb over the side of his hand. With one finger he nudged her back to the center of his palm, which caused her to start to scream again. It didn’t help that he had pinched the back of her kimono between two fingers and was trying to yank it from her body. The fabric tore, leaving Takara nude and shivering. Yukio felt his manhood stir within his armor as he watched her small breasts bob with each frantic breath.

Takara gasped as he began to strip off the armor and revealed the erection that stood out stiffly from between his legs. Aware of what he planned to do, she tried to escape again. But her plan was thwarted as he pushed her back once more. This time her captor wasn’t so gentle; his mammoth fingers knocked her carelessly backwards.

As soon as he was finished taking off most of the black armor, he placed her on his shaft. The skin underneath her was hot and he let out an earth-shaking moan as soon as she touched it. One of his hands sneaked down to caress his testicles, his head tilted down to see the courtesan on his cock. She was so tiny compared to his member, so…helpless. The thought sent a wave of pleasure coursing through every one of his nerve endings.

Takara desperately tried to crawl away, the quickening of his breath an ominous sign. The feeling of her little body drove him over the edge, his eyes rolling up in their sockets.

He involuntarily trembled as the climax hit him, nearly throwing the tiny courtesan off and onto the ground far below. Despite the intense pleasure, Yukio could still see that his semen had smashed down onto the homes that were along the outskirts of the Tea House’s garden. The inhabitants of those houses were thrashing about in the sticky liquid, drowning in it like bugs. For some reason, he found it funny and began to chuckle at the peasants’ predicament. Ignoring their muffled screams, he plucked Takara off his malehood and, after putting his armor back on, brought her up to his face.

Her makeup was a horrible mess now, her previously perfect hair disheveled. When she was close enough, she howled in anger and pounded his nose with both fists. The grin that appeared on his face only enraged her further and she continued to hit him until she had exhausted herself.

He responded by kissing her with a mouth large enough swallow her and ten other people whole. The courtesan was too tired to fight anymore and allowed his lips to brush her entire body. Luckily, she didn’t have to put up with it for long. Something at Yukio’s feet was distracting him.

Several samurai, all of whom were loyal to the daimyo that Yukio had killed, had shown up in a futile attempt to stop the giant. The warriors showed courage, attacking from all sides, but they couldn’t defeat a demigod whose gigantic body was protected by magical armor. Yukio snarled and stepped on several of the them at once, their bones crunching like dry twigs. He easily herded the survivors together and raised his foot over them, letting them see the mangled remains of their companions on the bottom of his sandal.

“Your lord is dead,” Yukio announced. “And you shall join him.” With that, he ground them into nothing, his eyes wide with sadistic delight and his expression as terrifying as the masks at a Noh performance. Casually scraping his sandal off, he smiled down at the woman that he held, chilling her to the bone.

“Let me go!” She pleaded, beginning her struggle anew. All she got for her trouble was a small squeeze that forced the air from her lungs.

“I told you, Takara-chan,” Yukio boomed. “You’re mine.” As is to emphasize this, he closed his hand around her, engulfing her in a prison of flesh. Takara squirmed in his closed fist, her wails unheard by her captor.

One of the surviving peasants, a middle aged woman, watched the bloodthirsty colossus from behind a copse of trees. She prayed to her family gods that he wouldn’t see her. He didn’t, much to her relief. The giant daimyo had seemed to lose interest in Futomgata and was heading toward the ocean. As she watched him go, the middle aged woman felt sorry for the courtesan that he carried with him; whatever the giant planned to do with her couldn’t be good.

She looked on as the colossus stepped into the water, walking toward some unknown destination. Eventually the grandson of Amatsu Mikaboshi and his beloved disappeared beneath the waves, his black armor melting into the dark ocean.

Elijah selected a cobalt pastel stick from the tin box, and as soon as his fingers curled around it, he felt the familiar sensation of comfort settle down upon him. This was how he soothed his soul and forgot about all of the horror that he had witnessed. For a brief time, a half an hour or an hour or however long it took him to sketch, the scenes of death and suffering vanished. There was only the crisp, white paper before him, and so he lost himself in it.

Most of his drawings were of the same thing: a woman, perpetually youthful, her expression cultivated to be neutral. Today he was sketching her in a blue dress, the flowing lines revealing her curvaceous body. Gnawing at his lip, he leaned closer, studying the figure who was gradually taking shape on the paper.

He had fallen in love with her when he was nineteen years old, back when he was still young and the world seemed like a vast and unknowable place. How anyone failed to adore her was a mystery to Elijah. She was the most beautiful woman that he could imagine, a dark-haired goddess with imperious eyes and a smile that could unnerve even the most courageous of men. But it had been more than her physical beauty that had captivated him; it was her terrifying, unrestrained power that had haunted his dreams. She was an awe-inspiring force, like the ocean during a wild storm, leaving nothing but ruin behind her.

And he loved her for that.

No one ever visited him in the Archive, so he was surprised when he heard the distinctive clomping of boots. Elijah put down the pastel stick and hastily rolled up his drawing, his head rotating in time to see the Guards.

“The Tyrant wants to see you, Archivist,” the tallest of the Guards informed him, and Elijah blinked, shocked. For forty-one years he had worked for the self-appointed ruler of the world, and he had only caught brief glimpses of her. The nearest he had been to her when he was nineteen, and he had watched her striding across the bay near his house. She had been so immense, so magnificent, her legs churning up the grayish water as she headed toward some destination. And so he had picked up his sketchbook and drawn her, trying to capture her sheer size and effortless grace.

“Of course,” he mumbled to the Guards, and he followed them through the labyrinthian hallways of the Tyrant’s palace. It was opulent, like everything else that she owned, and most people would have been amazed by the breathtaking architecture, the masterpieces hanging along the corridor. But all that Elijah could think about was her, and his heart thudded against his ribcage.

They brought him to the main chamber, which was almost incomprehensibly huge. His eyes immediately focused on the throne in the center of the room, as large as a skyscraper. Seated upon it was the giantess, more beautiful than he could ever hope to depict on paper. She was dressed in a ivory gown, gossamer and glittering with jewels sewn into the fabric. This was the Tyrant, the unquestioned lord of humanity. If she had another name, no one knew it.

The giantess’ face was illuminated by candles on either side of her throne, each as wide as a grain silo and surrounded by a metal cage. To Elijah’s dismay, there were prisoners clinging to the bars, trying to avoid the searing heat of the fire behind them. Shuddering, he avoided their gazes. He looked up at the Tyrant instead. Her attention was on two people at her sandaled feet, a young man and woman. They were both terrified, standing in the shadow of the being who had enslaved the world.

When the Tyrant spoke, her booming voice caused Elijah’s entire body to tremble. “You’ve been accused of stealing from me, Accountant. Are these charges true?”

The man’s face paled, his mouth dropping open. “I-I would never steal from you! I swear!”

“So you’re saying that you’re innocent?”

Frantically, the man nodded, his head jerking up and down like a puppet with broken strings. The giantess cupped her chin in one hand, peering down at the tiny people with cool, gray eyes. Elijah studied the gentle curves of her jaw, the plushness of her lips. She was so lovely, a creature that transcended humanity.

“I don’t believe you,” the Tyrant said, and before the man could argue, she reached down and plucked up the young woman in one hand. She seemed to know better than to fight, and her body went limp between the pillars of the giantess’ fingers. “So this is your wife, isn’t it?”

“Y-yes,” the man answered. “I’m telling the truth! P-please don’t hurt Becky!”

“Enough.” The Tyrant flipped the tiny woman over in her hand, her features inscrutable as usual. Running her thumb over the woman’s quivering back, she said, “Remember, you brought this upon yourself.”

The giantess’ fingernails, darkly crimson and as hard as steel, gleamed in the light. As everyone watched in mute horror, she sank those nails deep into the woman’s flesh. A howl of agony rose up, echoing in the cavernous throne room. An almost beatific smile appeared on the Tyrant’s face, her eyes widening in pleasure.

“Please, no!” The man was almost crazed with panic as his wife screamed and screamed. “I didn’t steal from you!”

The Tyrant’s smile broadened. Ignoring the man’s desperate wails, she began to flay the woman alive, ripping off her clothing and flesh with the same nonchalance as peeling an orange. The huge nails tore away entire sections of skin, revealing the glistening, scarlet muscles and the yellowish fat beneath. Anguished shrieks rose up; whether it was the woman, howling in agony as she was transformed into a bloody mass, or her husband, begging for her life, Elijah wasn’t certain. The sounds rose, a chorus from Hell. Then the giantess gazed down at the tiny man pleading near the foot of her throne.

“I’ve changed my mind. I believe you,” she told him, opening her bloodstained hand. The flayed woman dropped several stories to the floor below, and although Elijah averted his eyes, he still heard the dull crunch. He snuck one look at the corpse, appalled to see that the woman’s humanity had literally been stripped away, and in its place was a red and ruined thing. Sobbing, the man crouched beside his wife’s motionless body, but the Tyrant had already lost interest in them. The giantess’ eyes fell upon Elijah, and he shook beneath her cold scrutiny. Something rustled in his hand; to his surprise, he realized that he had carried the portrait with him. But it was too late to do anything about it now.

“Are you the Archivist?” Her voice was even more intimidating now that it was being directed toward him.

“Yes, my goddess,” Elijah mumbled, looking up into those enormous eyes.

“You will address me properly.”

“Yes, Tyrant.”  He wished that his hands weren’t shaking so hard; the rolled-up paper trembled along with them. Except for the man’s weeping, it was the loudest sound in the room.

The giantess continued to stare down at him, her expression unreadable. “How long have you served me?”

“Forty-one years, Tyrant.” As he said this, he remembered the day that he had left his family, how his parents had stared at him with heartbroken expressions. His mother had tried to persuade him not to go, had tried to warn him. And oh, how he had argued with them. Elijah had stormed out the door, and he hadn’t spoken to his family since then. As much as he hated to admit it, he could hardly remember them, and their faces were blurred in his memory.

“That certainly is a long time,” the Tyrant said. “It’s a shame that I have to dismiss you.”

The words struck Elijah like arrows, and he wondered if it was some sort of mean-spirited joke. Except the giantess seemed completely serious, her dark lips set in a straight line.

“B-but y-you can’t,” he protested weakly.

“Oh, I can, and I will.” Her gray eyes were so cold, not at all like how he drew them in his sketches. These were ancient, pitiless eyes, the eyes of a monster who would raze cities for its pleasure.

Elijah bowed his hand, wringing the rolled-up portrait in his hands. He couldn’t fight this, couldn’t fight Her. She was the only power here, and he was, and almost had been, nothing. To his shame, warm tears trickled down over his cheeks.

“What is that in your hand?” The Tyrant suddenly demanded, and Elijah glanced up.

“It-it’s nothing,” he lied.

“Show me. Now.”

And so he unrolled the paper, revealing the drawing. The pastels had smeared slightly, but the subject was still recognizable. The giantess leaned forward in her throne, her eyes narrowing. Elijah almost let out a sigh of relief when the smile appeared on her face.

“Is that me?” She asked, and he responded with a meek nod.

“You adore me, don’t you?” One of her hands made a beckoning gesture. “Come closer.”

His footsteps echoed as he approached the gargantuan throne, clutching the drawing to his chest. He didn’t notice the flayed woman to his right, her blood pooling around her body while her husband stared in catatonic shock. All of his attention was on the lovely, terrifying being looming before him.

The Tyrant continued to smile at him, and his tears changed from tears of sorrow to those of ecstatic joy. He relived that moment of wonder when he was nineteen, when he saw the giantess in all of her glory, and his old man’s body became forgotten.

“Yes, I adore you,” he whispered, and as the last word passed his lips, her sandaled foot raised over him. Somewhere deep in his brain, his instincts shouted at him to flee, but he didn’t move fast enough. Elijah caught a horrifying glimpse of the Tyrant’s scuffed sole before it landed atop him, pressing him down into the floor. The pain was instantaneous and all-consuming, his bones creaking beneath the giantess’ astronomical weight.

“How pathetic you are,” she sneered, and he began to flail, his limbs beating feebly against the tiles. Elijah’s head was forced to the side, and he saw his sketch flutter free, landing near his face. He didn’t understand what he had done wrong, so he had no idea how to plead with her. All that he could was cry out in anguish as she began to step down.

Each second became worse and worse, the agony occupying his entire existence. Sharp, sickening cracks erupted around him, and dimly, he understood that it was his bones breaking. The crushing pressure came down on his face, and his jaws ground together, so hard that his teeth exploded outward in a bloody mess. They bounced and tumbled across the floor, coming to a stop near the crinkled piece of paper.

Blood leaked out from his mouth, his pulverized limbs, and when his body cavity ruptured, it poured out across the floor and soaked the drawing. Elijah was vaguely aware that the slimy coils spilling out from beneath the Tyrant’s foot were his intestines. Already his vision was fading, tendrils of darkness encircling his sight. He was dying, he knew that, but what he didn’t know was why he had to, other than the fact that it pleased her.

“The saddest part is that there will be more like you,” the Tyrant told him in a cool, detached voice. “There always are.”

His lungs could no longer draw in air, and a soft, wet noise escaped from between his mangled lips. The last thing that Elijah saw was the portrait, the image disappearing beneath the bright red tide of his blood.

Sometimes, I remembered when I was human.

It usually happened late at night when I was alone and about to fall asleep. Vague memories, of working in an office, shopping for groceries, walking on the beach, would give me a brief glimpse of what I had once been. Of course, that was hundreds of years ago, before humanity had created its vast empire among the stars. As they had colonized new worlds, they had needed the Guardians to protect them against otherworldly and malicious threats.

I was a Guardian. I was also the last one.

We had been, for the most part, volunteers who agreed to have our bodies modified at the nano-level so that we could face every challenge that the universe could throw at us. We were nearly invulnerable, never aging, with the ability to change our physical form at will. And oh, what forms we had. I could no longer recall what I had looked like before, but now I was perfect in every way, my body forever young and nubile. I could also change myself as my tastes changed – fiery red hair one day, flawless mocha skin the next.

And perhaps most amazing of all was my ability to manipulate my size. I could be the height of a normal human woman or the size of a mountain. With this power, I could defend the colonists of Ersa. And I did, for more than three hundred years.

My old name, like my old body, was long forgotten. I was now Bellona, after the Roman goddess of war. The only Guardian who had not fallen to the Scourge, a nano-weapon that had mysteriously destroyed all of the others. The bioengineers who had transformed me said that I must be unique, that there must be something about my physiology that had allowed me to survive. But that was well over a century ago, the last time that Ersa had heard from Earth.

For now, I was content to be here, with my memories.

***

The twin suns of Ersa, one the size of Earth’s sun and the other a tiny dwarf, reflected off of the pool as I laid beside it, wearing a halter top and a short skirt, so that the suns warmed my legs. The clothes weren’t clothes, really, but an extension of my form-manipulation. This was my private palace which overlooked the capital city of New Chengdu. I was afforded many luxuries, a perk of being the protector of an entire world. I was reaching for my iced coffee when Adam approached me.

Officially, Adam was my personal assistant, the person who took care of such mundane matters as bills. He was actually a lot more than that, a lover from time-to-time and my current best friend. I usually located someone like him every generation so that the loneliness wouldn’t get too overwhelming.

He stopped, smiling, and tilted his head. He had the cutest dimples when he smiled like that.

“You’re looking…tall…today,” he said. He was right, of course. I had chosen a height of fifteen feet today, big enough to be imposing but not enough to cause too much trouble.

“I needed to reach something up high and there was no one around,” I replied, winking at him.

“Right,” Adam said, laughing. I shifted position and sat up. I was still looking down on top of his blonde head.

“You’re also changed your hair,” he said.

“You like it?”

“The brunette bob’s pretty sexy, actually.”

I grinned and leaned forward, gently kissing him. I had to be careful not to knock him over. He reached up and touched one of my breasts, his hand tiny and delicate in comparison.

“You look absolutely gorgeous,” he said. “But you know that you have a meeting with the Council in half an hour.”

“Oh, right. That slipped my mind.” Actually, it hadn’t. Dealing with the Council, who were mostly members of the upper-crust, was exasperating. They were petty and, to be honest, stupid. It was unsettling that such a large colony was being run by people with such small brains.

Adam just smiled.

“I mean, really, what are we going to talk about? There hasn’t been an attack on this world in two hundred years. And that was just some space pirates. We haven’t even encountered another intelligent species,” I said.

“I think it’s more a formality than anything else.”

I huffed unhappily and drained my iced coffee in one gulp. Adam looked impressed, but it’s a simple trick to do if you’re fifteen feet tall.

“Tell you what. I’ll promise you an exciting night if you go,” he cajoled. “I even have a bottle of Olovian wine.”

“You know that alcohol doesn’t affect me.”

“I never said that it was for you,” Adam answered with a smirk.

***

I changed my appearance so that I was wearing my military outfit when I visited the Council, the standard silver and scarlet uniform that all of the Guardians had worn. My hair (platinum blonde this time) was pulled back into a tight ponytail. I also grew myself to a hundred feet because I wanted to symbolically and literally look down on the little jerks.

I left my palace with Adam trailing behind in a hover craft. My property was vast and inhabited only by the local (non sentient) wildlife, so I didn’t have to watch my step as I walked. I did crush a thousand year old Jaii tree by accident but the damn thing looked hideous anyway, all orange and turquoise bristles.

I was more careful when I reached the outskirts of New Chengdu. Already, crowds had formed along the street, waving and cheering as I passed. I took my time, watching where my feet landed. There was one time when I had walked this road and some child’s Anark, an alien cross between a dog and a howler monkey, had darted out unexpectedly and I squished it underfoot. Needless to say, it was much messier than the Jaii tree. Also, there had been crying children involved, which was extremely awkward.

“Bellona! Bellona!” The crowd was chanting, waving little the blue flag of Ersa. I had to admit, I liked their admiration as they stared up at me. There was also something else, something that I would never admit openly to anyone, not even to Adam. I saw the faintest hint of fear in their eyes and I savored it.

The Council building was ancient, one of the first structures built on the world. It was also built to accommodate a Guardian, so I was able to walk right inside without having to duck. I waited for Adam and then went in, past the little guards that stood eye-level with my ankles. My footsteps echoed loudly in the hallway (at one hundred feet tall, I’ve found it impossible to ever be quiet at all. Even little noises like joints creaking are thunderous when magnified to that scale).

The main chamber of the Council building was gigantic and spartan in its design, with almost no decorations except for a very old and very faded mural stretched across one wall. It was of the first ships that landed on this world. It was strange to think that I had been one of those vessels.

I bowed before the nine members of the Council who were seated upon a dais.

“Members of the Council,” I said formally.

“Guardian of Ersa,” they replied in unison.

“How may I be of assistance to you?” I asked. Oh, look at them. Like fat little rodents, leering up at me with contempt. I was the monster that they barely tolerated. I could easily grind them under one boot…I shook my head, feeling slightly nauseous.

“We have recently sentenced a citizen with treason,” the Speaker of the Council said, steepling his chubby fingers. “As you know, that carries with it the death penalty.”

Yes, I knew that. And I knew that it was my job as Guardian to carry-out the execution.

“When is the execution?” I asked.

“Tonight at sunset,” the Speaker said.

Well, it was very kind of them to give me a heads-up about that.

“I see,” I said lamely.

“You will be there, then?”

“Of course.” What else could I say?

***

The execution was held outside in a very open, very public area. With all of the spectators, it reminded me of a witch burning in Salem. I very much wished that this could at least be private. I had only killed a handful of people (not including the space pirates during the infamous raid two centuries ago, and they had that coming to them). Each execution had been…unpleasant. It made me briefly wish that I had died as a human hundreds of years ago.

The suns were setting when the prisoner was brought out, or rather, dragged out. I was surprised by how young he was. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-three. He gazed at the Council, then up at me. His face visibly paled so that his freckles stood out starkly against his skin.

“Corin Danord, the Council has found you guilty of selling secrets to the Free States of Nesoi,” the Speaker droned in his nasal voice. I think that Ersa was currently at war with the Free States, but I couldn’t remember. The colony seemed to be at war with a different enemy every thirty years or so.

“I did not!” Corin protested rather vehemently. The guards instinctively reached for their energy rifles.

The Speaker ignored him. “For this, you have been sentenced to death. May God have mercy on your soul.”

Ah, justice.

I knelt down in front of Corin and picked him up in one hand. Even through my gloves I could feel his frantic heartbeat. Normally, I would have made the death as swift and painless as possible by quickly snapping the person’s neck between my thumb and forefinger. But as I looked at the tiny man, his body small and soft and breakable in my hand, I felt something akin to what I felt earlier with the crowd.

He whimpered and wiggled in my hand. That triggered some deep, predatory response and I began to squeeze, harder and harder. At first, I encountered some resistance and then I felt his ribs shatter like dry twigs. Blood squirted from his mouth and I continued to squeeze until he vomited his pinkish-purple innards.

I gasped, repulsed by what I had done and by the fact that I was hideously aroused.

***

“I’ve been keeping this bottle around for a long time,” Adam said, brandishing his bottle of wine.

“Knowing you, it’s probably been two weeks,” I teased. He poured himself a glass and took a small sip. “What can I say? Everyone has their vices. I just happen to be an alcoholic.”

And I get turned on killing people, I thought. But of course I didn’t say that.

We were outside by the pool, the stars twinkling overhead. I wondered how far away Earth was. Sometimes, on nights like this, I would try to remember what it was like to live there.

“I should take take back. You, my dear, are perfect in every way,” Adam said, looking up at me. I hadn’t shrank back down but had decided to stay at my current size for awhile.

“Oh, Adam. You are so sweet,” I said, gently picking him up. He kissed me again, a soft tickling on my lower lip. “But I have some vices, though.” Like enjoying that man’s death. “Like enjoying sex with you far too much.”

With that, I pinched the front of his pants and pulled, exposing his erect cock. He cried out when I kissed it, the tip of my tongue caressing. He clung to my face, his little face contorted with pleasure. When he came, I tasted the smallest drop of cum.

“Jesus,” he panted as I removed him from my face. With Adam still in my hands, I rolled onto my back and splayed my legs, so that my sex was exposed. I put him on my lower abdomen, just above my belly button.

“Your turn,” I said. His feathery footsteps tickled my skin as he headed right toward my pubic mound, my clit already aching to be touched. I felt him crawling toward that very spot and cried out. I was so aroused that even his touch felt amazing. My clit had to be the size of a cantaloupe to him and I writhed as he vigorously rubbed at. I was almost certain that he may have even bitten down at one point. When I finally orgasmed, I arched my back in ecstasy, barely aware that Adam had fallen off me onto the stone patio below.

I sat up and saw him grinning at me from between my legs, his hair disheveled.

“See? I promised you a good night,” he said.

***

I shrank back down to the size of a normal person when Adam left. I swam for awhile in the pool, floating on my back as I gazed up at the night sky. Then I went back inside and collapsed into bed, exhausted. I had terrible nightmares that night, horrible images of people dying in my hands by the hundreds. In the dream, I licked their blood from my fingers…

I was awaken by the palace’s AI, which had sounded the emergency alarm. The alarm was used so infrequently that I didn’t recognize what it was at first. I envisioned one of my kimonos and concentrated, the emerald silk weaving around my body. I dialed up the Council, wondering why they had sounded the alarm. Perhaps it was some sort of technical malfunction. It wouldn’t be the first time that that had happened.

No one answered, which was odd. I was pondering this when I heard a thunderous barrage of noise, followed by a tremor that knocked me from my feet. I pulled myself up and ran to one of the balconies. I could make out the city in the distance, with its skyscrapers that glittered like spun glass. And towering hundreds of feet above them was a gigantic figure, surrounded by pillars of smoke.

It was another Guardian.

I watched, dumbfounded, as the Guardian strode across the city. It was difficult to see much from here, but I could tell that his intentions were not benevolent. As if on cue, he pushed one of the skyscrapers over, causing a domino effect. A whole line of buildings crashed into one another.

Fuck that. This was my city and my world. I didn’t care if he was a Guardian. I was going to break both his knees.

I gracefully dove off the balcony, growing as I fell. By the time I hit the ground, I was fifty feet high, then one hundred, then one fifty. I sprinted toward New Chengdu, my uniform covering my body in silver and scarlet. By the time I made it to the city, I was easily three hundred feet tall.

There were fleeing people everyone. It was like walking into a kitchen seething with cockroaches. Except that these cockroaches were intelligent beings that I had to try really, really hard not to step on.

“Get out of the way!” I screamed at the people. They only continued to stampede over each other. I tentatively raised one foot, trying to find a place to put it down again. That was proving to be extremely challenging.

“It’s much easier if you just step on them,” someone said to my right. I turned, narrowing my eyes. It was the Guardian, watching me with an amused expression. He was wearing the same uniform, except his was black and a deep crimson, the same color as his eyes. He was breathtakingly handsome, as though some god had descended from Mount Olympus to visit Ersa. But all Guardians were inhumanly beautiful and his attractiveness didn’t stop me from seething with rage.

“Who are you? Why are you here?” I demanded.

The Guardian grinned, flashing white teeth. “Here’s a deal. I’ll answer both your questions if you do something for me.”

I stared at him. “What?”

“Push that building over on that crowd over there. Their screams are getting irritating.”

“You sick bastard,” I hissed, forgetting my reluctance to move and striding toward him. I must have killed several people underfoot because he shrugged and said, “Stepping on them works as well.”

I swung my fist at him, barely missing his smirking face as he pulled back. Damn, he was fast. I lashed out again, this time clipping his ear. The grin vanished, replaced by something cold and malignant. My leg came up, hooking around the back of his calf and tripping him up. His body flattened several small buildings, but I was past caring. I straddled his torso and pummeled his face, again and again.

It took me a moment to realize that the Guardian was growing again. He bucked hard, sending me flying. I hit a skyscraper and rolled to a stop near the park. I was climbing to my feet when he was suddenly at my back, his arm wrapped tightly around my throat. I pried at his arm, trying to free myself even as I realized that he was crushing the breath out of me. I tried to grow, but I couldn’t concentrate on that and trying to breathe at the same time. My vision tunneled as I fought to breathe, clawing at the arm. As I started to pass out, he whispered in my ear, “I’ll answer your first question for free. My name’s Set.”

***

When I regained consciousness, I saw the Guardian (Set, I guess he was) seated cross-legged near me. My throat ached but I could already feel the bruises healing.

“Ah, you’re awake,” he said.

“Why are you doing this?” I whispered in a hoarse voice.

“I said one free question.”

I was rubbing at my neck with one hand when he reached down into the corral that his crossed-legs formed. His black-gloved hand opened to reveal several members of the Council. Still alive, luckily, but clearly petrified. Set saw my expression and smiled mischievously.

“Oh, c’mon. They’re asshole politicians. Don’t tell me that you don’t want to kill a few of them,” he said. “Here. I’ll start.” He picked up one of them, a balding middle-aged man, and then crushed him between his fingers. For some reason, I thought of Corin and gagged.

“You really are a wet blanket,” he said, rubbing his bloody fingers together.

“You’re a Guardian! You’re supposed to protect people, not kill them!”

“Oh, right. I completely forgot about that.” He trapped another Council member against his palm, pressing down until the little victim exploded.”You know what? I did the whole protecting people thing until I realized several things. One, I was a god. Two, it’s fun to kill people. I am a complete and irredeemable psychopath and I am okay with that.” Set poked at one of the remaining Council members, a tall, willowy woman. “This one’s kind of hot in a cougar sort of way. I may keep her around for later.”

“You motherfucker, I’ll kill you!”

Set’s red eyes gleamed slyly. “Then why haven’t you tried again instead of watching me crush these people?”

I said nothing.

“You can call me all the names that you’d like, but I know that you’ve seen tiny people and secretly thought about how much power you have over them. You are a force of nature, completely unstoppable. Their deaths are just a trifle.” Set tilted his hand and we both watched the remaining Council members fall to their deaths between his legs. He stood up, brushing off his pants.

“Adieu, my dear. I hope you think about our conversation,” he said, shrinking back down. I leaned forward, trying to follow him, but he was gone.

***

The New Chengdu police conducted a man-hunt but couldn’t find him anywhere. It was as if he truly had disappeared. I looked up everything in my records for a Guardian named Set but couldn’t find anything. Of course, he could have easily changed his name just as easily as he changed his looks.

I couldn’t sleep. Sometimes, I would see him watching me, mocking me. He was correct – I could have tried to stop him from killing the Council. But I didn’t. It was as if he knew what I actually was. Perhaps he wasn’t the only psychopath around.

I received a message from Adam asking me to meet him at the Red Sun Resort, an upscale spa that catered to the fabulously wealthy. I was still on the look-out for Set but I decided that seeing Adam for a few hours wouldn’t hurt anything. Perhaps it would even ease my mind enough that I could sleep again.

I headed up to the Red Sun Resort a few hours later, traveling by hovercraft. I found myself reluctant to grow, as if doing so may make me more like Set. At least when I was normal-sized, I didn’t need to worry about any sort of temptation.

When I arrived at the resort, I immediately noticed how quiet it was. True, it was in the forest, away from the main cities. But a resort like this was usually bustling with people who came to enjoy the hot springs or a nice massage. As I was stepping out of the hovercraft, I almost fell into a huge hole several feet deep in the ground. I backed up, surprised at a random gaping hole in the ground. What, were they installing a pool or something?

Except a pool wouldn’t have the remains of crushed corpses in it.

Just as I realized that I was looking at an immense footprint, I heard the familiar voice behind me.

“Hello again,” Set said, who was at the moment a good two hundred feet tall.

“You!”

“Yes, me.”

A thought occurred to me and my blood suddenly turned to ice.

“Where’s Adam?” I demanded.

Set just looked down at me and tilted his head slightly. “Did you change your hair color? You look good as a redhead.”

“I said, where is my boyfriend!”

“You mean that little waste of flesh? He’s fine. Now, I can’t say the same for most of the tourists and staff. I got really bored waiting for you.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“We’ve already had this discussion, and I’m still not going to tell you. At least, not until we get to know each other better.” There was something akin to lust in his eyes as he studied me. “I will say that you’re quite beautiful. I’ve only been with one other Guardian and she was so boring.” He started to say something else and then apparently thought better of it.

“I want to see Adam,” I said.

Set rolled his eyes. “Oh, all right.” He bent down and lowered his hand.

“I’m perfectly capable of walking,” I snarled.

“I insist.” The tone said it all: do this or you won’t see Adam alive again. I hesitantly approached his open palm, marveling at its sheer size. I was used to being the giant-sized one. The role reversal was intimidating. Cautiously, I stepped into his hand. It was warm with his body heat, his heartbeat pulsating beneath my feet.

He raised me up without warning and I experienced a terrible case of vertigo. I looked up into the titanic crimson eyes.

“I wasn’t kidding about the beautiful part,” he said softly, with the closest thing resembling gentleness in his voice.

It was too bad that he was an evil sadist or I may have been smitten.

“Adam, remember?”

“Yes, yes,” he said, annoyed. I nearly tumbled off when he started walking. He wasn’t considerate of anything below his knees, of course, and I saw him nonchalantly flatten several hovercraft and some of the resort’s smaller buildings. I hoped there wasn’t anyone in them.

Red Sun’s main attraction was a serious of hot springs similar to those on Earth. It was at one of these springs that we stopped, Set kneeling to put me down. I immediately grew myself to his height.

“Now, where’s Adam?” I asked.

Set reached down into a cluster of trees and produced what appeared to be a gargantuan net bag full of squirming people.

“Let him go,” I ordered, trying to keep my voice from trembling with rage and fear.

“Not yet. I still want to see you kill someone. Last time we met was very disappointing.”

“Like hell I will!”

“Here’s the situation. You can try to kick my ass again, but I’m not telling you where he is. For all you know, he could be buried somewhere slowly suffocating. You get to choose between his life or that of these unfortunate folks in this bag,” Set said, reaching into the bag and taking out a shrieking man. “Here, kill this one. I don’t care how. I just want to watch.” He dumped the man into my hand.

I looked down, unsure. There had to be a way to save Adam without doing this. Unlike Set, I was not a monster.

The insect-sized man was pleading desperately for me to help him. Against the field of my palm, he really was quite helpless. Despite myself, I could feel my lower belly tighten with dark desire.

I brought my other hand up, hovering it over the man. He realized what I was going to do and howled in fright. The sound was abruptly cut short when I brought my hands together in a bone-breaking clap. Blood ran out between my palms.

Set laughed with delight. “Now tell me that didn’t feel great!” When I didn’t protest, he selected another victim, a pretty young woman with raven hair. I expected him to give her to me as well, but he popped her into his mouth and leaned close to my face. I could see the faint throb of one of his cheeks as she most likely fought inside him. He grasped either side of my face and pressed his lips against mine, his mouth forcing mine open. With his tongue, he shoved the woman into my mouth.

I could feel her desperate writhing as his tongue batted her around inside my mouth, Set’s lips and mine still sealed in a kiss. Her screams were oddly muffled, reverberating up through my skull. Set’s hands moved from my face, down my back as he pulled me closer against his body. I could feel his erection pressing insistently against me. I instinctively pushed back against his hips with my own, grinding up against him.

Set’s tongue thrust the woman back further and further back into my mouth, until she was against the back of my throat. When I swallowed, it was more reflex than anything else. I felt her squirming all the way into my stomach. I pulled away from Set, gasping.

“I know you enjoyed that. You’re practically dripping,” Set said and, as if to demonstrate the point, he slipped one hand between my legs and delicately ran one finger over the fabric covering my swollen labia. Unfortunately, he was right.

“Ever fuck a Guardian before?” He asked. I protested weakly as he guided me down, so that I was lying near the hot springs, the faint smell of sulphur lingering in the air. Already, as if on its own volition, my clothing was receding, revealing pale skin. Set spread my legs (or maybe I did, I wasn’t thinking clearly by then) and I felt a delightful wiggling in my pussy. At first, I thought that he was doing something magical with his hands. Then I realized that he was actually pushing people up into me.

“No,” I said feebly.

“Yes,” he said inserting another handful inside. It was only when I was almost bursting with tiny people that he mounted me, nudging his rock hard cock against my opening. When he thrust hard, I cried out in pleasure and horror. There was an appalling crunch as he rammed again and again, his mouth stretched into a cruel smile. I could have pushed him off. In fact, I should have. But I would be lying if I didn’t say that it was one of the best things that I every felt.

He came with a snarl, his cock twitching spasmodically deep inside me. My own orgasm came a second later, every nerve in my body bursting with pleasure. Set withdrew himself, blood and semen trickling out from between my legs. A few bodies, looking more like mashed meat than people anymore, also washed out.

I started to shriek when I saw that one of them was Adam.

Set looked down at the corpse. “Whoops, I forgot he was in that bag. Sorry about that.”

I tackled him to the ground, tears blurring my vision. I hit him once, in his pompous mouth, then I realized that I was shrinking down against my will. I was suddenly stranded on the vast plain of Set’s muscular chest as he looked down at me.

“Tell you what. You’ve been such a good sport, I’ll answer another one of your questions,” he said. I tried to grow but couldn’t. I stared up at him, befuddled.

” ‘Why are you here?’ For you, of course. I thought I had killed all of the Guardians a long time ago.”

Despite the heat from the springs, I shivered. “Wha-what are you saying?”

“I’m the Scourge,” he said.

I couldn’t speak at first; when I finally did, I chose my words carefully.

“The Scourge was a weapon, not a person,” I said.

“Since when can’t a person be a weapon? I would argue that I’ve done things to cities that a bomb couldn’t do. I was supposed to be the fail-safe just in case some of the Guardian went nutty, something that could neutralize them. Of course, they never designed a fail-safe for the fail-safe,” Set said.

“And you killed them? Why?”

“Why do I kill anyone? Because I can. Besides, they always got upset whenever I wanted to fuck with one of their precious worlds.”

I tried to process all of this. I had always thought that I had survived because I was immune, because I was unique. It turned out that the Scourge just hadn’t gotten to me yet. My mouth was painfully dry. “And now you’re going to kill me, too.”

“Nah, I’m having too much fun to do that. Outwardly, you act like you have a stick up your ass. Inwardly, I know that you enjoy death and destruction as much as I do. Besides, you’re the only other Guardian left. And since I destroyed Earth, all of the bioengineers are gone. I don’t think they’ll be making any more of us.”

My shoulders sagged in defeat. He poked me with one tree-sized finger, right in the solar plexus. I bent over double, unable to breathe for several seconds.

“Don’t be all mopey. We’ll have a grand time, especially since you’re single again,” he said.

If looks could kill, Set would be back in Hell where he belonged.

“I’ll even take you to another world where you won’t feel so bad about the collateral damage. I know how you feel about this sad little dump of a planet,” he said.

Which is exactly what he did.

****

Ironically, it was to the Free States of Nesoi, Ersa’s current enemy, that Set took me to. I didn’t ask where he got the ship. I figured he would launch into unnecessary narration again. I was finding that he really liked talking about himself.

I was still holding out on being able to kill him somehow. Now that I knew what he was, I realized that stopping him would be very, very difficult. The little that I knew of the Scourge was that it played havoc with the nanos, keeping us from using our powers and even, in some cases, reverting us back to humans. I couldn’t stop him with force, that much was obvious.

The Free States of Nesoi was a world covered almost entirely water with large islands liberally sprinkled across it. We landed on one of the most populous islands, which was home to the nation state of Libera. When we got out of the ship, Set looked around and whistled. “Now, this is a nice world. I could see myself living here for as a few years…if we don’t destroy it first.”

Set was right. It was a gorgeous place, the climate sunny and temperate. The low buildings were constructed mostly of limestone so that they appeared white and dazzling in the sunlight. We started toward one of the outdoor marketplaces, past brightly-painted wooden boats that bobbed at the pier.

Set said something in the native tongue to one of the vendors, a wizened old woman with a face like a wrinkled apple. She laughed and produced a Blood Rose, an oversized flower that grew locally. It sort of resembled a human heart. I didn’t want to take the ghastly thing but she insisted.

“Your boyfriend is so nice. You are a very lucky woman,” she said in a heavily accented voice.

“Nice?” I choked out.

Set spoke to the vendor again, who happily blushed. I held the rose distastefully as we headed away. I looked down at it, the petals fleshy and red.

“Do you remember your name?” I wasn’t even aware that I was asking the question before it spilled out of my mouth. Set stopped and for the first time looked unsure of himself.

“What?”

“Your real name,” I said. This was clearly bothering him and I found myself enjoying being on the offensive for once.

“No.” But he did, I could see that. “What the hell does it matter anyway? I’m Set now. Red God, Devourer of Worlds and all that.”

And the Scourge, don’t forget that.

“I wish I could remember mine,” I said. Set just snorted contemptuously.

We passed by some people stringing multicolored lights over a doorway. As i glanced around, I saw decorations everywhere.

“It’s the festival of some local saint,” Set explained when he noticed me looking around. “They have one almost every weekend.”

I started toward what looked like a hotel, the outside gaudy with golden tinsel. It looked like it was going to be a big party tonight.

“Where are you going?” He demanded, grabbing one of my hands. I yanked it free.

“I’m going to check-in. I’m exhausted. I’ve been through a lot these past few days.” I honestly didn’t care if he protested or not. Luckily, he didn’t. I went straight to the room, slammed the door in his face, and then wept on the bed.

***

I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up it was sunset, the last orange rays highlighting Set in the wooden chair across from the bed. I sat up, seriously creeped out.

“How long have you been watching me?” I demanded.

“Long enough. You know, you would look hot in a corset,” he said and I yelped as my clothes changed against my will.

“Stop that!”

“You’re no fun. Speaking of which, they have some sort of party going on outside. I think we should crash it.”

“Absolutely not!”

“Or I could go downstairs and kidnap the woman at the front desk. That would also work.”

I sighed.

***

It was a gigantic party, a Mardi-Gras level affair. There were street musicians, people selling everything from noise-makers to alcohol, and costumes. A tall woman in sequins and peacock feathers pranced past me, winking at Set. He winked back.

I was dressed in a strapless black dress. Set had conceded to that at least, although the thigh boots were his idea. I found a seat away from most of the noise and nursed a glass of rum even though I couldn’t actually get drunk. Set, on the other hand, was playing the part of the ladies’ man, surrounded by giggling girls who couldn’t have been more than twenty. I wondered what they would think if they knew what he was.

I was also approached, but this guy was clearly intoxicated, his Roman toga stained with God-knew-what.

“Hey, honey. You want to head someplace private?” His speech was so slurred that it was almost incomprehensible. And he was clearly looking at my cleavage.

“Go away,” I said flatly.

“Aw, don’t be a bitch,” he said. Maybe it was because I had been having a very bad week but I rose up, my body expanding rapidly until I stood forty feet tall. The drunk gaped at me, swaying slightly. He wasn’t the only one staring. Most of the music and conversation had stopped, leaving a pregnant silence.

I sneered down at the drunk, my hands balled at my sides. Fucking little asshole, I would show him how much of a bitch I could be. I raised one booted foot high above him, most likely exposing my panties to the crowd as well. I didn’t care.

The man tipped over, too stupidly drunk to realize the danger that he was in. I brought my foot down hard, grinding with my high heel. The tiny body pulped and squished nicely. My action drove the crowd into a frenzy, people running for their lives. Pathetic, ungrateful little insects. Hundreds of years stuck in their thrall, protecting them and for what?

Nothing, nothing, nothing! I stomped through the crowd, leaving behind footprints of dead and crippled people. I kicked a stand selling roasted nuts, spraying wood everywhere. I saw the woman in the ridiculous peacock outfit and punted her too, her little body exploding against the toe of my boot.

I sensed a presence behind me and turned my head. It was Set, standing a head taller than me. His arousal was quite noticeable. He pushed me up against one of the taller buildings, an eighty foot clock tower. His mouth was suddenly against mine, his hands caressing my breasts.

I didn’t even realizing that we were growing until I became too heavy for the clock tower. My butt toppled it over, right onto people trying to escape. I lost my balance and also fell over, stands and people crunching beneath me. I sat up as Set squatted down before and pulled up my dress. I loathed him and desired him at the same time.

“I hate you,” I growled from between gritted teeth.

“I love you too,” he said shoving his index and middle finger inside of me. I moaned and opened my legs wider for him. He snatched up some of the costumed people below and mashed a few of them against my breasts. The others he fed between my nether lips. His head dipped down between my legs and I felt his warm tongue, first on my inner thighs and then against my clit. My flowing juices flushed out some of the people and he gobbled those up like dates, swallowing them whole.

I cried out his name, I’m ashamed to say, as I came with a violent intensity.

We grew again.

Whether it was Set manipulating me or my own doing, it didn’t matter. We were soon six or seven hundred feet tall, two murderous titans caught up in a frenzied passion. The old limestone buildings crumbled underneath us like spun sugar confectionaries. I ended up atop Set, my pussy aching to be filled. He obliged, thrusting his penis deep into me as I dug ten-foot furrows into the ground with my fingers. I saw people still cowering around us, but they no longer mattered. The memory of Adam didn’t matter. The last vestiges of my humanity didn’t matter.

I howled with rapture.

We grew and grew until the city was little more than a white carpet, the people and vehicles no longer visible to the naked eye. Our height could no longer be measured in feet but in miles. I held my breasts in either hand, stroking the nipples as Set thrust, his eyes wild and inhuman. I imagined that our movement was probably toppling buildings, even causing earthquakes that ripped the ground apart.

I didn’t care.

Then Set came, pumping millions of gallons of semen deep into me, his curled fingers biting into my thighs. I leaned down so that I could whisper into his ear. “You were right.”

***

We slept in a yin-yang pattern, the largest things on the planet. I awoke to a caress on my cheek. Set leaned over me, his expression unreadable.

“I’m going to give you a choice. I can revert you back to a human. And since I’m feeling especially generous, I’ll even let you go. Or we can be the intergalactic version of Bonnie and Clyde and terrorize a few solar systems,” he said.

Allison. That had been my name. Oh, God.

I took a deep breath and told him my decision.

Traveling through the portal was always quite an experience: my skin simultaneously burned and froze, and the insane whirlwind of colors defied all human comprehension. My body wanted to collapse, to faint, but I just gritted my teeth and focused my mind elsewhere. I had been using the portals for years, and I knew how to handle this. Unfortunately, not everyone else did. A new employee had recently passed out while in the portal, and oh man, Carl had chewed that guy out. Alex, I think his name was. Or maybe Derek. I could never remember names, which is why I usually wrote my clients’ names on my forearm. “Frank Warner” was scrawled on my skin in black ink so that I didn’t embarrass myself and call him the wrong thing.

The portal brought me to the downtown area, and it took me a few seconds to regain my bearings. I saw a cloudless blue sky first; then I noticed all of the miniature buildings surrounding me, as if I had been dropped onto a model railroad set. Most other people would have marveled at the highly-detailed structures, the little cars slowly inching along the streets. But I had been an employee for Rampage, Inc. for several years, and honestly, the whole tiny city thing had lost its charm. This was just another job, and when I was done with it, I wouldn’t even remember much about the city that I had just trashed.

Taking a deep breath, I sat up and glanced around. I had landed on a hotel, and most of the building had caved in beneath my weight. Powdery debris speckled my skin, drywall and wood and even the broken remains of furniture. I flicked away the remnants of a queen-sized bed from my bicep and then stood up, the hotel imploding behind me.

There were a crowd of people gawking up at me. This wasn’t all that surprising; there were usually awe-struck bystanders. I mean, how often did a five-hundred foot tall giantess crash into their lives? I smiled at them, waving as I fixed my skirt. The client had picked out a very specific outfit, a gray skirt and maroon cashmere sweater and tall boots. To be honest, I was relieved that he had gone with a somewhat normal outfit. Usually, clients wanted me to run around in a bikini or hot pants. One customer wanted a Mrs. Claus outfit, although I didn’t like to linger on that memory.

“Hello, everyone,” I said, and almost everyone stopped taking photos and winced at the volume of my voice. “I’m here from Rampage, Inc., and I’ll try to keep the damage to a minimum. Or not. This should only take about two hours.”

The hordes of bug-sized people stared at me intently.

“Oh, and remember, you can schedule your own customized rampage online!” I hated that line, but Carl insisted that we say it before any rampage. One time I purposely didn’t say it, and somehow he found out, and god, I got an earful. So I said that stupid line, and with that out of the way, I started down the street. The tiny people who didn’t dodge my thundering boots were squashed instantly, reduced to pulpy red jelly in my footprints.

The first few times that I had rampaged, I had taken my time, savored the crunching of little bones beneath my feet. Now I was just worried about finishing this job in enough time to make it to my pilates class. I left behind a trail of gory footprints, and at one point, I stepped on a city bus, glass and metal spraying outward in a deadly shower of shrapnel. I’m sure that it was very horrifying and life-altering for the people swarming down below. But as mentioned, I was trying to make sure that I kept an eye on the time.

I came to an intersection and kicked a few vehicles out of the way, sending them careening through a nearby restaurant. I looked left, then right. What had the directions said? Of course I couldn’t remember, which was annoying. I chose left, marching toward one of the shorter condo buildings. This street was narrower, and my hips and shoulders smashed windows and ripped the stone facade from several skyscrapers. At one point I had to bash my way through a knee-high building, masonry and bodies flung everywhere.

Aha, there it was. Several people were gathered on top of the condo building, too frightened or shocked to run for their lives. My gargantuan shadow fell over them as I placed my hands on my hips, sneering down at them. Part of being a successful giant or giantess was having a terrifying presence. That Alex (Derek?) guy had made the mistake of running away sobbing when some tiny women made fun of him. I’m fairly certain that’s why he’s no longer with Rampage, inc.

One or two people took photos while I towered over them. They’d probably end up on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook, and I just hoped that they were getting my good side. I was about to taunt them, call them insects and everything, when I noticed that the client wasn’t among them.

“Wrong building, sorry,” I said, placing my hands on one side of the structure and pushing hard. With a loud groan, the building tipped over, colliding with several of its neighbors. Dusting off my hands, I turned around and scanned the other condos.

“I’m looking for, uh…” I quickly snuck a peek at the name on my arm. “Frank Warner.”

None of the panicking people offered any help. Luckily, I spotted the client on a balcony. It looked like he had just come home from the office because he was still dressed in the kind of insanely expensive suit that CEOs wore. As I bent down toward him, he backed away nervously.

“Hi, Frank! I’m Marie from Rampage, Inc, and I’m here to make all of your dreams come true!” I told the tiny man. He wasn’t unattractive, but the fear had contorted his minuscule features. I was used to customers being afraid; they often didn’t realize how overwhelming a giant person could actually be. As I tried to smile reassuringly at him, Frank said something. I had to lean even closer to hear him, turning my right ear in his direction.

“I’ve changed my mind!” He yelled up at me.

I frowned. “I’m afraid that you can’t do that, Mr. Warner. You signed a contract and everything.”

Hand shaking, he tried to push back his thinning hair. This was a man who was evidently accustomed to negotiating. “Look, I’ll contact your supervisor and tell them that they can keep the money.”

“Sorry, it doesn’t work that way,” I said, still smiling.

Frank seemed torn between anger and terror, and he didn’t say anything until I gently plucked him from the balcony. The wail that he made was shrill and almost funny. I stood up and put him into the small carrier that hung from around my neck like a gaudy necklace. It was transparent and allowed the customer to see all of the destruction and blood-drenched chaos up close. There was even a state-of-the-art sound system that could drown out the screams if they became too much.

“Comfy?” I asked.

“Nooooo!”

“Good.” I took off through Frank’s neighborhood, demolishing everything in my path. In a way, I had become jaded when it came to my job. Being big had lost a lot of its excitement, although I still loved the sensation of buildings crumbling against my body. The most magnificent works of mankind, reduced to rubble so effortlessly. Nothing could stand in my way, not even thousands of tons of steel and concrete. The thought of it still made my heart race a little.

“So what do you want to see first?” My question went unanswered; Frank continued to howl within the carrier.

“Okay, I’ll improvise,” I said, my eyes searching the area. I hunted for the tallest building, which happened to be a sixty-story skyscraper with a black mirrored exterior. Oh, yeah, that was perfect. I could imagine all of the office workers in there, watching with horror as I approached. Smiling, I sauntered toward the building. In his carrier, Frank had become too hoarse to shriek anymore. Or he was staring down at the ground far below, petrified. Either way, I was relieved that he had finally shut up.

I strode up to the tall skyscraper, flattening most of the cars in the parking lot. My reflection greeted me in the dozens of windows, and I made a mental note to get my hair trimmed again soon. I also decided that strawberry blonde wasn’t really working for me. Maybe I’d try dying my hair red next time.

I tapped at the carrier with one finger. “You’ll want to watch this, Mr. Warner.”

“Put me down! I swear to Christ, I’ll sue you and—,”

Ignoring his threats, I made a fist and punched through the reflective exterior of the skyscraper. The sharp shards of glass and twisted fragments of metal didn’t hurt much. Along with making me gigantic, my trip through the portal had rendered me almost invincible. A lot of people would have taken the opportunity to use their near-godlike power to conquer the world. But one guy had tried it a few years ago and Rampage, Inc. hadn’t taken it well. I heard that his funeral was closed-casket.

My hand struck the inner walls of the building, and I began to probe around inside. Despite my size, I could still feel things like elevators, desks, filing cabinets. And people, their bodies soft and fragile beneath my fingertips. I dragged out several of them, along with a handful of detritus. Sifting through the chunks of debris, I selected a young woman with short hair and glasses.

She whimpered. She begged. She cried. She tried everything that she could to escape her predicament, but her efforts were useless. I popped her into my mouth, tasting her perfume and deodorant and fear sweat. People were an acquired taste. The first time I had put someone into my mouth, I had spat him all over the side of a building. Over time, I grew accustomed to the flavor, and I have to admit, I found the desperate squirming in my mouth to be entertaining.

The tiny woman with the glasses was certainly squirming, wrestling with my tongue like it was some sort of huge monster. I took my time, letting her think that she could wiggle free of my mouth; then I swallowed her with one powerful gulp. Now, most people would have thought that swallowing someone alive was easy. But victims fought with every last ounce of strength, and one of my coworkers had almost choked on a tiny person at the annual company picnic. It was a good thing that I had known how to perform the Heimlich maneuver.

So yeah, it took practice and skill to not die along with the tiny person.

The other people in my hand saw as I ate their companion, and they immediately panicked. One man tried to run, but he lost his balance and tumbled from my palm. I hunted around for him, expecting to see his body splattered all over the sidewalk below. Somehow he had managed to land in the valley between my breasts, and he hung onto my sweater for dear life.

I didn’t have time to torment him, so I nudged him until he fell and then I turned my attention back to the others.

“Don’t do this!” One man shrieked. “We’re people, we have families!”

All that I heard was “Blah, blah, blah.” I was just doing my job, so I didn’t feel remorseful. Did landscapers feel bad about cutting grass? Did butchers feel bad slaughtering animals? Of course not. Besides, Rampage, Inc. had compensated this city well, so they couldn’t complain.

Lifting the minuscule people up to my lips, I tilted my hand so that they rolled into my mouth. They joined the woman with the glasses in my stomach, and I felt their feeble movements as the acids and enzymes dissolved their flesh.

I snuck a glance at my watch, happy to see that I was making good time. Maybe I’d even have time to stop by the store, pick up a gift for my cousin’s birthday. I was contemplating what to buy her when Frank began to make noises again in the carrier. I brought him up to eye level, peering in at him.

“So what do you think? Is it everything that you were hoping for?” I asked.

His cheeks were the color of ripe apples and his head almost vibrated from rage. “This is awful! I didn’t pay for this! Put me down, you big bitch!”

I spoke over him. “I’m glad that you’re enjoying it, Mr. Warner. Wait until you see the next part.”

He looked like he was on the verge of tears as I lowered him back down.

A newscopter followed me as I strolled through the outskirts of the city, recording me as I kicked over buildings and turned people into unrecognizable streaks. Carl always told us not to kill the news crews, since they provided free publicity for Rampage, Inc. This newscopter was irritating, however, and I had to resist the urge to swat it from the sky as it swooped down toward my face. I stopped plowing through neighborhoods and glared at the little helicopter. When it darted toward my cheek again, I lifted my hand abruptly. The reporters inside probably thought that I was going to smack them, and I’m sure that they received the scare of their lives.

I didn’t hit them, just waved like I was a contestant in a beauty contest. But my smile was far from warm. They took the hint and backed off, keeping a safe distance. I didn’t doubt that my rampage would end up on the evening news. When I had first started at the company, I had watched the post-rampage footage with rapt attention. Now I watched for a minute or two, silently critiquing myself, and then I’d return to my favorite shows.

With the cameras watching, I had to do something sexy. Besides, I was running low on time, and the customer had specified that he wanted some “erotic mayhem” (his words, not mine). So I found a long line of vehicles, people trying to flee from the devastation, and marched toward them.

Several people saw me approaching and hopped out of their cars. Others tried to maneuver their vehicles around, but the traffic congestion was too thick and most of them ended up crashing into one another. One white SUV drove into a telephone pole, and as the other cars swerved to avoid it, I bent down.

I picked up the small SUV in one hand and peeked in through the tinted windows. Three shocked faces stared back at me. One of the women had been babbling on her cell phone, but she dropped it into her lap as soon as my eyes focused on her.

“You’ll do nicely,” I said, and they flinched as if my words had physical force. I sat down, flattening anything unfortunate enough to be under my buttocks, and pulled up my skirt with my free hand. The SUV driver must have figured out what was going on as I guided them down toward my black satin panties because he began to honk frantically. I giggled and tipped the SUV upside down, which got him to stop immediately.

With two fingers, I yanked open my panties and ran the vehicle over my pubic mound. The minute tires tickled, and the undercarriage of the SUV was still hot enough to cause a pleasant sensation against my skin. My closely-shaven pubic hair scraped across the vehicle; through the windows, the driver and passengers began to scream.

I placed the SUV onto the crotch of my panties and readjusted them. The vehicle pressed up against my labia, wedged between the satiny fabric and my flesh. Within the SUV, the occupants were trapped in humid darkness, my vaginal fluids dripping down the windshield in a thick, clear deluge. Every movement of my body was a horrifying experience to them.

“Hey, Mr. Warner, what did you think of that?” I asked the tiny man in the carrier. Once again, he refused to answer, and it was becoming exasperating. I took off the carrier, dropped Frank onto my open palm.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “You pay millions of dollars to see your dream come true, and you decide that you don’t want it anymore?”

“I didn’t think that it’d be like this,” Frank croaked out. “This…this is horrible.”

I shrugged. “Sorry about that. I can let you explore my body or something else.”

Frank looked like a cornered animal, and he seemed to be considering how far it was to the ground. Deciding that a jump would kill him, he said, “Okay?”

Stretching out my body, I put him down on my belly. He seemed dazed, as if I had transported him to an alien landscape, and then tentatively he crawled along my sweater. I was studying him, making sure that he didn’t lose his grip and plummet to the street, when my phone rang. All across the city, windows shattered and people clutched at their bleeding ears until I answered it.

Carl didn’t even wait for me to say hello. “Kim’s sick, so I need you to come in tomorrow.”

I really, really didn’t want to come in on my day off, but I knew better than to argue with my boss. “Yeah, alright. What kind of rampage is it?”

“The customer wanted something giga-sized, so it should be easy. Loom over a city, grind it underfoot, and so on.”

My mind drifted away from Carl, and I looked at my watch. I’d have to wrap this up really soon if I wanted to make my class. I muttered agreement, which got my boss off the phone, and then I tried to find Frank. Hopefully, I hadn’t squished him by accident. I prided myself in only crushing the general populace, not paying customers.

He was still kneeling on my torso, staring around wide-eyed. Pinching him between my thumb and forefinger, I lifted him up. I didn’t feel like putting him back into the carrier, so I slipped him down into my bra. So what if it wasn’t a Rampage, Inc. certified procedure? The client was safe, albeit a bit smushed by the soft flesh of my breast.

In my panties, the driver of the SUV had apparently had enough, and he was trying to put the vehicle into reverse. But they were trapped, pinned beneath the heavy weight of my labia, and the tires skidded loudly and futilely. I stroked the small bump in the fabric, pushing the SUV slowly upward; then there was a sudden shriek of metal crunching, and the vehicle was compacted into a thin wafer. Fishing it out, I gave it a cursory glance. Blood and the mashed remains of the driver and passengers leaked out, mixing with my viscous vaginal secretions. I hurled the SUV in the direction of some warehouse buildings and stood up, disappointed to see the patches of oil and ash and debris spotting my skirt. With any luck, the stains would come out at the dry-cleaner’s.

The newscopter was still trailing after me as I trampled a few apartment buildings, dust rising up around my boots. Admittedly, it wasn’t my best rampage, but so what? The customer had received what he had ordered, whether he wanted it or not, and I got paid. I glanced at my watch, stepped on a cluster of screaming people, glanced at my watch again. The last five minutes of any job was the worst because they seemed to take forever.

“Yes, run for your worthless lives!” I said half-heartedly to the survivors. I could have easily hunted them all down, reduced them to a slimy sludge beneath the soles of my boots. But why bother at this point? I counted down the seconds until time was up, and the portal reopened in a shimmering vortex of light. As the news crew watched, I gave one last wave, grinning brightly, and then I stepped into the gateway. Once again, I experienced that weird burning-freezing feeling, and I had to suffer through my head spinning like mad until I was dumped back into the headquarters of Rampage, Inc.

Two of my coworkers were getting ready to go through the portal, a svelte, graceful woman in a teal dress and a blond man in a suit. To be polite, I muttered quick hellos and then dashed toward the locker rooms to change. I had just made it through the door when I felt a desperate wiggling in my bra.

“Shit,” I hissed, gazing down into my sweater. There was Frank, small and extremely upset, his head barely visible. I considered my options: I could go back through the portal and return him right away, or I could hold off until after my pilates class. As I deliberated, the tiny man began to shout at me, threatening lawsuits and bodily harm.

That helped me to make my decision.

“I guess you’re coming to my pilates class with me,” I said, not paying much attention to his high-pitched screeching. “I’ll return you later. Promise.”

I knew that she was sneaking quick glances at me, and I pretended that I hadn’t noticed her eyes peering out from beneath her long lashes. She wasn’t conventionally beautiful, but there was something endearing about her freckled cheeks and button nose. Besides, I was bored, and I could already feel that heavy dullness settling over my senses. I decided to play along.

The marketplace was bustling, and I had to push past several people to get to my admirer’s stall. She was selling an assortment of fruit and vegetables, ochre berries and spiky melons and brilliantly vermillion things that resembled zucchini. As soon as she saw me approaching, she looked down at her plump hands, obviously shy. This must have been overwhelming for the poor thing. How often did such a good-looking man come to her stall? I knew that she found me attractive because everyone did. I had carefully designed my face that way, giving myself inhuman perfection. It was just another source of amusement for me.

“Can I help you?” Her voice was so soft that I could hardly hear it.

I smiled at her, the sort of winsome expression that could melt a girl’s heart. And from the way that her dark eyes widened ever so slightly, it looked like it had melted hers.

“I’ve come to see an old friend, but I don’t know the area that well. Would you happen to know of a good hotel nearby?” I asked, and she stared up at me bashfully.

“There are a few,” she murmured. “It depends on your price range.”

“Money isn’t an issue.” And it wasn’t. One of the advantages to being so incredibly old was that I had money, lots of it. Not that I needed it, since I could take whatever I wanted and no one could stop me, but it was fun to play at being human from time to time.

“Oh. You’ll want the Lisle,” she said, and I could see the desperate longing in her features. Here was a handsome man, the man of her dreams, and she didn’t have the courage to speak to him. She would go home to her small apartment, the one that she probably shared with her parents, and she’d imagine all of the witty things that she could have said to him.

Fortunately for her, I knew exactly what to say. “Thank you so much…sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“It’s Sadie,” she told me, and when she hesitantly returned my smile, I knew that she was mine.

***

Sadie had recommended the right hotel; the Lisle was gorgeous, decorated to resemble the Edwardian period on Earth. I had been to dozens of worlds, and admittedly had destroyed many of them, but this was something else. Beside me, Sadie gawked at the gleaming wood and polished brass everywhere, her chin wobbling. She had probably never seen so much luxury in her life.

We got a room, a huge suite with a stunning view of New Chengdu. I could see the enormous palace in the distance, which most likely belonged to the giantess. I bet you thought that you were the last one, I said silently to this world’s Guardian. But you’re not.

My thoughts were interrupted by Sadie, who had given up sipping at her imported wine and who now was all over me. I had been expecting to seduce her, to whisper things into her ear as I ran my fingertips along her body. But she was surprisingly aggressive, kissing and caressing with a fierceness that I appreciated. Normal sex wasn’t exciting for me anymore; I had fucked countless women, and more than a few men, and even the kinkiest foreplay couldn’t do much for me. But I pretended to enjoy myself, and in the end, it was evident that Sadie loved every second of it. She collapsed beside me on the bed, her voluptuous body entangled in the sheets.

“You’re a lovely woman, Sadie,” I said, and I wasn’t lying. I also didn’t feel any sort of emotional attachment toward her, but I didn’t mention that. She smiled and touched my chest, her mouth so close to mine that I could smell her wine-scented breath. We lay there for awhile, the darkness of night closing in on us.

“Do you know anything about the giantess?” I asked her.

“Who? Bellona?”

“Is that the name that she chose for herself? Yes, her.”

Sadie continued rubbing my chest. “She protects Ersa. She’s protected it for hundreds of years, I think. I don’t know much about her, though. No one does.”

“I know more about her than you’d think,” I said, and Sadie raised her black eyebrows. Before she could say anything, I continued, “What if I told you that I was like Bellona?”

“I’d say that you were lying.”

“Oh, but I’m not,” I said softly, and then I told her everything.

***

“I was a person once. Most of the volunteers involved in the project forgot what it was like to be human, which led to all kinds of mental instability. Madness, I guess you could call it. The human mind isn’t designed to exist for so long and to be separated from the rest of its kind.

They made us because they thought that they needed us. When mankind took to the stars, they worried about all sorts of threats. We were supposed to protect them from the monsters in the universe. And we did, for a very long time. But that insanity often crept in, made us into monsters ourselves. A lot of people died because some giant or giantess believed that they had become a deity.

And so they made me.

I was the fail safe, the one who could stop those who had lost their minds. Of course I jumped at the chance. I was young, ambitious. I wanted to become something more than I was. Most of the others became Guardians because they wanted to help humanity. I became one because I wanted to help myself. They gave me all kinds of psychological tests, and I passed with flying colors. I knew how to work the system, and so I answered exactly how they wanted me to answer. Yes, I would help mankind. No, I would never abuse my power.

What gullible fools.

I can’t begin to explain how exciting it was for me to shed my old body and become this. I look like a person, but I’m really just a bunch of very, very tiny machines. I control them, and I control all of the other giants. I can change my height, my appearance. I can exist in the cold vacuum of space, or on a burning hot planet. I’m immortal, practically invincible. I’m what humanity has always aspired to be.

My first assignment was on a farming colony near some asteroid belt. I had never heard of it, but apparently, the Guardian there had become paranoid. Authoritarian. And if I’m being honest, batshit nuts. The reports indicated that she thought that everyone was out to get her and the colonists, and so she executed citizens at random. It was bloody, it was brutal, and my bosses wanted her stopped. So they shipped me out to this far off world, and the first thing that I saw was that everyone lived in perpetual fear.

‘She’s crazy,’ they would whisper to me, looking around fearfully. ‘How can we possibly stop something like her, though?’

Fortunately for them, their savior had arrived.

I went to the capital city, and the situation was worse than I had imagined. She had trampled most of the city, and the survivors watched me like cornered rats as I marched toward her palace. It had fallen into disarray, and all of the windows were covered with heavy shrouds. As I stumbled through the darkness, I saw her, sitting there on her throne like some mad warlord.

‘You’ve finally come for me,’ she said, and then she started grinning insanely.

I didn’t deny it, just shrugged. She didn’t like that, and she launched herself at me, doubling in height, and then tripling. By the time that she slammed into me, she was immense. If I had still been a normal human, I would have been flattened into a bloody stain. But I wasn’t a person, and so I grew as well, trying to push her off of me. She was strong, incredibly strong, but I was so much stronger. I shoved her away, reached out to the billions and billions of nanobots in her body…and then I shut them down.

You should have seen the look on her face as she shrank back down amongst the ruins of her palace. The madness left her eyes as she cowered in front of me, and I knew that she was remembering her humanity. Her mortality, her vulnerability, all of that was rushing back to her. The Guardian begged for me to let her go, and I could have done so. The top brass would have believed me if I told them that she had escaped. But I didn’t want to let her go. I liked her cringing at my feet. I let her grovel for a few minutes, then I crushed her under my boot like a beetle. One minute she was a fearsome goddess; the next, she was a red splatter in my footprint. I found myself staring at it for a long time, and I realized that I had never felt so alive in my life.

One by one, I hunted down the rogue Guardians. There were only a few of them, and it was almost pathetic had easily they were eradicated. After that, I was assigned to protect a world named Hlin. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Hlin, but it’s an utterly miserable planet, always cold and dark. Most of the economy was based around mining, and the colonists there were sullen and unfriendly. I would have been driven crazy just because of the sheer boredom, but luckily, I met a woman named Norena. She was a feisty thing, the fiancee of one of the mining company executives. I remember the first time that I met her, standing outside in the snow. Most people were unnerved by me. I could be a big, scary giant, after all. But she was so bold, teasing me.

’So do you go around saying ‘Fee fi fo fum’?’ She would ask, and that made me laugh. I admired her courage, and I couldn’t help but fall for her.

She was the only woman that I ever cared for.

Her boyfriend was away most of the time, so we had plenty of time to see one another. The first time that we made love, I was twice her size and I was afraid that I hurt her. But she screamed in ecstasy, digging her nails into my back and biting my neck. Afterward, I lay curled around her small body, listening to her breathing as she slept.

Our affair would have gone on forever if her fiancé hadn’t found out.

I still don’t know how he discovered that Norena was cheating on him. I suppose that it doesn’t matter. He stormed into my home and confronted me, shouting in my face about how he’d cut off my balls. I don’t think he knew who he was messing with, and it was only when I grew, bigger and bigger until my shadow engulfed him, that he understood.

By then, it was too late. I wasn’t angry with him…I mean, do you get angry with a chattering insect? I was more amused than anything else, especially when I picked him up and squeezed. He pounded on my fingers, initially with rage and then with a desperate fear. I knew at that point that it was my decision whether he lived or not, just like with those Guardians. I decided quickly, dangling him over my mouth. I didn’t want anyone to find his body, so I dropped him into my mouth and swallowed, feeling every squirm and wiggle as he was sucked down into my stomach.

I don’t know if Norena realized what I did to her fiancé. She came over at her usual time and wrapped her tiny, soft body around the circumference of my penis, making me moan while I digested the remains of her ex-boyfriend. Everyone questioned his disappearance, but the local police couldn’t find a corpse. And so things went on as they usually did, until Norena left on a space shuttle to God-only-knows-where. It just happened out of the blue, and once again, I should have been furious. But I felt only a strange restlessness. Hlin was turning into my personal hell, frigid and so damn boring. I needed a way to break through the horrible dullness.

I read a lot, fiction and history and science and anything that I could find. That was how I came across the books about Egyptian mythology. Set in particular fascinated me. He was a trickster deity and the god of many things, including violence and storms. Many of the other giants and giantesses had taken the names of gods as a way to distinguish themselves from their former human identity, and at first, I thought that the idea was ridiculous. But I became enamored with Set, to the point where I took his name. The Hlin colonists seemed fine with calling me whatever I wanted. To them, I was just another thing, a living weapon that protected them from the terrors of space.

And what were they to me? Nothing. Just small things for my amusement. It occurred to me that they were entirely at my mercy, that I could wipe them out without even breaking a sweat. Sometimes I would sit in the local bar, nursing a beer even though I could no longer become drunk, and I would watch the miners around me. How easily it would to outgrow the bar and scoop up handfuls of people in my fists, clenching tighter until they all burst.

I held back for awhile, but as yet another decade passed and I knew that I was trapped on this hellhole forever, I broke. I broke harder than the rogue Guardians, who had destroyed a city or two. They had tried to justify their cruelty, and maybe to their mad minds, they were doing the right thing. But I had no delusions about what I was or what I was about to do.

I showed up at GrayGulf City, three hundred feet tall and thirsting for destruction. The tiny people didn’t even fight back; I smashed everything in my path, savoring the wild thrill of causing such chaos. Soon enough everyone was dead and the snow was stained scarlet with blood. I didn’t feel remorse, I only wanted more things to destroy.

So I grew, the snowy world seeming to get smaller and smaller until people and vehicles were mere specks. It felt right, being this huge and unstoppable. Even my time with Norena paled in comparison to the heady feeling of total freedom. I strode off with newfound purpose, and when I came across one of the mines and the surrounding town, I crushed it with a single step. All of those miners and their families, gone. Just because I happened to be passing through.

My body heat warmed the snow, melted it into great floods of water as I expanded even more. Hlin didn’t have much of a space fleet; I was supposed to be their defense, after all. The few ancient star cruisers tried to ward me off, but they were smaller than fleas to me. I didn’t even bother to flick them away; instead, I let them crash against my mountainous body. There were brief bursts of light as they exploded, little puffs of smoke rising from my limbs and torso.

I grew so colossal that the planet could no longer support my weight, my boots sinking down deep into the crust and leaving behind titanic footprints, glowing bright with magma. No one on Hlin would survive me, and I wasn’t upset about this. I truly was Set at that moment, bringing about violence and death.

By the time that I stopped growing, I could have walked around the world in twenty paces. I laid down, looking at the landscape below me. It was as though I was looking at satellite footage, clouds drifting along near the ground. I ran my finger along a patch of tan and gray, what was a city, and licked up the bitter and gritty remains. It seemed that I was worse than the rogues that I had been created to destroy, and that made me chuckle, my laughter reverberating around me. If anyone was alive, the sound surely burst their fragile eardrums, sent trails of blood running down their necks.

I studied the dying world beneath me, touching myself until I grew erect. The clothes were a part of me, controlled by the nanomachines, and it only took a thought to reveal my huge malehood. It was obscene, it was awful, and I loved it. My cock created a vast cylindrical shadow over the land, and my fingers merged with the shadow as I stroked myself. I let my mind float away, only concentrating on the pleasure; when I came, my seed annihilated life rather than create it. Most of a continent was submerged beneath the thick gunk. I felt inordinately pleased as I looked up at the blackness of space, embedded with little white stars.

I wish that you could have seen this, Norena, I thought, reclining atop the world that had once been Hlin.

I don’t know how long I was alone there; months, maybe. Eventually some rescue ships came, and I killed one of the soldiers, changing my face and body to match his. Sneaking aboard one of the ships was easy, and no one suspected that I was the one who had destroyed Hlin. Some of the soldiers spoke about in hushed tunes, talking about how entire cities were reduced to mere molecules.

‘There were nothing left but huge craters, so big that you could see them from space,’ someone said, and I could see the beads of sweat form on their brows.

‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ someone else muttered.

I had to try my best to keep from smiling and letting them know that I was responsible for the destruction.

What did I do after that? I roamed around the galaxy, settling on one world after another, obliterating or sparing them, depending on my mood. I could sate my hunger on the lives of billions, eat a planet like an apple, or I could choose to let them live, to flourish and to die as the universe intended. But even being an omnipotent being became dull. So I turned my sights to the remaining Guardians, who at least could entertain me.

I traveled to their worlds and destroyed them in front of the people that they were sworn to protect. There was one giantess in particular who gave me a run for my money, a dark-haired Guardian named Macha who was swift enough to punch me several times before I could incapacitate her. The pain was refreshing, like having cold water thrown on my face, and I almost regretted shrinking and stomping her as the onlookers watched. She was defiant until the end, screaming ‘Monster!’ at me while I looked down at her. I gave her a horrifying view of my bootsole, and then I ground her into bone-strewn jelly. Her most faithful followers experienced a similar fate. They shrieked, they ran, I hunted them down.

Once the Guardians were dead, I felt…nothing. Not joy, just absolutely nothing. I began to realize that death was no longer such an unattractive option. But that option didn’t exist for me.

You see, I can’t die. The others can, although I’m the only one who can kill them. I don’t think that those who made me thought that I’d go rogue as well, and so there’s no one to stop me. Immortality is fantastic…for awhile. But I’ve lost the excitement of being all-powerful, and normal people are just so damn boring. I’ll confess that I fell into a deep depression when I realized that I had killed all of the other Guardians, who were the closest beings to myself. But then I found out about her, the Guardian of this world. Somehow I had missed her during my rampages.

She fascinates me. How has she been able to hold onto her humanity for so long, I wonder? Can someone really be that strong? Or will she crack under the pressure, become like me? It’s so terribly exciting to think about it.

And that’s why I have to find her.”

***

Sadie giggled nervously. “You’re joking, right? That didn’t happen.”

“Of course it happened. I’m Set, the Red God. Devourer of Worlds, Bringer of Storms.”

She sat up, frowning. “This isn’t funny.”

“I’ll show you,” I said, taking her right hand. It would have been easy to twist her arm from the socket, but I was very gentle, entwining her fingers with my own. Before she could jerk away, my nanobots acted upon my silent command. I revealed my true face, my features rearranging themselves, my eyes darkening into a dark crimson. Sadie gasped and dove off the bed, her mouth gaping in horror.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she pleaded, and we both knew that I could have ripped her apart, devoured her alive and screaming. But I just stretched out on the satin sheets, smiling at her.

“Go,” I said, and she did, wrapping a blanket around her naked body and running from the hotel room. The door slammed shut behind her, and I wondered if hotel security would arrive soon. If they did, I’d squash them into unrecognizable pulp. There was also a good chance that I’d raze this entire city until nothing was left but smoldering rubble. I half hoped that Sadie would flee to somewhere safe, and I half hoped that she stayed so that she could see me in all of my terrifying and deadly glory.

My eyes drifted back toward the window and the palace, which was now a mere outline against the starry sky. Somewhere in that beautiful building, there was a woman who had resisted her inner demons for such a long time.

“I’ll see you soon, Bellona,” I said, smiling.

Dolores finished sketching the pentagram on the floor and then sat up, wiping the chalk from her fingers. Taking a deep breath, she took the old mayonnaise jar filled with blood and sprinkled a few drops onto the center of the drawing. It wasn’t human blood; she was too squeamish to actually slit someone’s throat. So she had collected the blood that pooled on the bottom of hamburger containers, dutifully dumping it into her jar until she had enough. She hoped that the beef blood would work for what she was planning to do. The spell had never specifically mentioned human blood, after all.

She opened up the ancient spell book, the one that she had stolen from Laura’s study. It didn’t have many pages remaining, and those that were left were stained and torn. If the rumors about the book were true, it was one of the oldest, and most dangerous, magical tomes in existence. Laura had forbidden her to touch it, reminding her that she wasn’t powerful enough yet.

Thumbing through the faded pages, Dolores gnawed at her lower lip and silently fumed. The head of the coven was always telling her what to do, usually with a smug little grin on her face. “Clean up the bathroom, Dolores” and “Why hasn’t this trash been taken outside?” It made her so furious to be treated like a maid.

Well, she would show Laura and the rest of the elder witches that she was every bit as talented as they were. They would regret bossing her around and making her feel worthless. She would laugh as they cowered at her feet, begging for mercy. With that image in her mind, Dolores began to recite the spell. She was certain that she pronounced the words correctly, but nothing happened at the end of the recitation.

Dolores stared at the pentagram, the flickering candles, the dark droplets of blood. And then she slumped over, burying her face in her hands. Maybe Laura and the others were right. Maybe she wasn’t a real witch at all.

“You should have used human blood,” a voice said behind her, and Dolores glanced up, startled. There was a man sprawled out on her bed, his arms behind his head. He looked like a strange mixture of her former idols: the reddish-blond hair of her favorite pop singer, the angular cheekbones of her favorite actor. But his eyes were like nothing that she had ever seen before. They were large and an almost poisonous shade of green.

“Are you—?” Dolores started to say.

“You know who I am. Nyrarius, King of the Incubi,” he replied. She frowned, studying him.

“I expected you to look…different.” Dolores continued to examine him. With his tight pants and blazer and boots, he looked like he belonged at a concert or an art show, not reigning over demons. Not that she was complaining; he was certainly an attractive creature.

“I look like what you desire. Your mind chose this form,” Nyrarius told her, studying his fingernails. “I could look like a gigantic, hairy beast if that’s what you wanted. But that’s not what you want, now is it?”

Dolores slowly shook her head.

“It’s not a bad body,” the demon said. “I’ve been in worse. Now, why did you summon me?”

The demon’s eerie green eyes were unnerving, and so she glanced away as she answered. “For revenge. Everyone in this coven treats me like a child. I want them to know what it’s like to feel small and worthless.”

Nyrarius grinned. “I can do that. All you need to do is ask.”

“I want you to make everyone in this coven small and worthless, Nyrarius,” Dolores commanded, and the demon snapped his fingers. The world swirled around her, colors blending into one another, and she was certain that she fainted. Regaining consciousness was a painful process, and as her head cleared, she looked around in confusion.

Everything had been transformed: the bed, her dresser, and all of the other furniture were suddenly skyscraper-sized. And to her horror, the demon was also colossal, his face peering down at her from far away. Placing his hands on his knees, he leaned forward and his shadow swallowed her up.

“What have you done?” Dolores demanded, more frightened than angry.

“Why, I made everyone in your coven small and worthless.”

“Yes, but why…oh.” Dolores’ heart thudded in her ribcage. “Turn me back!”

Nyrarius chuckled thunderously and reached down for her, his hand filling up her vision. She tried to dodge his grasping fingers, but he was much quicker than she was. The demon’s hand captured her and lifted her struggling body up.

“No, I like you this way, little witch,” Nyrarius told her, opening up his hand so that she could see his wide grin hovering above her. She wasn’t sure how small she was — an inch tall, maybe — but he was so huge that it startled her to look at him. Her eyes met his, and she seemed to be sucked into their unnatural green depths. Desire gripped her suddenly, and her entire body shuddered as his fingers brushed her torso.

“What are you doing to me?” She hissed.

“Tsk, tsk…did you even read that spell book, little witch?” Her breasts were so sensitive that she could feel the ridges of his fingers through the fabric of her dress.

“Y-yes? Mostly.”

“If you had read it, you’d know that I’m an incubus and that I can make almost anyone desire me. And I have to say, I barely have to use any of my power on you,” Nyrarius told her, laughing as her cheeks turned bright scarlet. “You like me, don’t you?”

Dolores tried to push his fingers away, but it was like trying to lift telephone poles. The gasp that escaped her lips was both lustful and horrified.

“Relax, little witch,” the demon said, relaxing his grip. “I’m not going to hurt you. You summoned me for revenge, and I’ll make sure that you have it.”

Dolores looked up at him, then gazed down. The wooden floor seemed to be hundreds of feet away, and she forced back the panic that steadily grew in her chest. She wanted to tell him to put her down, but before she could get the words out, he stood up and lowered her down to his pants pocket. Despite his attempts to be gentle, it was still uncomfortable being shoved into the pocket, and she found herself squeezed between his pants and warm flesh.

Immediately she squirmed to the top of the pocket, managing to free her head and shoulders. Below her was the demon’s thigh, his musculature evident through the tight pants; above her was his lower abdomen, although she had to crane her head at an uncomfortable angle to see that. When Nyrarius started walking, Dolores clung onto the fabric of the pocket, the rise and fall of his footfalls making her sick.

The old mansion that the coven called home was huge, with several bedrooms. Nyrarius stalked the hallway like some big, predatory cat, searching for the other witches. He opened the door to Bridget’s room, stepped over the threshold. They both heard the dull, wet crunch, and the demon sighed as he turned on a light. Dolores could see the blood leaking out from beneath his foot, staining the rug, but she wasn’t prepared to see Bridget’s tiny body embedded between the treads of his boot. The first time that she had seen Bridget’s face, the other woman had snorted, hands on her wide hips.

“You? A witch? You should go back home, girl,” Bridget had sneered, the contempt written all over her surprisingly delicate feature. Now those features were erased, her head crushed like an old pumpkin.

“Oops,” Nyrarius said, not sounding too concerned. Dolores had to close her eyes when he cleaned away her flattened remains with a tissue.

“Don’t worry, I won’t step on anyone else by accident,” he promised as he flung the crimson tissue into a wastebasket. Apparently he could feel her shivers, because he pulled her out of his pocket. Dolores tried to avoid the eldritch green eyes, failed. Once again, she found herself mesmerized by them.

He sat down on Bridget’s bed, the bedsprings creaking beneath his weight, and deposited Dolores onto his open palm. His forefinger trailed down the length of her body, from the top of her short black hair to the tips of her toes, and the feeling was exquisite. She turned over, looking up into his face and trying not to squirm as his finger caressed below her bellybutton.

“You’re lovely, little witch,” Nyrarius said, and she had no idea whether he was lying. At that moment, it didn’t matter much to her. All that she wanted was him, and she nearly spasmed when his finger gently pushed up her dress, exposing her long, graceful legs. The air felt cool against her skin, and she couldn’t move. Something kept her place — the incubus’ power, her own desire, she wasn’t sure.

“Tell me,” the demon said, stroking her right leg with his thumb, his flesh hot against her own. “Why did you join this coven?”

Dolores remembered her family, how they had always treated her like some outsider. She remembered her classmates, their constant jeers. She didn’t tell him any of this, but her answer was nevertheless truthful: “For power.”

“Yes, power is a beautiful thing, isn’t it?” Nyrarius thumb slid upwards, and she found herself parting her legs. The tip of his finger passed over her sex and she whimpered at the sensation. She wiggled involuntarily and the incubus smirked, raising her to his lips. His tongue flicked out, lapping at her legs.

“You taste lovely as well,” the demon commented, his breath washing over her body. His tongue continued to lick at her legs, its surface slimy and bumpy and yet not entirely unpleasant. Then his incisors clamped down gently, surprising her and eliciting a small cry. Slowly he dragged her into his mouth until her breasts were pushed up against his soft upper lip and her butt was cradled by his tongue. Any desire to pull herself free disappeared when he sucked at her and her body twitched in ecstasy.

The incubus spat her out just as her pleasure crested, and Dolores was left feeling chilly and damp and disoriented. She tried to sit up, but he slipped her back into his pocket.

“We’ll finish this later,” Nyrarius said to her. “But now, let’s find the others.”

***

The demon found a basket in one of the bedrooms, and he dumped out the contents, balls of yarn and half-finished knitting falling onto the floor. At first, Dolores couldn’t understand why he needed the basket; then, when he found Diane darting across the carpet and he scooped her up and deposited her into the basket, she understood.

He went from room to room, collecting her fellow witches and putting them into the basket. Dolores wasn’t sure how he found them so easily; they were all so tiny, and most of them were well-hidden. It may have been some magical ability, and she realized how little she knew about him. Unfortunately, it was too late to read the spell book now. All that she could was silently watch as he snatched up the others.

At one point, Nyrarius trapped Sara in the corner of the large dining room. She was Laura’s unofficial second in command, a powerful and intimidating witch. Or rather, she had been powerful and intimidating. She quivered as the incubus knelt down and inspected her with a roguish and dangerous grin.

“Where’s the head of this coven?” Nyrarius asked her, and she flinched at the booming sound of his voice. He reached out, and Dolores thought that he was going to squish Sara. But his touch was almost tender and his voice took on a soothing quality. “Is she around here somewhere?”

“I don’t—,” Sara gaped up at him.

“You like me, don’t you, Sara? In fact, you love me. I know that you do.”

The witch continued to stare at him, and Dolores noticed the way that her facial muscles slackened and her eyes became distracted as she fell under his power. “Yes, I do.”

He walked his fingers toward her, and she grasped at one of the titanic digits as if it were a lover, her arms trying to encircle its circumference. Sara was entranced, helpless to the demon’s magic. And, Dolores realized with horrible clarity, so was she.

“Where is she?” Nyrarius’ voice was sweet and syrupy, like molasses, and Sara pressed her face against the bony slope of his knuckle. The tiny woman tried to fight him, her breathing unsteady from the effort; then she slumped against his finger.

“In the kitchen,” she answered, her voice distant and dreamy. Immediately the incubus’ hand closed around her, imprisoning her in flesh. As he dumped her into the basket with the others, every instinct was screaming at Dolores to try to flee, to get away away while she still could. Then he peered down, his poisonous gaze meeting hers, and she felt desire strangle her heart.

“What’s the matter, little witch?” Nyrarius asked, and he laughed as she shook, from fear or arousal, she wasn’t sure. He petted her through the fabric of his pocket, and Dolores squirmed feebly. Pleasure overloaded her senses, made her skin tingle as if an electric current was being run through it.

No! No! No! A voice shouted in her head, but she couldn’t stop the waves of pleasure. Her mind was overloaded with pure bliss, and she squeaked out, “N-nothing.”

“That’s what I thought.” His low rumble of laughter was erotic in ways that she could barely comprehend, and Dolores squeezed her eyes shut, unable to suppress her own arousal. She wanted nothing than to be back in the warm softness of his hands. But he didn’t reach down for her; instead, he wandered toward the kitchen.

Dolores opened her eyes when she heard his boots against the tiled floor. He set the basket down onto one of the counters, and she expected him to search for Laura and the others. But instead, he selected an orange from a wooden bowl and leaned against the wall, peeling it slowly. A tart citrus aroma filled the air, and she listened to his nails ripping at the fruit’s flesh.

He popped an orange slice into his mouth, chewing it thoughtfully as he stared toward the doorway. “There you are.”

She spotted them as well. Laura and Emily, one of the younger witches, were watching them warily. When the incubus grinned and waved at them, the witches inched toward the exit. Putting another orange slice between his lips, Nyrarius snapped his fingers and the door slammed shut with a resounding bang. Laura tried to open the door with her own magic, but no matter what spell she recited, she couldn’t make it budge. Enraged, she pointed up at Dolores and the huge demon.

“Dolores, how could you summon that creature?!” Laura demanded.

At first, the head witch’s anger frightened Dolores; then her own rage, months and months’ worth of it, poured over her. “Because I hate you, Laura.”

Laura seemed surprised, her sandy eyebrows shooting upwards. “But I don’t understand—,”

“You treated me like shit. Everyone treats me like shit. And you know what? I’m so tired of it,” Dolores snapped.

“You think that he’ll solve that? He’s just using you, Dolores. He’s probably already inside of your head,” the older witch said. “He can twist love, pervert it. He’ll make you love him and then throw you away like garbage.”

“Shut up!” Dolores screamed, ignoring the doubt that once again crept into her thoughts. “Nyrarius, get them!”

The incubus didn’t move, finishing the orange and licking at the juice on his fingers.

“Nyrarius!”

“Oh, did you mean now?” The demon marched toward the two tiny witches on the floor. “You need to be more specific.”

Laura tried to use her magic to stop the approaching giant, but to him, she was little more than a chattering cockroach. Once, she had been the most powerful being in the world to Dolores, an awe-inspiring force. But as the demon’s boots crashed down in front of her, dwarfing her willowy body, Dolores knew how wrong she had been. Nyrarius was the true power here.

“Is that what you call magic?” He laughed, towering high above her. Dolores had never seen Laura so scared, but to her credit, the head witch continued to throw every possible spell at him. Finally he seemed to grow bored and raised his foot over her, his shadow immense and ominous.

“Lick it,” Nyrarius ordered as Laura glanced up at the massive boot sole hanging overhead.

“Your mind tricks don’t work on me,” she told him from between clenched teeth. “I don’t desire you, and I never will.”

“I didn’t tell you to desire me,” the incubus replied. “I told you to lick my boot.”

He didn’t seem particularly surprised when Laura tried to flee, spinning around and sprinting as fast as her legs could carry her. She almost made it a few feet before she slipped and tumbled forward onto the floor. Before she could rise up again, the demon placed his foot onto her body and gently rolled her onto her back. Only her head was visible, the edge of his boot pressed up against her chin and neck.

“I. Said. Lick. It.” His tone was playful, but the threat was there.

Laura looked up, not at Nyrarius but at Dolores. There was no hatred in her pale eyes, only sorrow and betrayal. As the giant stepped down, applying painful pressure, her tongue reluctantly slipped out and dragged along the black leather. Nyrarius allowed her to lick for a bit, a pleased smirk on his face. Then, without another word, he leaned forward, his full weight descending upon her. Laura’s mouth yawned open in agony as the rest of her body flattened beneath the giant’s foot, tissue and bone transforming into a horrible, purplish mess. Blood spilled out from between her lips, from her nostrils, from her eyes. Dolores had to tear her gaze away from the gruesome sight.

“See,” Nyrarius said to her. “I told you that I wouldn’t step on anyone else by accident.”

Dolores wanted to say something, but his supernatural gaze hypnotized her once again. He was so beautiful, like a god made flesh, and she wanted to kiss his skin until her lips became raw and bruised. Laura’s warning came back to her, but it was faint and easily overwhelmed by the desire that swelled in her chest.

She smiled up at him, and he touched his fingers to his lips, blowing her a flirtatious kiss. Then he turned his attention to Emily, who was transfixed by Laura’s bloody remains. She didn’t even realize how much danger she was in until he grabbed her.

“What a delectable little morsel you are,” Nyrarius purred to the shrunken woman. Laura may have been immune to his hypnosis powers, but Emily didn’t stand a chance. Almost instantly she was his, and she moaned with delight even as he opened his mouth, the kitchen lights illuminating his teeth and the glistening expanse of his tongue.

Dolores looked on jealously as the incubus pleasured her with small flicks of his tongue. The other witch howled in ecstasy, her long, golden tresses whipping as she writhed against the enormous tongue. Nyrarius’ chuckles vibrated her from head to toe, and as she let out another moan, he slurped her into his mouth like a noodle. One powerful gulp later, and she was gone.

He retrieved Dolores from his pocket and put her on the island in the center of the kitchen. Her mind was a chaotic storm, and she was still trying to process everything that had happened. Laura, she could understand. Even Bridget, who had treated her so poorly. But Emily? The girl hadn’t deserved her fate, painfully dissolved by acid within a demon’s belly.

“What’s the matter, little witch?” Nyrarius leaned down so that he was almost at her level, his green eyes fixed unblinkingly on her.

“I-I didn’t want this,” she stammered.

“Of course you did,” he replied. “I’ve given you your revenge, haven’t I?”

“But I…”

“I can see what you desire,” the incubus said, working his magic once more. Dolores shuddered in arousal, horribly aware of his body and her own. He was so big, looming over the island and her, and she could detect his scent, like sandalwood and something else. An earthy, organic odor that made her swoon a little.

Standing back up, the demon grinned at her. His hips were now parallel with the top of the island, and Dolores could see the steadily-growing bulge within his tight pants. She couldn’t look away as he stroked it with one thumb, or when he pulled down the pants zipper. More than anything in the world, she wanted him. And when his erection sprang free from the confines of his pants, she crawled across the granite toward it.

The giant’s penis was several times larger than her entire body, a mammoth column made of engorged flesh. Dolores had never longed for something so much in her life, although in the back of her head, the warning alarms were blaring. It was so difficult to concentrate as the waves of pleasure rippled through her, tightening her lower belly. Unable to resist, she stood up on her tiptoes, running her hands along the underside of the massive cock.

Nyrarius felt her minuscule caresses, and he groaned deafeningly, arching his back. She tried to throw her arms around his penis, but it was like trying to hug the trunk of a redwood. Her breasts and abdomen were pressed firmly against the shaft, and she could feet his heat and thundering pulse through her dress. Every one of her nerves was a bundle of hyper-sensitivity, and when the demon’s hand curled over her shoulders and back, she cried out.

Gently Nyrarius moved her along the length of his shaft, stopping when she reached its tip. Large droplets of precum oozed from his slit, dripping down onto the granite island and pooling there. The giant’s breaths mirrored her own, ragged and excited. Dolores caught brief glimpses of his face, and she saw that his unnatural green eyes were hooded with pleasure.

“Yessss,” he gasped as her tiny, nimble fingers found his slit and probed its warm depths. “Keep doing that, little witch.”

Dolores obeyed, her mouth joining her hands in caressing his cockhead. She tasted his precum, viscous and salty, and the penis began to move beneath her as he thrust his hips slowly. Despite her efforts to cling on, the penis bucked hard like a bull, and she was tossed back onto the island. As she was getting back up, Nyrarius growled and came, ejaculating onto the granite. And onto her. Bucketfuls of gooey semen splattered all over her back, her side. She was covered with him.

The demon found a napkin and handed her a small section of it. As Dolores tried to wipe herself off, she looked at the basket on the faraway counter. The other witches were in there, still alive. For the time being, at least.

“You’re not going to kill them, are you?” She asked hesitantly, her eyes on the basket.

He laughed as he cleaned himself off and zipped up his pants. “Of course not. They’re my little playthings. I have plans for them.”

Dolores wadded up the napkin and put it aside. What she needed was a nice, long shower to wash away the filth on her skin and the guilt from her mind.

“Nyrarius, I want you to make me normal-sized again,” she commanded him.

“No,” he said, and Dolores wasn’t sure what to say. Finally she sputtered, “I-I order you t-to make me —,”

The incubus made a gesture with his right hand; the gleaming black and silver chains materialized from out of nowhere, slithering around her arms and legs. Frantically she tried to pry them off, but they dug into her skin, and as they tightened more and more, she collapsed, unable to move her limbs.

“You don’t command me anymore, little witch,” Nyrarius told her. “I’ve given you what you wanted, and your soul is mine.”

“B-but I was supposed to be the new head of the coven!”

“That wasn’t why you summoned me,” he replied, and she winced as the chains sank deeper into her flesh. For a terrifying moment, she feared that they would crush her arms and legs into bloody pulp. The demon continued, “Besides, I would be a much better coven leader.”

Dolores wanted to argue, but the pain and terror were too much. With another snap of his fingers, she began to float, rising up until he was able to pluck from out of the air. She started to scream desperately, but another chain squirmed across her face, forced itself into her mouth. The cold steel against her tongue and teeth was awful, but she couldn’t remove the chain.

Nyrarius smiled, and to her disgust, she felt another jolt of desire. “Don’t worry, little witch. I’ll take good care of you.”

Everywhere there was smoking rubble, and a fine ash drifted down from the sky.

My breaths echoed inside of the biosuit, mingling with the loud chirps and beeps from the suit AI as it scanned the environment. All of the readouts indicated that this world was safe: normal levels of oxygen, trace levels of radiation and toxins. Which made sense, considering that the others had visited here and come back alive and well. I remembered their laughs, the way that they had casually scrubbed the blood and soot from their bodies.

One of them had slapped me on the back, laughing. “That tech is amazing, Dr. Platell. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

I had gone into the bathroom and dry-heaved.

Even now I felt my stomach twist and tighten, and I stood there, trying to breathe slowly until the feeling passed. I didn’t want to be here; anywhere else would have been better. But this was my responsibility, and so I crept among the empty shells of skyscrapers, past the scenes of destruction.

I had never been so aware of my own body. This world was so small and fragile, and my every action impacted it somehow. If I wasn’t careful, my hips or shoulders or elbows brushed up against buildings, shattering windows and leaving gaping holes. I tried to walk sideways down the narrow streets, inching my way along. Something crunched beneath my right foot, and when I lifted my boot, I spotted the flattened little disk of metal. It had been a car, and I prayed that it hadn’t been occupied. Crouching down, I examined the crushed thing in my footprint. There didn’t seem to be any signs of a driver or passengers, which was a relief. I already had so many deaths on my conscience.

I spotted movement in my peripheral vision. It was nighttime and the power grid was damaged so the only light came from the fires steadily consuming the city. I turned my head and noticed a tiny figure, their motionless body outlined in the reddish firelight. I think that they were hoping I hadn’t seen them.

I was still crouching, and when I tried to stand back up, the person fled. Or tried to flee. The streets were littered with debris, chunks of concrete and steel as large as my fist blocking most of the exit routes. The person was stuck between a crumbled section of building and myself.

I leaned a little closer, but not close enough to startle them. As I studied them, I saw dark hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, and underneath the thick layer of ash and filth, there was a scared face. The tiny woman was wearing teal scrubs, so I assumed that she was some sort of nurse or doctor.

She stood with her back up against the rubble, obviously frightened. Of course she was terrified of me; I had heard the others bragging about what they had done to this world. To them it had been a game, a way to give into their every cruel desire. It was appalling how dark and lustful the human heart could be, especially when someone was given limitless power.

The woman’s gaze was on my biosuit mask, and I realized that the strange alienness of it only made me more horrifying. I reached up, unhooked the mask with a sharp hiss of gas. She watched me remove the mask, her posture rigid and wary. At least she could see that I was a person, albeit much bigger than she was.

I put the mask down by an overturned truck and tapped on my chest.

“My name is Maia,” I told her. “I’m…”

I wanted to say that I was a physicist, that I was the one who invented the wormhole technology. That I had helped bring the monsters to her world. I couldn’t force myself to utter those words, though.

“…I’m sorry,” I said.

She stared up at me, shaking. I doubt that she understood me. Even if we spoke the same language, my voice would have been incomprehensible to someone her size. I wanted to reassure her somehow, to prove that I wasn’t here to harm her, or anyone else.

“They won’t be coming back,” I said, trying to keep my tone soft and soothing. And it was true, they wouldn’t. The lab was in flames now, and I had destroyed all of my notes. Every spreadsheet, every diagram, every report had been obliterated. I was the only one who knew about the wormhole tech at this point, and I carried the last of the transportation units with me.

The woman didn’t reply, but I wasn’t surprised. Trying to be as nonthreatening as possible, I held out one hand to her. Her gaze shifted from my hand to my face, and then back to my hand. Nervously she stepped away from the rubble, toward me. She had no reason to trust me, so maybe she thought that she was doomed regardless of what she did.

Her own hand trembled as she touched my index finger. I could barely feel her through the biosuit gloves, but I gave her the warmest smile that I could. How brave she was, I realized. There was no way that I could have approached someone who was as big as a skyscraper.

It could have been my imagination, but she seemed to relax slightly. She pointed at herself, said something that I couldn’t hear. A name, possibly? As much as I wanted to pick her up and lift her to my ear, I knew that it wasn’t a good idea. I wasn’t sure if I could even hold a tiny person without breaking their ribcage or spine.

She moved away from my hand and gestured to something in the distance.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered.

The woman shouted, her voice barely a squeak, and I tried to look where she was indicating. I didn’t see anything in particular, though. Noticing my confusion, she slipped past me, and I figured that she would run for her life. But she continued to yell up at me, and so I followed her, trying to avoid the abandoned cars and trucks and buses.

She took me past a city park, the maples like bonsai trees and the park benches like model railroad props. It was gradually sinking in how massive I was, and there was a part of me that almost liked it. Was that how the others had felt when they had arrived here? Had they felt like gods among men, standing high above the buildings? I could almost see how intoxicating that would be, to lose one’s self like that. The ruins of the city served as a sobering reminder of the consequences, though.

I recognized the hospital when I saw it; the layout was similar to the hospitals on my own world. Half of the structure had caved in, and there was detritus all along the sidewalks. This was where she had wanted me to go. As I watched, she scrambled up the rubble, began digging through bricks and fragments of drywall. I finally understood, and I bent down, delicately sifting through the remains of the hospital. It was amazing how light everything was, how I could lift masonry that probably weighed several tons to the tiny people.

The first survivors were shocked to see me, but they were too hurt to do anything. I didn’t want to touch them at first, too nervous that I’d crush them accidentally. But who else was going to help them? I wasn’t even sure if there were any emergency personnel alive in this city. I gingerly wrapped my fingers around one of the people and pulled him out of the rubble, relieved that I didn’t injure him further.

The small man in my hand was young, dust sprinkling his tightly-curled hair and bruises purpling his skin. As I cradled him between my fingers, it finally sank in that I was holding a living, breathing human being. Someone with friends and a family, someone with hopes and dreams and fears.

I placed him on the hospital’s lawn and took out more survivors, extracting them with as much care as I could manage. How long I worked, I wasn’t sure. By the end of it, I felt lightheaded, exhausted. It wasn’t from physical exertion; moving the debris had been ridiculously easy. It was more of a mental weariness, as though I wanted to lay down and sleep for the rest of time.

But there were things that I needed to do first.

I sat down near the area that was once the emergency room and unclipped the transporter from my belt. It was such a harmless-looking object, a polished black cylinder that resembled a soda can. No one would have believed that such a thing could have caused such devastation and misery.

The nurse in the teal scrubs approached me, wiping sweat and muck from her forehead.

“If I destroy this, I can’t go home,” I explained, and she glanced at the transporter, as big as a grain silo to her. “But that’s the thing. I can’t go home. They’ll find me, and they’ll force me to build more of these transporters.”

She looked on as I opened up the side of the transporter and ripped through the thin wires. I took a grim satisfaction in its destruction, and I bared my teeth in a snarl as bits of wiring crashed down to the lawn. When the transporter had been reduced to nothing more than a useless hunk of metal, I flung it aside.

I buried my face into my hands, too exhausted to do anything else. I’ve done it, I thought. The technology was wiped from existence, its secrets locked up tightly within my mind. This world would never be visited by another bloodthirsty giant or giantess, but that knowledge didn’t cheer me up much.

A feathery sensation tickled the side of my thigh, and when I lifted my head from my palms, I saw the woman’s minute hand pressed up against my leg. I didn’t know what she wanted; I had dug out everyone that I could from the destroyed hospital.

Then I saw her smile. She had been trying to comfort me, I think.

I would have said something to her, even though we couldn’t understand one another, but something else caught our attention. From high above came the roar of jets, and we both gazed upwards at the same time. The tiny woman backed away as I stood up, listening to the noises in the distance. The sky was still a dark indigo, although the first faint rays of morning were breaking through the clouds and I could see the jets as they soared toward the city. The military had arrived at last to fight off the gigantic menaces. What they didn’t know was that the actual menaces were a billion miles away, and there was only me.

I tried to remember what the others had said as they boasted about their trips to this world. Hadn’t they claimed that the toy-sized tanks and airplanes had been ineffective against them, that they had trampled them underfoot, swatted from the sky? Or was this just desperate thinking on my part?

Either way, it was too late. I was trapped here, and I could only hope that they’d see me as a person and not some horrible, inhuman monster.

Slowly I raised my hands in surrender.

Isabel rummaged through the cabinet, trying to find the small saucepan. Today had been exhausting; she had spent the morning with unenthusiastic undergrads, and then she had a less-than-pleasant meeting with the department head, who kept calling her “Jane” even though she had been working at the university for three years now. And to top if off, the T had been late again and she had barely managed to wedge herself into the subway car.

Now she couldn’t find the saucepan, and the pots spilled out of the cabinet in an avalanche, crashing onto the floor. Sighing, Isabel picked up the pots and put them away. She was closing the cabinet door when she heard the shouts and honks from outside, and her stomach sank. It’s probably nothing, she thought. Just a car accident or something. After all, we had a long discussion about why it’s not okay for him to just show up.

Reluctantly she peeked out the kitchen window. An empty lot was across the street from her apartment building, or at least, it had been empty. It was currently occupied by a towering green statue, a familiar landmark that was supposed to be in New York City and not Quincy. All around the base of the statue, people were staring and pointing and taking photos.

He was involved with this, Isabel knew it. How else could the Statue of Liberty have ended up here?

Everyone’s focus was on the statue until the sky darkened, the wind picking up and stirring the dead leaves and litter. The clouds had gone from a charcoal gray to the purplish-red of a bruise, and as Isabel watched, they solidified, swirling downwards like the funnel of a tornado. Except this tornado was sprouting limbs, gigantic arms and legs that were bigger than the misplaced statue’s. A huge face appeared in the cloud mass, large eyes and angular cheekbones and a sharply defined nose. The eyes glanced in the direction of her apartment, their blackness dotted with tiny star-like pinpricks of light.

“Hi, Lem,” Isabel managed to say. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

***

She had only been teaching for a year when he had appeared in the back of her Calculus II class. It was impossible not to notice him; there was an eerie perfection to his features, a sort of uncanny valley quality that made Isabel uneasy. Somehow, Isabel had known that she wasn’t looking at a person. No, this had been something that was trying to make itself resemble a person.

“Are you new to this class?” She had asked, and the man had answered in a slow, thoughtful way.

“No, I’ve always been here.”

“I see,” Isabel had said, wondering whether he was pulling her leg. “What’s your name?”

“I don’t…” He had seen her expression, then answered, “Lemniscate. Or Lem. Is that an acceptable name?”

He probably wandered in from the street, Isabel had thought. Maybe he’s drunk.

But his eyes…they hadn’t been normal eyes. They had been so black, and with the strange lights gleaming within them, they had reminded Isabel of space. And when he had reached out and gently took her hand, that was where he had brought her: to the farthest reaches of the cosmos, a thousand worlds spinning in between them. Isabel and Lem had been astronomical, their size defying all rational thought.

“You have a lovely mind, Isabel,” he had said, and she had trembled when she realized that her assumption had been correct. He wasn’t human at all.

Since that first meeting, Lem had brought her gifts: flowers from the rainforests, beautiful stones from the moon. There was a sweet gentleness to him that she loved, although she could sense something else as well. A vast power, terrifying in its scope. The sort of power that could end worlds.

“I can give you everything,” Lem had told her once, and she hadn’t known how to respond. There it was, the chance to give up teaching at the university, to live in a sprawling mansion, to never long for anything. In the end, she hadn’t accepted his offer, though. Despite his good intentions, Lem’s thought processes weren’t even slightly human, and she feared the consequences of his adoration.

Like this, the Statue of Liberty looming over her neighborhood. No doubt it was some sort of gift, like the flowers and the stones; unfortunately, he had no idea that it was causing all sorts of chaos. Lem’s presence was only making things worse, and people screamed and fled from the giant.

“Can we go somewhere else, Lem?” Isabel asked, afraid that he would damage the nearby buildings. Despite his benevolent nature, he could also be chillingly thoughtless at times, as if he didn’t understand his own destructive potential. His cosmic eyes were still resting upon Isabel, and one second she was in her kitchen. The next, she was standing on a tropical beach, the air warm and humid against her skin.

She immediately spotted the colossal figure in the ocean. Lem was surrounded by turquoise water, his size making him look like a landmass. His slightest movements — a twitch of his leg, a flick of his hand — generated impressive waves, and they rolled toward the shore, splashing against Isabel’s legs.

Lem stood up, walked toward the beach and her. The ground shook rhythmically beneath Isabel, mini-earthquakes that threatened to tip her over, but she wasn’t afraid. She was relieved that this island seemed to be uninhabited; if anyone else saw a titan striding toward the shore, they would have been frantic with fear.

He stopped a few yards away from her, his feet sinking deep into the powdery sand. Isabel couldn’t look at both of his legs simultaneously; they were too massive and too far apart, so she chose the right leg, following it up the long length of his body.

A few times Lem had asked her what shape she preferred. Confused, Isabel had asked for clarification.

“Male, female, anything else,” he had said. “I can look like anyone. I want to be pleasing to you.”

She had been surprised, not sure how she’d describe her perfect partner. But Lem had closed his inky eyes, his features fluidly rearranging themselves. His hair had become a dark brownish-black, and his body had become less perfect, more like an actual man. Isabel had found herself more comfortable around this flawed being. Somehow, his imperfections had made him more attractive, humanized him.

Isabel studied that flawed yet handsome face as Lem bent down on one knee. Cool seawater dribbled down from his hand, pattering all around her, and his outstretched hand quickly replaced his face in her field of vision. Lem was reaching for her, and she told herself not to panic. It was difficult, of course, especially when such an immense hand was descending down from the sky.

Lem’s fingers brushed up against her, and he was so titanic that she could feel the raised ridges of his fingertips sliding over her back and belly and legs. She looked upwards, into the fathomless darkness of his eyes. Trust me, those eyes told her, and so Isabel leaned back against his palm and allowed his fingers to close around her. Beneath the warm softness of his skin and muscle, she felt the solidness of his bones, bones larger than the steel girders supporting skyscrapers.

The world rushed by in a blur of bright emerald and blue as Lem picked her up.

Usually Isabel wasn’t afraid of heights, although she was keenly aware of how high up she was. From this vantage point she could see most of the island, a lush carpet of palm trees spreading out before her. She shivered as her lover uncurled his fingers and she knelt on the broad expanse of his open hand.

He won’t drop me, Isabel tried to convince herself. Despite her worry, he didn’t. Lem was too intent on examining her little body, running his finger over her mop of curly hair. He seemed endlessly fascinated by her delicacy and smallness, and his gargantuan digits roamed over every inch of her being. The sensations were wonderful, and her muscles loosened and relaxed from the massage-like stroking.

Lem lifted her higher, until she was level with his full lips. With both hands she reached out, touched his plush lower lip. It was pillowy-soft, and her fingers dimpled the pinkish flesh. Lem’s face moved forward, pushing her down against his cupped hand. Surrounded by the heat of his palm and lips, Isabel squirmed. When his lips parted, she briefly felt his teeth, wet with saliva; then the tip of his tongue probed delicately at her lower neck and breasts, tasting her.

She was wearing her clothing from work, a boatneck sweater and a plaid skirt, conservatively long. Or to be more precise, she had been wearing those clothes. They were gone in the blink of an eye, whisked away by Lem’s otherworldly powers. The first time this had happened, Isabel had been embarrassed, instinctively shielding her nudity. But after seeing the way that he looked at her — so affectionately and curiously — she had shown herself to him. In that moment, she had felt like something rare and beautiful. Something that was so much more than a quiet mathematics professor.

He had explored her so tenderly then, and he did now as well. His tongue crept down over her stomach, savoring her, and she gasped with delight as the mass of muscle slipped between her legs. She became transcendent, and as her body twitched and heaved with pleasure, she gazed up into the starry galaxies of Lem’s eyes.

Isabel’s back arched, her fingers and toes tightened and clenched. For one instant, her consciousness merged with his own, blending together into something incomprehensible and infinite. Part of her mind was still on the island, her body spasming with bliss, and the other part of her mind was somewhere else.

It looked like space, and as Isabel watched, her lover’s hand closed around a gas giant, his long fingers curving around the planet and causing the gold and scarlet gases to dissipate into the ether. The solid core collapsed majestically within Lem’s hand, the world reduced to rocky fragments. He didn’t give it a second glance. Destruction, creation, it was all the same to him.

And then Isabel was alone, panting, her wet body held within the safety of Lem’s palm.

“Oh god,” she croaked. “What did I just see?”

“The past, the present, the future.” The side of his thumb touched her cheek. “Does it matter?”

“Yes, it matters,” she replied, and for the first time since she had met him, he frowned. The humanlike quality had left his features, and now he once again looked perfect and so very cold. Like living marble.

“Why does it bother you?” Lem asked.

“It’s just…the destruction. I know that it’s all the same to you, but it’s not to me,” Isabel told him.

He considered this. “I think I understand.”

She supposed that if she could catch glimpses of his mind, he could also see her thoughts. Deep down, Isabel liked to think that he was becoming more human, or at least more sympathetic toward the fragile, finite creatures that existed on this little world.

Stretching out across the sand, Lem deposited her onto his chest. The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, but the lingering rays still managed to warm her skin. She curled up near the sloping hill of his collarbone.

“What are you, Lem?” Isabel asked, listening to his heartbeat, which sounded like powerful, faraway booms.

When he said nothing, she tried another question. “Are there others like you?”

“No, I’m alone,” Lem said, and then he corrected himself: “I was alone.”

A small hint of a smile appeared on Isabel’s face as she listened to his heartbeat and the waves crashing against the shore.

Brendon stared up at the distant ceiling, trying hard not to think about how many days it had been since he had shrank himself. His plan had been so perfect and it should have gone off without a hitch; yet here he was, stuck in an old shoebox while despair threatened to consume him. Groaning, he reached up and rubbed at his tired eyes.

A massive shadow passed over the box and the glimpse of the ceiling was replaced abruptly by a face. Brendon froze, stared up at the huge visage as the features gradually came together: deep blue eyes behind tortoise shell glasses, a pale rosebud of a mouth. Claudia, the one who had put him in this box. The one who had haunted his dreams until he had taken the shrinking potion and crept into her apartment.

His goddess.

“Please don’t hurt me!” Brendon shouted up to her, and slowly she frowned, pushing up her glasses with one slender finger.

“I wish you’d stop saying that every morning,” Claudia said, and then she leaned over. He held his breath, and to his disappointment, he saw the tiny plate balanced on her palm. In his private fantasies, he imagined her serving him the scraps of her meals, food that was unfit for cockroaches and rats. Instead Brendon saw slivers of fresh fruit and toast and turkey bacon, all carefully cut and arranged on the doll-sized plate.

“Thank you,” he huffed as she put the plate down near his bed. It was an actual bed, probably from a dollhouse, with little sheets that Claudia cleaned on a regular basis. When she had first given him the shoebox, Brendon had been expecting a filthy mound of rags, or worse. Unhappily he stared at the food on the plate. He wasn’t particularly hungry, but he ate anyway, and she joined him. Watching Claudia eat was amazing; she shoveled the colossal spoonfuls of cereal into her mouth and he could hear the thunder of her teeth mashing the food into pulp.

“You seem kind of down,” she commented, and Brendon shrugged as he bit into half of a blueberry.

“I guess so.”

“We should do something today,” Claudia said. He immediately perked up, imagining all of the possibilities. Being chased through the apartment, dropped into her sneaker, forced to beg as she glanced down at him with a cool, detached expression.

“I bought some more comics,” she told him. Brendon’s good mood plummeted. Fantastic, more comic books. Claudia kept them in plastic sleeves and treated them like they were divine objects. Once, when she had left to make some more tea, he had seized one of the immense pages and attempted to tear it. He had still been working at the paper when she had returned, and she had been more confused than anything else. No punishment, no threats. Brendon had been forced to spend the rest of the day reading about superheroes and romantic love triangles.

“Or we could watch that new anime,” Claudia suggested. Brendon’s mouth twitched and he was contemplating spitting his breakfast at her when her hand dropped down into the box. It startled him, sent a delicious jolt throughout his body. Her hand was beautifully gigantic, the nails painted an alternating green and gold. He hoped that those long fingers would wrap around his torso, lift him high up into the air. But she invited him onto her palm and reluctantly he climbed onto the soft flesh.

She was incredibly careful with him, holding him as if he were made of fragile porcelain. Even when he struggled, or pretended to struggle, she never squeezed. When he had still been normal-sized, he had had recurring fantasies of being held in her hand, of being teased and taunted. Sometimes in those fantasies she would strip his clothes, peeling off his pants or shirt while her nails roughly scraped his skin. In reality Claudia had never seen him naked, and her cheeks would flush deep red if she happened to walk in while he was undressing.

It was all so frustrating.

Claudia held him near her face, close enough that he could smell the Apple Jacks on her breath. “What do you want to do today?”

I want you to act like a real giantess, he thought. I want you to own me, forever and ever. Subject me to your will. Why can’t you do that?

“I dunno,” Brendon said at last. “Maybe…maybe we could build a city out of cardboard?”

Claudia’s eyes lit up behind the lenses of her glasses. “Like on those Youtube channels? I could build tiny furniture and everything!”

“And then you could stomp on it!” He exclaimed gleefully.

Her expression was somewhere between a frown and a bemused smile. “Uh, maybe we could do something else.”

He sagged in her hand, defeated.

“I’m sorry, Brendon,” Claudia said. That was it; no “shrimp” or “squirt” or “speck,” just his name, spoken respectfully. “I imagine that being so small must be tough for you.”

What was tough was all of his denied fantasies. He craved the feeling of her immense sole covering his body, pressing him down into the hardwood floor; the pain and pleasure of being sat on and smothered beneath her heavy buttocks and thighs.

“I hate it,” he muttered.

“I know,” Claudia said softly. “Let’s do something to take your mind off of it, alright?”

She brought him into the kitchen and set him on the counter by the toaster. As she pulled pots and pans out of the cabinets, Brendon studied her intently. What had he seen in her when they had been coworkers? Had it been her feistiness, her confidence? How many times had he watched her at staff meetings, wondering if she was secretly like him? Too many times to count. Of course, he had been wrong, and now he found himself watching the giantess of his dreams prepare food for some potluck dinner or baby shower. Watching as she hummed along to her favorite songs and danced in front of him.

Resenting her more than he would have thought possible.

They ended up watching television after that. Brendon was seated on Claudia’s shoulder and he had to push away the thick strands of her coppery hair so that he could see the screen. Not that he was really interested in the show; the sweet, floral body spray that she used lingered in his nose, distracting him, and for a moment or two, he was almost happy.

When Claudia took her bath later that night, Brendon weighed his options. He could leave, try to find someone else. Her neighbors were both men and the idea of being with them was unacceptable; he wanted a goddess to worship. If he stayed with Claudia, he could try to sway her toward his way of thinking. Convince her that her beauty came from power. That his endless adoration was more than she’d ever need from anyone else.

She came out of the bathroom wearing a bright purple robe, her skin pink from the hot water. To Brendon’s delight, Claudia grabbed a bottle of nail polish and settled down to paint her toenails. As she twisted the cap from the bottle, he scurried toward her, bounding over the hills of her bedspread.

“I can help, goddess!” Brendon told her. She chuckled, thinking that it was a game, and gently pushed him away with a forefinger. But Brendon refused to give up, grabbing for the enormous polish brush hovering above him.

“Give it to me!” He howled, his voice high and petulant.

Her brow furrowed and she spoke a single word: “No.”

Brendon sulked as Claudia painted her toenails, knowing that he could do a much better job. His brush strokes would have been minute and perfect, with none of the sloppy polish overflow. Flawless, his work was always flawless. When she was finished, she scooped him up and brought him back to the shoebox. He laid down in the miniature bed, teeth clenched together, his body shaking with fury.

“Good night, Brendon,” she said as he wept into the clean sheets.

Laelia was too comfortable to move when she opened her eyes, so she stayed motionless, luxuriating in the warmth around her. The flesh surrounding her was better than any mattress, the skin as soft as satin and yet firm because of the yards of muscle beneath it. Still curled up on her side, she ran her fingers along the familiar field of skin, retracing the curving slopes. It was impossible to ignore the fact that she was stretched out on a living person — her body rose and fell in time with his breaths, and she could feel each tremendous beat of his heart.

She glanced upward, past the enormous ridges of his collar bones. Aelius’ head was turned slightly, the long auburn tangles of his hair laying across his neck and lower jaw, but she could see most of his face. The baron was a beautiful man even though some of his features clearly weren’t human. His dark lips were parted and sharp teeth gleamed from within his mouth. Those teeth were one of the reasons why he rarely smiled, or when he did, it was an awkward half-grin.

“You don’t have to hide them from me,” Laelia had said to him, and reluctantly he had removed his hand from his mouth, revealing his jagged, sharklike teeth. Each milky-white tooth was longer than her arm, and she understood why people feared his smile…and him. Everyone knew about the baron, and those who lived on his lands treated him with an uneasy respect.

Laelia was the exception. She didn’t regard the giant with horror; perhaps it was because she was one of the few people who had seen beyond his ferocious exterior. Despite his size he had been exceedingly gentle with her, as careful as a man holding a hummingbird. In fact, that was one of his nicknames for her. “My little hummingbird,” he would say, and he gave her dresses that were as bright and breathtaking as bird feathers. Dresses made of turquoise silk, or scarlet and gold brocade, or indigo cotton. Laelia had worn all kinds of gorgeous clothing when she had been a dancer, but even her fanciest garments looked shoddy compared to Aelius’ gifts.

It surprised her how lucky she was.

Every so often Laelia wondered what would have happened if she had stayed with the dance troupe. Most likely she would have continued to perform for wealthy merchants or members of the nobility, moving from town to town. Dancing until she grew too old, and then what? Her future may have been grim if Aelius hadn’t noticed her.

She recalled the night when the troupe had performed for the baron. Emilia and the others had been intimidated by the colossus, who had been taller than a cathedral and eerily silent. The gold-filled chest, more money than they had ever seen in their lives, had been the only reason why they hadn’t fled. A payment that huge was almost incomprehensible, and they would have been fools to turn it down. So they had performed for the baron, and during the entire performance the giant’s eyes hadn’t left Laelia. They had been such odd eyes, sometimes black, sometimes deep brown, sometimes violet. She had found herself drawn to him. And although his smile had been little more than a tight, dark line, she had sensed the warmth there. When the rest of the troupe had left, Laelia had stayed.

I made the right decision, Laelia told herself. Beneath her the field of flesh moved and heaved as Aelius stirred. Although his eyelids fluttered, he didn’t wake up. He seemed to be caught in a dream, and from the way that he grimaced, it obviously wasn’t a good one. Laelia stared at him, wondering what to do. She didn’t have to wonder for very long; Aelius’ eyes snapped open, and she saw such profound confusion and alarm in his expression that it startled her.

With a rumbling groan, the giant rubbed at his face and sat up, sending Laelia sliding down the length of his abdomen. She landed near his thigh, dazed; by the time that she recovered, Aelius looked composed. Whatever nightmare had invaded his thoughts had left. His dark eyes — brown or purple or whatever color they were — gleamed with affection as he reached down to stroke her with a fingertip. Through the sheer material of her nightgown she felt the warm pad of his finger, and she leaned into his caress, wrapping her arms around the digit.

“Are you alright?” Laelia asked, and she saw the slightest hint of a muscle twitch in the giant’s face. Then he smiled, his smile shy and small as usual.

“I’m fine, hummingbird.” His melancholic tone contradicted his words.

Laelia knew what would cheer him up, and she let go of his finger. She still had the lithe body of a dancer, and she moved with a natural and effortless grace, twirling and dancing on his thigh. The giant watched her, as mesmerized as a cobra. Her gossamer nightgown floated around her as she swayed and dipped, and at the end of the performance he lowered his hand so that she could climb into it.

Her bare feet dimpled the flesh of his palm as she clambered up onto his hand. Aelius lifted her toward his face, slowly and carefully so that she didn’t lose her balance and fall. He kissed her, his lips brushing against her entire torso. Although his lips were soft and pillowy, she could feel the hardness of his teeth behind them. Running her hands along the enormous mouth, she felt one of his incisors, longer and sharper than a sword.

Aelius had been human at one time; Laelia had heard the stories of the mage who had overthrown the former baron and claimed the other man’s land as his own. Even the King and his army couldn’t fight against such a powerful being, and so Aelius had ruled here without contest. But who had he been before the magic had changed him? He spoke about his past infrequently, and even then, he avoided most of her questions.

Who are you? Is Aelius even your real name? Laelia silently asked him. She wished that he would open up to her more. Trust her more. And yet she understood his need for privacy. There were small secrets that she kept from him as well, including the origin of the scar across her left breast, whitish-pink against her freckled skin. One of her former clients had become too interested in her after a performance, and she had broken his nose, but not before he had tried to stab her. She thought about telling Aelius, but whenever he ran his pinkie tenderly along the scar, she couldn’t open her mouth.

Maybe someday they would both share their secrets.

The giant stood, still holding Laelia in one hand, and walked across the room. Everything in this castle was vast beyond belief, suited to Aelius’ scale rather than the scale of normal-sized people. From what she could tell, this place was magical and existed on another plane entirely. How much power that required was beyond Laelia’s comprehension, and she got the impression that this was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to Aelius’ abilities.

He brought her to a marble pool in the adjoining room. To him, it was as big as a bathtub; to her, it as large as a lake. Gargantuan candles surrounded it like a pale forest, and with a magical word and a quick gesture, Aelius lit them all. He helped her to undress, gently pulling off the nightgown with almost supernatural dexterity. As Laelia stood there, warmed by the heat of the mammoth candles, the giant recited another spell and the pool filled with water.

Aelius washed her first, his fingers simultaneously massaging her limbs and torso and neck. The water was pleasantly hot, and she relaxed her entire body and allowed herself to enjoy the sensations. In his cupped hands she felt so adored, so safe. He dried her, the towel exquisitely soft against her skin, and then he presented her with yet another dress, this one silvery-blue and intricately embroidered. Laelia pulled the dress on as he disrobed and slipped into the pool, sinking down into the water like a humanoid leviathan.

She admired the rich fabric of her dress, wondering if he bought these gifts, or whether they were as magical as this castle. More questions bubbled up within her mind, and she asked as casually as possible, “What was the last baron like?”

The giant stopped washing his hair and peered down at her. “Horrible.”

“How so?”

“He took whatever he wanted from the peasants, and if they spoke up against him, he imprisoned them. My own father disappeared one night. The baron’s men came to our house and dragged him away, and I know that he eventually died in one of the baron’s cells. That was why I took up magic. Not because magic fascinated me; I wasn’t like the other scholars who wanted to pore over spells all day and figure out the inner workings of the universe. No, I was tired of feeling so small and helpless, and I swore that I’d get revenge by any means necessary.”

So you became this, Laelia thought. Although it doesn’t seem like that terrible of a trade. You gained land, power, revenge. You got everything that you wanted.

Aelius seemed to be considering something, but whatever it was, he didn’t tell her. He finished washing himself and got out of the pool, the floor shaking beneath his heavy footsteps. She admired the powerful sleekness of his body as he dressed before her. His choice of clothing was as elegant as her own dress: white shirt and black trousers, a greatcoat with silver buttons as large as dinner plates. The rings that he wore over his gloved hands probably had more gold and gems than the King’s entire treasure vault.

As he inspected one of the gigantic ruby rings, the scarlet jewel glittering and flashing, he said, “I need you to stay in the castle tonight.”

“But why?” Laelia asked, concerned.

“Because,” Aelius said, and there was a sharp edge to his voice, so agitated and angry that it frightened her. He took a breath and said in a calmer voice, “It’s not safe, hummingbird.”

She didn’t press him for additional details, but as he finished getting ready, she wondered about this danger. Was it raiders? An invading army?

Or something far worse?

***

Aelius sat by the fireplace, and although the fire had been reduced to smoldering embers, he didn’t bother to add wood to it. The hunger consumed his thoughts. Hunger and such sharp, unbearable pain. As usual, he had tried to soothe the hunger with food — bushels of fruits and vegetables, enough beef to feed a village — and as usual, it didn’t help at all.

“You’re so hungry, aren’t you, Aelius? It hurts, doesn’t it?” Someone asked, and he recognized the voice instantly. It was soft and raspy and laced with malevolence. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the black ichor seep out of the floor, oozing out from between the floorboards. Gradually it took on the shape of an older man with a striking face. This wasn’t the thing’s actual face, of course; Aelius wasn’t sure what it actually looked like, but he imagined that it wasn’t human in the slightest.

The first time that he had seen the entity was when he had cast that spell years ago, the spell that hadn’t come from a book but instead had been tattooed onto a mummified corpse. The other mages wouldn’t even consider such a spell, but he hadn’t been like other mages. He had craved vengeance, to the point that it had occupied his thoughts constantly, and he had been more than willing to summon the eldritch being in exchange for power.

“Ah, you’re ravenous,” the thing had said during their first meeting. “I can feel it.”

And he had been.

Now, as the last of the fire died in the fireplace, Aelius studied the being who had brought him such hope and despair.

“You’ve been holding off, I see,” the entity commented, staring back. It was the size of a normal person, but despite the fact that Aelius towered over it, its presence filled him with fear and disgust.

“What do you want?” He demanded.

The creature laughed. Or tried to laugh. Its weird, barking imitation of a laugh was unsettling, and the skin on the back of Aelius’ neck crawled.

“What do I want? To help you, my friend!” The thing’s features shifted as if they were made of wet clay, and suddenly it was a woman with long blonde hair that was almost the same color as Laelia’s. “I’ve helped you before, haven’t I? I was the one who gave you the power to destroy your enemies, including the previous baron.”

At the mention of the previous baron, Aelius swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry. He remembered how much he had loathed that man and how much satisfaction he had felt when he had him trapped, squirming, in his fist. He had savored the baron flailing in his mouth even more, and the tiny man had been so delicious, better than anything that he had ever tasted.

What have I become?

“Yes, and you didn’t tell me that I’d turn into…this,” Aelius said, leaning forward in the chair. Unlike most others who saw him, this creature didn’t cower. It just stared up at him with an odd cheerfulness, and he noticed how its dark eyes matched his own, not quite black or brown or purple.

“Everything has a price, and you have to admit that it was a good trade. You’re unstoppable; no army can take you down. You’re wealthy. Feared. Oh, and you even found a beautiful woman. What’s her name? Laelia?”

Aelius gritted his teeth so hard that they ached.

Again the being’s face changed, the nose and mouth warping and stretching and reforming. Now it looked like Aelius, back when he had been a mortal man. “Speaking of Laelia, what does she think of this? Oh, but you haven’t told her, and I know why!”

“Leave me alone,” Aelius growled.

“You love her!” The entity sounded absolutely delighted. “How wonderful!”

As if by its own free will, Aelius’ foot swung around and slammed down onto the entity with earthshaking force. If it had been a person, the creature would have exploded messily; instead a foul-smelling smoke leaked out from around Aelius’ boot, and when he removed his foot, nothing was there.

He rubbed at his jaw, which throbbed from clenching it so hard. But that pain was nothing compared to the hunger gnawing incessantly at his insides. He would have to do it tonight; there was no way that he could wait another day. The thought filled him with revulsion and a strange and terrible joy.

***

With a novel in her hands, Laelia curled up in a normal-sized chair. She tried to read, but she couldn’t concentrate and her eyes kept skipping over the paragraphs. All that she could think about was whatever threat was outside the castle, and as her curiosity grew, she glanced upwards. High above her was the window, and she could see the dark night sky through the panes. Aelius was out there somewhere, and she hoped that he was safe.

Laelia heard the approaching footsteps and shifted her gaze away from the window. She didn’t recognize the servant; the woman was middle-aged, her features plain. Yet there was something odd about her. As Laelia studied the servant’s round face, she realized that the woman had eyes that resembled Aelius’. In the back of her mind she wondered about this unusual coincidence.

“The baron needs you, ma’am,” the woman told her, and Laelia stood up.

“But he told me to stay here!”

The servant laughed eerily. “I’m just relaying his wishes, ma’am. He told me to come and get you.”

Laelia hesitated, but only for a moment. Then she brushed past the servant, who was staring at her with an unnerving intensity.

She has such dark eyes, Laelia thought as she rushed out into the hallway. The servant didn’t follow; in fact, she seemed to have vanished into thin air. If Laelia had had more time, she would have pondered this, but she was too intent on getting outside and finding Aelius.

The heaviness of her dress slowed her down as she left through one of the human-sized doors, out into the cool spring night. She paused outside of the castle, trying to decide which way to go. The decision was easy to make; there was some sort of commotion in one of the nearby villages, and she saw smoke rising in dense plumes. Screams rose up as well, frightened and frantic. Every instinct told her to go back, but she also worried about Aelius. What if he was injured? What if he couldn’t hold off the invading force?

Steeling herself, Laelia sprinted toward the village.

Fleeing people barreled by her on foot and in wagons, but her attention was on the thick trails of smoke. She couldn’t see much, not even when she ran past the first buildings. Somewhere there was a fire, or more likely, multiple fires. Gasping, Laelia took in lungfuls of smoky air and tried to make sense of the chaos. Villagers shouted and bolted like panicked animals, and one burly man slammed into Laelia, spinning her around. That was when she saw the mammoth form surrounded by smoke. He was crouched over, the black wool of his greatcoat illuminated by the flames, and she was certain that it was him. No being was as colossal as Aelius.

“Aelius!” Laelia cried, and his head swiveled in her direction. Her focus was suddenly torn between the giant’s hands and his face. Several villagers thrashed and wiggled between his gloved fingers, their distant howls reaching Laelia’s ears. Worse than that was his face, however. The shy, awkward smile had been replaced by a grotesquely-wide grin, Aelius’ razor teeth and crimson gums on full display. And his eyes, which had been so loving, shone with a primal and insatiable hunger. Nothing about him looked human anymore, and it horrified her.

He raised the handful of people to his mouth and uncurled his fingers, allowing the villagers to fall between the sharp triangles of his teeth. Shocked, Laelia watched the tiny bodies fall, limbs flailing, into the yawing abyss of his mouth. The giant didn’t bother to chew; he swallowed with the ravenous greed of a starving man. Laelia backed away, her eyes locking with Aelius’. It was as if he didn’t recognize her, as if someone else was inhabiting his body. All that she saw was that monstrous hunger.

She ran.

Once again the dress slowed her down, and as the booming footsteps crashed behind her, Laelia realized that she didn’t have time to take it off. And even if she could have shed the dress, there was no way that she could outrun someone so huge. A quick glance over her shoulder showed Aelius’ enormous legs striding after her. Desperate, she darted into one of the buildings that hadn’t been smashed into rubble.

She fumbled blindly in the darkness, almost tripping over a footstool by the door. As Laelia’s eyesight adjusted, she saw faces peeking out at her. They may have been the owners of the building, or villagers who had sought refuge here; whoever they were, she wouldn’t know. Laelia didn’t dare to talk to them or otherwise make a noise. Standing motionless, she strained her ears. She heard faint noises, the scraping of shoes on the floor as the others shifted their weight, the rapid, shallow pants of her own breathing.

Then the entire building shuddered and she heard loud tearing noises, wood cracking and shingles breaking. Everyone in the room glanced up as the gigantic hand plunged down through the ceiling, bringing a storm of dust and debris with it. Aelius grabbed for a woman, his fingers knocking aside furniture. The villager was too terrified to move, and she would have been snatched up if Laelia hadn’t reacted, shoving her out of the path of danger.

Aelius’ hand closed around her instead.

Laelia to protest, but his fingers were constricted around her chest and she couldn’t breathe properly. As the giant lifted her through the massive hole in the ceiling, she twisted and fought for air. It was only when she was outside that he relaxed his grip. Laelia wheezed as she hurtled toward his gaping maw. The same mouth that she had kissed so often had transformed into something horrifying; it now looked like a dark, ominous cavern, and she remembered what had happened to the villagers earlier.

Terror flooded her senses. “Aelius! It’s me! Don’t!”

The gargantuan hand paused in its ascent. Aelius’ expression changed abruptly; it was as if someone had slapped his face without warning. He didn’t speak, just regarded her with stunned confusion.

“Aelius?” Laelia kept her voice very low and gentle, her gaze hovering on his mouth. She was only a few feet away and his teeth were so intimidating, gigantic and glistening with saliva. “Please put me down, Aelius.”

He was breathing hard, and each exhalation was like a gust of hot, humid wind. To her dismay, he wouldn’t acknowledge her plea and instead raised her closer to his lips. Laelia couldn’t even see his eyes anymore. Only the underside of his nose and the curvature of his cheeks were visible at this angle.

His tongue slid out from between his dark lips, and since her arms were pinned tightly to her sides by his fingers, she couldn’t fend it off. The slimy mass of muscle rolled over Laelia, the rough, bumpy tastebuds scraping against the exposed parts of her skin. She struggled futilely as he licked her, tasted her. Closing her eyes so that saliva wouldn’t leak into them, she tried to turn her face away. Aelius’ breathing had become even more labored, and it sounded almost like choking sobs.

“I can’t control it anymore,” the giant gasped, his fingers tightening around her torso like titanic anacondas. Laelia’s eyes popped back open, frightened. “It tricked me!”

She couldn’t ask what “it” was; she found her breath cut off once more, and this time, the incredible pressure didn’t abate. Blackness crept into her vision from all sides, and Aelius’ agonized face gradually disappeared along with everything else.

***

When Laelia regained consciousness she found herself surrounded by warmth and darkness, and for several nerve-racking seconds she feared that Aelius had devoured her, that she was trapped in his stomach. Then the world seemed to move around her and dim light revealed her surroundings. As the giant peeled away his fingers she saw that they were still outside. Wisps of smoke lingered in the air, gray against the orange and gold morning sky.

Slowly her eyes traveled to his face. Gone was the mindless, ravenous hunger. The Aelius that she loved — the one who whispered sweet praises to her while she laid on his chest, the one who touched her with such gentleness and adoration — had returned, although he wouldn’t look her in the eyes. His gaze was on the nearby village, which was now little more than ruins.

Oh Aelius, what have you done? Laelia’s mind reeled at this atrocity.

She began to shiver uncontrollably, teeth chattering. Aelius shifted his attention back to her and placed one of his fingers against her cheek. The beautiful blue dress, his newest gift to her, was smudged with soot and dirt and dried saliva.

“I’m so sorry, hummingbird,” he told her, and she believed him. And yet she had seen what he was, what he was capable of doing. Trying to reconcile his kindness and cruelty was proving to be an impossible task. His finger stroked her disheveled hair with such a tenderness that she almost wept, and she finally stopped shaking.

What else are you hiding? She wondered.

This was going to be the difficult part, the part that she dreaded. Gathering up every ounce of courage that she could, Laelia looked up at Aelius and tried to ignore the large beads of sweat that dribbled down between her shoulder blades.

“We have to talk,” she said.

Vara perched on the top of the cliff, listening to the waves as they crashed against the craggy rocks far below. The sun had almost disappeared, darkness spreading steadily across the ocean, but she could still see the castle. It was a huge, impressive structure, surrounded by thick stone walls on three sides. The other side faced the water, and the castle was high enough up that not even a ship’s cannon fire could reach it. It was little wonder that the place had never been successfully captured.

That was about to change.

She narrowed her eyes, still studying the castle in the distance. All of the other nations had been willing to pay Vara tribute. The merchant princes of Neasba had given her bolts of rare silk and boxes of exquisite jewelry. Even the Onthi fishing ports had given her a percentage of their catch. It was only Luwold —this small, pathetic kingdom — that had dared to defy her wishes. Vara’s hands had trembled with rage as she had read the message from Luwold’s king, Hawent. How casually he had dismissed her, as if she were some lowly witch or sorceress. As if she wasn’t the last of the Undying Circle, as if she hadn’t defeated all of the others except for Jirith. And even Jirith had been banished to some abyssal plane, sacrificed for her goals.

No, the king had no idea how big of a threat she was.

Vara had shredded the letter from Luwold and flung the tattered strips into the fireplace. As the pieces had curled and twisted and charred in the flames, she had decided that this insult wouldn’t go unpunished. She would erase that sad little place from the map.

Her eyes never left the castle as she drew a deep breath and stretched up on the tips of her toes. Then, with the grace of an acrobat, she dove from the cliff and plummeted into the icy ocean. Already her magic was working, transforming her body as she sank deeper and deeper into the water. Of all of the Undying Circle, she had been the strongest, her powers unmatched. Kel, Durei, Heshna — the other members of the Circle had fallen one by one. She had collected them like trophies, draining them of their magic and casting their ruined corpses aside.

Now Vara called upon that magic, turning herself into something immense and fearsome. A leviathan, bigger than a ship, bigger than the castle. She emerged from the ocean clad in armor that gleamed like polished obsidian, a titan ready for battle and destruction. Vara had become so colossal that her feet touched the bottom of the sea, and she marched toward her target, leaving catastrophic waves in her wake.

An unfortunate ship happened to be in Vara’s path, and she didn’t care whether it was one of the royal vessels or a fishing boat. Her left thigh plowed into it, reducing the ship to splinters. She didn’t stop to see if there survivors; if there were, they were surely sucked down into the swirling water.

The once-impressive castle had been reduced to nothing more than a child’s toy. Vara loomed over it, ocean water cascading down her black armor, as shrew-sized knights spilled out everywhere. Vara snorted at the tiny creatures brandishing their swords and maces, then swatted several of them with the back of her hand. Pests, they were nothing more than pests, like cockroaches swarming and scuttling. Their minuscule arrows bounced from her armor, and even the boulders that they launched from their catapults were mere pebbles.

Vara was level with the castle, so she could lean forward and peek into the windows. It was difficult to see much, so she raked at one of the towers with her fingers, the stony exterior peeling and crumbling beneath her hand. As soon as the hole was big enough, she glanced inside. The room was fit for a king or queen, with finely-crafted mahogany furniture and a large fireplace. And there, cowering in the corner, was a small figure. Thinking that it was King Hawent, Vara reached in, snatched up the person.

When she brought her prize up to her face for closer inspection, she saw that it was Sylia, the king’s daughter. The young woman had been getting dressed when Vara had grabbed her, and her lavender gown hung crookedly from her shoulders. The golden tresses of Sylia’s hair were in disarray and hid most of her face, but Vara was able to make out the surprise and horror overtaking the princess.

“You’re not who I want,” Vara said, tilting her hand so that the woman slid wildly. Just before Sylia fell to her death, Vara changed her mind and closed her fingers around the princess once more. The woman may prove to be entertaining, Vara thought as Sylia squirmed and blubbered in her palm. She deposited the princess into a pouch on her belt, then turned her attention back to the castle. Hawent was somewhere in there, she knew it. As she began to dig through the castle, smashing through entire floors, she felt the eerie tingle of magic.

It wasn’t her magic, although it felt familiar. And by the gods, it was powerful. So powerful that Vara became disorientated, and she staggered backwards, holding her head in her hands.

Vara. The voice exploded in her skull, and she almost dropped to her knees. Breathing hard, she glanced up and witnessed an incredible sight: a hand descending down from the heavens. As mammoth as she was, this hand utterly dwarfed her, the fingers so thick that she couldn’t have wrapped her arms around one of them. Astonished, Vara watched as the castle and the surrounding area were obliterated beneath a fingertip. The resulting shockwave knocked her over, displaced air buffeting her armor and sweeping through her short hair. Slowly her eyes traveled upwards. The night sky had been replaced by a vast face, one that she knew very well.

“Jirith,” Vara gasped.

***

The last time that Vara had seen Jirith was when she had betrayed him. Did she ever regret it? She had to admit that occasionally she did, especially when she remembered the two of them sharing a bottle of wine, the satin bedsheets tangled around their bodies. The other members of the Circle had been reserved, aloof; they had kept their secrets and their weaknesses hidden away. Jirith had been different. He was boisterous and merry and witty, and maybe that was what had attracted him to her.

That attraction hadn’t been enough to spare him, though. Vara knew that the magic required sacrifice, that to achieve ultimate power she needed to offer another member of the Circle. And thus her decision had been made. After they had finished the wine and licked the dark droplets from each other’s lips she had opened the portal. Shoved him toward the hole in reality, avoided his desperately grasping hands. And when he had disappeared, she had opened another bottle of wine to drown whatever conscience she had left.

That should have been the end of him, and yet here he was, impossibly gigantic. So vast that his body took up most of the landscape, destroying entire farms and acres of countryside. It seemed that Jirith had finished her task for her…Luwold had been annihilated, and with such cruel indifference. Vara stared up at her former lover, startled by his size and by the other changes in his form. Jirith had always been beautiful, his features delicate and fey; now they looked even more unworldly, his eyes glowing the ghostly blue of will o’wisps. In fact, his whole body emitted a pale light, so that even his long mane of hair seemed to radiate energy.

“How I’ve missed you, Vara,” Jirith rumbled in a voice that threatened to burst her eardrums. She winced and stood up on wobbly legs.

“I-I don’t understand,” Vara said, and the giant merely grinned, his smile so wide that it seemed to stretch across the horizon. He dipped his head down, his glowing hair puddling around him, and sipped at the ocean as if it were ale. Vara didn’t understand what he was doing until he pulled her toward his lips, along with untold gallons of water.

She shrieked and fought against the sudden current, but she was little more than a mite stuck in a whirlpool. A small boat swept past her, dragged into the chasm of the giant’s mouth. She watched it vanish, sent down into a nightmarish cauldron of a stomach. Realizing that this would also be her fate, Vara swam harder, her limbs churning the water. Jirith’s lips drew closer, and then his teeth appeared, huge and pearly and horrifying. With a desperate wail she latched onto his bottom lip, hugging at the soft flesh. He snickered and sucked her into the humid darkness of his maw.

“Let me go!” Vara cried, and she would have shouted more if his tongue hadn’t pressed her into the side of his cheek, cutting off her words. He rolled her body around, coating her armor in a thick layer of saliva, and for a moment it seemed like he was going to swallow her alive. Then he spat her into his hand.

They were no longer outside, Vara saw. Wherever Jirith had teleported them was palatial and built to his scale. Everything seemed to be either white or crimson — marble floors and columns and deep red velvet drapery. The giant himself lounged on some sort of chaise that was the color of fresh snow, his head propped up on one fist while he looked down at Vara. He had changed his attire so that he resembled a wealthy nobleman; the midnight blue frock coat and cream-colored gloves were exquisitely elegant. It seemed that despite his physical changes, his lavish taste in clothing had remained the same.

Soaked and furious, Vara sat up in his palm and summoned her magic. Or tried to summon her magic. She could no longer sense her powers; it was as if someone had siphoned away all of her abilities.

“What did you do to me?” She demanded.

“You already know what I did to you.” Jirith’s smirk was absolutely infuriating. “I took away your magic.”

“But how?”

He didn’t answer right away; instead, his hand dipped down and lowered her to the marble floor. As Vara scrambled up, Jirith swung his legs around, nearly squashing her beneath one of his gargantuan boots. Somehow she managed to dodge his foot and avoid becoming a scarlet smear.

“I should thank you, Vara,” Jirith said, peering down at her from between the canyon of his legs. “You made me into a god.”

The sacrifice. When I pushed him into the portal, something must have gone wrong, she realized. Noting her surprised expression, he said, “You chose the worst place to send me, Vara. That world, that entire universe, was ripe for the picking.”

She silently cursed him, and herself, and all of the Undying Circle.

“Return me at once!” Vara tried to keep her voice composed and authoritative, but Jirith sensed her unease. Smiling, he sat up and tapped his foot thoughtfully, sending powerful vibrations through the floor.

“All right, I’ll return you home, but on one condition. I want you to climb up to the top of my boot.”

Vara’s eyebrows knitted together in irritation. “I don’t think so.”

“Suit yourself,” Jirith replied, shrugging. “You can scurry around my floor for all of eternity, and perhaps I won’t step on you by accident.”

She knew that he wasn’t kidding, and while she loathed the idea of playing his game, she also hated being so small and helpless. Gritting her teeth, Vara approached the massive pillar of his leg and stared up at it. If she had had her magic, she could have levitated herself, but since Jirith had stolen that from her she was forced to grab at the wall of shiny, black leather. She felt the warmth of the flesh beneath the boot, a reminder that she was climbing up an actual person.

Something squirmed in the pouch on her belt, and she remembered that the princess was in there. Well, Sylia would have to wait. Vara concentrated on scaling the huge length of Jirith’s calf. It had been so long since she was a mere mortal, and without her powers she was keenly aware of how much danger she faced. Every twitch of the giant’s leg muscles nearly sent her tumbling to the floor far below. And such a fall would no doubt break her spine, crush her skull like an eggshell.

As she searched for her next foothold, Jirith moved his leg enough that she almost went flying. She clung fiercely to his boot, the leather creaking and groaning thunderously, and when it seemed safe enough she snuck an upward glance. The giant’s face wasn’t visible at this angle, although she was certain that he was watching her amusedly.

“Bastard,” Vara snarled, and she would have said more if the leg beneath her hadn’t tilted without warning. This time she lost her grip, her body heaved into the air, and she cried out as the floor rushed toward her.

Jirith caught her just before she slammed into the ground. It still hurt when she collided with his hand, and she laid there, dazed and aching. Pain had been such a distant memory for so many years, and Vara was shocked at how awful it was now that she was experiencing it again.

“That was a good attempt,” Jirith teased. “Care to try it again?”

No, she wasn’t in the mood for more humiliation. Gathering up every once of strength, Vara sprang up from his hand and leapt onto the chaise. She was sprinting the moment that her feet hit the soft fabric. The plan was simple: escape, rethink her strategy, find a way to regain her magic and defeat Jirith. But as she dashed across the chaise an enormous shadow engulfed her.

Vara froze and looked up. Jirith’s taut thighs and butt hovered over her, and she flung up her hands, as if that could ward off something so overwhelmingly huge. It was as though an asteroid was crashing down on top of her, and as she was pushed down into the chaise by one of the giant’s buttocks, she knew that she’d be squashed flat. The situation was almost comical, and had it been anyone else she would have cackled at their plight. But all that she could do was wail, the sound muffled by tons of flesh.

It may have been Jirith’s magic, or maybe it was the way that he sat down, but she wasn’t reduced to bloody pulp beneath him. The pressure was unbearable though, and since Vara was lying supine she found that her face was mashed into the mass of muscle and fat. Once or twice she tried to push up, but it was hopeless. Her limbs were pinned down and the best that she could do was wiggle feebly. Would he let her slowly smother here, his weight suffocating her until it was impossible to draw another breath? Vara wouldn’t put it past him. Like all of the Undying Circle, Jirith could be ruthless, and revenge was probably occupying his thoughts.

As if to prove this, he tensed his buttock and the titanic slab of muscle ground painfully into Vara. She flailed and fought, all the while understanding that the giant barely felt any of her movements. Jirith didn’t relent until she became limp and motionless, and then like a cat with a dead fledgling, he seemed to lose interest. The pressure disappeared instantly as he shifted, lifting his butt to examine her. Blessedly cool air washed over her flustered face.

Before Vara could appreciate the slight reprieve the shadow reappeared. Jirith sat on her again, pinning her beneath the heavy bulge between his legs. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as being trapped beneath his ass, but it was more humiliating. She felt the softness of his scrotum through the fabric of his breeches, the same scrotum that she had fondled in her hands while her lips met his.

Jirith chuckled, the noise reverberating through her bones. “Like I said, I should be thanking you, Vara. I know that you were just trying to complete the ritual and break the Circle, but the place that you sent to me was perfect. No one used magic, and I was able to claim all of it. Oh, they tried to stop me, and they had such impressive war machines. But I trampled all of their machines like ants.”

“Mmmph,” Vara squeaked.

He didn’t deign to acknowledge her protests. “Would you like to see?”

Part of her was morbidly curious, and part of her wanted to remain ignorant. In the end, it didn’t matter what she wanted, though. Jirith opened his mind to hers, allowed her to behold the world that he had visited. Vara saw structures of shining glass and steel and odd, metallic carriages. And she saw the giant as he cut paths of destruction through the streets, leveling the bizarre buildings and raining down debris and dust. He was a living, breathing tornado, ripping and flattening and razing.

When Jirith withdrew from her mind, he left behind a dull, persistent bloodlust.

“I played with that world for quite some time,” he said. “Conquering it was easy, and they built thrones as big as mountains for me. But it became boring after awhile, all of those fawning worshippers. And so I grow larger and larger, until that planet fit into the palm of my hand. All that it took was a single squeeze, and then it crumbled to dust around my fingers.”

Vara’s heart hammered in her chest as she contemplated this.

“When I sensed you again, I decided that it was time for a new world to torment. And who knows? I may keep this one around for longer,” Jirith told her. He scooted backward enough so that Vara’s head popped free.

“I’m so sorry!” She stammered, wheezing and gasping.

“You’re lucky that I’m such a forgiving soul,” he said, and his fiery eyes were so cold that they chilled her blood. They were the eyes of someone who had destroyed an entire world solely for the sake of entertainment. Vara felt herself being drawn deeper and deeper into his gaze, until the pale light became endless darkness.

***

Her mouth was dry and scratchy and tendrils of agony pulsated through her brain when she awoke. It felt like a hang-over, the worst one that Vara had ever suffered, and she groaned as she rubbed at her face. Everything came racing back to her, Jirith’s reappearance and his rise to godhood. She sat up so fast that her head spun. A quick glance showed that she had been teleported to another location. Bright sunlight streamed down onto the miniature houses and trees surrounding her. It was a village, complete with tiny, stunned people who watched her from doorways and windows.

Had Jirith returned her home despite his threats?

Vara knew him well enough that she doubted it. As she tried to figure out Jirith’s plans, she felt Sylia thrashing in her pouch. Reaching down, Vara retrieved the princess and held her between her thumb and forefinger. She wasn’t even sure what to do with the woman; Luwold was nothing more than a vast crater, and she had lost her own destructive appetite. Being mortal again would do that, she supposed.

“Be quiet,” she growled as Sylia wailed and struggled in her grip. Vara shook the woman, trying to silence her. Then, without warning, the princess stopped in mid-shriek.

They both looked up at the sky.

The cloudless stretch of blue shimmered, faintly at first, and then it sparkled like a sheet of ice. Vara took a step or two, her armored boots pulverizing a cottage. She hardly heard the cracking and crunching of the building underfoot; she was too busy staring at Jirith as the titan took over the heavens once more. He was in some sort of silken robe, patterned in black and gold and ivory, and it was open to reveal the sculpted expanse of his chest. His long hair was pulled back, held in place by opalescent clips, and he was wearing some sort of ornate necklace. Initially she thought that the multicolored beads were made of clay or stone; upon closer inspection she realized that they weren’t beads at all.

Worlds. Planets. The husks of civilizations, strung together by a thin chain of gold.

She had been under the impression that he had destroyed one world; how wrong she had been. Jirith was wearing the remains of dozens of planets. Gods, she had underestimated him so much.

Even worse, he was so much bigger now. Vara felt like a beetle — no, smaller, a flea — and she wondered if he could see her, or if she was just a dot on the landscape.

“You didn’t think that I’d send you back, did you?” The carnal hunger in the colossus’ eyes filled Vara with dread, and the petrified worlds around his neck clacked together ominously as he leaned toward her. From her perspective it looked as if he were peering into a bowl or jar, and perhaps he was. Perhaps this whole place was in a pretty vase on his dining room table, right next to the salt and pepper shakers. “I decided to create a little pocket dimension for you instead, complete with playthings. You can live here as a queen, a goddess, whatever you want.”

“What I want is for you to give me back my powers!” Vara commanded, or rather, tried to command. Her bravado and her voice faltered simultaneously.

Jirith laughed, and beneath the silk robe something massive stirred. He reached down, flirtatiously untied the robe. His erection loomed over the entire village, and the giant’s fingers wrapped around its girth, caressing it as everyone stared. To Vara, the giant’s penis was bigger than a redwood tree; to the tiny villagers, it was almost a landmass, so incomprehensibly immense that it likely didn’t register as a body part to them. Vara followed a single drop of precum as it beaded at the top; then it plunged down like a meteorite, flattening the entire marketplace and several nearby houses.

His gaze met hers, and she didn’t need magic to foresee what he was going to do.

Another droplet fell and slammed into the ground with tremendous force. The villagers were in a panic; some of them took refuge in their homes, while others fled for their lives. Jirith didn’t seem interested in them at all. To the giant, they were microbes, unseen and unimportant. Jirith continued to watch Vara as he moved his hand along his swollen length, his eyes half-hooded with pleasure.

She wanted to tell him to stop it, but a third droplet exploded into the countryside. His physical presence became overwhelming: the salty musk of his precum, the earthshaking booms of his groans, the heat of his body, radiating outward like a blast furnace. There was no way to escape from him; she could run and run and she’d still be trapped in the god being’s shadow.

He had won.

Jirith’s roar deafened Vara and the princess in her hand and everyone else in the little village. Excruciating agony pounded at her ears as the first volley of cum ravaged everything beneath it. The viscous, hot flood swept across the land, ripping through buildings and dragging down villagers into the morass. And the deluge only grew as the other shots rocketed down, pulverizing and destroying. Vara had seen her share of monsters; she had conjured rampaging dragons and kraken, and yet the viscous sea of slime was so much worse, devastating the tiny world that Jirith had created. Her grip on Sylia tightened as the towering wall of white slammed into her.

She was buried almost instantly, the warm goo oozing over her skin and into every crevice of her body. It filled her lungs as well, replacing the air with a heavy mass. As Vara sank down into the semen her vision blurred, then tunneled, then darkened. Struggling was futile; she could already sense her consciousness fading. Her sole consolation was that she’d finally be free from Jirith.

Except she wasn’t.

Somehow Vara survived, washed onto land like flotsam. The slime had dried into a hard crust on her armor and hair, and she was too exhausted to try to free herself of it. Miraculously Sylia was also alive, her breathing ragged and labored as she flopped between Vara’s fingers. Rolling over took great effort, and Vara gradually took in the remains of buildings and other debris floating in the foul slime. The village was gone, wiped away by the giant’s orgasm.

“Did you really think that I’d let you drown?” Jirith asked from his place in the sky. He held a candle, and in its glow he almost looked human again, his strange, ethereal features softened into something more recognizable. As much as Vara loathed the idea of begging, she couldn’t afford to be prideful any longer.

“Please let me go, Jirith,” she pleaded, and the giant seemed to actually consider it, the candlelight dancing on his face. Then his lips twisted into a cruel grin.

“Don’t worry, I’ll check in on you from time to time. Maybe you can destroy a city or two while I watch,” Jirith told her with a wink that was both playful and mean.

Sylia clapped her hands over her ears and winced as Vara screamed wordlessly at the giant standing above them.

“You’re so adorable,” Jirith said as he blew out the candle.

Bluish-white light washed first over Pamela Kingley’s vibrantly magenta hair, which had been dyed in the latest fad color, and then over her heart-shaped face as she tapped the controller on her slender wrist. The little cam bot jerked once, responding to the controller’s signal, and scuttled toward the news correspondent. Up a streetlight it went, wrapping its six delicate, multi-jointed legs around the pole and tilting its round head to get a good shot of the svelte woman.

Behind Pamela loomed the headquarters of Burson-Silvers International, an imposing tower of tinted glass and steel that practically pierced the nightsky. Dozens of armored Enforcers were gathered outside the building, the bright lights from their hover vehicles reflecting off of the dark windows.

Pamela took a deep breath of autumn air, reached up with a well-manicured hand to push the stray hairs off of her face. The cam bot, still clinging to the street light, flashed a blue light several times from the side of its squat body, indicating that she should begin. She did exactly that, looking straight at the terrier-sized robot and trying her best to appear somber and concerned.

“I’m standing outside of the headquarters of Burson-Silvers International in Haven, where a group calling itself the Four Horsemen has taken several company executives hostage. The group, made up of former Burson-Silvers researchers, has yet to state its demands. Reports have recently come in that two members of the group, Dmitri Rubarev and Jeremy Connell, have been killed, and at least one Enforcer injured in a failed attempt to take out the Horsemen. Officials have yet to disclose any information pertaining to the Enforcer’s condition, or any plans to deal with the group. For FGM news, this is Pamela Kingley.”

***

Snakelike trails of smoke curled upward from the cigarette in Medea Lerner’s hand. The tall woman didn’t even bother to smoke the damn thing, partly because the synthetic tobacco tasted like shit and partly because her attention was on other things. Namely, the company executives that cowered before her, their wide eyes on the pistol in her opposite hand. Her own eyes glittered back, cold and hard. There was not even a hint of mercy in them, and the hostages watched her, terrified, to see what she would do next.

Fortunately, Medea chose to look over at the Enforcer instead. He was in a corner, curled up in a fetal position, his armor torn to reveal an oozing gash in his side. Crimson blood puddled around the man, whose ashen face wore an expression of agony. If Medea had still been capable of pity, she would have felt sorry for him, the handsome young Enforcer who was most likely going to die a slow and painful death.

She dropped her cigarette onto the polished floor and stamped it out with one high- heeled boot. Light from the Enforcers far below crawled through the window, illuminating her cobalt body suit and the horse head pendant, the symbol of the group, which hung from around her long neck. Her short, platinum and metallic-blue hair shone as she gazed first at the mass-augmentation unit, a monstrous machine hidden in plated tubing, then over at the remaining member of the Horsemen, Peter Wilton. The lanky man was crouched down, inspecting each of the syringes in the open briefcase before him.

“Almost ready?” Medea asked.

“Yeah. Just have to make sure that they’re all here.”

“Good.” With the gun still in hand, she headed toward Peter. “It’s too bad about Dmitri and Jeremy, though.”

“We can still do this, even if they’re not here.”

“Correction. I can still do this, you goddamn traitor,” she snarled, her eyes narrowing to slits. Peter stood up, frowning.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

When she raised the pistol, his face noticeably blanched.

“Oh, please. Do I fucking look that stupid to you? It was you that let him and his friends in,” she gestured with her head toward the injured Enforcer. “Tell me, how much did they pay you to betray us?”

Peter didn’t answer, just reached down for his own weapon. But it was too late; his comrade pulled the trigger, and suddenly the wall behind him was smeared with blood and gray clumps of brains. Limply he fell forward, the onlookers gasping with fear. She felt no remorse, only an exasperated anger that she had to find someone to take his place, and quickly.

“Bastard,” she growled, kicking the corpse aside to get to the briefcase and its precious contents. Medea knelt down, picked up the first syringe and admired the way the silvery liquid sloshed around in its container. The executives watched, horrified, as she nonchalantly pressed the syringe against the side of her neck. She hissed with pain as it went in, but that was nothing compared to the agony that she experienced as the chemical flooded her mind.

The chemical, Cebnox, was designed to speed up the brain and increase the number of Alpha waves produced. Experiments had shown that it essentially gave telepathy to whoever used it, something that the military and the Enforcers were very, very interested in. Medea had been one of the head researchers of Cebnox when she worked for Burson- Silvers, and, when she had joined the group, destroyed all research concerning the chemical. Now, the only samples of Cebnox were in a nondescript briefcase and in the head of a spiky-haired woman who twitched violently as it coursed through her. Her full lips were stretched back in a grimace of suffering as she grabbed at her temples, breathing raggedly.

Then, with one final shudder, she squeezed her eyes shut. When she reopened them, everyone in the room immediately noticed how dilated her pupils were–in fact, they were so huge that they almost took up her whole iris. And it didn’t take long for her to know that it worked, for she could sense every mind around her, each swimming with thoughts and emotions.

She smiled ferally and, with a new confidence, strode across the room to where the Enforcer lay. He saw her coming and tried in vain to pull himself up, only to cough wetly and collapse back down to the floor. Still beaming, Medea stopped before him, one hand on her hip.

“You can’t even begin to imagine what this is like,” she informed him, amused by the angry scowl he gave her. “Tell me, what’s your name?”

The man remained silent until she reached into his head with a tendril of telepathic power.

“Thomas Barnes,” he reluctantly replied. “P-please don’t kill me. I h-have a wife and two little girls…”

Squatting down, she leaned forward, her lips nearly touching his ear, and whispered, “Tell you what, Tom. I’ll let you live if you do something for me.”

“An-and what’s th-that?” He was having difficulty breathing, let alone forming words. “Become the Fourth Horseman. Take Peter’s place.”

“No!” Bloody spittle hit her cheek as he shouted, or at least tried to. Medea’s black eyes flashed once as she wiped the blood-flecked saliva from her face; then she resumed smiling.

“Well, you don’t have a choice. I’ve run out of time, and you’re the only one around here who can take his place.” She pointed toward the hostages. “And I won’t even consider them.”

“I-I won’t help you!” The Enforcer adamantly protested.

“Are you willing to bet on that?” She strode over to the mass-augmentation unit, her boots clacking rhythmically on the floor. Even as she flipped on a series of switches, the tubes glowing a faint green, she could feel him resisting her.

Medea focused her new telepathic ability on him, her mind entering his with ease. Quickly she found the portions of his brain that dealt with aggression and the primitive need for dominance, to be the top male. Then, with the speed of thought, she tapped into those areas, watching the change in his expression. He was still fighting her, yes, but she could feel him giving into those ancient instincts. Religion, love, honor-all the things that he had once cherished, crumbling to dust as the urge to kill and destroy took over.

And with her telepathy, she could control him.

The mass-augmentation unit, another of Burson-Silver’s secret projects, hummed loudly, ominously. Its creator, Dmitri Rubarev, was little more than a headless corpse. With the researcher’s death had gone the plans to the machine, which Medea could certainly operate but didn’t fully understand.

As long as it works, she thought, looking over at the Enforcer. His face was still pale, but his expression was no longer one of pain, but of hopeless determination. He was fighting a losing battle with himself and this amused Medea.

Smirking, she directed the machine toward him with a few pushes of a button, the tubes uncoiling and snaking forward with a life of their own. The Enforcer’s eyes widened as he saw the tubes around him, swaying like green cobras. Then, at Medea’s command, pencil-thin beams of energy shot out, hitting the man dead-on.

She expected him to scream, to writhe in agony. But he didn’t move, his eyes unblinking as if in trance. As the beams darkened to a violet color, she saw the man’s armor knit itself back up, flowing like liquid metal or something organic. Metal spread across his prone body, grafting itself to his flesh in several places.

Well, she hadn’t been anticipating that.

Without warning, she saw his hand reach up and latch onto one of the tubes. Fascinated, she watched as the tube glowed brighter and brighter and then, with a loud burst of energy, fizzled out. The Enforcer let go of the it, his eyes unnaturally bright. She knew that the process had worked as soon she heard his bones crack as they stretched, his body growing at an alarming rate.

His thoughts, she saw, were not on the present, but rather on previous events. Images of the past, of his towheaded children and smiling wife, flashed through his mind, and he shivered as he realized that he had failed them. That was his last thought before Medea’s mental power clamped down on him like a vise.

From behind the mass-augmentation unit, she watched him struggle, his hands clenching and unclenching spasmodically as he fought to retain control of his own mind. But it was useless; she was so much stronger than he was, and it was pitifully easy to crush his will.

Although, she saw, that was not the case physically. When he had finally stopped growing, he had to be at least twice her height, his lean body protected by dark armor that had somehow been warped by Dmitri’s invention. The Enforcer’s eyes had a chillingly malevolent gleam in them as he sat up, miraculously healed and yearning for blood.

His gaze settled on the hostages, who were gaping at him. Medea didn’t even have to scan his mind to tell what he wanted to do to them, and she stepped in front of him. Despite the fact that she had almost complete control over him, she still felt a twinge of fear at the sight of the huge man whose head touched the high ceiling.

“No,” she snapped. “We don’t have time for that.”

He glowered at her with such intensity that she couldn’t help but look away.

“We have much bigger goals,” Medea explained.

“And what would they be?”

“Taking over this city, for one.” She pointed with one hand toward the window, where one could easily see the tall buildings and the multicolored lights.

His smile was every bit as bloodthirsty as her own.

“And now,” she announced, unzipping the black bag that was filled with C-4, “the fun begins.”

***

Pamela was calmly sipping her espresso when she saw the explosion on several of the building’s floors, including the floor where the Horsemen had been. As dark glass rained down around her, she was certain that she saw a figure, much too large to be a normal person, crawling down the side of the skyscraper like some kind of gecko.

“What the hell?” She wondered, dropping her coffee and fumbling for the controller on her wrist. She had to get a good shot of this.

And she did. The figure landed amid the group of Enforcers, who were too stunned to react when they saw their twelve-foot comrade.

“Barnes? Is that you?” One of them choked out, trying to steady his plasma rifle.

The giant Enforcer didn’t answer, just lashed out with his leg and struck the man. Pamela winced at the sound of bones snapping, and she immediately ducked down behind a hover vehicle. Breathless, she peered over the vehicle, stunned to see a woman riding on the huge man’s shoulders. A horsehead pendant around her neck sparkled in the light, and the news correspondent sucked in her breath. One of the Four Horsemen. This wasn’t good.

The other Enforcers had opened fire, but it was no use. If anything, the giant seemed to be absorbing the energy, growing bigger and bigger with each step. First fifteen feet, then thirty, the ground shaking like gelatin as his weight increased.

“Cease fire!” The sergeant shouted, but it was too late. By then the giant was easily forty feet tall, so big that the shorthaired woman who clung to his neck resembled a tiny doll. The Enforcers tried to scatter as he took a step forward, grabbing for them with armored hands. One of the Enforcers proved to be too slow, and he shrieked with terror as the fingers punched through his armor as if it were cheap tinfoil. Frantically the man struggled, but to no avail. Pamela’s heart pounded almost painfully in her chest as she watched the doomed Enforcer’s energy transferred into his former comrade, his body withering away into flesh-colored powder.

“Oh, fuck,” Pamela softly muttered, her eyes widening as he grew even bigger, his storm cloud-gray armor stretching and twisting to accommodate him. The street was becoming too narrow for his bulk, his shoulders ripping away the stone façade of a nearby office building as they brushed past it. The news correspondent wailed with terror as debris fell around her, crushing the hover vehicles and a dozen or so of the Enforcers. Her cam bot scurried back and forth, somehow managing to avoid the falling masonry.

Then, just as the last chunks of stone fell to the ground around her, she saw his gargantuan foot come down, purposely flattening two Enforcers into maroon mush. She gagged when he contemptuously scraped the blood and viscera off on the road, leaving behind a gory mess.

Choking on the sickening stench of blood, she slowly craned her head to look up at him. Jesus, how could anyone have gotten so big? Nine stories at least, his shadow large enough to engulf the remaining Enforcers.

Far above, she could barely make out the female Horseman, who was silently observing the mayhem.

***

Even from her high perch, Medea could still see the tiny armored figures as they ran for their lives, only to be stepped on and become wet, red stains on the pavement. She could hardly hear their piercing screams of agony and horror over the thunderous laughter of the giant. It was the most terrifying sound that she had ever heard, crazed and animalistic, yet intelligent at the same time.

She tapped into his mind, reading his thoughts. What was there didn’t surprise her in the least–death, destruction, rape, pillage. All the things that she had unleashed a short while before, and which served her purposes just fine.

He lurched forward suddenly, nearly tossing her off of him.

“Idiot! Watch what you’re doing!” Medea screeched furiously. Massive eyes the rich color of mahogany rolled down to look at her, and she paled slightly under the predatory gaze. Swallowing hard, she said in a quivering voice, “Hold me in your hand.”

His right hand rose up, the tree-trunk sized fingers wrapping around her body. Metal that had been warmed by his body heat pressed into her sides as she was lifted up, dangerously high. She could sense the raw power in the hand around her, enough power to crush a hover vehicle or snap her in half like a breadstick.

She shuddered a bit and hung on for dear life.

***

Pamela should have fled for her life, but she didn’t. Not only was she terrified that the giant would spot her if she tried to run, but she secretly was pleased to get a story this exciting. Why, she might even win an award for this! So she stayed, squatting amid the rubble and pulverized bodies, fiddling with her cam bot’s controller. The robot hopped around the huge Enforcer, who was too distracted in hunting down any survivors to notice it, recording his every deadly move.

FGM news would have to make her an anchorwoman once they saw this footage!

She was smiling broadly when the armored colossus unexpectedly moved his left foot… right down onto her cam bot. The little robot was reduced to a flat pancake of metal in less than a second.

“No!” Pamela found herself crying out. That machine had been an expensive piece of equipment, and that big buffoon had just stepped on it like a bug! He didn’t notice, either, as he stomped down the street, bringing death with him.

What could she do now? She couldn’t afford to lose this story, but pursuing it could turn out to be a lethal mistake. And she no longer had her cam bot to help her.

Ahead of her, the giant paused and plunged his fist into a building, laughing like God on Judgment Day as most of it crashed down onto the road below. Then, with a terrifying nonchalance, he continued down the street. Ignoring the violent hammering of her heart, Pamela chased after him.

***

Club Monde-Nouveau was one of the trendiest spots in the whole city and, like every night, it was busy. Young people wearing the latest Parisian fashions, from latex body suits to elaborate coats of ultra-light chain mail, milled about inside, the pulsating lights washing over them. These were the most stylish citizens–artists, musicians, fashion designers–all gathered to drink the most exotic liquor that the place had to offer and to show themselves off at the same time.

Unfortunately, that particular night turned out to be the worst time for anyone to visit the club.

As the Japanese techno music echoed throughout the whole building, everyone heard another noise, a loud crashing sound. The plastic lamps swung over head as the floor shook. At first, most of the patrons thought that it was an earthquake, until the roof was torn off and tossed casually aside.

An enormous, lean face, the eyes blazing with malevolence, appeared over them. At first, everyone who was sober enough to realize what was happening just gaped at the huge man that loomed above them. No one could believe what they were seeing–the colossus resembled some grotesque mockery of an Enforcer, right down to the nameplate welded to the front of his armored chest, but he was so much bigger…and nastier.

It didn’t take him long to demonstrate his cruelty. As the petrified patrons of the club looked on, he dipped his massive fingers into the main dance room, fishing for victims. Furniture was smashed into splinters, wailing men and women crushed into vermillion stains as the careless fingers swept across the room.

Those fortunate enough not to be smashed to pulp beneath the searching digits found themselves facing an even more grim fate as the giant drained them of their energy, feasting upon the luckless victims like some gigantic vampire. With every person that he robbed energy from, he grew, his already mind-boggling bulk increasing until he was able to knock over the club with a few movements of his hand. Shrieking patrons ran from the exits as the building collapsed in a shower of powdery dust. Some of the survivors tripped and were trampled by the others as they fled from the giant, who had stood back up. His murderous gaze fell on them and, with a demonic grin, he purposely began to stomp them underfoot.

***

The street was stained crimson with blood, twitching corpses that had been flattened like ants strewn everywhere. Pamela’s stomach threatened to spill its contents as she gazed down at the death scene from the thirtieth story of the New Financial Institute of North America building, abandoned except for the woman who stubbornly insisted on following her story. Near her, the awe-inspiring Enforcer stood as almost as high as the one that the reporter cowered in, his head just below her.

Pamela forced her attention to turn to the giant, instead of the sickening scene on the street. God, he was so huge…each of the short, russet hairs below her was as thick as a cord, his head as large as a small building. She couldn’t see his face, but that was relieving. The sinister expression that warped his face was something that she certainly didn’t want to see for long.

Opening the window, the woman poked her head out, the cool air carrying the fetid stench of death. This action turned out to be a mistake, for when he moved forward, the ground trembled so much the New Financial Institute of North America swayed like a reed in strong weeds. Pamela was catapulted from her precarious perch on the window sill, and she let loose a shrill bleat as she hurtled toward the street below. Frantically she grabbed for something, anything, to hold onto.

Which happened to be one of the thick hairs that grew from the behemoth’s head.

Pamela’s breath caught in her throat as her fall was broken, at least for the moment. The titanic man’s scent–sweat, cologne, his flesh itself– all amplified by his incredible size–was all around her, filling her senses. As she hung there, her heart beating so quickly that she was sure that it would explode, she prayed to whoever happened to be listening that he wouldn’t move his head suddenly.

Three seconds later, he did exactly that.

Again she fell, this time landing on the soft flesh of the back of his ear. Terrified, she clung to the warm flesh beneath her and waited for him to brush her off. But, perhaps because he was too large to feel her, he didn’t.

What the hell have you gotten yourself into? A tiny voice in her head howled at her. She could only shiver in answer to this question, doing her best to hold onto the flesh beneath her as he began to move once more.

***

Pamela wasn’t the only passenger that the giant carried as he tore through anything in his path like a living tornado. In his armored fist, Medea avidly watched as the Fourth Horseman destroyed anything in his path, pushing aside buildings, flattening hover vehicles and people alike. The mayhem reminded her of those old horror vids, the ones in which gargantuan monsters decimated entire urban areas. Just like in the vids, her monster was demolishing this city, and he was completely unopposed.

Completely unstoppable.

This, she realized as she felt the chilly wind against her bare face, this was why she had joined the Horsemen. To experience power…raw power, as addicting as any drug and the strongest aphrodisiac that she knew of. With her control over the Enforcer, his incredible power was hers. And now, as she scanned the destruction with eyes dilated by Cebnox, she reveled in that fact, almost giddy from the excitement that made every nerve tingle.

The excitement quickly transformed into something else, something that spread warmth through her lower abdomen. She realized for the first time that his index finger was pressed up against her breasts and groin, increasing the pleasant sensations. Her arousal steadily grew and the giant looked down at her as though he could sense it.

Medea reached into his mind, and was not surprised in the slightest to find that it was a seething pit of lust. As soon as she removed those old moral safeguards, he had become worse than the Devil himself. She allowed herself a small smile. It was amusing, really.

After pulling out of his depraved mind, she gazed up at his handsome face. A thought occurred to her, something that she normally would have been embarrassed to even have considered. But why, she thought, should I be embarrassed? No one can stop us…

She sent him a mental image of what she wanted, of what she yearned for. The gigantic Enforcer laughed with wicked glee, the sound echoing throughout the metal and concrete canyons of the city. Carelessly he sat down right on the street, deep cracks radiating out from around him. He stretched out his massive, armored legs, driving them into a building as he raised her to his face. The structure immediately crumbled, dust rising into the air, but he took no note of it. His gaze was on Medea, who had reached out to touch his lips, his cheeks with questing fingers.

She marveled at how soft his skin was and, tentatively at first, she leaned forward, letting her breasts touch his face. Even through the material of her body suit she could feel it, and her breath quickened. Through the corner of her eye, she saw his other hand move toward his nether-regions, where the organic armor had parted like the Red Sea to reveal his erect cock. Colossal fingers, each bigger than a transcar, gently stroked his swollen manhood.

Just as Medea’s hand dipped down to tease herself, she sensed something. Instantly she froze, except for a quick movement of her head.

“We’re not alone,” she growled. Of course they weren’t; people were running around the giant, trying to get away as quickly as possible. But Medea sensed someone else, someone very, very near. She glanced up , following the frightened thoughts, and then pointed. The Enforcer grabbed for the stowaway on his body, sneering as the woman screamed. She looked familiar to Medea, with her brightly-colored hair and white news suit. Pamela Something, a news reporter for FGM, that’s who she was.

“What should I do with her?” The colossus asked, holding Pamela by one leg. The newswoman, hanging upside down, her long hair hiding her pretty face, wailed again.

“Whatever you want,” Medea answered, shivering at the sinister expression that contorted his immense face. As he lowered the shrieking news correspondent toward his erection, she reached down for her zipper, eager to get out of her clothes.

***

It had been bad enough when Pamela had had been trapped on the giant’s ear. Now, as she found herself pushed toward an obscenely-huge penis, she found herself in a much worse situation. The pulsating flesh that she was smashed up against was hot, and she pounded helplessly at it. It was no use; much to her disgust, she was dragged up and down. There was no pain at first, except for the few times that he applied too much pressure. Then she felt an odd stinging sensation in her skin, which turned to full-blown agony. The burning sensation was excruciating, and she tried to squirm out from the giant’s tight grip, but couldn’t.

Tears of pain began to stream down her face as she looked down and, much to her horror, saw that her flawless skin had begun to flake, as if turning to ash. Fear seized Pamela, and she attempted to thrash, to do something, anything. But her lower body was paralyzed, the sensation completely gone. She recalled what had happened to some of the Enforcers outside the Burson-Silvers International building, and a shrill screech sprang from her throat, mingling with the frantic cries of the people around her.

Pamela only stopped screaming when her face collapsed in on itself, flesh and bone turning to a fine dust that was swept away by the wind.

***

The mammoth hand that held Medea grew even bigger, nearly swallowing her up as it expanded. She turned her head and looked behind her, noticing that the reporter was gone. Well, that explained it.

The thrill of growth had excited him even more and, with a few caresses of his blood- engorged cock, he came. Spurts of thick semen came down onto some of the people trying to flee, trapping and suffocating them like insects in molasses.

As soon as the after effects of orgasm passed, he brought his attention back to Medea. The titanic fingers moved away from her, and she found herself sitting on his palm, naked but feeling strangely invulnerable. She sucked in her breath as one of the fingers, now so big that it could have effortlessly crushed her all by itself, came toward her, stopping a scant foot or two from her chest.

Slowly she stood, leaning against the monstrous digit and enjoying the cool metal against her breasts and bare belly. Almost unconsciously, she tilted her head forward, kissing the armor, one hand sneaking down between her legs. Medea spread her vaginal lips and gasped as she brushed her clitoris, the tiny lump of flesh swollen and especially sensitive. Eagerly she rubbed it and savored the exquisite feeling of the hard metal against her breasts at the same time.

Just as her motions began to reach a fevered pace, she sensed something once more. But this time it was dangerous, making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She pulled her dripping fingers out from her vagina and shouted up to the Enforcer, “Someone’s coming…”

Indeed, someone was coming. Several of the military’s latest aircraft, sleek planes crafted of glossy silver metal, streaked through the starry sky toward them. It took Medea a quick mental scan of one of the pilots to find out that each plane was packing enough power to take out a considerable chunk of a city. Hesitation suddenly crept up on her. What if she and the Fourth Horseman weren’t indestructible? A cold chill ran down her spine.

Even if that was true, she would fight until the bitter end. So she reached out with her enhanced mind, trying to make contact with one of the pilots. But just as she felt her consciousness latch onto his, the Enforcer’s gargantuan hand closed over her, cutting off the light. She squealed with frustration and impatience as he dropped her into one of the compartments on his armor. Inside the heavy darkness of the compartment, Medea howled with rage, deliberating on whether or not to just to completely take over his mind. She decided against it.  After all, she was safer in here…until the missiles hit, that was.

She closed her eyes and waited.

***

A four hundred foot man was an easy target, and the pilot of the plane closest to him, a young man who was well-known by his friends and family to be cocky, grinned victoriously as he watched the missiles soar toward the giant. The enormous Enforcer glowered at the pilot, his eyes cold and cruel and calculating, and didn’t even move as his death rushed toward him.

The missiles found their target, momentarily lighting up the night as they exploded. So powerful were the explosions that the giant man was thrown like a child’s rag doll, his rolling body creating a wide swath of destruction until it finally stopped.

The pilot grinned smugly, congratulating himself until he saw the colossus stir. No, not just stirring. He was growing at an alarming rate too, absorbing the energy of the missiles like parched earth sucking up water. The pilot felt his eyes widen as he watched the man grow, doubling his size, tripling it. The giant’s shadow crawled ominously over the buildings as his body became larger and larger, his feral eyes glaring at the pilot the whole time.

“Jesus,” he heard one of the other pilots whisper over the radio. He said nothing, only silently watched as the Enforcer continued to grow, his body crushing anything in the way. The pilot had no idea how big he was now. The tallest building only came up to the titan’s knee, which was swiftly destroyed as the immense man strode forward toward the planes, a maniacal smile on his mind-bogglingly huge face.

By the time he reached them, he was almost at their level, and the pilot’s mind could not adequately grasp his sheer size. The man was like a living mountain, huge to the point that, with every awesome step that he took forward, he smashed a dozen or so blocks underfoot. The unfortunate people on the ground that were not killed outright were forced to deal with the violent earthquakes that opened gaping holes in the street and collapsed buildings like dominoes.

The pilot did not react until the mammoth hand with fingers the size of skyscrapers swooped down toward him. But by then, it was too late. The planes exploded as soon as they hit the solid wall of metal and flesh, debris showering onto the ground.

The Enforcer looked down at his hand, where the only traces of the planes were plumes of thick, charcoal smoke. His thunderous laugh was an awful thing to hear, so loud that it shattered windows throughout the city and caused the survivors of his murderous rampage to clap their hands to their ears in agony.

Still laughing, he looked down at the damage that he caused. Each footprint was a deep crater, and any person, structure, or vehicle unfortunate enough to have been in it was utterly flattened, compressed into the bedrock far underneath the street. Deliberately, he raised his foot over a retail district, trying to imagine how the people far below were reacting. Probably scared out of their minds, trying futilely to flee from the mountain- sized colossus looming above them.

His heart raced with excitement at this thought and, with complete lack of mercy, he brought his metal-shod foot down, crushing the whole district and sending shockwaves throughout the surrounding areas. He purposely ground his boot down, making sure that no one escaped alive. Not that anyone could have.

With a heartless grin, he dragged his foot back, creating a trail of destruction. As powdery dust rose up, the giant crouched down low, placing both hands on the ground. Skyscrapers crunched, people were squashed into bloody smears as he lowered himself closer. It was impossible at his great height to see much of anything, except for a few specks that were probably hover vehicles. To the tiny people that drove those speck-sized vehicles, he was as powerful as a deity, and that fact caused a stirring in his loins.

He was still incredibly aroused, and once again removed the armor from his groin with a simple thought, the organic metal pulling apart to reveal his throbbing erection. He briefly considered caressing it again, but, as he looked down on the mite-sized city, he had a better idea.

His cock scraped against the small buildings, smashing them and sending a shudder of delight through his body as he lowered himself down further. Clear precum dribbled down onto the street far below, coating everything. The giant groaned deeply, thrusting. The ground heaved beneath him, entire neighborhoods razed by his gargantuan manhood.

He sucked in his breath, his vision blurred by pleasure, and he climaxed. Any structure left standing was instantly destroyed. Rolling onto his back, he looked up at the night sky, which was yielding to the first pink rays of dawn.

And he laughed, because this world was now theirs.

***

The prime minister grimly watched the news vids. Haven had ceased to be a city; now, it was little more than a barren wasteland of debris and death. What was worse was that its destroyer still alive, arrogantly striding across the country and reducing anything near him to rubble. It was astounding that one person could do so much damage.

So far, the Horsemen hadn’t made any demands, and he wondered if their sole purpose was just to destroy humanity. It seemed that way.

That all changed when the young woman sauntered into his office, dressed in an ebony tank top and pants, her pupils so dilated that they consumed her eyes. A horsehead pendant hung between her breasts, glinting dully as she stopped right near his desk.

Medea Lerner, he realized. One of those damned Horsemen.

“H-how did you get in?” The prime minister demanded, shaking with fear.

“The guards let me in,” she answered and winked, hopping up onto the expensive oak desk. He backed away, wary.

“What do you want?”

“I was hoping you’d ask that.” She flashed him a black-lipped smile. “I want you to sign over the military to the Horsemen.”

“You must be kidding.”

The smile told him that she wasn’t. He opened his mouth to say no, to tell her to go to hell, but he couldn’t. There was a peculiar buzzing in his head, as if someone was crawling around in there. And, as he stared at the Horseman’s dilated eyes, he realized that someone indeed was.

“Look at this way. People will stop dying as soon as we take over.” She was trying to reason with him, but there was no need. Her telepathic power was gradually taking over his mind, forcing him to take the old-fashioned clipboard, and the official paper on it, from her.

With trembling hands, he began to sign.

During most days of the year, Gadon Island was only inhabited by a few hundred people. It was during the summer that the tourists came in droves, quickly overtaking the island’s only town, Angstrom. The locals put up with them because they spent their money freely…that, and they needed people for the Offering that occurred once every fifty years.

And, unfortunately for the tourists visiting Gadon Island, this was an Offering year.

***

Tobias was the mayor of Angstrom and had been for many years. He looked like a stereotypical New Englander, his lean face perpetually pinched by an expression of mistrust. To the tourists, he appeared to be in his early forties but in reality, he was much, much older. In fact, he could recall the time before the American Revolution, although those memories were dim and distant. Immortality was one of the benefits of serving Him, although that meant that Tobias and the other islanders could never leave. They were trapped here, forever.

The tourists never really suspected anything. Tobias would get questions from time to time about the lack of traditional places of worship such as churches and synagogues. There was one white clapboard building that resembled a Congregational church, except for the symbols that none of the tourists understood. This was His place of worship, a being that the locals simply called The God. When they did speak of Him, it was in hushed tones, for He was a terrible deity, ravenous in His appetites. What He wanted most of all were human lives and He came for His due every fifty years.

On the day of His arrival, Tobias walked up to one of the highest points on the island. There wasn’t anything there but the old lighthouse that was automated these days. The spot gave him a good view of the ocean and one of the beaches below. It was sunset but tourists were still on the beach, just as he expected. The islanders had arranged for a large end-of-summer celebration, complete with music and copious amounts of free alcohol, in order to lure unsuspecting victims to the beach. Of course, none of the locals were there.

They knew He was coming.

Tobias glanced down at the people far below, mostly college students and young couples, and wished that he could feel regret. But he had participated in this ritual too many times. All he felt was a dull emptiness as the air began to rise in temperature and the barometric pressure dropped, which were always the first signs. His attention turned toward the ocean, where the setting sun shone bright red against the water. The waves were beginning to pick up, crashing into the quay.

None of the tourists noticed the waves or the swelling bulge far out in the ocean. Tobias saw it, though, and he watched in reverent fascination as the bulge grew and grew. He was high enough up that he could see the dark shadow underneath it, vast and terrifying. It was far larger than any submarine on Earth; in fact, it probably could have put an aircraft carrier to shame. By the time He emerged from the water, the waves were ravaging the shore. The music and conversation had stopped as people finally saw Him. The only sounds were the violent waves as they slammed up onto the beach.

To say He was awe-inspiring would have been a gross understatement. He was gigantic beyond human comprehension, His tremendous shadow falling over the water as He rose up from the ocean’s depths. And He was beautiful in a way that no human could ever be, the sun’s last rays highlighting the sculpted muscles of His mountainous body. Thousands of gallons of seawater cascaded from His chestnut-brown hair as He swung His head around. For one brief second, the giant’s eyes, which were the same gray-blue as the Atlantic Ocean, seemed to focus on Tobias. The mayor felt utter dread, like an insect who had been spotted by an exterminator. Instinctively, he dropped down to his knees but the giant had already turned His attention back to the shore.

The tourists began to panic as the colossus approached, his massive legs churning up the water. There was a speedboat directly in the giant’s path and it tried to get out of the way, but it was too late. It slammed into the solid wall of muscle and bone that was the giant’s leg and exploded into fragments that were soon swept away by the roiling water.

The God didn’t seem to notice or care.

Near the shore, the boats at the pier were heaved about as if they were caught in a hurricane and the waves were now thirty-foot monsters. People were fighting each other to get away but He moved too quickly for them. Before anyone could get off the beach, the giant had lifted one mammoth foot from the water. Saltwater poured down onto the people directly underfoot, knocking them over. They didn’t even have time to try to get up before the colossus stepped down, crushing them like ants. When He lifted His foot again, sand and the flattened remains of the tourists rained down from His sole. So far, the giant’s expression hadn’t changed; it was strangely neutral, like the face of a man watching leaves blow across a yard.

But His footsteps appeared to be deliberate and He seemed to target large clusters of people, stepping on them and leaving crater-like footprints in the soft sand. The tourists were also trampling one another in their animalistic panic, shrieking and crying as The God approached. Even though Tobias was relatively far away, the ground trembled beneath him with every one of the giant’s lethal steps. He would have liked to say that he felt sorry for the hapless people on the beach, but he didn’t, really. He just watched their inevitable fate as they tried in vain to escape.

The giant took one more step, the people below trying to avoid His footfall. Then, without warning, He lowered Himself down, tourists scrambling to avoid being squashed beneath His muscular ass. With amazing dexterity, considering His mind-boggling size, the giant reached out and grabbed a handful of men and women. Tobias knew what came next…he had witnessed this so many times that it was almost a carefully-rehearsed play at this point. He wasn’t sure what The God really was or what He did most of the time below the ocean. But he did know that when He came to Gadon Island, He was hungry.

The teeming mass of people in His hand looked utterly insignificant as He raised them to His mouth and unceremoniously licked them up. This horrific sight drove those who were still on the ground into a more intense frenzy. He reached for another handful, and another and another. A few people wiggled free of His hand and fell to their deaths on the ground far below. But most of the tourists were devoured by the colossus, their lives sacrificed to His endless appetite. He nonchalantly crushed the few survivors who were running up the beach or trying to flee into the ocean under one fingertip.

After all, their lives were His.

The beach was now eerily quiet, except for the waves splashing against the shore. The giant stood back up to His impressive height, the sand beneath Him stained crimson. He casually brushed off the pulverized specks from His ass and once again, looked over in Tobias’ direction. The mayor held his breath until the colossus turned and headed toward Angstrom.

***

Tobias had been a young man when he had first seen Him.

That had been hundreds of years ago, when his family had moved from the mainland to the island. It had been summer then as well, the air stifling despite the breeze from the ocean. He hadn’t been able to sleep from the heat and the nightmares, which he had been having frequently. He dreamed of seas of blood and cruel gods almost every night now. So Tobias decided to take a walk on the beach to clear his head.

Usually, he was alone when he took his midnight walks. But not that night.

In the silver moonlight he could see a small rowboat out on the ocean and he had recognized several of the town elders. As he had wondered what they were doing out here, the water churned violently and a vast shape rose from the water, unimaginably huge. The rowboat and the town elders were insect-sized in comparison. He had heard of the biblical Leviathan, but this creature looked like a man as He glanced down at the tiny rowboat bobbing in the water before Him. Tobias had been staring in utter fascination when a voice had startled him. It was his father, who looked equally surprised to see him.

Tobias had started to open his mouth but his father anticipated the question.

“He is our new God. Good things come to those who serve Him,” his father explained. The giant seemed to have heard him, although that was ridiculous considering that He was half a mile away and over a thousand feet tall, surely too big to hear human voices. The immense man looked over at Tobias, His face inhumanly beautiful despite its size. The gigantic eyes gleamed in the moonlight and Tobias trembled in dread, especially when the faintest hint of a smile quirked the titan’s mouth.

“Look, He’s noticed you,” his father said in awe. Tobias hadn’t been certain that was a good thing. Even now, hundreds of years later, the memory of that enigmatic smile still sent shivers down his spine.

***

As the giant headed toward Angstrom, Tobias started up his motorcycle. Gasoline was ridiculously expensive on the island and so he rode it whenever possible. The roar of the motorcycle’s engine was drowned out by the thunder of the colossus’ footsteps in the distance. He followed the giant’s path of destruction, which looked far worse than anything that a hurricane or another natural disaster could do. This disaster was deliberate in its actions and he could see the smashed remains of buildings, shattered into toothpicks. Worse were the crushed cars and people, ground deep into the rocky soil. Most of the tourists who had been unfortunate enough to be caught beneath the giant’s footsteps were now hideous splatters of broken bone and pulped flesh, like obscene mockeries of police chalk outlines.

There were some unfortunate souls who were still alive, only half-crushed, and Tobias pitied them even more. But he dared not slow down to help them, for it was The God’s right to decide who lived or who died.

The wind shifted, the air unseasonably hot. Beneath the salt tang that came from being near the ocean was the odor of smoke and blood. It made his stomach churn but he fought back the nausea as he drove past the white clapboard building that served as His place of worship. The structure stood undisturbed amidst complete and total destruction. Most of the islanders were probably huddled inside, praying fervently to the unstoppable being who was stomping His way across the town. They would be spared, as they were at every Offering; the tourists wouldn’t be so lucky. The giant would pursue every last one of them.

There would be no escape.

***

When The God had appeared all of those years ago, most of the islanders had accepted their new deity, especially after they had witnessed all of the benefits that came from serving Him. The community had become prosperous and hardships such as illness had vanished. Of course, there had been some dissenters, most notably the widow of one of the wealthiest men on the island. Margaret had been very outspoken against the new religion, warning the townspeople that they knew little about the being or His true intentions. No one paid her any heed; then the elders began to have visions in which The God instructed them to bring the blasphemer before Him.

So they did.

Tobias had looked on as they rowed Margaret out to one of the large rocks jutting from the ocean. She had remained stoic as they chained her to the rock; Tobias remembered how she hung her head as the elders left her behind, heading back to the shore. He also remembered what happened next, a memory that was often replayed in his nightmares.

The giant had emerged from the water, His eyes narrowed dangerously as He regarded the tiny woman on the rock. Margaret’s calm composure had melted away as she stared up in horror at the titan. Tobias had been able to hear her shrill howls from the shore; her cries had continued until she ran out of breath. When The God had grabbed for her, she had twisted frantically, trying to break free of the chains. But it had been to no avail; the enormous fingers pinched her and lifted. Margaret had let out another shriek. This time Tobias had heard the pain in her voice, her shoulders dislocated as the giant pulled her from the chains.

The God had lifted the wailing woman up, His eyes glittering with sadistic delight. His voice filled the minds of all of the townspeople gathered on the shore:

“Pathetic insect…how dare you defy Me?”

Margaret had just screamed and screamed.

Her screams had abruptly ended when the giant placed her in His cavernous mouth. Looking pointedly at the people on the shore, He had chewed her up like a sweet, devouring her body and soul.

That had been the first Offering.

***

It was quickly becoming night but the colossus was impossible to miss, dwarfing even the largest structures. He was currently towering high above the Marsh Hotel, a three-story tall building that looked like a model railroad prop in comparison to Him. Swarms of tourists were trying to flee but He ignored them for the moment, regarding the hotel with thinly-concealed lust. Tobias pulled over on the side of the road. He could actually feel the giant’s lust and dark pleasure, a sort of telepathic side-effect of his proximity to the gargantuan being. His own body responded involuntarily and he was beginning to develop a painful erection when a young woman ran up to him. She was probably one of the college students who came here for summer work or to party. Either way, she looked utterly terrified, her makeup a ruined mess.

When she spoke, she wasn’t entirely coherent.

“Ryan’s dead and so is Will and oh my God, the giant killed them, we have to get out of here-“

The woman was trying to get onto the motorcycle with him. Tobias pushed her off and she looked shocked and betrayed. She started to protest but a horrific ripping sound interrupted her. Both she and Tobias looked to where the giant had torn the hotel from its foundation, debris and hotel guests tumbling to the ground as He lifted it up.

The God cradled the building in the palms of His mammoth hands, gazing down at it with a bone-chilling hunger. Then He lowered it down between the thick slabs of muscle that were His thighs. The giant’s titanic sex dwarfed the hotel and Tobias wondered what the people inside the building were thinking, gazing in awe at a multi-ton scrotum and penis that would have emasculated the most manly of men. But they didn’t have much time to stare because The God pushed the entire building against His mighty cock, the hotel yielding and crumbling. The giant growled in pleasure as the building imploded inward, dust powdering His pubic hair.

Beside Tobias, the college student began to whimper in fright.

The God opened His hands, regarding the smashed building with utter contempt. Then He tilted His palms, the rubble that was once a hotel burying several luckless souls who were at the giant’s feet. His monstrous penis was already stiffening and Tobias knew that it also required blood-sacrifices. The ground quivered as the giant began to step on restaurants and gift shops as though they were mushrooms, trying to flush people out into the street. Tobias honestly wasn’t worried about the buildings; there would be a convenient hurricane after The God left and the insurance adjusters would be strangely, almost magically, compelled to pay whatever was necessary to fix the town.

In the street, a mob of panicked people was steadily forming. A sneer tugged at the corners of the giant’s mouth, His mammoth penis throbbing insistently as he loomed over the frenzied crowd. Those who tried to break away he crushed, smearing their remains across the asphalt in wide streaks of maroon. By the time the giant dropped down to His hands and knees, the crowd was bleating like a herd of cattle who knew they were being led to the slaughter.

The God’s gargantuan hands crushed dozens of people as though they were berries, blood splashing across the huge fingers; likewise, people were also pulped beneath his knees. The giant’s body spanned the length of the street, His torso forming a vast ceiling over the mob of tourists. He looked down at the tiny people, grinning fiercely, and then He playfully thrust His hips forward. The sight of a monstrous one-hundred foot penis barreling forward only caused further panic amidst the tourists. They tried to run but the column of rockhard flesh simply smashed over them, flattening them underneath its astronomical weight. Another thrust and more people were mashed, the purplish-red cockhead oozing gallons of clear precum onto the pavement.

It was evident that The God felt His Offerings as they died beneath His most sensitive flesh. He groaned thunderously and dug His gigantic fingers deep into the road, sinking them dozens of feet into the ground. Tobias watched, mesmerized, but the college student ran for her life. He didn’t bother to pursue her. By morning, she would be as dead as the liquified bodies beneath the giant’s murderous cock.

The pace of The God’s thrusting began to increase and again, Tobias felt that eerie mental connection. His own body tingled with carnal pleasure, his erection more intense than anything that he had ever experienced. That was when he heard the telepathic voice of The God, frightening in its power.

“Yes, die for me, insects,” the voice commanded. The tourists only replied with agonized squealing. The giant snarled and when He came, His orgasm was godly in its own right. Jets of milky semen struck some of the surviving people, the sheer force shattering almost every bone in their bodies. Breathing heavily with pleasure, The God glanced down at the few people still alive beneath him, the street a ghastly graveyard of mutilated sacrifices.

Those who still could move were trying to crawl away when the giant began to lower his torso down, his colossal arms bending as if he were doing a push-up. The people trapped on the street shrieked and tried to ward off the countless tons of muscle and bone as it slowly pressed down onto them. It was useless; they popped and compressed beneath the massive pecs and abs of the titan.

Then there was silence.

By then it was fully night, although Tobias could see the giant’s enormous eyes shining in the darkness like those of a cat. He knew, without a doubt, that The God was watching him, studying him. How long they stared at each other, he wasn’t sure. He finally snapped out of his trance when other islanders began to appear. They stopped at a respectful distance, completely in awe of the behemoth who towered over everything even though He was still prone. When He rolled Himself over onto His side, the islanders immediately prostrated themselves before their deity. Tobias stared in morbid fascination at the tiny scarlet splatters dotting the giant’s torso before he also dropped down to his knees.

“Mayor.” The word was unspoken; rather, it filled his mind and he knew it was the telepathic voice of the giant. The knowledge that he was being addressed filed him with elation and horror. Slowly, Tobias raised his eyes and met the giant’s cool gaze. He was too overwhelmed to speak.

“Tobias Howard, come here.” Again, the words seemed to just appear in his head. Tobias quickly obeyed the titan’s command and walked toward the living mountain before him. He had never been this close to The God before and he stared up in wonder at the towering cliff-face that was the giant’s chest. It rose up hundreds of feet in the air and expanded and collapsed as the colossus breathed. When He moved, Tobias cringed and cowered until he realized that the giant was merely placing His immense hand down onto the street.

It was evident what the giant wanted, so he tentatively reached out and touched the gargantuan hand, afraid at first that he might spontaneously combust from touching divine flesh. But Tobias didn’t ignite into flames and the skin beneath his fingertips was warm and oddly human. The giant did smell like the ocean, a briny scent that he knew too well. His heart pounding in his chest, he climbed onto the expansive plain of The God’s palm. There was nothing to hold onto as the titan lifted Tobias before His face, the dark gray eyes regarding him.

“I require an additional sacrifice,” the giant told him in that strange telepathic way.

An additional sacrifice. Yes, Tobias understood now. For some reason, his mind brought him back to that night hundreds of years ago when his father had told him that The God had noticed him. He was just another sacrifice, another Offering for the giant’s ravenous appetite. For an eternal being, a few hundred years meant nothing. He had waited to come for Tobias and He would come for the other islanders eventually.

Oh, they had been wrong, so very wrong, Tobias realized with utter dread and despair.

The last thing that he saw before he was dropped into the abyss of the giant’s mouth was the pitiless and eternal gaze of his God.

Everyone was laughing and partying around Caleb, but his attention was entirely on the dark water before him.

His mind often wandered when he was out on the ocean, but today he couldn’t keep his thoughts organized at all. Caleb blamed it on not being able to sleep well; the past few months had been filled with insomnia and bizarre dreams. The worst of the nightmares had involved a cult worshipping a strange and awful god, and those dreams always ended with the smoldering ruins of cities. He would awaken afterwards covered in a layer of sweat, his body shivering violently. Once, he had apparently sleepwalked and he found that he had written an enigmatic message on the bedroom wall: I want more.

Someone slapped Caleb on the shoulder and he tore his gaze away from the ocean. Brett, the young man who had chartered Caleb’s boat, grinned at him and placed his sunglasses on top of his wild black hair.

“Dude, this is excellent,” Brett said, his speech slurred by too many hard seltzers. Caleb smiled back politely but didn’t reply. It was obvious that Brett’s friends were also having a good time, partying on the deck of The Pythia. A blonde woman in a bikini recorded herself on her phone while several men enthusiastically chugged beers.

Brett swung his head around drunkenly and looked out at the water, which was reflecting the vibrant purples and oranges of the setting sun. In the distance, a tiny, ominous shape rose out of the Atlantic.

“Hey, is that Gadon Island? You know, the one that was destroyed recently?” Brett asked, swaying and grabbing onto the nearby railing for support. Caleb shoved his hands into the pockets of his worn jacket and nodded.

“Yeah, that’s it.” Sailors tended to be superstitious, and Caleb found that he couldn’t say the name of that cursed place without his skin prickling. None of the locals mentioned it, the island that had weathered hurricanes for years and then had been wiped from the map. There were no survivors, the Coast Guard reported. Just the flattened remains of buildings and other structures, the sole town completely destroyed. It had been an appalling disaster for the area.

“I heard that there was weird stuff going on.” Brett gripped the railing tighter. “Like witchcraft or something.”

Not witchcraft. Caleb had never been to the island, and yet somehow he knew that it was something else. Something indescribably powerful. He closed his eyes and an image from one of his nightmares appeared: people crying and clawing at each other, trying to flee as a vast shadow settled over them. No matter how fast they ran, He would hunt down every single one of them. The god that they had served for so long had turned on them, and now they faced His endless appetite.

“You okay, man? You’re as pale as a ghost.” Brett’s voice disrupted the horrific scene and Caleb’s eyes snapped open.

“I’m fine,” Caleb muttered, stepping away from the concerned young man. He mumbled an excuse about needing to check on their location but once he was out of Brett’s sight, he went back to staring at the water, transfixed.

***

Caleb had found that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t escape the ocean.

He had been born in a small seaside town, and he had left briefly, driven by ambition. Caleb had earned his MBA from Harvard (“Hahvahd” the tourists would say, snickering, as if he hadn’t the joke a million times before), and then he worked in New York City for a decade. But in the end, he was drawn back to his birthplace. Caleb had returned to the seaside town and found a job with a charter company. Eventually, he purchased his own boat. The original owner had called it The Pythia and Caleb decided to keep the name.

The boat was his pride and joy. He had taken it out on numerous charters, and so far they had all been successful. But that night, as the sun disappeared below the horizon, Caleb was filled with the feeling of dread. There was no apparent reason for it; the sky was cloudless and the sea was tranquil. But the dread lingered in his stomach. An internal voice warned him to go back, to refund Brett his money and to stay safe.

And then another voice emerged, this one so much stronger: No, you’re doing the right thing.

Caleb listened to the second voice, and The Pythia continued its voyage through the still water.

A fishing boat slowly moved in the distance, the only other vessel that he could see. He watched it for awhile; then he felt the faint tickle on his upper lip. Dabbing at his face, Caleb was surprised to see blood dotting his fingertips. It wasn’t common for him to get nosebleeds, and as he searched for a tissue, he heard an excited shout from the bow of the boat.

He rushed out to see what the commotion was about. Brett and a few others were clustered on the bow, pointing to something out on the ocean.

“Holy shit, is that a whale?” Someone exclaimed, and that set off more chatter. Caleb wiped away the blood from his nose, and frowning, he made his way to the front of the ship. All that he could see was the fishing boat, its lights little more than minute pinpoints in the distance. Then, as his eyes skimmed over the ocean, he finally spotted it.

Something was swelling in the water, but Caleb instantly knew that the rising form wasn’t a whale. A humpback wasn’t that big; not even a blue whale was that enormous. Nothing living could reach that size, and a hushed silence fell over everyone as they watched the immense shape approach the fishing boat.

“What the hell is that?” Brett asked softly, and Caleb felt his mouth open on its own volition. It was as if he had been transformed into a puppet and some invisible force was pulling his strings.

“Me,” Caleb answered, and the word and the voice weren’t his own. Terrified, his hand flew up to his lips. No one paid him any heed; they were too focused on the impossible situation unfolding before them. The shape exploded from the water, stretching out toward the night sky. Its sheer size would have rivaled the high-rises that Caleb had seen back in New York, and even more astonishing was the fact that it was humanoid.

Hands shaking, the blonde woman raised her phone and began to take photos; no one else moved, too amazed to do anything but gawk.

The god has returned, Caleb thought, and he wasn’t sure why the idea invaded his mind.

Pale moonlight outlined the broad shoulders of the giant, which were as wide as a bridge, as he towered over the fishing boat. The other vessel was too far away to see the reactions of the crew, although Caleb could imagine that they were utterly shocked. Caleb himself could hardly believe his eyes, although there was a part of him that understood that this was inevitable, that the universe was somehow correcting itself. Those thoughts were so alien that they frightened him as much as the leviathan looming in the distance.

Another droplet of blood trickled from his nostril.

The fishing boat bobbed up and down in the water, hammered by the sudden waves that were generated by the giant’s movements. It was smaller than a child’s toy to the titan, barely noticeable, and yet he seemed interested in it. Very, very interested. Everyone on The Pythia froze, unable to look away as the giant’s hand emerged from the ocean, the fishing boat stranded in the center of his palm. Even the blonde stopped taking photos, statue-still as the colossus peered down at the insignificant thing in his hand. Delicately, gently, the giant pinched the fishing boat between two fingers, raising it toward his face.

Somehow, Caleb knew exactly what was about to happen.

The titan’s full lips parted and he tipped the fishing boat over his extended tongue. Like grains of pepper falling from a shaker, the fishermen tumbled from the boat and landed onto the huge expanse of his tongue. The lucky ones, anyway. Others plunged the thousand feet or so into the sea, their bodies colliding with the water.

Although The Pythia was a great distance away, Caleb and the others heard the earthshaking gulp as the giant swallowed the fishermen. Brett cried out, and then his friends joined him. Caleb remained silent, bearing witness to the horrifying being before him.

The giant swiveled his head in their direction, his eyes catching the dim light and gleaming like two beacons.

“We need to get out of here!” Brett shrieked, and Caleb found that his mouth had been commandeered once again.

“It’s too late for that,” the thing said, its rumbling voice pouring through Caleb’s lips. “You belong to Me.”

Brett seized the front of Caleb’s jacket, his fingers digging through the fabric. Terror was etched deep into his features. “What the fuck is going on here?”

“I have returned,” the thing possessing Caleb told Brett. The other man tightened his grip on Caleb’s jacket, and he probably would have thrown him overboard if the gigantic wave hadn’t pummeled the boat. The Pythia nearly capsized, and two of the guests were catapulted out into the ocean. Caleb clung onto the railing for dear life, cold water crashing into his body. Waves continued to rock the boat, heaving the passengers around, and he quickly saw what was causing them.

The giant was swimming toward them at an unnatural speed, churning up the water and causing tidal waves that could have demolished buildings.

Caleb saw the immense face surrounded by damp tendrils of brown hair, the grayish-blue eyes that were the same color as the ocean. He recognized it as the face from his nightmares, beautiful and fearsome. This was the god of Gadon Island, as well as its destroyer. The islanders had worshipped him, offered him sacrifices, and ultimately, he had betrayed them, feeding upon their bodies and souls.

Like he would feed upon those in The Pythia.

Caleb didn’t question how he had gained such knowledge; it had something to do with the dreams and the eerie way that his voice ceased to be his own. The way that the entity — the giant, he realized — used him to communicate. He and the colossus were inseparably intertwined, sharing one another’s thoughts, and he felt the first twinges of madness.

As the boat finally stopped rocking, Caleb craned his head, looking up and up.

A seemingly endless wall blocked out the silvery moon and the stars and the ocean. It took a moment for him to understand that the gargantuan hills and valleys weren’t some geographic feature but the giant’s abs. Now that the colossus was so close to them, the reality of his mountainous size was even more startling. Despite the fact that his head was tilted backwards, Caleb couldn’t make out the titan’s face. But he didn’t need to see it; he already knew about the maliciousness that lurked within the colossal eyes.

One of the giant’s hands moved, many times larger than The Pythia. It erupted from the ocean, water cascading down from the fingers in sheets, and it reached for the people who had been thrown overboard. They panicked, tried to swim away from the hand as it came for them. The blonde in the bikini was the unfortunate victim; she shrieked as silo-sized fingers closed around her.

It was incredible to think that such a vast being could pick up someone so small; then again, this was also a being who defied the laws of physics, who could invade minds and whose abilities were beyond human comprehension. The giant lifted her up, so high that her screams became almost inaudible, and scrutinized her. Caleb hugged the railing tightly as his mouth twisted and then opened.

“You’re not worthy,” the giant using Caleb’s voice declared. The cries abruptly stopped as the titan popped and ground the tiny body between his fingers. He gazed at the spot of blood on his finger pad, minuscule and insignificant, and then turned his attention back to the boat. The water became turbulent again, The Pythia helpless against the white-flecked waves. A column of swollen flesh rose up, churning the ocean even more, and the thing was so mammoth that it took Caleb a second to realize that it was a cock. It hovered dangerously close to the little boat, the musky warmth of the giant’s erection combining with the cool, briny air.

The god has many appetites, he thought, horrified and mesmerized.

A massive drop of precum beaded from the cock head and oozed down the skyscraper of flesh. Brett managed to get out of the way in time; one of his friends didn’t move quickly enough. The droplet crashed down and slammed against the unfortunate man, pulverizing him beneath tons of viscous goo. The impact rattled the boat and cracked the deck. If such a simple, unnoticed action could cause so much damage, it was obvious that there was no way that The Pythia was going to survive any sort of major interaction with the behemoth.

The giant plucked another person from the water. This one passed inspection, and so he wasn’t turned into a bloody smear between the titan’s fingertips. Instead, the man was lowered down toward the gigantic erection, where veins as thick as subway cars pulsed and throbbed. He began to thrash when he realized his destination: the enormous dome of the cock head, glistening wetly in the moonlight. The poor man couldn’t even fight back as he was dropped down into the slit, his body disappearing into the dark chasm. The titan shuddered once, then twice, the penis twitching powerfully.

“Yes,” the giant said through Caleb, the pleasure evident in his inhuman voice. “I can feel that. Keep squirming for Me.”

Caleb tried not to think of the man trapped somewhere in the titanic shaft, still alive and probably terrified as the living tunnel squeezed around him. He gradually let go of the railing and staggered forward, his boots nearly sliding in the huge puddle of precum coating the deck. Brett was hunched near the starboard side of the boat, too frightened to do anything but murmur to himself. Others wept or held onto each other, knowing that they were doomed. Hundreds of feet above them was the gigantic penis, dwarfing the boat and casting a shadow over everyone.

The leviathan wrapped his fist around his erection, and his head tipped enough that Caleb was able to see his face, teeth glinting in a vicious smile. The god would enjoy this small offering, Caleb knew; their lives were destined to provide a brief, fleeting moment of pleasure, nothing more. In a way, Caleb accepted his fate. Who could possibly hope to stand against a being who could tear apart submarines with his bare hands, who could level entire towns with ease? In the presence of so much power, he could do nothing but watch.

Another meteorite of precum plummeted down from the heavens, this time landing beside the boat. Icy water sprayed Caleb’s face, and when he reached up to wipe it away, he saw more bright blood on his hand. It was now leaking heavily from his left eye as well as his nostrils, a reminder of the supernatural connection with the titan and its tremendous toll on his body.

Above him, the giant moaned thunderously, the sound blasting Caleb’s eardrums. Temporarily deafened, he stumbled back and forth with his hands over his aching ears. The titan didn’t notice him; he was too absorbed in leisurely stroking himself, savoring the dying struggles of the man inside of him. Maybe it was that eerie connection, but Caleb felt the pleasure as well, wildly sensual and quite unlike anything that he had ever experienced. His body reacted, in thrall to the titan’s will.

That unearthly pleasure grew and grew, rupturing with such violence that it took Caleb’s breath away. He fell to his knees, looking up as the first volley of the giant’s cum arched over the boat. Already he knew that the second shot was imminent, and he continued to gaze upwards as the violent deluge struck The Pythia. His vision went brilliantly white and then black as everything — the boat, the other passengers — were smashed to pieces.

***

He should have died, drowned in the Atlantic or in the musky thickness of the giant’s semen. Miraculously, Caleb survived, although agony swept through him as he floated in the water. Five towering pillars emerged from the ocean, curling inwards and surrounding him, and he realized that these were the giant’s fingers. As the titan’s hand lifted, he found himself on the vast plane of a palm. With unexpected care, the giant brought Caleb up closer to his face, his grayish eyes studying him.

In one of his college classes, Caleb had learned about Anubis, the Egyptian god who judged the souls of the dead. Beneath the intimidating gaze of the giant, he felt like one of those souls, and he feared that the giant would simply open his hand and let him fall to the water far below. After several heartbeats, the titan hadn’t dropped him, hadn’t judged him to be unworthy.

Blinking away the blood and salty water, Caleb thought about the remains of his boat as it gradually sank down into the dark ocean.

Don’t think about the boat, the godlike voice boomed, this time within his head. You have Me now, My Oracle.

“What do you want?” Caleb whispered, daring to look at the massive face. Within the chilly pool formed by the cupped hand, he trembled, knowing what the answer would be. He saw the ravenous hunger and lust in the being’s eyes, an appetite that could only be whetted, never satisfied.

“That island wasn’t enough to sate Me,” the god speaking through Caleb said. The colossus turned his head, gazing in the direction of the mainland, and the image of countless ruined cities and trampled towns filled Caleb’s mind. “I want more.”