A new day begins, and with it, fresh horrors. As the sun creeps up over the city's skyline, the dark visages of two distant mountains take form against the horizon. I feel a rhythmic, pulsing rattle beneath my feet; the familiar omen of what's to come. Standing on a crowded street corner, I watch with helpless abandon as hundreds of pedestrians and drivers go about their business, totally unaware of what's coming. I don't bother to warn them. I never do. It makes no difference. Each day ends with the same immutable outcome. And I'm the only one who remembers.

The rattling turns to quaking. A few heads look about with confusion, but no one seems particularly alarmed. Heavier now. Dull thumps resonate throughout the city, shaking its 10 million inhabitants. Five on the Richter Scale. Then six. Soon seven. The thumping is audible now, each quake accompanied by a distant thunder. The sky darkens once more, as the sun vanishes behind the mountains it had only just risen above.

A man, standing in the middle of the street, mouth agape in a vacant expression of utter disbelief, drops a coffee cup. I follow his gaze, already knowing what he's seen. But it still takes me a moment to process, to realign my brain's expectations of scale and perspective, today moreso than usual. Looking down the street, I anticipate the usual monstrosities, sixty stories tall; roaming colossi unleashing havoc on the ants beneath their feet. This time I don't see them. It's hard to see anything, given how dark the sky has become.

No, wait. I look upward. More darkness. My head arches back, almost as far as I can crane my neck, I'm gazing straight up. I find the edges of the darkness, tracing out its vast boundaries against the blue, but still struggling to discern its full shape. My eyes adjust to low light, and more details come into view. Oh God. Now I see it. Now I see her. Her generous lips, almost certainly miles across, curve into a wicked smile. She's never been this big. Her titanic figure dominates a hemisphere of sky. Her eyes, two vast cerulean lakes, focus on a microscopic point leagues below; she's staring at me. My body tingles at the knowledge that I have become the focus of a god’s attention. I swoon a little, under those big beautiful eyes of hers, as I often do, but I also tremble at the cruelty that lingers behind them.

Moon-sized hands emerge from behind her, and two powerfully-built arms embrace her waist. Their owner's face rises above her shoulder and rests on it. Another set of eyes stare down at me beyond the heavens. Mark and Amber. Humanity's eternal overlords.

They still remember me, I whisper, or maybe screamed. I might've just said it in my head, only to you. It's hard to know amongst the pandemonium unfolding around me, the apoplectic meltdown of 10 million self-aware dust mites. Nonetheless, in an ocean of chaos, I'm noticed. It'd been months since they glanced in my direction, since Amber, my love, even acknowledged my existence. Maybe she misses me, misses the intimacy of taking her little toy woman out of her cage and playing exclusively with her.

We used to be alone together, the only two beings in an entire universe controlled by Amber. I would spend days beneath her feet, licking and kissing them while Amber pleasured herself, aroused by the limitless power she could exhibit over me. When she would get bored of this, she would slowly lower her foot onto me, pressing me into the floor and squishing my body under her flesh. The feeling of Amber’s sole encompassing my entire being was like all aspects of our relationship: equal parts pain and pleasure.

But one tiny woman isn’t enough to satisfy Amber’s desires, and one day, from somewhere - or perhaps from nowhere - Mark arrived. The two of them would play with me together, or sometimes just one of them would enjoy me while the other simply watched. Mark could be just as cruel as Amber. Sometimes he would simply hold me in his hand and squeeze until I broke. Sometimes Amber would dangle me by a leg and drop me into Mark’s mouth, or he would do the same for her, and I would be swallowed whole - or worse, chewed. Amber would occasionally turn me into Mark’s cock, and he would thrust me inside her over and over again. But even that would get dull.

It didn’t matter. Amber’s imagination was a machine in perpetual motion, churning out new exhibitions of godly pleasures with unending innovation. New victims emerged, only to be subsumed into the aether once more by the mere scrape of Amber’s flip-flop. Games were devised, and tiny people would fight for their very survival, or run and hide while Amber and Mark hunted them down and ate them.

Today there would be no game. Mark's lunar left hand stretches outward, his open palm facing the city. Maybe he'll crush us all with one swat, but rarely do the giants end the day so quickly. A nearby woman, wetting herself in ontological shock, begins to rise into the air. Soon, dozens more join her, as some unseen force compels an arbitrary selection of citizenry toward Mark's hand. So lazy Mark, lazy as usual. I much prefer Amber's methods of gathering specimens. She's more physical, more tactile, rarely resorting to Mark's telepathic hijinks. Nevertheless, up they go, thousands of specks drifting toward oblivion.

A scattered dust cloud of sentient motes converges into a dark mass as it approaches Mark's grasp. A thousand explorers make their landing on planet Mark, touching down on its exotic pink ridges. Satisfied with his collection, he swings his hand around Amber's body. It disappears for a moment, then reemerges behind her ass. She giggles a bit, and I see her bare glutes flex, providing a firm surface upon which to welcome Mark's touch and all that came with it. He slaps his palm against her cheek, squeezes her gluteal flesh tight, then runs his hand upward, leaving behind only the red smears of pulverized bodies. Amber laughs again, her nipples growing erect as they often do when waves of humanity break upon her rock.

Oh God. That slap. It was so far away we haven't even heard the sound yet. I throw myself to the ground and bury my head in my jacket, covering my ears. Stupid people, stupid stupid stupid, you should all be doing the same. The sound comes, arriving with a Krakatoan force, shattering every window on every building for a hundred miles in every direction. I'm slammed to the ground so hard I think for a moment that I was hit by a nearby vehicle and pinned under it, but no. My body was nearly broken beneath the mere force of air, the resulting atmospheric detonation of a man's hand meeting a woman's ass. There's your reminder of how small we are; when the giants' slightest gesture nearly upends our existence.

Seconds go by like hours. I regain the strength and courage to uncover my head and look up. The streets around me are getting emptier. More specks are lifted into the air, ultimately finding themselves once more in Mark's monolithic hands. Amber turns to face him, idly brushing her fingers through a million tons of auburn hair. She's so fucking perfect. She's as beautiful as she is wicked. I love that about her. I love how happy she is to be Goddess. I love how much she loves being infinitely above me. Maybe that's why I'm still here, why I still matter to her. She wants a point of reference, a microscopic human against which she measures her gigascopic self. A real human, not like the simulated ones she crushes en masse.

Mark's hands, now coated with tiny beings stuck to his palms, turn upwards and rise, traveling along the toned ridges of Amber's abdominals. They collide with her body once more, this time more gently, as he cups her breasts, atomizing thousands of people against her supple flesh. He squeezes. Amber's breasts are extraordinarily sensitive, and she responds with a visible moan. Another eruption is coming.

I duck again, once again wrapping my coat around my head, anything to muffle the deafening blast of sexual gratification. It arrives, a freight train of ecstasy, rumbling through my body, I feel it in my bones, every molecule of my being quivers under Amber's slightest exhalation. This, and this alone, Mark can give to her. I look up again, at the two perfect beings in whose presence I am not even worthy to exist. She, the voluptuous brunette who stole my heart, and he, the muscular Adonis of her creation. His only purpose is to humble me; I'm sure of it.

The streets are emptier now, and dark specks merely appear on Mark's ridiculous pectorals. Amber’s gargantuan white teeth glisten in the sunlight as she cracks a smile. Her left hand rises, and oh-so delicately presses against his chest, squishing the nothings beneath into even less than nothing. She stares at the remainder, those living few who escaped her wrath between her fingers. They won't live long. She leans inward, and her continental tongue oozes out of her cavernous maw. The pink behemoth lands on Mark's chest, and slithers across its vastness, taking with it countless morsels. She swallows, but the offering is far, far too meager to satisfy her insatiable appetites. It always is.

I blink, and everything changes. I can barely breathe now; like I'm suddenly on Everest, but what little air is around me is sweltering hot and oppressively humid. I'm alone on this peak, and it doesn't take me long to know precisely where I am. I've been here before, many times, but never at this scale. I look up at the two titans, staring down at me, their heads far closer than before. I'm standing on a head of an altogether different variety; the tip of Mark's throbbing cock. I can feel the blood pulsing through his erection, or maybe it's just my legs shaking out of fright. But either way, I know how this day will end.

The fleshy sky before me begins to move downward, as Amber crouches to be more on my pathetic level. She’s so close, so big, even her mouth extends well beyond my periphery. But I can make out its upward slope, curving into her mischievous smirk. A dimple forms on her cheek the size of a crater. Her dimples beguiled me once, as did everything else about that cute girl next door whose sweetness proved only skin deep. She doesn’t say anything; doesn’t have to. She’s a show, not tell kind of girl, and she always shows me the same thing. She is infinite, and I am nothing.

Lips part, and I am slowly thrust into a black void. The ground beneath me quakes and jostles, and I hear the slurping noise of giant lips sucking a giant cock. I lose my footing, fall, rise, fall again; I’m swept away by the current of a viscid, scalding-hot goo. My body is carried back, then down. I’m falling, certainly I’ve been swallowed, along with a torrent of Mark’s semen. The day ends just like yesterday, just like every day, in darkness.

A new day begins. Amber is holding me in her hand, the way a girl holds her favorite doll. She pets my hair with something resembling affection. I practically melt in the warmth of her hand. It’s been a long time since she’s done this, been gentle, granted me a momentary reprieve, showed me anything but contempt. “So small,” she whispers, caressing my head between her long fingers. “I want to show you something,” she says.

I’m no longer in her hand. I struggle to regain my bearings, when a loud smack erupts behind me. I turn, only to find a massive flip-flop had careened into the ground, being dangled by a familiar set of toes. I’m an inch tall, hidden away underneath Amber’s school desk. The other students, from what I can tell, look to be college age. Distant heels click clack against the floor. I hear the voice of the professor address the class. It’s my voice.

I peer around the desk’s metal leg, and what I see is perplexing. It’s me - I’m the professor. I’m her teacher? Just as I’m lost in confusion, Amber’s hand swoops down and collects me. I’m deposited on an open notebook on her desk, looking up at her gorgeous face. A pink bubble emerges from her lips and pops as she giggles at me. She’s scribbling with a pencil, working her way across the paper. I miss the cue to get out of the way, and a graphite shaft sends me rolling. I tumble a bit, find my footing, and stand again. She grabs me, raising me in the air so I can get a bird’s-eye view of her work. She’s a talented artist, I’ll give her that. She’s drawn my likeness, being smooshed under a heel - presumably hers. She flips through her notebook, revealing dozens of sketches of her and Mark squishing her classmates, eating them, being worshiped by them. I look around, sure enough, Mark is sitting at a nearby desk.

Slam. Her professor - me? - plunks down a small stack of papers on Amber’s desk. I - she - whatever! - make a disappointed look at Amber, as I point at a red “D-” at the top of the paper. The professor walks off, continuing to return graded tests to the other students. I read the red notes below the barely passing grade. “Are you even trying? I’m disappointed.” Why would Amber fantasize about this? She dangles me in front of her face, and the contempt has returned.

“I hate math,” she whispers, “and I hate you. And I hate this stupid class. And I don’t want to take it a third time.” Oh no. Fuck. It clicks. I get it. She’s a right-brained girl forced to live in my left-brained world, constantly failing, constantly being made to feel inadequate, stupid, small. I failed her; forced her to repeat the same torture she was trying to escape. And now, this is her revenge. A simple imaginary inversion, where I’m the small one, I’m in her world, where she makes the rules, where some cute guy from her class can tag along for some mayhem, where I am infinitely humbled for all time.

“Now you’re getting it,” she says. I find myself shrinking again. Amber sticks her tongue out, revealing a wet wad of gum. She drops my dwindling form onto its sticky surface. My stomach wrenches as the ground rockets upwards, then I nearly vomit, barely maintain consciousness, as the ground careens downward with me on it. Her huge fingers border my sides, pinching the gum, bringing it upwards again. I barely make out what’s happening before it ends, before she slams the gum into the underside of the desk, where I’ll remain, until another day begins.

“In just a few short years since its discovery, Matter Manipulation Technology changed the entire world, but the industry that stood to gain the most was shipping. And no company took advantage of this breakthrough better or faster than International Exports,” Rachel said with well-rehearsed pride. “Now gentlemen, as we walk toward the dock I’d like to caution you of overhead work, so I ask that each of you grab a hardhat before we move forward.” She pointed to a nearby rack of safety gear. Her visitors, some members of government, others potential investors, dutifully obliged. Rachel nodded in approval, and pushed open a nearby door.

“This technology has enabled us to scale down our operations significantly,” she continued, giving a jocular wink to her guests, “while increasing our total export volume. Even our labor costs have been reduced. At one time we had a hundred men working out here,” she said, leading the group down a hallway, “but now most of the work is conducted by just one.” She opened one final door bearing several danger warnings. “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY,” one read.

The tour group poured into a massive, partially covered loading bay. Long arrays of shipping containers were stacked neatly along a concrete dockside, but only the most observant visitors recognized the lack of heavy machinery needed to move those containers around. Ocean scents filled the air, but so too did another scent, an alluring musk that Rachel eagerly inhaled, luxuriating in every breath. The whole dockside carried the distinct aroma of man. Rachel closed her eyes, just for a moment, and imagined him: boots, sweat on his back, laboring away with infinite power at his disposal. Mustn’t linger on such things. The show must go on. She opened her eyes.

But he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Rachel surveyed the area, trying her best not to look distressed at his absence. One of the visitors sighed. Another checked his phone. “Um,” Rachel began, searching for the words to maintain the tour’s momentum. She pressed onward with her practiced spiel, adapting it only slightly for the unplanned change of circumstances. “Thanks to your efforts, Senator Jacobs,” she said, nodding toward one of her guests, “We have secured the rights to become the first company ever to grow its own workforce. For now, we’ve only been granted license to grow one employee on a trial basis, but we view this as just the beginning. While historically, this has been seen as a military technology, we at International Exports are debuting human growth for peaceful, commercial ends. Today I want you to meet the largest man in the world,” she said.

Still no entrance. “So who was selected for this experimental growth anyway?” one of the guests asked, idly shifting his posture from one foot to the other.

“Great question, congressman,” Rachel said. “The candidate was chosen based on a number of criteria. Items such as physical prowess, keen senses; we wanted someone with a surgeon’s hands to handle tiny, delicate objects.”

“Hopefully someone who doesn’t have a bad temper,” another guest joked.

“Ha! I hope so too,” Rachel said. “To tell the truth, I don’t even know who we ended up choosing. So I guess we’ll all find out at the same-” she stopped. A dull roar rumbled behind her, the sound of millions of gallons of water being displaced. Ships parked along the pier creaked and rocked in some unseen leviathan’s wake. 200 yards from the pier, a blue dome ascended, cascading into waterfalls taking the form of a human head bigger than a house. Gigantic eyes opened, hazel orbs focusing intensely immediately on distant, insignificant beings.

He continued his ascent. Rivulets of saltwater streamed down his immense face, rushing across a chiseled jaw, and joining into a full-sized river running down his neck and between Adirondack pectorals. His bare abdomen rose, stretching fifty feet in the sky, forming a billowing landscape of pure muscle. Huge hands, each possessing the smiting power of some primordial deity, landed on the concrete port with infinite grace and restraint.

Rachel instinctually motioned for her group to step back, as waves of seawater lapped over the pier’s edge and came crashing down onto the pavement. She lost herself for a moment, staring at this seabeast’s abs, imagining herself on the wrong side of them, being digested by this supreme being. She was nothing against this creature; nothing but a morsel. Making matters worse was the alarming realization that Rachel knew this man. The man the company had chosen to unshackle from pathetic mortal proportionality and transcend into the realm reserved for the titans was Rachel’s ex-boyfriend, Justin. And he was, unmistakably, the wrong man for the role.

Even at his regular height of 6’2”, Justin was an Adonis of a specimen. Big, beautiful, charismatic, good at everything he did, smart - too smart for such being such a big lug, and terribly self-absorbed. He knew exactly what he was. Justin tore through women like tissue paper, controlling them, twisting them around his little finger, reducing them to nothing in his wake, and discarding them. All of them, that is, except Rachel. She saw the warning signs early, and she was not about to be used like the others. True, she found him nearly irresistible, and she had to admit that even his arrogance was as warranted as it was intoxicating. Leaving him was the hardest thing she’d ever done, but it was the most right.

But now, Justin finally had a body that matched the size of his ego, and Rachel felt smaller than ever. She was just an old toy, ready to be picked up and played with again. Or maybe she was an insect, a mere pest who annoyed Justin with her departure from his life, ready to be swatted by those thousand-ton hands of his. His stoic expression gave no indication of his intent. But then he smiled. He gave the crowd his usual calming, charming smile. “Hot day,” his voice boomed, carrying with it the force of a volcanic eruption. “Had to cool off.” His slightest utterances nearly brought the visitors to their knees. Justin had become a living force of nature, and he loved it. Rachel saw his familiar cockiness in his massive eyes.

“Every morning, when he punches in,” Rachel said to the crowd, exerting some considerable effort to stay focused, “the matter manipulator increases his size for exactly eight hours. At the end of the day, the molecules his body return to normal size. Similarly, we can set the duration that shipping containers are reduced.”

“Once you set the duration,” a guest nervously asked, “is there anything that can change it?”

“No.”

Meteoric triceps flexed, lifting Justin’s form even further. More and more of his nakedness arose from the water, and Rachel began to fear - and secretly hope - that Justin had fully stripped for his underwater excursion. To her dismay, he still retained some dignity. A pair of yellow boxer briefs, 25 feet tall and laden with thousands of gallons of ocean emerged from the sea, closely hugging Justin’s form. Smack in the middle was a distinctive bulge thicker than three Rachels, and at least twice as long. Justin was truly the biggest partner she ever had, but this was just ludicrous. What she would give to be with him again. She pictured him plucking her off the ground, and depositing her inside those briefs, where she would spend the rest of her days serving him.

One foot landed on the nearby pavement, followed soon by another. Each mighty thump shook through the visitors’ inconsequential bodies, as Justin lifted himself fully out of the water. He made a point to stand at his full height, showing off to Rachel just what he had become, a 175-foot monolith of masculinity. Today he was scheduled to be half this size - that much Rachel knew, based on the itinerary she had been provided - but Justin went fully off script. Gods don’t need scripts, they don’t abide by the petty regulations of their subjects. Justin knew this. He relished in it. Rachel could see it in his cocky smile, the unbridled joy he felt in being paid to be a god 40 hours a week. This was his first day as a giant and he was already showing off. What ever would day two look like, Rachel thought.

He lumbered off to carry out his duties. Rachel watched as his prodigious toes curled against the pavement, and his expansive soles curved upwards into heels that had the power to smash entire civilizations. He knew she was coming today. Had to. Had to make her feel infinitely small, just like he used to, but this time there was a literal reality to it. He wasn’t putting on a show for the audience, he was putting it on for her. Of that much Rachel was certain.

The crowd watched as Justin stooped down, collected a sampling of cargo containers, and carried them off like a boy carries Lego blocks. He stacked them neatly together in a large, fenced-off area reserved for matter reduction.

Rachel regained her senses. The show must go on. “F-from here,” she stammered, finding herself under the spell of her titanic ex, “all outbound containers are reduced into a more manageable scale, whereby-” she droned on, her words tumbling out as her brain went on autopilot. Her mind drifted to guilty, dark thoughts of her former lover. But Justin never loved anyone but himself. She shook out of her trance. This was the power he had over women, a power she prided herself on being too strong-willed to succumb to. How dare he do this. How dare he embarrass her like this.

The tour concluded. Nobody even commented on how unorthodox the presentation was, nor were there complaints about handmade Italian loafers being soaked in seawater. Rachel always put on a good show for dignitaries, but this time it was Justin that wowed the crowd. Rachel wasn’t having it. She wasn’t about to be upstaged by that overgrown arrogant meathead.

With her guests now out the door, Rachel stormed back down to the dock. There, her hulking ex continued his duties, assembling containers for processing, just as she assembled epithets and arguments in her head, ready to fire at this overgrown asshole. But she paused, just for a moment, for a guilty, delectable moment, just to watch him work. Beads of sweat bigger than her head glistened on his back and chest. She wanted to drink up one of those beads, or even swim in one. She wanted to feel his soft, titanic lips against her body, to become engulfed by his tongue. His mighty hands truly did have a surgeon’s delicate touch, as he masterfully handled his tiny cargo. Rachel wanted to be held in those hands, to feel their warmth and their strength, to be his plaything.

“Did you like my show?” he rumbled, high above her. “Admit it, you were impressed.”

Rachel snapped out of her trance. His senses were so honed he could even hear her trivially small footsteps approach from behind. She opened her mouth, but all the words she’d prepared failed to present themselves. He turned, focusing hungry eyes on tiny prey.

“I want you back,” he boomed.

Rachel nodded. It wasn’t a statement. It was an order. He always got what he wanted, with her it would just take a little longer than usual.

“Okay,” the word weakly exited her lips.

“Not like before,” he continued. “I didn’t like you before.”

“Okay,” she whispered.

“Like this.” His hands gestured outwards, signifying his own magnificence, and her comparable lack thereof. She barely rose above his toes. He wiggled his big toe for effect. “I want you to live under my foot, kissing it, worshiping it. I want you to grovel and beg. You will sleep in my dirty socks and you will love it, because I tell you to love it. You will always. Do. What I tell you.”

“Okay,” was the only word she could muster. Obediently, Rachel walked toward a nearby matter reducer. She punched some figures into a nearby console. “95% MATTER REDUCTION,” it read. “DURATION: ONE MONTH.”

“No,” Justin’s voice commanded.

She jolted under his single syllable. Tears formed in her eyes as Rachel hit the backspace key and typed in revised orders.

“DURATION:”

She paused, pondering her final moments of freedom, listening to the distant, deep breaths of the man she was about to call God. She could feel his gaze upon her tiny head. She sobbed, but Justin offered her no comfort. He merely waited for the inevitable. She resumed typing.

“DURATION: PERMANENT”

Enter.

====
This is a chapter of a “What If” version of Growth Potential. If you read the original or its Redux, there isn’t a nice neat place where this chapter would fit into the canon, and the physics of growth are also different. In this version, much like in Redux, Heather and Jason become living weapons, sent by the US to end its longstanding war against the enemy nation of Koskau. Unlike in Redux, the two are assumed to only be able to grow to 50 feet each. We join them in media res, as they make their debut on the battlefield.
====

A harsh desert sun cast its hateful rays on a bleak, three hundred-mile expanse known as the Jorashi Pass. Marked by untrodden mountain ranges to the North and to the South, for thousands of years the pass has been a strategically significant permeation against an otherwise insurmountable wall of rock and death. Over the ages, would-be conquering armies braved its vast sandscape. Those that survived struck triumphant blows to whatever unsuspecting kingdom lay at the other side of the perilous crossing. Those that failed were washed away by a sea of sand, buried, and forgotten.

The desert rattled to life once again, roused by the passing of a new army. The combined strength of two Koskau battalions ventured forth, ready to launch a decisive strike against the blind enemy forces on the far side of Jorashi. This would be the turning point in an exhausting war, knocking American allies out of commission, and granting Koskau full supremacy in Asia and beyond. Dozens of tanks rumbled alongside hundreds of troop transports carrying in total 20,000 men to certain victory.

“That’s a big army,” Heather said, peering through a pair of field binoculars.

“Not big enough,” Jason said, giving her a friendly nudge in the shoulder.

“It’s a lot bigger than we thought it would be.” There was a slight nervous quiver in Heather’s voice.

“Nothing’s too big for me,” Jason did his best to sound confident, but he too had never seen combat before. The duo had been in endless training sessions, simulating giant-sized combat against normal-sized combatants, but nothing could prepare them for the real thing.

“Too big for us, you mean.” Heather slouched back into the buggy’s driver’s seat, tossing the binoculars onto the dashboard, and crossing her arms with visible angst. She had a distinctive way of furrowing her brow whenever she was distressed. Jason picked up on it immediately, and offered her a friendly, comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “We got this, together. No problem. Look, if you’re worried, I’ll take the lead for a bit and you can stand back where it’s safe.”

“No!” Heather exclaimed. “It’s not that. I’m not worried about the mission. I just...”

“Just what?”

“Is it so bad that I’ve actually been looking forward to this? After all those months of training and now here we are, a loaded gun finally ready to go off. I feel like I’m not supposed to feel like this. Like it’s wrong to actually want to fight these bastards.”

“No, I’m looking forward to it too. Nothing wrong with that. I think I’m even going to enjoy it.”

“Oh come on,” Heather said, shaking her head dismissively. But her eyebrows told the whole story. Her interest was piqued.

“After everything they’ve done, they deserve it,” Jason continued. “They killed your brother, Heather. Of course you’re itching for some payback.” He took her hand in his, and squeezed. “Let’s show them just how small and pathetic they really are.”

She squeezed back, picturing in her mind an enemy soldier’s body compressing to the breaking point between two gigantic hands. She felt imaginary bones snap, and a rush of goo as organs and blood spewed from the pulped remains. Vengeance never felt so good.
Sometimes in training she felt this way, felt lascivious urges to indulge in her power, to actually allow herself to feel free, to enjoy being big, rather than surrender to the sober confines of duty. She knew Jason felt it too, on more than one occasion it was evident from his barely-hidden erection the height of a normal man. It took great effort for her not to notice, not to stare, not to lust after the only man in the world big enough to be with her.

But she had to bury those feelings, not least because they represented a betrayal of her boyfriend, Ben. Soon, he, along with the rest of the world, would know what she’d transformed into. She already knew he would judge her, like she was some sentient A-bomb just happily exploding over enemy cities. And others would fear her, she knew it. Her own family would be afraid of their daughter that transformed into a monster. She’d never be able to have normal relationships again, not with anyone - nearly anyone. Everyone in her life felt like tiny weights around her ankles, just dragging her along the ground. Everyone but Jason.

“Let’s do this,” she finally said.

“For Mark?” Jason asked.

“No,” Heather said, “for us.”

She stared at the sky, an uninterrupted bowl of blue, doubtless being traversed by US surveillance satellites. Somewhere, little men were watching their every movement. She felt a pang of desire, a long-suppressed wanting to embrace Jason, to let loose her growing affections. But that would be a breach of protocol, a violation of the little men’s all-encompassing rules. Ever since she enrolled in the Growth Potential program, these people controlled every aspect of her life. She could feel their unseen eyes watching her every move, judging her every intent, monitoring their precious secret weapon for any forbidden sign of free will or independent thought. She felt like a giant puppet, dancing to the delight of distant, tiny puppeteers. God help them if she ever cut those strings.

She grew.

It didn’t take long for Heather and Jason to become visible along the horizon, but the Koskau army continued its advance without the slightest hesitation. The desert plays tricks on the eyes, the enemy commander thought. As the two giants grew closer and more distinctly human in form, those tricks were harder to rationalize away. Perhaps perception itself becomes distorted as the sand meets the sky. Two distant giants could be two nearby normal-sized soldiers, after all. Moments passed, and the two soldiers, one male and the other female, had become inexplicably large. The commander refused to believe what he was seeing. His first officer shouted, “My God, they have to be 50 feet!” Other officers were noticing, and suppressing their urges to panic.

A tank exploded, seemingly without cause, propelling dust and rocks into the air, sending troops and trucks tumbling. As the dust settled, all that remained was a boulder, and flattened tank remains in the ground. In the distance, the male giant fished around on the ground, retrieving another rock. He launched his second salvo into the air, the stone crashing moments later onto a supply truck. The female giant clapped and cheered while the male laughed. She reached for her own stone, and finding a satisfactory one, said to her titanic partner, “Watch this.”

She hurled it, with considerable finesse and years of practice, the stone skipped on the ground, colliding with troop transports before launching itself again and smashing a tank, bouncing, then finally landing on a fuel truck. The ensuing explosion killed two dozen Koskau men.

“Whooo three skips!” Heather yelled. Jason pat her on the back and smiled with fond appraise.

“You have to get... Here,” Heather said, holding up a boulder with a flat surface. “Look for ones like these, they skip the best.”

“Having fun?” Jason asked.

She paused, and surprised herself. Yes, she was having fun. She was having a lot of fun, actually. “Hurry up! Get more stones!” Heather said with a wide, cheery smile.

This time the male giant tried to skip a stone. He wasn’t as skilled, but the boulder still careened into its target, turning soldiers’ bodies into red mist in its path. The volleys continued, smashing row after row of the enemy line. The giants’ laughter carried across the desert.

The battalion erupted into panic. Vehicles turned with all possible haste to make a retreat back to Koskau. The commander screamed into his comms for a full surrender, while his first officer pleaded for a retaliatory strike. His protests went unheard, and white flags flew from the command vehicles. 20,000 men surrendered without firing a single shot against an army of two.

Heather and Jason stood still, contemplating their next moves. They had done their job, achieving their sole objective: stop the Koskau advance. Job well done.

“Shit,” Jason said. “I don’t want to stop.”

“Then let’s keep fighting.”

“Rules of engagement, Heather. We can’t attack a surrendering army.”

“But I’m not... I’m not ready to go,” Heather protested.

“I’m not either, but there are rules, Heather.”

“You know what, Jason? I went through six months of hell,” Heather said, sounding badly in need of a vacation. “Scientists poking and prodding me, generals bossing me around, breaking me down... I haven’t been allowed to see my family or friends for six fucking months. All for what? A five minute fight? Then what? We go home, the government will probably be watching and controlling us forever, Jason. We gave up our whole lives, for what? For this? A five minute fight against these... These... Rodents.” The word hissed between Heather’s teeth. “And now we’re supposed to stop, just when... Just...”

“When you’re starting to enjoy yourself,” Jason said, finishing her sentence.

“Yes!”

Jason nodded. “Y’know... I don’t think any satellites could actually see those white flags.”

Heather stayed mute.

“No one’s going to miss a few more tanks,” he reasoned.

A smile cracked across Heather’s face. For once, she was going to get her way. Heather grabbed Jason by the hand and pulled him along as she walked toward the retreating enemy line. “Come on, I want to see you squeeze a tank in those great big hands of yours,” she said.

“Maybe I want to see you flatten a truck full of soldiers under your ass,” he said, admiring how the desert beige shorts curved over her backside.

“Better not let Ben hear you talk like that,” Heather said in a flirtatious tone.

“Worst he could do to me is get stuck between my teeth.”

Somehow, she liked the sound of that.

The titans bounded across leagues of desert, effortlessly closing in on their frightened enemy. Jason lunged into a group of tanks, grabbing one with both hands, raising it into the air, and ripping the turret off like he was merely opening a can of peanuts. He threw the turret aside, whereby it crashed into a troop transport, sending the truck’s contents scrambling for cover. Heather loomed large over the fleeing soldiers.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she said, lifting one boot into the air, and subsequently slamming it down on a crying soldier. She felt the resulting crunch of his body, there was something satisfying to it. She turned, eyeing three more soldiers, each begging for their lives. They would see no mercy. Three more stomps and they were each red smears in the sand.

Jason smiled, enjoying himself just as much as his partner. He dumped the tank’s contents into his palm, and looked upon his prizes. The little men looked so pathetic, so terrified, squishing them would be doing them a favor. His thick, powerful fingers curled inward, as the soldiers pushed helplessly against them. His palm closed into a fist and squeezed, popping the insignificant beings within. When he was done, he casually discarded them over one shoulder.

“Hey!” Heather shouted. “Check this out!”

Jason turned to see her, standing over another troop truck. She patted her butt and smiled, then dropped immediately to the ground, squashing a dozen men under her glutes. Heather giggled with liberated abandon. “Was it everything you wanted?”

“Do it slower next time!” Jason shouted.

BOOM. A tank shell hit Jason square in the forehead. He screamed in agony, but there was no injury. Other tanks had managed to turn their turrets to face their pursuers, and were beginning to open fire. BOOM. Another shot to Jason’s ribs. Enraged, he raised his fist and brought it crashing down on a nearby tank, disintegrating it under his flesh.

“Oh my God, Jason,” Heather said with panic in her voice.

He crumbled more tanks under his fists, crawling over the battlefield in a destructive frenzy. He’d grown. Every injury, every insult, everything that fueled his rage fueled his growth. He stood, catching his breath, realizing that he was now twice Heather’s size.

“Holy shit!” he exclaimed. “Maybe the pain?”

BOOM. Heather was bombarded by fire. She screamed, enduring the pain and reaping its rewards. She grew, matching Jason’s size. More fire rained upon them, but the pain was diminishing as they grew. There wasn’t much that could hurt them now.

“Damn,” Jason said. “I want to keep growing.”

“Me too,” Heather said, holding her bruised shoulder. “Maybe...”

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe it’s just strong emotions unleash our growth potential.”

Jason nodded. It seemed to be true. “How do we find out?”

She grabbed him by the waist, pulling him tight against her body, and kissed his lips. He responded, planting two strong hands on her hips, pressing his body into hers. It was working. Months of repressed workplace sexual tension was finally being released, and it had results. Both of them shot in the air another 50 feet, now three times taller than when they started.

“I love you,” Heather said, relieved to finally let the words out.

“I love you too,” Jason said. They kissed again. Nothing happened. More stimulation was required.

Jason noticed a soldier on the ground trying to sneak by them. He chuckled, as he stooped down and picked the poor thing up between two fingers. “Kiss him goodbye,” Jason said, holding the specimen in front of his new lover.

Heather planted a kiss on the tiny man, her lips nearly encompassing his entire body. Jason joined, pressing the soldier between both their lips. His fingers let go, and the soldier was suspended entirely by the two giants’ mouths, as they continued kissing. Lips parted, and tongues exchanged pleasantries, the little man found himself sliding back and forth between mouths, unsure of whose he had finally landed in.

Heather pulled back, mouth closed, she smiled impishly. She had the prize. She opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue, wagging it victoriously as the little man jostled on its slippery surface. Jason pulled her back in, taking her tongue back into his mouth, and giving it a good suck. It came out clean, and empty. The soldier was Jason’s now. The giant swallowed, washing back the little man whole.

They both stammered for a moment, neither believing what they had just done. The act was so cruel, so indecent, so taboo, so delicious. Heather and Jason reveled in that moment, and each grew once again, to a new size of 200 feet. The continued tank fire below was barely even noticeable. More stimulation would be required.

Heather grabbed Jason’s shirt, nearly ripping it off. “Take your fucking clothes off.”

He stripped without hesitation. She did the same. In the middle of a barren desert, two beautiful, naked gods were being born. Heather pushed Jason to the ground, his bare back slamming onto retreating vehicles, reducing them to metal pancakes. Heather crawled on top of him, and smashed her hand into the ground, pulling up three vehicles. She broke them apart, and scattered their occupants onto Jason’s abdomen like she was seasoning a steak. Now she wanted a taste. She lapped at his skin, collecting soldiers into her gaping maw, where they would vanish, forever.

More growth, not as much this time. More stimulation was required.

Jason tore open a tank, and stole its driver. He reached between Heather’s legs, and she nodded resolutely. He jammed his finger into her pussy, taking with it the insignificant being that would soon meet his end in Heather’s dripping cavern. She moaned, growing again in the ecstasy, growing fast. She outpaced Jason, reaching a final height of 400 feet to his 300.

“Better keep up, loverboy,” she said, standing. “I’d hate for you to end up like them,” she teased. Then, with a slight running start, she leapt, and her naked body came crashing into the army below, utterly mincing the pathetic creatures under the expanse of her legs, buttocks, and backside.

Jason collected more specimens, and gripped them tightly against his erection. He stroked, their crushed bodies becoming a sickening red lubricant. In no time at all, he came, spreading his hot seed over a scattered regiment of vehicles. Now he was the big one, surpassing Heather by nearly double.

“That’s cheating,” she pouted.

He didn’t seem to mind. With the utmost nonchalance, he merely walked around what was left of the battlefield, idly squishing speck-sized soldiers under his prodigious feet. He knelt down and crawled over Heather’s reclining form. He grabbed her comparatively small knees with his immense hands, and pried them apart. His head disappeared behind her crotch, and Heather felt his massive tongue caress her clit. She screamed in ecstasy, growing once more, matching Jason’s height but craving so much more.

“Put it in me,” she demanded.

He eased his cock, the size of a city bus, gently between her gushing wet lips.

“Fuck me hard.”

He thrust, and the whole desert quaked. Again, and Heather’s screams bellowed through the pass, nearly deafening what few soldiers remained alive. Again. And again. And again. Each time louder, accompanied by increasing seismic forces. The ground itself was beginning to crack, the midday’s sun turned dark, vanishing behind the bodies of two impossibly huge lovers. None would escape their immensity.

By twilight of the next morning, the 20 million inhabitants Koskau City felt a steady beat of distant earthquakes, increasing in magnitude.

Smoke belched from the ninth story windows of the Downtown Regal Hotel, its black cloud casting an ill omen over the city. While firefighters evacuated the bottom floors, a sea of flames separated 300 people from the ground. Men and women screamed for help, throwing furniture through windows in desperation for fresh air. Nothing, save a miracle, could bring those trapped souls to liberty. Suddenly, tremors rattled throughout the streets, their deep pulses setting off every car alarm for several blocks near their rapidly moving epicenter. A miracle was coming.

People had seen him before, on the news, on the internet, on International Exports’ commercials featuring their new company mascot, but nobody had seen him in person, at full size, outside of the docks - outside of containment. It was like seeing an escaped lion prowl through city streets, looking for dinner. Justin had arrived, a full 30 stories tall. The biggest man on Earth had just gotten much bigger. An entire city of specks cowered in his shadow, but no one dared complain to a man who could atomize a city bus just by wiggling his toe, and no one would protest the arrival of their monolithic savior. Hundreds of little people on the streets stared upwards in spellbound awe. Any fears were quickly allayed by a flash of Justin’s affable, confident smile at the crowds. In a characteristic display of audacity and showmanship, he wore only jeans, putting his ridiculous athleticism on full display.

“Step aside,” he bellowed in a voice so deep and powerful listeners miles away mistook it for the voice of God, and they were only barely wrong. Firefighters scrambled like ants about his bare feet. An upturned palm the size of an Olympic swimming pool glided along the hotel’s exterior, stopping just below a series of broken windows. Tiny beings leapt from windows to the safety of his hand, before he moved onward to add to his collection. Speck-sized women cheered in his gentle grasp, shouting inaudible praise while the men came to terms with their own profound inadequacies.

“You’re okay,” he rumbled, his mighty baritone voice causing a woman in his palm to faint. He smiled and winked, another woman was sure it was meant for her, and all but melted into a puddle on his hand. Justin drank in the attention. Women had always gushed over him, but at his current size he shattered their tiny brains with emotional overload. The praise of each adoring speck was food for his already monstrous ego; he’d have to be a million feet tall just to match it. He wanted to pocket all those women, keeping them for his collection. Maybe he’d pull them out and play with them some day, or maybe he’d just forget they were there. It didn’t matter to him. There were always more women to be had.

And then there were the men. Pathetic little creatures, barely worth saving, but Justin thought himself merciful. They should all be so small. That’s the rightful order of things: all men made the shrunken servants of women, who in turn would be Justin’s slaves, and he, with his head high above the clouds, would be king for eternity. For a flicker of a moment, he winced disdain at the miserable beings he held. One of the little men caught it, and rightly trembled.

Delicately, Justin lowered his captives to the ground, shifting his palm, and sliding them gently to safety. Cheering and applause erupted from the streets. Justin waved, took a bow, and with the utmost false humility, returned to the docks to finish out his shift.

“That was very brave, what you did yesterday,” a woman said.

“Thanks!” Justin said, with boyish cheer in his eyes. “Just happy to help. Couldn’t have done it without your blessing, of course.” He ran his fingers through his hair with feigned humility, smiling with a well-practiced bashfulness.

“Of course.” The woman gave a tight-lipped smile in return, her expression carefully crafted to grant neither approval nor disapproval. She leaned back in her chair, crossing her long, athletic legs. Justin didn’t even try to hide his gaze as he followed those legs from her tight black skirt down to her pretty feet, long toes with red nail polish poking out from under her strappy high heels. She was tall, slender, yet with impressive breasts beneath her white blouse. Those details also didn’t escape Justin’s notice. The woman was in her late thirties, perhaps early forties, aging quite gracefully, perhaps not yet even peaking in attractiveness, Justin surmised.

“I always enjoy our sessions, Justin,” she said, matter-of-factly. “It’s important to the company that we continually monitor your state of mind, given the great responsibility that’s been granted to you. After yesterday, that matters now more than ever.”

“I feel just fine, doc,” he replied.

“Glad to hear it, though today it’s not your mental condition I’m here to discuss, but rather your physical condition.”

He leaned back in his chair, finally returning eye contact with the staff psychologist. “Not sure what you mean.”

“You were very large yesterday, far in excess of the growth capabilities of the machine.” She remained expressionless, merely stating alarming facts with casual indifference. “I’m not a physicist, but I’m told that shouldn’t be possible.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Justin said, his eyes moving about like he was struggling to remember. “Maybe I’m getting... Adapted to the growth? I’ve been doing it every day for a year now. Maybe the molecules in my body are just really...”

“Adapted. Yes, I think the same, and the company agrees with me. Though that’s not the condition that concerns me, not precisely,” she continued, tapping her pen on a clipboard. “I began my own investigation of the matter this morning. According to my findings, you seem to have grown yesterday without the use of the machine at all.”

A chill silence descended on the room. Justin mirrored the doctor’s impassiveness, as if what was alleged was trivial.

“Weird,” Justin finally said. That word hung in the air while the two stared at each other, daring one another to break the silence. The woman was a stone. Justin relented. “Maybe I’m... Very adapted to growth,” he offered.

“That would seem to be the case,” she replied without hesitation, flipping her pen between two lean fingers. “Though not completely. I’ve been monitoring the logs on the machine’s usage. It seems you are able to go for longer and longer stretches without its use, but eventually you become dependent on it once more. I’m curious, Justin, is this like lifting a weight for you? Are you just building your body’s tolerance to growth, or do you hope eventually your condition will become permanent and you’ll be able to grow as much as you like, whenever you like?”

“I think a lot of people hope that, Doc,” Justin said, not missing a beat. He oozed his usual confidence, smiling, running his fingers through the hair on the back of his neck with aw-shucks good ol’ boy charm. “A lot of people really like me, y’know, especially after yesterday. I can’t even go to a bar without being swamped by fans. Hell, you should see some of the stuff about me on the internet. I mean, wow, I am really, really loved out there.”

“Yes, I’ve seen... Some of the materials you’re referred to,” she muttered.

“Yeah yeah, there’s some pretty wild stuff out there, makes even me blush. But still, people love me, Doctor Ramirez. And a lot of people are really unhappy with the state of the world, but I give them real hope. I make people feel safe, like there’s a huge guardian out there that’ll protect them from their troubles.”

“Is that what you aspire to be then?” Doctor Ramirez said, with a twitch of judgement in her eyebrow.

“Maybe that’s what people need. And I can give it to them,” he said with genuine delight at the prospect.

They were silent again. Justin waited patiently for the doctor to process her thoughts.

“To be honest with you Justin, when the company decided to grow a human being, I was unconvinced that it would be safe - safe for us, and safe for the subject. And that was under tightly-controlled circumstances. If you continue using this machine, if I’m totally blunt about it, we will lose that control. We keep going down this road and we all may find ourselves, frankly, at your mercy. For many people that would be a rightly alarming scenario.”

Justin nodded, unable to deny the obvious.

“So this is a very awkward discovery for me,” she continued. “I’d rather wish I hadn’t made it. Because I’ve grown to like you quite a lot, Justin. And what you say is true, you do give people hope. You’ve become, in many ways, an icon, truly outgrowing the duties of a mere dockworker. You’re far greater than that. And you may be right - maybe the world needs you. And if I report this finding to the company, all that goes away.”

“You haven’t reported this to the company?” he said, eyeing her like she was a steak.

“No,” she whispered.

“Why not?”

She released a sigh that lasted for several seconds, as if summoning the courage to make an admission. “We’ve conducted these personal interview sessions every week now for a year, and in that time I have come to truly enjoy your company. I like you. I didn’t want to ambush you, or hurt you. I felt compelled to extend this courtesy to you.”

“So you’re going to report this to the company?”

“Yes,” she said, with a heavy tone of regret in her voice.

Justin realized his interlocutor had been scrunching her toes against her shoes, the way a cat kneads its claws against a comfy blanket. He saw that subtle gesture as a crack in her otherwise indomitable armor, as if her body was venting pent-up nervous energy through a release valve in her foot. She was lying. This wasn’t a courtesy at all, nor was it a trap. She was giving him an opportunity. After a full year of bombarding her with his weapons-grade charisma, she’d surrendered to him. Maybe even loved him. Justin wanted to lick those toes, then gobble them up along with the rest of her tiny body. He smiled, imagining how she might taste. He reached across the room, taking one of her hands into his with almost a lover’s gentleness.

“Tell me something,” Justin began, speaking in his utmost comforting tone, “When you watched the news, and saw all those little women in my hand, did any part of you wish you were one of them?”

“Yes,” she said. More cracks emerged in the armor. She looked more relieved than surprised by his question; finally she was able to admit a deeply-buried truth. “Yes I wished that very much.”

“I can give that to you. Right now if you like. Would you like that?”

Her eyes darted from left to right, mustering an answer, but Justin had already decided for her. He began to grow, his body towering over the comparatively small woman, eight feet, then nine, ten, fifteen. In another second he was twenty feet tall, just sitting down. A mix of conflicting emotions flashed across her face, finally unifying into terror, as she was certain he would burst through the roof, but the roof was never reached. Then a second wave of dread hit her, this one a tsunami of emotion compared to its prelude. She’d been looking at it all wrong. Justin wasn’t growing at all. She was shrinking. He was shrinking her, just by willing it. So fully had the matter manipulator imbued Justin with its power that reality itself had become his plaything.

She squeaked like some puny rodent as Justin’s hand closed around her doll-sized body. He plucked her tiny shoes off and threw them to the ground, then lifted the woman over his mouth. Her legs kicked as they disappeared between his massive lips. The woman made involuntary convulsions as she felt his tongue slither its way across her calves, snaking between her hips and - ooh! She moaned as his mighty tongue forced its way fully up her skirt. His hand released her, no longer needed now that she was fully suspended between his lips. He began to suck, continuing to taste the woman while she screamed in ecstasy. He continued for several minutes; she was almost afraid he’d lick the skin straight off her body. Two fingers clamped gently about her waist, and pulled her free from his sucking lips, her legs red from the heat and pressure.

With her back in hand, Justin walked across the room and locked the door, making sure no one would interrupt their session. “Since the first time I met you I wanted this, I wanted it so fucking bad,” he said to the little woman in his grip. “I wanted to suck those little legs of yours, I wanted to feel your whole body writhe in my mouth while I lick it clean.” She let loose an exultant cheer, echoing his desires since their first meeting.

His mouth returned, this time baring teeth. Gently, he nibbled his way up her legs again, giving her the occasional suck along the way, never relenting with a tongue that infiltrated the woman’s every nook. She screamed in euphoria, as one meaty finger landed atop her head, pushing her body further into his jaws, as she felt his lips and teeth against her abdomen, then her chest, and then finally, she disappeared fully into Justin’s maw. She was sure she was still shrinking, as she slid across the pitch black cavern for longer and longer distances in any given direction. She was all but certain she would drown, certain that Justin would lose her in this ocean of saliva. The slick surface beneath her shifted, causing her to slide uncontrollably, tumbling over the hard ridges of one of Justin’s molars. She found herself nestled between his jaw and cheek, where she would remain safely for the next several minutes.

Distant rumbles of footsteps quaked from the floor, through Justin’s body, and finally reaching his shrunken captive. He was walking, though the doctor wasn’t sure where. Occasionally the muscles in his cheek would tense and twitch. She suspected that Justin was flashing his usual charming smile at coworkers as he walked by, the others completely unaware that they were being greeted by an all-powerful apex predator who could turn them all into microbes if he so desired. The muffled sounds of doors opening and closing carried through his cheek, punctuated by one, final metallic slam. Daylight broke into the cavern, almost blinding the little woman who’d seen only blackness for the past fifteen minutes. One of Justin’s gigantic fingers lurched toward the woman, collecting its desired specimen and retrieving her from damp captivity.

She was dangling again in front of his face, half an inch tall, and shrinking. Now Justin, sitting in his car with a diminutive psychologist, wore the same stony, noncommittal expression that she once donned to him. He placed her on his palm, and watched her dwindle into a millimeter and beyond. As the crevices of his hand expanded into an alien landscape of pink ridges and valleys, the woman became disoriented, and her heart beat like an infinitesimally small jackhammer. She dropped to her knees and gawked in stupefaction as Justin’s face filled the entire sky. This was what those women felt, only a thousand times greater, because he was a thousand times greater. This was the future, what the whole world would see if Justin was allowed continued and unfettered access to the matter manipulator. He would ascend to become a limitless being, an all-seeing and all-knowing sentinel, one who would unify the entire world under the tyranny of his will. He had an entire year’s head start, conditioning his body to enter its final, perfect form. By the time he would become fully independent of the matter manipulator, it would be too late for anyone to catch him, and he would rule absolutely everything. Forever.

This would be the future. If, and only if, Doctor Marcia Ramirez forgot what she discovered, ignored his plans, perhaps even helped him along the way. The burden of that decision was too great for anyone, perhaps too great for everyone. She became dizzy, her mind swimming with the surreal distortions of her foreign environment and the crushing weight of a decision that she alone had the power to make, and one that would upend all humanity irrevocably. Dark tunnels encapsulated her vision as Justin’s face hovered in the firmament above, turning to blackness. She fainted, and dreamed of a future where Justin might share his power with her, where she and Justin could rule this world together, as miles-high lovers. If only he were so generous.