In the day that followed Hannah’s feast, her posture became much looser, verging on looking comfortable, but the military presence had become far stricter; at least a battalion of troops were strategically set up around her at all times. Even rumours that a nuclear weapon was on standby were rife, though even if it was, such a weapon near a city would have proved more detrimental than advantageous. If they had one, it would have been purely for show.
Regardless of the authenticity of their nuclear arsenal, the firepower they had was still staggering; tanks, helicopters, bunkers, even aircraft carriers. If Hannah was not still in a traumatised state, she would have almost felt honoured to have so many people fuss over her. Hannah looked around, not feeling overly unnerved by the arsenal that surrounded her, though certainly feeling intimidated. She sighed and made small sways back and forth on the spot, like a rocking chair. Suddenly, a raspy, male voice sounded, not from any platform this time. It was simply a distant voice, barking words with no personality or face. If Hannah felt any guilt for the lives of any of the scientists she consumed, it would be Courtney. Knowing that she had stripped two daughters of their mother pained her, as filling as she and the others turned out to be.
“Ingen!” It yelled in a sharp, cold, uncaring tone, eerily reminiscent of her restaurant days. “The US government has extended an invitation…” At that moment, Hannah knew exactly how the sentence was going to finish. She froze like ice in fear, her facial expression one of disbelief and dread. They can’t see me like this… They can’t do this to me!
“…to your family. They will be arriving shortly, at which point they will move up to the platform next to you. From there, you may converse with them.” The voice explained bluntly. Given the incident the day before, there had been specific instructions to be forceful; make demands, threaten with retaliation.
Is this a fucking joke? Putting them on the same platform I ate… her… from… Hannah thought, fearfully and sorrowfully.
“W…what? No!” Hannah boomed, her first utterance since her feast. She shook her head in small, yet simultaneously massive movements, looking down at many of the troops desperately. “You have no choice in the matter- be thankful that we’re even doing this for you.” He replied, with clear hostility in his stiff tone. “They will be here in approximately an hour.” He announced, plainly. If Hannah was a pane of glass, she would have shattered. Even though she had no preparation to do, an hour felt too short; she wasn’t ready to face them, knowing what she had done.
“Is… is this punishment?” She asked herself, quivering, in a tone so quiet that it could barely be heard, even at her colossal size. She hadn’t even thought about her family though all this. The monstrously sized woman looked like a little girl scared of the dark.
Seemingly seconds past, in which Hannah had nothing to focus on but her tight breathing. Every now and again, Hannah would let out a plea which would fall on deaf ears. Eventually, Hannah saw a speck of dust traveling at speed, which she reckoned to be a vehicle. Though she told herself they weren’t in it, in her heart of hearts she knew her family was.
Meanwhile, Jessica’s eyes faced downwards, glaring right through the bottom of the vehicle. It was just 10 hours ago that she was settled at home, huddled up on the couch, glaring at the television. Next to her sat her worried, though hopeful looking mother, whose hand was resting on her daughter’s leg, like a lazy cat, reassuring her tattered nerves.
Tom sat behind them, his arms crossed as he looked out the window, with their father, Darren, paralleling Tom’s empty glare. He scratched his thinned, black hair, as a sigh pushed out his slightly portly figure further. They could have at least got a nicer car, Darren thought, as he swept his finger over the dust and crumb covered surface. For a military speck vehicle, it looked like it had hosted a children’s birthday party.
The vehicle was filled with a painful silence. No one knew what to say, especially in the wake of Hannah’s feast. When their thoughts turned to it, everything they heard became white noise; the thought of not being able to decide if Hannah was a murderer or not was beyond crushing for her parents, the very idea sounded alien to them, not that everything else involving her in the last few days was any different. Jessica could vaguely make out the quiet, crackling radio from the driver compartment. With her ears focusing intently, she tried to listen in. She could only make out two words from the thickly accented broadcaster; giantess and eliminate. Jessica choked back tears, hoping she had just heard the wrong words at the wrong moments.
The armoured vehicle rolled and tumbled over hills and rocks, shaking and jerking the occupants quite violently, enough to make them feel quite unwell, though this was showing in none more than Darren, whose face was the shade of uncooked chicken, his expression one of blankness with his eyes sealed shut hard enough to snap titanium in half.
Just then, a hill moved out of view from Jessica’s and Darren’s point of view and a mountain replaced it. But this was no ordinary mountain. The shade was creamy white as opposed to the authoritarian grey that most mountains consisted of. The tip was not a snowy shade of white, drenched in melting cloud, rather a shimmering shade of blond that flowed down the mountains upper arm. On top of all this, most mountains did not glare at the vehicle that was approaching them with a scared expression.
“What’s… is that…?” Darren stuttered, risking car sickness by opening his eyes to glare upon his titanic daughter. “She’s huge…” he blurted, beyond dumbstruck at what he was looking at. Jessica’s jaw hit the floor in shier amazement. They had heard reports about how massive Hannah was, but they had never been able to comprehend just how colossal she was until they were right by her. She dwarfed the near-by city, and cast an entire nigh time worth of darkness with her shadow. Maria and Tom snapped around to look their daughter and sister with the same sense of awe that had occupied the rest of the vehicle. Jessica let out a high pithed giggle, unsure of what emotion it was meant to portray. Fear? Joy? Awe? Confusion? She grabbed her mother’s arm, deciding to settle that it was awe. While they all tried to pay no attention to her nakedness, it ultimately proved impossible, Hannah’s size was simply too vast for it to be ignored.
The vehicle approached further, passing through checkpoints and saluting, high ranking, square jawed officers, but the family grew ever more concerned when they noticed Hannah impending look of dread. Seeing Hannah shake her head saw the sense of awe-based optimism transformed into the very expression Hannah was portraying. The Jeep lined up to Hannah, to make its final approach. Every one of Hannah’s expressions was akin to a wounded animal. Her eyes were as wide as an ocean, her ribcage jumped up and down as her lungs passed tons of air in and out in rapid succession, her mouth faintly drooped open in shock. To a hypothetical onlooker, it would look like a cat being chased into a corner, or in this case the side of a mountain, by a flea.
“What’s she doing…?” Tom asked, in a low, concerned tone, even though all he could see of his sister at this point was her foot, the proximity of the group to Hannah now made it impossible to see her face from the car. With Hannah backed up as far as she could go, and with a trench of dirt from where the terrified titan had been dragging herself across the ground. As Hannah curled up and buried her face in her knees to cover her nakedness, and her saddened, ashamed expression, the car stopped two hundred meters from her, the cutting of its engine filling the car with only more awkward, crushing silence.
“Approach at your own risk…” the troop driving the vehicle remarked beneath his breath, which no one heard but Jessica. Her anger bubbled to the point where she was tempted to punch him, but with her first at the ready, she managed to resist the fiery urge that flowed through her veins; she settled for a violent slamming of the car door, making the car wobble. Maria wrapped her arms around Jessica, kissing her on the shoulder. The family was offered a full view of Hannah as they wandered closer to the platform they had been instructed to stand on. Hannah’s fear and dread was all too obvious to them. In a quiet, mousey tone, Hannah begged “Don’t look at me…” which made the groups eyes dart downwards, before they slowly rose to the fearful, quivering girl once more.
The group walked past heavily armed and armoured troops, something that unnerved them, somehow far more than the titanic, crying woman meters from them. They only felt a deep routed sorrow for Hannah. Before they knew they had even arrived, the group mounted the ladder to the matte platform where Courtney had met her end. Maria took it upon herself to wander up to the microphone first. “I’m so sorry…” Hannah sobbed, looking truly pitiful and vulnerable, like a lost little girl. Despite being the largest being in history, she had never felt smaller.
“Hello Hannah… We’re here for you, baby…” Maria stated gently, though the booming sobs, struggling to think of anything else to say. Hannah’s head slowly rose upwards, like a rising sun. Though gallons of water clouded her vision, she could perfectly make out her red-haired mother, who looked essentially like an older version of Hannah. Her puffy, red eyes stared at Maria blankly, before collapsing back into her knees. She tried so hard to say something, but all that came out was more crying. Maria sighed, feeling her heart grow heavier. She interpreted that Hannah was trying to say something, and in a soft tone once more, Maria asked “What is it, Hannah?” Nothing for a moment, though Hannah silenced her sobs as much as she could, in order to speak.
Hannah breathed in deeply “I’m… I…”
“You can say it…”
“Please, please forgive me!” Hannah cried out, in an ear piercing tone, before crying once more. Seeing her family again had brought a sense of judgment, and had finally made her remorseful for her actions the previous day, as well as the trauma of the previous days. It was as though a hammer was coming down on a hollow piece of plastic.
In the most reassuringly motherly tone she could muster, seemingly fearless of Hannah’s size, Maria answered “You’ve done nothing wrong, Hannah.”
“I ate hundreds of people!”
Maria looked down. It wasn’t something a mother had to reassure a child over every day. “Honey…” she hesitated “What you did you did under the most stressful, unbearable circumstances imaginable…”
“They’re all dead!” Hannah blasted, uncovering her face once more, before it sunk back down, like a machine low on battery. Maria felt faint; she hadn’t thought of it like that. With a sigh to clear her frazzled mind, she espoused “I… Ha…” Maria paused, though the air was filled with a titanic sniff. Jessica placed her hand on Maria’s shoulder, offering to take over. Maria waved her hand distinctively in refusal. “Hannah, did you want to do it?”
Hannah thought deeply, worrying it was a trick question “At the time, yes…” she admitted in a heavy hearted tone “I was so hungry… I was literally going mad!” she attempted to justify, her tone desperate and frantic.
“So, did you feel like you had any control over the situation?” Maria asked, as she leaned on the podium, daring to have a small grin emerge.
“N…no…” Hannah confessed, wearily.
“And you have been put in unimaginable circumstances, with the world’s eyes turned to you twenty four, seven…”
“This is a strange way of making me feel better” Hannah quipped, her tone capable of saying a sentence without breaking down in tears, but still laden with croaks and sorrow.
“All those boffins knew there was a chance something like this would happen, Hannah. They must have done. It may seem like a big deal now, but people will get to know you and forgive you in time. They’ll understand the trauma you’re going through.” Maria stated. She was not talking out of any kind of experience; her words were simply optimistic predictions. She grinned, attempting to angle herself so as to peek through Hannah’s knees at her eyes.
Hannah looked up. She focused on her mother for a short time, before her eyes turned to the left, contemplatively. A croak from her throat rang loud and distinctive, but the sobbing had all but stopped. “Do you want to talk to Jess?” Maria queried, and after a short period, Hannah nodded. Without hesitation, Jessica wandered up to the podium. The skip in her step indicated no intimidation, merely awe. Tom and Darren pointed and indicated at each other over who was to go next, seeming to come to no clear choice. Jessica cleared her throat, and took a deep breath in and out. She couldn’t help but feel invisible, Hannah was staring a thousand miles (which she was in fact possible of doing) into space. “Um… sorry I didn’t call” Jessica introduced, timidly. “Tom told you that I meant to, didn’t he?” After a few seconds of only the wind blowing, impacting Hannah’s giant body, she offered a tiny, almost unnoticeable, but definitely there, giggle. Following that, Hannah stated “Yeah… he mentioned it…”
Jessica struggled to think of something to say after that, so, thoughtlessly, she blurted out “H…how have they been treating you?” She bit her lip, fearing her question would cause another breakdown. Hannah sighed, her breath creating a gale force gust of wind, before slowly answering “I guess okay…” Hannah had been in a state of relative calm for long enough to notice something utterly humiliating; her stark nakedness. Her face grew alarmed, her cheeks apple-red, as her family gazed on, watching her arm slowly cover up her nipples, despite the fact they were already hidden behind her legs, and her curled up legs tighten to disallow any potential peeking. Really, it was the first time since the day of the growth that she had even been able to focus on her nudity. Hannah’s voice once again went deep, slow and ashamed “I’m so sorry… they haven’t given me anything to wear…” she espoused desperately. While Hannah’s nudity had only just occurred to her, it had been something her family had been working hard to understand and ignore. “No, I mean, we understand.” Jessica felt a great weight, like it was suddenly her responsibility to inform Hannah of bad news. “It’s just… something we’ll all get used to from now on. They say… they can’t make clothes in your size” She announced, growing increasingly quiet and muffled, though Hannah’s pinpoint hearing still picked it up flawlessly. Her apple-toned cheeks flared up, butterflies rioted in her stomach. “Oh…” Hannah sounded simply, figuring as much.
Though she remained calm on the outside, inside she felt another great blow to her life as she knew it. No more clothes… ever. The world would be constantly gazing at her naked body, as though Hannah wasn’t feeling isolated and alien enough. Suddenly, Hannah realised something quite simple. Her family didn’t look scared or angry; undoubtedly dumbstruck, but not angry. It offered Hannah a solitary ray of hope. “Why did you come here?” Hannah asked, nervously. Initially, there was no answer, now her family feared a trick question. Out of nowhere, Darren broke the silence, replying in a rousing voice “Because we love you, Hannah…” Hannah almost, not quite, but almost, smiled. It was obvious she was filled with a sense of happiness. Her stance was still tight, yet it looked uplifted. “You’re not angry?”
“At what?” Tom whispered to the rest of his family, genuinely not knowing. Jessica raised an eyebrow in his direction. Suddenly, it dawned on him. “Ah, right, that…” he stated, in a low tone, just enough for Hannah to pick it up. Hannah offered another tiny chuckle. Her face didn’t express it, but she was overjoyed.
Several dozen minutes went on in which Hannah talked to her family, slowly, nervously, embarrassed, but regardless, she talked. And she felt calm.