Dawn broke as it traditionally did- the suns golden rays highlighted the bustling streets and buildings, but there was something critically different on this day- the sleepy early morning travels were absent. In its place, there was terror. Cars lay abandoned in the street, people weaving in-between them as they ran from the massive object that blocked out the sun itself. The pace of the panic was such that the slightest trip would be a noteworthy risk to one’s life, and any attempt to stop and observe the entity would be met with injury.
Contrastingly, Hannah was in a state of comfort- the screams that filled the streets barely registered to her- though, they were just enough to lift her heavy eyelids, ending her tranquil sleep. With her vision blurry and her body limp, her hand hovered up to her face, where it rubbed her eye in an attempt to wake her up. Forcing her dry, sore eyes open, she instinctively swung her arm to her left, to hit her alarm clock. When her hand impacted the space the clock occupied, she heard nothing but the wind flow past her hand, and a deeper than usual crash when she thought she hit it.
She tried to force herself to wake up; the alien screaming from nearby did little to wake her. Twisting and turning under what she thought were her covers, she noticed nothing there. Perhaps she had thrashed the covers off in the night… Sighing, she pushed herself up, looking down as her vision became sharper. What she saw shocked her…
She was naked. She had on very rare occasions entertained the idea of sleeping naked, but the fact was that she had put pyjamas on… she quickly came to the conclusion that something was wrong. Covering up her breasts with her arm, she got the second shock of the morning; she wasn’t in her apartment. At this point, she became panicked; the only possibility that occurred to her was that she had been kidnapped. She’d heard horror stories about the crime rate in LA, but she always though them emphasised. Looking thoroughly confused with a tinge of worry, it appeared as though she was… outside. Below her was a city. A model city, fairly sizable for a model, about three or four times the size of her in, though the height of all the buildings were absolutely infinitesimal compared to her. Growing more and more baffled by the second, her tired mind decided that this was the time for observation and experimentation; she brought her finger down on the replica residential area. A small boom rang from the impact zone, and a cloud of smoke lingered up from it. It did nothing to alleviate Hannah’s misunderstanding. She observed the buzzing screaming growing slightly louder when she hit. It was at that point that she noticed the minuscule specs of dust float around the crevices of the small city. Her eyes were thinned. Her head came closer. The dust was… people. And they were screaming. In the crowd of people, she managed to single out one specific person, and found she could understand them with clarity when she focused- “it’s going to crush us!” was what she made out.
Hannah’s mind lay dormant on this for a few moments, trying to work out the implications. Surely, they couldn’t be people, they’re too tiny, she thought. She was becoming less confused and more outright scared now. Backing up, she looked at the area directly beneath her… rubble and dirt, masses of it, connecting to the rest of the tiny city. Pushing herself up to her knees, she scanned the wreckage with her eyes. None of this was making any sense to her. Maybe it was some kind of bizarre and sadistic prank. Her eyes glazed around, just to find something to latch onto to make sense of all this. It’s fair to say that she found that something.
A handprint. Embedded in the earth, surrounded by grass, a handprint from where she had hit where she thought her alarm clock was. She stared at it, then the city, then the handprint again. They were the same size… The screaming was real, the rubble she had created was real, and the handprint was real.
It’s a dream… she thought. It’s just one of those lucid dreams… But no matter how much she tried to convince herself of that, it felt too real to be a dream. Her lungs drew in breath through her teeth, in rapid succession. Inside her, a deafening sound brewed…
Transformed from her gentle, soft English tone, rang a banshees scream. She grasped the sides of her head, as her scream hit those in the city like a wave, shattering glass. Faintly making out the damage her voice alone was doing, her hand raced to her mouth, covering it firmly. Her mind was unable to process anything. Her eyes darted around like a tennis match. Having halted the ear piercing tone, her head shook as she destructively backed away from the city, which she had not yet processed that it was LA. With her eyes like globes, her voice changed to a quivering tone that portrayed only horror. More of a sound than speech, she spoke through her hand “I’m sorry… I don’t… Where… A…Am I… I…” her limbs flailed in a desperate attempt to conceal her pure nudity.
Her vision once again began to blur, and before she knew it, she was hyperventilating; her lungs were taking in air, but it didn’t seem to be doing anything. It felt like she couldn’t breathe. Pushing out a few more meaningless syllables, she pulled a face that was a clear attempt to throw up. Thankfully for the people on the ground, it failed, and all they got was a shocked, unwell expression, and an overly extended tongue, followed by an unpleasant gagging sound. It had gotten to the point that she could no longer manage. She went limp. She shut her eyes. An explosion of dust, dirt, grass and rubble marked the collapse of the titan, as she narrowly avoided crushing the rest of the city beneath her more than sizable figure.