Hannah stood at the airport terminal, facing her family with tears welling in her eyes. Her family stood there with her, the women of the family showing equal amounts of emotion, then men trying to hide that they were feeling the same.

“Well, this is it…” Hannah muttered beneath her breath. Quite spontaneously, she wrapped around her younger sister, as the announcer called her flight. Jessica wasted no time in hugging her sister back, tears flowing as she gave a heartfelt farewell. Thomas approached the two, and Hannah promptly turned her attention to him. Thomas embraced her with his muscle-bound arms, with a reminiscent smile on his face. Her parents hung back, having already received their squeezing hugs.

“So… I guess next time you see me, I’ll be famous…” Hannah jokingly stated, facing Jessica and Thomas. Never missing out on an opportunity for taunting, Thomas slyly stated “Or, it’ll be Christmas” to which Hannah replied with a hit on his shoulder, and a chuckle.

“Arsehole...” She blurted with deep routed affection.

The trio said their farewells, before Hannah started wandering into the distance to board her flight to LAX. Jessica, in her chirpy, ever optimistic, though definitively sad tone, stated hopefully, as she waved manically at her disappearing sister, “See you when you’re famous!”

Two years later, Hannah had achieved that.

Jessica had sat static in the family house, on the edge of her seat with her hands covering her mouth for the entire day. Her parents were out of the house for the weekend, leaving her by herself. She had skipped work just to watch events unfold, events which she of all people could not possibly fathom. She had been tuned in since 8 in the morning, when reports of a 50 foot woman were coming in. An hour later, she was watching reports of a five hundred foot woman, who was starting to look unnervingly familiar to Jessica. Another hour later, reports were coming in that she had grown to 4000ft, riots were starting, and stampedes flowed through the city like blood.

It didn’t even occur to her that her sister was naked on the news, but just as she was starting to notice, the striking silence in the room was shattered by the blaring groan of the telephone. Within an instant, Jessica lunged at it, slamming it against her ear. “Hello?!” a soft, frightened voice rang out.

“Jess?”

“Mum!”

“Turn on the news…” she ordered in a sharp tone, that had the same sense of panic behind it that Jessica’s had.

“I have… I’ve been watching it all day!” Jessica confirmed, in a tone of quaint fear “What’s going on?” she arbitrarily asked. “What’s Hannah doing?” Jessica desperately inquired.

“It can’t be Hannah… its massive!” Maria offered, in a comparable tone.

“But the news said… the face matched hers…” Jessica pointed out, hysterically.

“It’s not Hannah! This is all some kind of joke… It’ll all be over soon…” Maria blurted, her voice quivering in sadness and fear.

“She… it’s still growing!” Jessica exclaimed, before a beep on the phone indicated another caller. Looking down at her phone, she could see it was her brother. “Mum… mum, stay calm, I promise I’ll call you back… b… bye…”

With that, she pressed the button on the phone to switch to Tom, and was greeted with a voice whose sense of panic was clear, though he was trying to maintain a patriarchal sense of calm. “Tom! What’s Hannah doing?! Why is she so big…? Why…” she was interrupted abruptly. “Jessica, look, stay calm, I’m coming over! I don’t know what’s happening… but we can find out together, yeah?” he offered, in a tone that one might talk to a child in. Though Jessica clearly knew they wouldn’t be able to find out what was going on with Hannah on their own, she clung to the ray of hope that prospect presented. Nodding manically, she responded “O…okay… just, please hurry!” as she gript onto the phone with both hands, pressing it firmly into her ear.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes!” Thomas reassured her. Without saying a word, merely offering emotional grunts, she tumbled the phone back into the cradle, so fearful she was that she didn’t even bother to swipe her labyrinth of wavy brunette hair out of her face, she simply sat there, gazing at the baffling reports on the television, with her hand up to her mouth, her fearful eyes welling and her legs curled up to her torso.

Twenty minutes later, the knocking of wood flowed through the house. Jessica darted like a madwoman to the door, swinging it open, and clinging to her brother. She had an appearance closer to a child than a 19 year old. As Jessica quivered, Tom led her inside, setting her down on her chair once more. In a rather fatherly fashion, he wiped away a tear from her eye and hushed her reassuringly, as he himself gazed at the news reports. Still growing… five thousand feet, the reports were now stating.

Tom sighed, and cuddled his sister, and she cuddled back. If there was ever a time the pair needed reassurance, it was now. Without any knowledge of how their beloved sister was doing, all they had was each other.

“You… you spoke with her this morning, right?” Jessica inquired, her voice quivering and shaking.

“Yeah… she seemed… fine…” he said, initially reassuringly before his voice began to turn to realisation.

“What? Do you know something?! Tell me!” Jessica demanded loudly, only to be met by Tom hushing her in a contrastingly small tone.

“She… said she wasn’t feeling too well. Said she had a felt hot, and she said her head felt light… but, that can’t have anything to do with this, surely… it just sounded like a cold to me…” Tom explained.

The pair sat on the sofa in silence for several minutes; they had visibly begun to calm down now that they were in the presence of one another. Placing his hands on her shoulders, Tom grinned, offering a cup of tea, which Jessica was all too happy to have made for her. As Tom headed for the kitchen, Jessica rubbed the top of her forehead. Once again picking up the phone, she redialled her mother.

“Jess!?”

“Mum…”

“A…are you okay!?”

“I… I don’t know… I’m scared, mum…” she sighed, in an admitting tone, a sigh that her mother matched.

“Listen to me hun; everything is going to be fine…” Maria stated in a slow and deep tone.

“I… I hope so…” Jessica replied cautiously “Listen, Tom is round here with me… Do you want to have a word with him?” Jessica offered, as Tom returned from the kitchen, with cups of tea in both hands. He set them down on the table, both overfilled mugs sloshing over slightly.

“So you’ve both skipped work…” Maria stated, in an attempt to lighten the mood. Jessica responded with a very forced, but good natured chuckle. She passed the phone to Tom, telling him it was mum. From that point, time seemed to race by like a cheetah. Seconds transformed into minutes, minutes into hours, all the while the pair looking at the television with fear and confusion, listening intently as reports came in, and watching dedicatedly as the first footage of the stampedes on the ground came in. A shiver went down Jessica’s spine as she saw the panic and fear that the being that appeared to be Hannah was causing.

Jessica audibly sighed when reports came in that the rate of growth appeared to be slowing dramatically, even louder when it seemed that she had stopped growing completely. However, just as she was beginning to feel her frantic nerves calming ever so slightly, they were put on edge once more; the titanic woman was waking. Jessica’s breath withheld its release when she saw her sister’s eye open. Her breath could no longer be withheld; she started breathing in shallow, quick intervals, as she gripped the edge of the seat, leaning forward. She watched fixedly at Hannah’s every movement and facial expression, providing a commentary track in the form of grunts and gasps. Her ears had more or less shut off, as had her peripheral vision, so she did not have a clue that Tom was reacting in more or less the same way.

When Hannah’s arm swung round and obliterated the spot of earth she thought was an alarm clock, Jessica flinched and took in a sharp intake of breath, as though watching a horror film. To her, it was not unlike one. As she observed the tired, heavy and confused movements of her sister, she pointed out “She doesn’t know what’s happened…” in a surprised tone as she looked at Tom, who was focused only on the screen. “She doesn’t know what’s going on!” Tom parroted, which Jessica failed to hear.

Jessica could only watch on in horror as Hannah’s finger obliterated a spot of the city. “What… what’s she doing?” Jessica inquired to no one in particular. Was Hannah aware of the destruction she was causing? She couldn’t be… Jessica shook her head frantically to indicate her inner thoughts. Hannah’s scream of realisation reflected the sense in Jessica’s heart. Contrastingly, she jumped up from her chair when Hannah collapsed out of shock.

Sweat rolling down her forehead, Jessica slowly lowered herself back into her seat, her breathing almost at the point of hyperventilation. Once again, Hannah was unconscious, leaving the pair to continue to watch the news. The clock rotated further, and Hannah once again awoke. Seven PM came and went, and Hannah once again woke, the pair watching on in a mixture of awe and terror. Over the four hours she was unconscious, small research outposts were set up around her. Hannah had instructions barked at her. She sat up. She had things explained to her. She curled up in a ball, just as Jessica was at that moment. Everything went at a blur for the 19 year old. Standing up, she stated to her brother in a small voice “L…look… it’s been a hard day… I… I want to get an early night…” Tom nodded, she had earned it. “Feel free to… go home to your fiancé or whatever… or… stay here… whatever…” from the sound of her voice, Tom could tell that she was not processing her thoughts that much. “Invite her round, why not…”

If Jessica were to recap everything that had happened that day, she would fail, yet all she did was sit on a chair and watch the news…