Chapter 4: The Greater Good
As the rampage continues in other parts of the city, Jason drives through the countryside, a car he recently found on a destroyed street- one of the only cars without severe damage, and yet the entire windscreen was smashed. If I can reach the edge- I might be able to stash the footage outside the city where it can survive, someone will surely find a way to upload it.
Jason saw the large white wall in the distance, the edge of the suite room- only 15 minutes ago Lucy was leaning against this wall casually and now it looked like an endless forcefield created by a god.
The car reached the wall as the thumping still carried on in the distance, Jason watched in the distance- spotting faint moving in the fog of the air but nothing identifiable, it was clearly the director, enacting revenge for them trying to harm her company. Ella was right...
Jason exited the car to make his way to the monolithic wall, pressing his hands against it, he could see the huge bumps in it all the way up the wall. He tried to examine how likely it would be for things at the edge of the city to get destroyed, the grass of the green belt extended every inch up to the wall, almost as if the cloned city would have kept going if it weren't for this wall.
He decided to get back into his car and traverse backward, hoping to see any areas along the wall where he could hide or protect his footage. Deciding to go in the direction of the wall behind a red barn he saw, it was as good of a place as any to try.
As he reached closer to his chosen point of the wall he noticed a faint dark line in the wall straight ahead, the grass outside of it was pristine, did this wall have a natural mark in it? he thought.
Slowly getting out of the car once again as the booming continued however louder and deeper, Jason trod along the perfect grass closing in on what he thought was a marking- turned out to be a crack in the wall, a gap. He looked along the entire stretch of wall as far as he could see, the wall was in pristine condition with the exception of this exact part. His curiosity getting the better of him, this crack could be a safe area because it's outside the bounds of the suite.
Jason climbed up the crack, not thick enough for his body to squeeze however he could get his head in to see what was inside. He prepared to place his camera in the safe area only to pause, leaving it in his hand hovering. He froze as he was presented with hundreds of identical cameras, with only a few being different models.
"Wh- what the fuck...?" he muttered, his lips trembling. Jason placed his camera close to him, reaching in and pulling out the next closest one in the pile, starting it up and hitting play.
"There's a giant in the city, I'm recording this for documentation!" the identical Jason said in the video, his head lunging forward as dust fell from the building he was inside as it shook. This never happened to me... what's going on?
"Her name is Suzy, apparently she's an office worker. We're going to get to the bottom of this!" he turns his camera to show Ella with her knees bunched up crying with her hands to her ears. - "Hopefully..." he muttered.
Jason placed the camera down, his eyes darting between all the cameras. - "No- no... no... no." he quickly picked up another camera.
"-what the fuck, a giant man appeared holding a sledgehammer. We've got to document this-" he quickly threw it to the side and picked up another.
"What is that?" the camera zoomed in on a strange fabric-looking item, with Jason's current context he knew his clone was looking at a bra. - "where did it come from?" the Jason on film asked, puzzled. Jason kept picking up cameras frantically, each time he watched a video his BPM would increase by 1.
"-I'M LOOKING FOR MY BOYFRIEND NAMED NATHAN HOFFMAN. ALL OF YOU TINY PEOPLE BETTER BRING HIM TO ME. OR ELSE-" the voice boomed through the camera video. - "Who is this girl?!" the Jason screamed. The video cut suddenly to a quieter room with distant booming, the camera was placed in front of a wooden chair with a bearded man on it- interview style. - "Tell us your name and what you know, to the camera, please." Jason asked from behind the camera. - "My name is Nathan Hoffman. My girlfriend is giant and currently destroying the city." - "-and what is her name?" - "Alana."
He threw that camera away, his face becoming more distraught and disgusted, unable to quench his curiosity as he surfed through the endless pile of footage.
"-LISTEN, HONEY, IT'S JUST LIKE STEPPING ON ANTS. NO DIFFERENT, LOOK-" the huge figure in the frame elevated their foot in the distance and slammed it onto a panicking squashed crowd of 100 people creating a shockwave that cut out the camera's audio.
Next camera. - "OH YEAH, THIS ANGLE IS GOOD." the woman shouted, posing for a tripod as she stretched herself out along the city in her bikini. - "-is that a phone?" Jason behind the camera whispered zooming in on a device on the tripod.
Next. - The camera opened to a wide-eyed bloody-faced Jason, he looked horrific, and yet it still felt like looking in the mirror to the Jason watching the footage. - "There's an entire group of women here, it's ladies night out I think. I couldn't save anyone. Not like it matters, they are currently leaving so I'll be purged soon. I've never seen violence like I have today. I want to go home..." a tear fell down his eye clearing a path along with the blood on his face as the footage ended.
He opened one more camera and hit play immediately being hit with footage of a shaky camera, literally hundreds of people running through a street, it looked like some form of protest that had been interrupted by the antics of the stress suite cloning. A colossal red tongue dragging itself across the shot, creating a dent in the ground as it smashed its way through the street, hundreds upon hundreds of innocent lives sticking to the buds, next to rubble and cars as it extended into the sky. - "HOLY FUCK!" Jason screamed from behind the camera as he recorded the footage. - "MMMMMmm. YUMMY!" a voice bellowed from above.
Suddenly he shot back to reality and threw the camera into the pile, hundreds of cameras, hundreds of sessions. - "FUCK!" he screamed into the pile of remnants, clutching his face as tears began to stream in frustration. This can't be real. Every camera- every piece of footage, is a new version of me who delivered their camera to the exact same spot. Another version of me was tortured by various people simply doing sessions, women, influencers, daughters, office workers, men, children, groups. All trodding on conscious and feeling life forms that were identical to their own but simply crumb-sized.
Jason struggled to comprehend all of this, it was absurd and depressing. What do I do now...?
His eyes fell upon the camera he initially picked up, the most recent one, flicking through the footage he found the latest footage ever recorded before his session.
The clip starts with an ugly shot of his face, the camera pointed too far up his nose as he placed the camera inside the crack, he was where Jason was right now. He finally moved back having himself in the frame. - "Hey, Jason. I'm you from the past, for reference it is May 26th. I've counted the cameras three times, I've had time to kill- the person in my session doesn't know the truth yet and she's not very violent. You will be the 350th Jason to reach this safe area for the footage, it is unlikely that anything has changed. If we've not managed to change the tide in 350 sets of films then we won't do it in 10,000." Jason felt worse and worse every second of these films he chose to watch, documentaries, expose's, the truth, did it mean shit? was it all a waste of time.
"But don't be disheartened. It is a fact that we're all destined to die here at the hands of other people in society and there is nothing we can do about with our cameras. But Jason, who else but us can say we tried, 350 times we've successfully reached it here in the hopes of making a difference, 350 times we've survived death and destruction at the hands of an omnipotent being, we've left our cameras here despite our own demise simply because we knew it might help the next time."
"We'll continue to die as clones until this camera pile touches the sky. But one thing is for certain- if real Jason is even half as determined as we are, then the real world is in good hands. As long as he is alive then we are fine. So don't fret, this is okay." the footage cuts as he fumbles with the camera to switch it off.
Jason felt hopeful for a moment only to realize the reality of the situation, real Jason is him, he's not a clone unlike all of these versions of him. All this effort, all this determination dies with him, truly. No more clones would exist of him after today, there'd be nothing to clone.
I can't let these deaths be in vain. All those people. If they die with me then I won't let myself become dust at the hands of this evil corporate woman. Jason kept the 350th camera close to him, his camera and the last camera that'd ever exist from his clones, turning to walk towards his car leaving his clone legacy behind.
Jason drove his car slowly towards the thumping which quickly started to pick up, the rumbling becoming so harsh that his vehicle couldn't drive properly as it regularly shook off-road. Jason threw himself out of the vehicle, clutching the side of it holding his balance. He watched as the corporate giantess presented herself, or so he thought. His eyes caught glimpses of drooping brown hair, only to land on Ella's innocent face. - "No..." he whispered.
"Come on, Jason. Can't I just enjoy this? I was actually having fun for once"
The sentence repeated in his head over and over again, he knew she was having fun destroying stuff innocently, most people would but even after learning the truth, even after her friends were shrunken in the city. She still went on a destruction-fest with no regard for the life she stomped out beneath.
He watched her from 1000 feet away, she stared at a large tree in front of her bare feet, lifting her big pink painted toe snuffing out the tree as she twisted. She was simply toying with the land, playing around in her personal playground filled with people who felt they were real, without a care in the world.
If it wasn't her, then it'd be the director, or they'd simply be purged. Jason thought. Did it matter who it was? Maybe that's where her logic lay, if it was going to be anyone- it was going to be her.
Her feet began soaring through the air in his direction, the impacts rupturing his balance as the shockwaves pummelled the land and air. Her foot glided straight over his head above, her sole littered with dirt and an endless array of red splashes, as it collided with the ground way behind him. She walked away into a new area, Jason pointlessly chased after her, rage building up in his soul as he sprinted through a footprint she'd left in a field.
"You were supposed to be my film partner, you weren't supposed to give up on us; me and Lucy. Not only did you give up on us, but you walked all over us like ants! I won't let you get away with this, you are my new story, Ella. Not the company, you. 'Ella Russo: A Journey into the Mind of a sick fuck who trampled all of her friendships'! I will end you!" he screamed with tears in his eyes, it was futile, what could he do?
He could survive. Turning his gaze towards the platform. - "If I can climb that, I'm a free man. I'll figure it out from there." the thumping started to get loud again very quickly.
Ella spotted a red dot in a green field below, turning her head slightly. - "Why are you walking towards me, little person?" she looked confused. - "Do you know how easily I could just-" she stepped forwards lightly onto the dot and moved her foot back, a gigantic footprint in place of where the dot was, what remained was still a red dot but this time not moving. Ella shook her head unaware of what the person was doing, deciding it was time to head home and find a new line of work, one where she was happy.
Jason's lips trembled in fear as the giant spoke to him, she'd seen him just as he was changing his plan for the better. - "Please don't..." he whispered.
"DO YOU KNOW HOW EASILY I COULD JUST-" Jason's eyes fell down watching the pink toes squirm, destroying the grass they rested on, indicating her next action. The toes pressed into the ground allowing the rest of the foot to rise, acting as a springboard. The foot flew over Jason quicker than he could register the moving.
"NOOOOO! NOOoo- stop!" was all he could cry as he tripped up from his limbs shaking, turning onto his back as the dirty foot of his co-worker shot towards his gaze, so fast he couldn't generate another thought as the sole extinguished his existence, leaving behind a flattened corpse of a man.
Ella laced up her shoes, finally separating her bare skin from the destruction and torture below as she prepared to exit her session. 10 minutes left on the clock.
Down below at the edge of the city a figure emerges from the crack in the wall, a dirty, bearded man who was incredibly skinny, nearly down to the bone. He wandered along the road coming to the red car, looking to his right he saw a huge footprint, looking inside the still open car door he saw a camera facing outwards. Picking it up to inspect- it was still recording, he pressed stop and watched it on the way back to his hiding spot. - "Another one of my cameras. Heh." Jason chuckled.
Sitting in his mini cave of cameras, the wall of oranged blasted past the wall vaporizing the entire city shortly after Ella continued with her life on the outside. Many minutes later Jason heard a ruckus outside, hanging his skinny body outside the crack seeing the fresh town for the 305th time, untouched and unscathed but not for long, in the center of the town he saw a distant figure. A beautiful young woman with long brown hair.
"I've always said this building was ugly" the voice bellowed from miles away, as she smashed her ankle boot onto the ground.
"I wonder what this participant will do today." Jason watched with curiosity.