In this Chapter: Kristen approaches the micros and nanos. Communications are tested with Kristen. Kristen gets her first taste at the problems of the tiny people and must decide whether to involve herself.
Main Tags of This Chapter: Unaware.
Kristen – Age 27 Madelyn – Age 2 months
Lakeside Suburbs, USA
“Okay… I can do this… they’re just people like me… really, really… small… people… yeah” Kristen said to herself upstairs in her bedroom, sitting on her bed as she hugged Madelyn comfortably against her chest. Kristen took a sharp breath to ready herself as she stood up, carrying Madelyn across the hallway into Madelyn’s new room that Kristen was satisfied with the progress that she had made on its decorations and feeling that it was finally ready for her daughter. Placing Madelyn in the crib in the corner of the pink room, “I’ll be right back little Maddy girl” Kristen lovingly said with a smile as she turned and headed downstairs towards the living room.
Kristen went into a small guest bathroom near the kitchen, looking at herself in the mirror for a few seconds before wrapping her hair up into a loose, messy bun. She wasn’t wearing any makeup as she still looked quite exhausted in the face, but still had a natural beauty as a few strands of her hair cascaded down either side of her temples. She was wearing a thick and oversized white hoodie, baggy grey sweatpants, and a pair of thick, comfortable brown boot slippers that the ends of her sweatpants were tucked into, hoping her slippers would be densely padded enough to cause minimal damage when she stepped near the tiny people.
Kristen wanted to look modest, revealing as little of her skin as possible once she realized that there must have been millions of people all looking at her in tights and a large revealing bra the last time she was in her back rooms. She didn’t want the people getting the wrong ideas about her, that she was comfortable letting all those people look at her in more scant outfits, opting for the opposite. Almost trying to make herself as unappealing as she could for the little people, not wanting to become some type of symbol, feeling uncomfortable with the idea that millions of people had probably been staring at her tits and ass, understandably though as they had nothing else to look at if she was so huge compared to them, but couldn’t help but think it was still awkward as she began to understand the situation.
She walked down the hallway, her heartbeat hastening as she twisted the doorknob to her office, revealing all the cities on the floor as she took a second and counted them all out in her head as she stood in the corner void of any micro activity, realizing that there was 31 cities in her office, as she cringed her teeth together, looking down at the ashy rubble of where she had crushed a city on the night Madelyn was born, realizing there could have been 32 cities if she had only known what she was stepping on in that moment of innocent curiosity.
Kristen looked up from the ashy pile, nervously and quietly clearing her throat, hesitating for a moment as her eyes looked concerned and worried while she looked down at all the cities spread out across the room a few feet away from the toes of her thick boot slippers, nervously fiddling with her hands across her chest as she contemplated what her first words were going to be to the people now that she knew what and who they were.
“So… my name… is Kristen… I uh, I hope my voice isn’t too loud… I hope my slippers are soft enough for you, I can’t imagine what it’s like to feel that… or to even think about how big I am to you from down there, but uh… my slippers, they’re really squishy, so hopefully there isn’t as much impact… uhh… sorry, maybe squishy isn’t the best word to use right now” Kristen spoke, she was anxious, used to being so confident, articulate when she was at work or in college, an outspoken person when she was younger, but was having a sudden panic in her tactfulness as she crossed her arms over her chest, feeling a nervous tinge deep within her stomach that she hadn’t experienced before.
Kristen took a second to herself, sitting in silence for a moment before swallowing deep as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath before slowly opening her eyes back open. “I want to help you, okay? I don’t want to call anyone yet until I know what I’m dealing with, I put these cameras here in hopes that you’ll be able to talk to me somehow… just… when that happens, please let me know how I can get you home. Please…” Kristen spoke, trying to half smile as she awkwardly left the room, scooting slowly against the wall before going to her studio across the hall.
*** *** ***
Kristen walked into her studio, finally seeing the country for what it was, hundreds of millions of even smaller people laid out before her near the tips of her boot slippers, she felt even worse about them, at least being able to recognize the moving dots in the city streets in her office as people and cars now, but the people living in the country were next to invisible, so small they she couldn’t see anything besides the different colors and textures of the map-like rug spread out across her studio and towards her black sofa that she had yet to even sit in since her sister bought it for her.
The view was so much stranger to Kristen after she could finally see the country as such, the little grey patches were vastly populated and intricate cities that could have easily been Lakeside, the greens inbetween plains and forests, the farmlands like patchwork art near the cities spanned by elongated highways and roads, shadowed in mountains barely offering relief from Kristen’s perspective that appeared as simple bumps rather than towering peaks.
That was until Kristen saw her footprints right in the middle of the country, her prints perfectly preserved like wet sand that would never dry as her head felt heavy and her stomach felt nauseous, not being able to process the amount of death and destruction her little foot massage under her sore feet caused, understanding that there must have been entire cities embedded in her toe prints and under her bare heels from that first night just for a little moment of relief from her sore and pregnant feet.
“I’m so sorry… I just… if there’s any way you can talk to me using this camera that I brought in a few days ago… please do it. I want to get you all back home safe… I didn’t want any of this to happen… just know that I didn’t mean to… uh… step on anything or anyone…I wouldn’t have done it if I knew what you were… before” Kristen whispered as her eyes started to welt and tear up, not being able to face the psychological overload in her head of the idea that she had massacred people under her feet as she quickly left the room crying, heading upstairs, and hugging onto Madelyn for comfort.
*** *** ***
“Hey! The girls of the neighborhood wanna meet you for dinner this weekend” a text from Ginny said as Kristen groaned at her kitchen table. Kristen’s laptop open as she was researching physics and shrunken people with almost nothing helpful turning up in her searches.
She had tabs upon tabs open of science and published research papers, but nothing could accurately explain what was happening in her two back rooms, in fact, all the papers and research was disproving the possibility of that type of phenomenon even being possible. Debating sending an email to a few professors at credible universities but couldn’t bring herself to write an email that sounds like a crazy person wrote it.
“That’s great! If I can get a babysitter, I would be so happy to meet everyone” Kristen replied with a few taps on her phone.
“Cool! I can’t wait, you’ll really like them” Ginny replied as Kristen half smiled for the first time in a while, admiring Ginny’s generous positivity and friendly attitude. Kristen sighed though soon after as she opened another tab for a psychologist and therapist that specialized in grief, feeling overwhelming guilt for killing an untold number of tiny people, not knowing how to process that fact as she laid awake most nights even without Madelyn’s little cries jolting her up.
Kristen felt terrible, on the verge of having a breakdown, crying in her shower almost every morning, barely able to eat, barely practicing yoga or exercise after her fears were confirmed. She was drained, depressed, and ridden with the worst guilt she could have possibly felt, only building on top of the intense hormone fluctuations and rebalances after having given birth.
She couldn’t stop imaging the faces of people as her body loomed above them, picturing her own friends if they were down there in the city as she felt sick at the idea of her toes squishing them into nothingness as they screamed and begged to tell her to stop. Thinking that her feet alone killed families, crushed homes, entire buildings, schools. Her hands and fingers twitching as she hovered them above the send button.
Kristen almost making the appointment with the therapist online before her phone dinged with a baby monitor notification. Kristen sighing in relief as she assumed it was Madelyn upstairs stirring in her crib as Kristen swiped her phone open to the notification. Kristen’s heart sinking as she felt suddenly hot and dizzy on top of her intense guilt, met with the view of the little office cities on her phone screen with a few dots hovering right in front of the camera’s aperture, their movements must have triggered the screen to show Kristen.
Kristen could recognize the little dots as helicopters, strange contraptions attached to the bottoms of the flying aircrafts. Kristen leaning her face into her phone as her eyes widened and lips slowly parted. There was five of them, all hovering right over the camera, they almost looked regular sized to Kristen in that moment as they were so close to the aperture before the helicopters started to hover in a straight line, pairing next to each other. Bright orange letters just big enough for Kristen to read started to slowly scroll in synchronicity from each helicopter’s undermount screens from right to left.
“H…E…L…P…U…S” Kristen slowly uttering each letter as it eventually spelled out. “They want me to help them… but how?” Kristen whispered quietly to herself as she winced her eyes, suddenly Kristen’s phone dinged again as she swiped at the notification, the view showing the country in her studio, the hovering dots in front of the camera were too small to see even if they were pressed up against it. “No, not now… why now…” Kristen mumbled as she focused on the little dots hovering above the country.
A bright white light on the hovering speck started to blink repeatedly as Kristen shook her head at the sight, the light blinking on and off with a method as Kristen didn’t recognize it at first, wondering why the even smaller people would choose to communicate like that, but it was probably their only option, being so small, Kristen realized before she recognized it as a code once the light started to repeat its pattern after a few iterations of the same blinks, “what the… how would they even know morse code…” Kristen shook her head as she frantically got up from her kitchen table chair and rummaged through her drawers and cabinets in her kitchen before pulling out a pen and paper. She sat back down and began to write out the dashes and dots down.
Kristen opened a tab on her laptop while the light continued to blink and repeat in the same pattern on her phone screen, Kristen scribbling down the translations on her paper, matching the letter to the light, having never done it before in her life as she struggled with a few spacings and letters, mistaking the letters frequently before it finally started to make sense on her paper, “need water for food” Kristen sounded out the letters until they made sense as she blushed at the realization, “oh my god, this is too much” Kristen said as she folded her hands into her face and groaned.
She tried to fight off tears, thinking about the death she had caused for a few minutes as she placed her head down on the table for some kind of relief, but it didn’t come, just the notifications on her phone of movement being detected in her two rooms occupied and filled with micros and nanos. Kristen wiped a few tears from her eyes and picked her head from off the table as she reared her head back and took a few deep breaths, feeling like she owed them her help after all the pain she must have caused them, looking for a moment of redemption to ease her guilt.
Kristen scooted back from the table and rummaged under her kitchen cabinets again, finding an empty spray bottle before filling it up with water from the sink, screwing on the cap tightly before she walked into the country room as quietly and gently as possible, “Uh… you asked for water for your food… I’m going to spray it up here, it should work just like rain, okay?” Kristen said, trying her best to give a warm smile, but it was difficult to show a friendly expression.
She leaned over somewhat, casting a shadow over much of the country nearest the door before she slowly raised the bottle over her head and pulled the trigger once as if simply watering a houseplant, a fine mist of water wafted out of the bottle with a hiss as the misty rain fell over much of the country’s farmland nearest to her footprints embedded into the land, barely a sprinkle to Kristen as a few droplets waved back towards her face, feeling cool to the touch against her skin.
The misty water cascaded down onto everything as Kristen could notice a little bit of the water filling up some of her toe prints that she had left there a few months prior. Kristen then crouched down, keeping her knees together to try and remain modest in the view of millions of people, not trying to flash between her legs, bending down towards the camera to see if the flying dot with the flashing light was still there as Kristen pivoted her head around and concentrated her eyes.
Kristen could see the light flash once as she genuinely smiled, thinking she had helped them, that it was a good thing as she excitedly but carefully stood up and left. Quickstepping back to her kitchen table and sat the spray bottle down before she began to write down more of the code flashing in front of the camera. “Too much” Kristen read aloud after a few minutes of scribbling down the blinks, failing to translate for a while before translating them with the help of her laptop. “Oh god… I’m sorry…” Kristen whispered as she folded backwards in her chair and let out a disappointed groan.
“What am I supposed to do!?” Kristen angrily groaned again as she rubbed the sides of her head quickly and frustratingly, messing up her already messy bun. Folding the hood from her hoodie over her head almost in shame and not wishing to be seen. Kristen looked down at the other camera in her office as the same message of ‘help us’ scrolled by the screen on the bottom of the helicopters.
Kristen reaching down and swiping the camera over to Madelyn’s room, needing a break as she saw that Madelyn was safely snug in her crib and sleeping sound, leaving Kristen alone with her thoughts. Kristen shook her head as she stood up, desperate to atone for her actions and for causing the deaths of millions, was finally given a chance to help them and immediately made a mess of it, giving the country too much water, whatever that meant as she walked towards the office door. Kristen desperate to communicate with the cities, thinking that if they were bigger, maybe they could figure out a better way and she could help them.
*** *** ***
Ostrov
The intense hissing from the spray bottle sounded over the country as the massive woman held her arm over everything, her quakes were lessened by her slippers which gave much reprieve to the people who only felt minor quakes shaking their homes and skyscrapers, but the damage of the rainwater was all too real as the mists came down and befell onto much of Ostrov
Under direct orders from the prime minister, the communication aircraft was outfitted with one of the brightest lights and instructed to hover nearest the camera that could have been the size of a small moon that watched over everything. The people of Ostrov were desperate for food and supplies were running short due to the traumatic destruction the giantess woman caused, seeing no other options than to ask for her help as the message seemed to be delivered, everyone on edge, hoping she would interpret the message clearly and carefully, bringing them aid in the form of water, but as the mists came down, people quickly realized her help might have been too heavy handed.
The deluge of water came down like a torrential hurricane, dumping water onto dry lands as mud slides cascaded down from the hills and mountains, ripping apart plains, villages, and small towns like an unforgiving eraser. Thousands of screams were drowned out in an instant as cities flooded and intense currents carried people away with the flood waters. People having no time to react as the tidal wave of brown and muddy water rolled towards their towns, buildings and houses exploding from the sheer force from the speed at which the floods were traveling.
Thousands of people died or drowned under the tumultuous currents as the land slowly absorbed and soaked in the water, but she did succeed in a way. Many of the farmlands were given adequate water as large reservoirs and collection tanks captured the misty rain and rehydrated the land, but it wasn’t worth the death to many people.
The toe prints and footprints that Kristen had left behind also started to fill up with the water that she had sprayed, making a set of small freshwater seas where the water could be harvested and distributed later. That part of Ostrov coming to be called The Goddess Seas with each toe was considered to be luxury lakeside or seaside property depending on which toe, the biggest toe being the hottest property with the richest of the country opting to building expensive vacation homes there while the rest of the country was privileged to use her main footprints as a massive sea for sailing or beaches, but this only came after a few years and would have never been a viable thought during the current panic of cities being drowned outright by such a subtle action of perceived mercy.
*** *** ***
Kristen walked down the hallway and into her office room, staring down the cities across her floor as she was annoyed and frustrated. “I want to help, but I can’t help if I can’t actually talk to you” Kristen whispered, “this, this has gotta be the answer” Kristen said as she pulled out her phone and showed it to them, giving the cities her number, turning on her bluetooth, and setting the phone down next to the closest city at her feet, watching as a few helicopters started to hover over her phone after a few minutes of waiting.
She left her phone there for a few hours, on the ground, surrounded by all of the cities in the office, the phone surface alone could crush entire neighborhoods and districts, but it just sat there on the floor in silence and motionless after the goddess stepped out, leaving the tiny people to try and figure out a better way to talk to her.
Engineers from the main city accompanied by military escorts flew into the base of the phone via helicopters, the phone’s charging port large enough, like a polygonal cave system, as micros crawled around inside the phone, looking for vulnerable components to attach transceivers to, but it was hot inside as many of the engineers tried to exit the phone to find gear that better suited the environment, but it became tight, and it was dark, machinery and electronics surrounding them with jagged and sharp edges that made navigation difficult.
Many of the micros brave enough to enter through the phone’s ports were becoming lost within the device as a result, but they managed to get a viable signal within the phone as the order was given to evacuate the phone and retreat to the helicopters, the crews instructed to get the engineers back to the main city in the middle of the room, but Kristen had forgotten something critical, to turn her phone to silent.
Kristen’s phone started getting text messages from Ginny as the engineers within the phone started to feel the machinery vibrate violently, shaking the engineers into cramped and tight spaced within the hot, dark device, screaming for help as the phone continued to pulse from the multiple text messages, the micros within being vibrated to death as the machinery surrounding them was too heavy, turning their guts and bones into dust almost instantly from the sheer extreme vibration, sonicating them into a bloody mist.
The people across the room in the various cities seeing the news slowly trickle through their preferred outlets as some cities began sharing with each other. The sacrifices that the engineers made inside of the mile wide phone meant that the people had a small glimmer of hope thanks to their deaths, but some were still skeptical. It was all dependent on what the goddess wanted to do and how she would interpret the messages, people immediately fighting over who should have the power to send the message to the giant woman.
Back in the main city, the leaders devised a message to send to Kristen as other representatives argued over what the proper thing to say to her was besides help us, but a militaristic leader of a smaller city near the corner of the room had other motives. So desperate to protect his city from the giantess, he spearheaded the objective of trying to figure out what the best thing to say to her would be on his own, ignoring the rest of the opinions of the collective, but he knew it would take some time to be able to send his own message in secret…
*** *** ***
Kristen came back that same night, barely even looking at the cities, dressed in the same unrevealing outfit and gently picking up the phone before carrying it out of the room, unaware that dead micro bodies occupied the inside of her phone, or at least, the dust of what they once were. Kristen replying to a few messages from friends and her sister before scrolling over to a strange, coded message that appeared. Sitting on her comfy couch in the middle of her living room while Madelyn slept upstairs in her crib. Kristen rubbing her temples over and over again at the message, thinking of what to say after having read the cryptic words.
“We are scared, we want to go home, but we would like you to stay away for now” the message read, Kristen blankly staring at her phone’s screen, unsure of how to reply. Kristen holding her legs tightly against her chest, feeling anxious and afraid, but her phone vibrated once again after a while.
“This is Ostrov, we have managed to find a signal to your phone, thank you for the water, but many are also dead thanks to you, stay away and we will talk” Kristen read as she began to cry and fold into her couch cushions and under her warm blankets, Kristen hoping for nothing more than to just disappear in that moment…