Giantess World
Author's Chapter Notes:
A little introduction to a very strange predicament
Brendan knew immediately when he woke up, that the alarm clock hadnt rung yet. Although he was keeping his eyes closed , the comfortable darkness around was telling him the night wasnt over. This was good news, as he was unfortunately not the type of person who usually looked forward to a new day in the office. But it was annoying too, as he could feel the pleasant dreamscape recede away quickly from his mind, and he was getting more aware by the second. Fighting the awakening, he tried to snug up a little more in the sheet. But only to sense then, his hand vaguely groping around, that the bed cover was no longer there. Sylvia had again tucked it away from him in her sleep. Turning on his back with a sigh, he drowsily reached out to his left. Still no cover, but oddly enough he could not feel his wife at his side. His hand had only reached an empty space. Brendan opened his eyes. The darkness was total. His feet werent covered either. The familiar smell of the bed and the natural heat from his wife was strong in the air, yet something wasnt quite right. The space on his left was the bed all right, but somehow it felt larger and emptier. And where the hell was his pillow?
He sat up groggily. Behind him, where the pillow and bed-case should have been, his hand encountered nothing but more space. Even the sheet he was lying on was now strange to the touch. Although soft and pliant, the bed-sheet felt more like a criss-cross of heavy yet soft cables than the smooth surface of regular linen. His legs shifted to the right in the natural effort to reach the side and sit down, but instead of the sudden drop, his feet shuffled on the uneven horizontal surface of more bed. Suddenly Brendan Falks was wide awake, his heart bumping hard in his chest. What the ?
Was he still dreaming? None of the usual and familiar clues were showing , in his now disquieted groping. In the dark, he worryingly searched on all four for the side of his bed. He only moved two or three meters in that direction, before stopping. Wait a minute, wait a minute He backtracked toward the side where his wife should be sleeping. Nothing but the rough horizontal plain. A cold shiver ran through his spine.
Sylvia? his whisper was hoarse and unsettled. No answer came, not even an annoyed grunt. Sylvia! This time he roared her name, definitely aware something terribly wrong was occurring. His shout seemed to travel away from him through the hot air to and getting lost in the distance. Brendan Falks got the distinct feeling the bedroom itself was no longer there. He stood up in a hurry. Under his feet the ground did not give way at all, like any decent mattress should, and the now very frightened man stood uneasily in the dark.
Where was he? It had to be a dream, of course, but it felt so real, so uncannily real. Wherever he was, there was no way around it, he was no longer in his bed. Had he sleepwalked to another room? But then what was this ground he stood on? The heat and feel of the air on his naked body still totally matched the regular sensation of his bedroom. And yet it wasnt, was it? Brendan knew for sure this wasnt another room in his house. Hey!!!! The sound again seemed to travel away, bearing none of the usual reverberation and closeness associated to a closed space. No reply. Sylvia!!! Hey!!!!!
In his confusion, Brendan had turned round and round , looking for clues in the darkness. Now he was totally at loss to know where Sylvia should have been in the first place and where the edge of the bed should have started. An irrepressible shaking ran through his body. Wake up, for Christ sake. Wake up. Stupid nightmare Tentatively, he moved forward, a step or two , still somehow expecting to fall from the bed. This was ridiculous. No one gets lost in his bed the way he was. He walked two more steps, and then two more. His ears were ringing from the hard drumming of his heartbeats. And then two more steps Two more
Wherever he was, this was larger already than the length of his bedroom. He should have met a wall already, or some furniture. The heat was oppressive now, and Brendan felt the air around like squeeze him like a blanket. This was silly. Obviously it was one of those dreams that start with a false awakening, leading you deeper and deeper in self-delusion. Thinking this was nearly a relief in itself. But it did not alleviate much of his current fear. From his experience, these dreams tended to be unpleasant to say the least, and he was awaiting with dread the scary punch-line. Heaving, he tried to concentrate on willing it to stop, or at least summon up some light. But it was no good: his sense of smell was saturated with the flagrance of Sylvias body, with the musky odour of the bed he was probably lying in just now. Yet none of these clues were creating a breach in the solid feeling of reality he was experiencing.
Utterly at a loss, he started to walk, his mind contemplating silly notions, such as alien abduction, government experiments, and maybe intense sensory input through catastrophic coma state. None of this made sense. The dream hypothesis seemed reasonable. Brendan sure hoped it was the case. He bumped into a slope. That was odd now. The strange ground underneath was undeniably rising now. So much for being in a bed, he thought. He tested the solidity of the invisible criss-cross of cables under his feet and started to climb. Shortly after, he reached the summit of the slope. It had been no more than 6 or 7 meters high, after all. And then it descended again into darkness. A few more meters and he was back on horizontal ground. Apparently this had only been some sort of ridge on the strange plain. A minute later, another ridge showed up. About the same height. Brendan kept walking. No wind caressed his naked body, the air as still as a tombs.
The rumbling sound took him by surprise, stopping him in his track. The sound was deep and came from far away. The image of some earthquake crossed his mind. It had been some sort of grumbling, thundering noise. The sort of noise an avalanche could have made? Whatever it was, it seemed coherent with a large cause, with a crumbling landscape, or a tower falling down in the distance. Brendan strained his ears now. The sound had stopped abruptly. Yet something else was lingering in the air. A vibration. Somewhere something was now clearly emitting a regular and slow vibration, and Brendan could almost hear something, like a giant and distant and rhythmic roar. It almost sounded like wind. A muffled hurricane travelling through a deep valley. Jesus, what was this place?
There was a rational explanation to this. Obviously there must be. Brendan, a mechanical engineer by profession, was not the sort of person to immediately start thinking about supernatural events. He had a rational and systematic mind, he was no dreamer. The last thing Brendan could remember was kissing his wife goodnight. They had made love last night and the very memory of the beautiful moment still had the momentum to bring his senses to attention. Sylvia had snuggled for a few minutes in his arms, while their sweaty bodies cooled down between the sheets. She had told him of her appointment the next morning, something about beauty parlour he thought, and she had even seemed ready to start one her usual late night talks. But he had to leave for the airport early in the morning and he had silenced her with a finger on her lips, and kissed her. All he wanted was sleep. He had smiled to her as he reached out for the lamp, and the last thing he had seen was Sylvia, nodding her understanding, and smiling back. Then all had gone black. He had held her some time longer, before drifting into dreams.
Now he was walking on a dark plain, listening to the giant rhythm of some unknown phenomenon. He wondered he if wasnt near some seashore, and if the sound wasnt a nearby ocean. It seemed powerful enough.
The ground was definitely not even. Brendan walked into many ridges, none of them very high, but steep enough to make him pant after a few minutes. There was no stars above, and he had the eerie feeling this was not an open space. What puzzled him most was the fact that he could sense somehow the familiar surrounding of his bedroom. There was something definitely human in the strong odour in the air. Only the length of his walk could convince him he wasnt in his bed any more. Yet somehow, it felt as if he still was. Brendan Falks took this as a good omen he was now going to wake up any moment now, to be greeted by Sylvias smile and comforting body against his. But he kept walking on, as there seemed to be nothing better to do for now. If this was indeed a dream, it wasnt particularly eventful. His ears had become attuned to the shore-like noise, now. It did not seem threatening.
Something huge moved in the distance.
Brendan could not see it, but it was clear to him that a part of the unseen landscape was in motion. The ground shook, dropping suddenly under his feet before coming back to its normal level a second later. Tremors travelled under his feet, as if the ground had turned alive and treacherous. The sound was strange and terribly loud. Even if nothing mineral was cracking or exploding, it sounded as if a mountain was rubbing against the ground. And Brendans mind had immediately conjured up this image of a building shifting its base. Whatever it was, there was no doubting something extremely massive had shaken the night around him during those few seconds. On all fours, the terrified man held his breath in wait of some imminent and catastrophic shock.
Somewhere in front of him the landscape had settled again. Yet to Brendan it was obvious a large weight had dragged the landscape slightly deeper than it was before. And terrifyingly enough, he was convinced that whatever had shifted in the darkness had come closer. The distant rhythmical sound had resumed now and apart from that vibration all was still again. What was he supposed to do in this crazy nightmare? His instincts told him to move away, as fast as he could from the unseen movement, and he found himself backing up slowly already, his hands extended in self-defence. But another part of him was urging him to carry on in his original direction. Behind him was nothing but empty space and darkness. If this was indeed a dream, was there even a point to being scared? Wasnt it better to create the crisis? It took a minute before he dared to resume his walking. He had summoned enough courage to face the unseen mystery and was now heading toward the location of the massive commotion. Whatever it was that had moved was perhaps holding clues to his predicament.
The wall he bumped into was cold and metallic. He couldnt repress a yelp of surprise. Tentatively reaching out, he shuddered as his hand touched a smooth surface. It was undeniably some metallic structure, with a definite roundness to it. He posed his hand on it and started to feel for a contour. A few steps farther and he was certain the wall was not straight at all but curved in a regular angle. He followed it. Judging by the shift in direction of the deep rhythmic noise ahead, Brendan acquired the feeling the structure he was touching was in fact a large circle. Could it be the base of some tower? After a while he was indeed sure he had accomplished a full circle. Nothing on the smooth surface had betrayed the slightest opening or artefact. The object was perfectly round, and even its outer wall denoted a vertically curved surface. Brendan had the feeling the wall was not very tall at in fact. Was it some sort of enclosure? But then where was the entrance?
After a few moments of fruitless puzzlement, Brendan Falks resumed his walk forward in the dark, in the direction of the recent upheaval, his feet silently setting on the cables beneath.
The heat around seemed to steadily increase and the air was heavy now with a strong smell. The flagrance was not altogether unpleasant. In fact, there was something soothing and familiar about it. Brendan could not quite place it, but it was reminiscent of human sweat, and even a tinge of perfume seemed to linger in the air. Brendan could not help and think of Sylvia now. Where was she? Was she also lost in this night? It felt as if her presence was still at the edge of his senses, in this combination of heat, smell and darkness. He shouted her name again, but no reply came back, but the deep rhythmic sound, the source of which was now much closer, he felt.
As he progressed slowly, the ground started to shake again, moderately this time, but it was clear some motion was still taking place ahead albeit at a much slower speed. It was no longer the catastrophic event of the last few minutes but the sheer power of the movement was nevertheless clearly perceptible. A slow and powerful mass was shifting. Brendan gulped hard and in spite of his apprehension, kept walking.
Somewhere on his left, a deep rustling noise exploded brutally. This time Brendan stopped in his track. It was coming from high above and he had the feeling the sky itself had moved. As if to confirm this feeling, a gust of wind blew violently across the plain, as if to confirm a vast sudden displacement had taken place. Much cooler air seemed to penetrate the atmosphere. The travelling breeze did not carry the musty and confined smell of his surroundings. Indeed it seemed fresher than the stale and warm air he had been breathing since he awoke.
Could he be inside something then? The fleeting gust of wind had seemed to convey the possibility of an exterior. Brendan peered upward but the darkness did not show any faults. An overwhelming feeling of oppression was now creeping on him, adding to his unease. Although he could not be sure, he felt now that a ceiling existed somewhere above. But how could this be? It would have to a huge warehouse of sorts to accommodate the length he had already walked.
Think, Brendan, think! the air around had already returned to the stifling stillness of the early moments. The heat and smell had already recovered their previous level. Yet the wind had come from somewhere different. Brendan started to slant his walk towards his left now, in the direction where the breeze had come from. Anything new was bound to be better than this silent and hot plain.
The ground seemed to be taking a definite slant. The ridges, which had been pretty random in their tortuous orientations so far, had somehow aligned to point towards a single direction. Whatever was emitting the heat around him was surely not far, as Brendans body was now covered in a sheet of sweat. He could only surmise the source was getting closer. He had progressed but a few steps in the descending slope when he slipped and slid the ever-slanting ground. His feet hit a wall again. As he tried to stand up he realized the wall was continuing over his head, and he had nearly wedged himself in the sudden depression. He touched it,at face level. It was soft and warm against his palm and Brendan jumped back in surprise and fear. He had had the horrible feeling that whatever he had just touched was alive. His heart beating hard in his chest, he waited a few seconds, his body suddenly tensed in a fighting pose, and expecting the unseen animal to react. He knew well enough his back was already against the steep slope behind him. Nothing happened. It took all his courage to dare and step forward again. The warm mass was still there, unmoving. Brendans mind was in a frenzy of doubt and fear as his hand rested on the warm surface. It definitely felt alive, as if he was touching the flank of some very large beast. Skin. It felt like skin. A wall of it. Brendan stood in the dark in utter amazement.