“Hey,” He asked, gently flipping Martz on his back. “Are you okay?”

Though his ears were painfully ringing, every inch of his body was numb. The wind was knocked out of him, his head was spinning and he couldn’t seem to remember what had happened. Wasn’t he in his garage a moment ago? Wasn’t he just packing the car? Wasn’t his wife and kids gathering their belongings?

“Hey! I need some help here!” The man shouted, apparently to no one. Phil opened his eyes and saw a tall, thin man crouching over him. He looked like a cop, though it was hard for him to tell with his vision blurry and spinning. He turned on to his side, suddenly pressing his cheek into a small pool of blood. As his vision came into focus, he saw the debris-littered street that he recognized as the alley behind his house. All down the street, Philip could see half-collapsed garages. They almost seemed as if a giant hand had pushed down on them, crushing them like an accordion.

“Sir, Try to stay still.” He said softly, placing a hand on Martz’s shoulder, trying to keep him still. “We’re getting you help.” With his numbed fingers, Phil traced the pool of blood back to his forehead and cheek. With a groan, Phil sat up and met devastation.

A pile of rubble laid where his garage used to be, covered by its brown roof that had shattered in two. The wreck had to be his garage; his cherry red minivan was peeking out from beneath the ruins. But that was his garage, then…

Philip looked at the damage done to his family’s residence. The 2nd floor was nearly pushed off the first; leaving it at an angle as the upper half of his home hovered haphazardly over his backyard.

“AAAHHHH!!”

Suddenly the air was vibrating with a pain-filled cry that shook deep inside his chest, echoing through the ruined town. Philip looked off into the distant mountains where the sound seemed to come from, only to see a wall of grey and brown smoke reaching into the sky. And the sound… the air felt like it was shimmering around him, the way the atmosphere rumbled with a continuous, unceasing, echoing sound, booming in the distance; the sound of inflexible earth moving, breaking, crushed under the weight and force of an immense being. The sound was there in the background, never-ending. He knew Gisele was somewhere beyond those dense, swirling clouds of hot ash, ready to cause more destruction and chaos, but Philip had bigger problems on his mind.

“Hey,” He said breathlessly to the dust-covered officer, “have you seen my wife?”

“What does she look like?” The man asked. “Hey! I need some help over here!” He shouted towards the house. After several moments, two emergency workers rounded the splintered corner of his poor yellow house. Philip pulled out his wallet, showing the officer a family portrait.

“No, I’m sorry.” The officer said, shaking his head. “Look, these two will take care of you for now.” The officer continued as the workers crouched over him.

“No, officer… I’m… I’m fine.” He said groggily, watching as the male and female technicians lifted Martz to his feet. “Just help me find her.”

“I’ll be searching the houses across the alley.” The officer said to the workers, apparently ignoring him. “Come help me after you drop him off.” The workers nodded and began helping the limping Martz to the front yard, one under each arm, where an ambulance was waiting several houses down.

“OW!” came the familiar crying echoes of Gisele; louder, shorter and more pain-ridden than before, once again overcoming the ever present background of earth breaking beneath her immense body. The mere intensity of this feminine roar caused his bones to practically clatter and the ground to lightly quiver. It certainly startled the technicians, who stumbled weak-kneed from the bellow before straightening up and hastening their pace. Martz too livened up his step as the moan had reminded him that a beautiful, buxom monstrosity was bearing down on them.

A large, panicking crowd had gathered around a red and white ambulance. On the opposite side of the street, a number of people sat on the curb, being poked and prodded by emergency workers; A few of them had splints tied to their limbs, a few others wrapped in bandages turning red and a fine number of them having a little bit of both. And as Philip neared the ambulance, surrounded by a yelling, terrified people, the crowd began to dissipate and flee down the road in a great wave of panic.

“What’s going on?” Philip asked the technicians.

But neither of them answered, instead they thrust him into two strangers in casual wear, both of whom swiftly took him from the emergency technicians, setting him down on the curb as people began to leave in doves despite the pleas of emergency workers. And as the clouds of dust began encroaching over the town, the sense of urgency seemed to spread. And the two strangers abandoned their post, running down the street with the other retreating citizens. But suddenly, a few people, including Martz, took notice as the faint ceaseless rumbling of Gisele distinctly morphed into cracks, then pops and snaps, before an earth-bending boom gently shook the town, followed by a low, pain-filled moan and a sharp, echoing gasp. And through all this chaos, a young EMT, with patches of sweat marring his white uniform, came over and started waving a lit flashlight in his eyes.

“You have a ride out of here, sir?” He asked, rummaging through his kit.

“Yea,” Phil said indifferently, pulling out his picture again, “Have you seen any-”

The EMT interrupted, “Look, I haven’t seen your wife, your son or your dog and we don’t have much time before that… giant-she-woman-thing-Gisele gets here. Try to follow my finger,” the EMT asked, watching intently as Martz did as he was told, “They may have already been evacuated. All I know is that everyone needs to get out of town.” The man opened a red bag, diving both hands to rummage through it.

“All of our emergency vehicles are trying to get as many people out as possible,” He quickly presented Philip with a packaged pill and a half-empty bottle of water. “Don’t worry, we have enough room for everyone. You have a concussion to take care of.” Philip took the pill. Looking back towards the ambulance, he watched as the injured he had saw sitting on the curb earlier were being loaded into the already packed ambulance. A few men in uniforms unloaded an oxygen tank, a defibrillator and a computer onto the cracked pavement behind the ambulance’s open doors.

“And I’m guessing you guys don’t have any room?” Philip asked sarcastically.

“Sorry, but we don’t.” He said, handing him the pill. “But emergency vehicles that do have room are making their way around the neighborhoods. But just head towards the main road, if there’s transportation available, it should be there, or be passing by there.” The EMT reached into his bag and pulled out a couple of gauss bandages.