Jessica was still asleep when two grey  F-35s flew over her house, turning sharply as they circled the perimeter of house. The loud roar of their engines was dampened by the walls and half a mile of altitude above the target.

 All the while she snoozed, gripping her blanket a little tighter as she dreamt of a more normal life, unaware of the two metallic demons flying high above.

 “ This doesn’t make sense, isn’t she supposed to be a gentle giant? “ Lieutenant Wilson said over the comms to the man in the other plane, his colleague Captain Rhodes, a man of African American descent fond of keeping a bushy mustache while his Caucasian counterpart preferred a more clean shaven look.

 “  I believe so but the reports don’t lie, she nearly killed a man on the island. They found him with  blood all over him. Said it was a sign of aggression and its incurable too,” He replied as he they completed another circle, looking for a trace of Jessica.

“Okay, confirm that target is indoors.Ready to engage on 3.”

“On 3,” Wilson repeated.

The first missiles hit the house dead centre , caving in the roof and showering Jessica with plaster and concrete, waking her to the sight of most of the roof gone. It was a massive hole , as big as she was tall.

“What the hell?”  She practically jumped out of bed,peering out into the hole, now doubling as a skylight.

  She could see the cracks in the wall and the smell of burnt concrete, the edges of the hole charred by the blasts.

 “ Okay, this isn’t natural,” Jessica ran from the hole, whatever was there would return soon. Her mind shifted through several gears from sleepyhead to wide awake, her life was in danger and while she knew she could take a hit , planes were a whole new ballgame.

  The only option was to run and there was only one way out. Jessica flung open the front door and stepped out. It might have been better to just burst through the wall but Jessica liked her house as it was.

  Unfortunately, both pilots  knew that. The second blasts hit her as soon as she cleared the house. Two short range missiles hitting square in the chest; Jessica didn’t even have time to scream as she was flung through a wall, creating a hole in it while she lay there.

“Uuuhhh…..” She pushed off the ground. Her knees were wobbly as she adjusted, mind fill with the thought that she could actually die today. She grasped her chest, feeling a few broken ribs but thankfully, none of it had pierced her lungs.

 Looking down, her shirt was charred but her skin had survived the heat; but not the impact as her ribs would attest. Now only her bra was hanging out, all red and no frills.

 “Come on Jessica, what do we tell death? Not today,” She stumbled as said a line her father often used, waiting for the next wave while her body healed. She turned her gaze up at the sky, hoping to spot them. She did, thanks to her eyes being fully adjusted to the morning light.  Two pale dots but more importantly, they left a contrail behind them.

“What did I do to you guys! Is it over Jack?!” She roared. If it was Jack, he’d be hearing from her soon.

 *****

 “Come on Jack, time to go,” The guard said as he rapped on the door.

Jack sat up, his arm still hurting but the thought of leaving this god forsaken room was enough to get him off the mattress. His shirt lay in a corner, he had taken it off to cool himself in the poorly ventilated room.

He soon realised it was easier to get out of a shirt with one than to put it back on.

“Give me a minute!” He grasped the shirt with his slinged arm while trying to fit it over.

“Hurry up Jack!” The voice grew more impatient as he knocked on the door.

 “ You could come in here and give me a hand, its not easy putting on a shirt with only one arm. You should try it some time!” Jack grunted as he struggled, pulling it over his good arm but sending it through the neck hole.

Trying again, he managed to get it through the right hole this time but it wasn’t fast enough.

 “ Ok, come on Jack!” The guard  was practically banging on the door now.

“Where are we going?” Jack asked as he slotted his slinged arm through the hole, relieved he got that out of the way.

 ******

 “Come on, where are you! “ Jessica ran down to the beach as she followed the route they chose. Right now, she could only see one of them and she was sure the tiny little bastard in the cockpit could see her too.

  “ I’m not afraid of you, I’m too big to fall!” Jessica beat her chest proudly before wincing, she’d forgotten about those ribs. Even her body couldn’t mend them that fast.

 ‘Where’s your friend huh? Your wimpy little-” She was thrown into the water by a blast to the back, throwing up pool sized quantities of seawater into the air. Jessica pushed herself up, the blow to the back hurting more than she imagined.

 “ Cowards, hitting a girl in the back,” she cursed as she stood up. Wading back to the shore, she counted her blessings for being so big, a smaller person would have died from that hit. She also noted that a smaller person wouldn’t even be in this situation.

 “ You wanna throw things right?” Jessica reached for the nearest coconut tree and yanked the knee high tree out, its roots shredded as she uprooted it.

 She then pulled out its long thin spindly leave until it was nothing but trunk and root. She turned slowly as she watched for the plane, gripping the tree when she spotted it, flying low. She smiled at the pilot’s hubris before throwing it like a javelin.

 “What the-” Rhodes exclaimed, pulling up quickly but luckily for him, it flew too low.

  “Didn’t expect that from her,” He panted , thanking his lucky stars for her poor aim.

“Well climb higher, she can see us,” Lieutenant Wilson said as a another tree missed him. He had to admit it, the girl was resourceful, coconut trees as javelins was something he’d never seen in his life until now.

  “That’s right, retreat in your little tin birds!” Jessica threw another tree at them, it missed but it seemed to be getting them to back off.

 Back in their planes, Wilson was getting worried. Their plan did not account for Jessica having ammunition, it was a simple bomb drop and that would be it.

 “What now? We’ll run out of missiles before we even kill her!”

  “ Hold on,” Rhodes said as he dived towards Jessica, he had a plan that was crazy but it could work.

 Jessica didn’t expect to see the plane diving towards her but prepared herself for its approach with another tree, there were plenty of them lining the coast.

It flew low enough for Jessica to make out the little dents on the wing and even look inside the cockpit and straight at the pilot, confidence coursing through her veins. They couldn’t hurt her and as it came close enough, she raised her arm over head, aimed and calmly hurled the tree.

  Rhodes had expected that and quickly turned on his side, allowing the projectile to fly past him where it then severed several other palm trees before embedding itself in the ground. Adjusting the plane to its standard horizontal approach, he then fired two of his missiles at Jessica.  She gasped, pupils dilating as she saw the missiles heading for her. Before she could move, both slammed into her chest and threw her back.

 *******

The guard flung open the door just as Jack finished putting on his shirt, aggrieved by how long Jack had taken.

 “What did I say about hurrying!” He hauled him up another guard came to assist.

“Where are we going?” Jack got on to his feet to avoid being dragged along.

 Neither guard responded as they walked Jack down a long empty hallway. Jack began to worry, this sort of thing never ended well in movies. If he was the hero he expected them to attack him.

 They finally stopped when they reached a loading bay where several trucks were parked, one of them had the engine running. Jack guessed it was the one Michael standing behind.

“Alright Jack, on your knees.”

“Wh-aaah!” Jack fell to his knees as one of the two nameless and stocky guards kneed him in the back of his knee.

 “Sorry mate,”He offered an apologetic look but Jack doubted his sincerity.

 “But we can’t let you go home, you know too much,” He looked down at Jack, the same look on his rugged face.

 “ I- I don’t, I know nothing except you’re Aussie,” Jack felt the hope draining away. His worst fears were confirmed, this was going down exactly like it did in the movies.

 Michael shook his head while the two guards stood there , eyes on Jack.

“ You know about Jessica and that is too much already. Now I am allowed to tell you where you’re going: Rockford Camp. More secure location and definitely less dusty,” He chuckled to himself.

 “Now-”

Jack stood up and headbutted Michael in the stomach, sending him to the ground and knocking the wind out of him.

  Emboldened by this, he turned his attention to the guards but they were faster than him , the closer of the two delivering a punch to his face and knocking him off his feet.

 “ Damn it , I had hoped you would come quietly but you had to choose the noisy way,” He stood over Jack, disappointed at what the latter did.

 “Lights out Jacky,” He delivered a punch on to his face, knocking Jack out cold.

*****

Jessica ran, blood all over her chest. She should be dead by now but whatever had happened to her was keeping her alive. Her spunk when dealing with the planes was gone, she had never felt so close to death since her brush with cancer.

 She headed to the place she hated most: the jungle. It was cramped but the canopy offered her a good hiding spot until they left. If they decided to give up but she didn’t know if that was even an option.

 She flung her arm out, pulverizing trees in her panicked state as she tried to hide but she could hear the jets closing on her, encouraged by her flight.

 As she tried to turn, she heard the sound of gunfire as bullets pelted her back, burying themselves under her skin as she cried out in pain, like being stabbed by hundreds of hundreds of needles.

  It was a sign, she thought to herself of how the tides had shifted. To be so low as to hit her in the back, those planes were practically hovering off the ground if they could shoot her in the back.

  She stumbled, pushing past a very unlucky piece of jungle flora before stopping in a clearing. She was starting to slow and her brain had made a very fatal mistake.

 Bullets were small enough to pass between the trees but a missile? That needed more room. She just gave him that.

“Oh shi-” Rhodes and Wilson emptied their rounds into her, bullets hitting from front and back, the latter firing from the front.

 She fell over, too weak to get up. In a last bid to stop them, Jessica weakly held up her hand, soaked in her own blood.

 “Should we let her go?” Wilson could see the pain and anguish on her face, tears were starting to mix with the blood on her face; she was becoming more human in his eyes with each second that passed.

 “Can’t, you know it and I know it. We got to make sure she is down or Zoltan will have our asses. Son you knew this when you signed up for the job. Jessica Chen is a potential threat to our nation and we just got the order to neutralise the threat,” Rhodes moved his thumb over the trigger button, ready to finish her off.

“ You’re right, I was weak.”

Wilson started first, firing his last two missiles into Jessica, then Rhodes fired one of his, saving the last one for something else. All three hit their targets and exploded in a ball of fire, Jessica barely had time to react. There was no scream, she didn’t have the energy for that.

 As the last hit, her raised hand went limp and fell by her side, her body bloodied and broken, eyes open and staring up into the heavens where her soul would go.

 Convinced she was dead, Wilson and Rhodes flew off, leaving only a broken giantess behind.

They should have stayed for something rather unusual happened, something no one expected. While she was on the brink of death, Jessica’s own body kicked into overdrive, repairing itself before Death could take her. From within, broken bones began to heal, damaged organs began to heal ,even her heart had been fixed. Punctured lungs made good as new, livers given a new lease of life, everything was mended

Next was her skin, burnt to a crisp from where the missiles had struck her, charred skin began to flake off, leaving on the red flesh exposed to the world. That too soon got a new covering of epidermis, no blotches or scars to give away the damage done to it.

Then finally, it brought out its final and biggest improvement. Her clothes began to tear, what was left of her top was shredded by her own body as it grew, her pert bottom tearing through her shorts like a snake shedding its now too small skin. Her arms and legs lengthened, pushing out in all directions as the spilled out of the crater she was in.

 All that was left of her clothes were her bra and panties, already red before the attack. Both strained against her expanding body before it decided she was big enough and stopped. Under the morning sun and eerie silence of the island, Jessica Chen lay there, good as new but unaware of her new body.