Indignation. That was all that persisted between the pair of men and their storyteller. Brief flashes of scrutiny and lapses of concentration dragged Paez’s attentions across the sullen checkpoint. Wilson seemed wearily uninterested, but just beneath his stern expression he wallowed in conflicted thought. Wes didn’t know how to respond to their curious temperaments. After an exchange of glances, Wes decided it was best to stop his tale. He simply looked away to the fading red sky and sighed. Wilson grumbled and Paez likewise looked away, feigning disinterest.

“Well, you know...it sounds weird but I’m telling the truth….”

The other two men said nothing at first. Wilson gave a half nod, as if to hint at some kind of approving belief, but Paez just bit his lip and began digging in his pack. Shortly thereafter he produced a flask. After drinking from it, Paez passed it along to his older compatriot who likewise partook.

“Nevermind, it's stupid...I won-”

“Now hold on just a second there!” WIlson suddenly interjected. “You can’t get on with all this, knowing what we know, and then not tell us the rest. Don’t mind him” he continued motioning to Paez who looked back with a defensive glare. “Just get on with it, I wanna know. I heard she was a bit on the kinky side of it anyhow…”

‘It's not even that!” Wes suddenly countered. “She just never thought about that sorta stuff the same way we do. She didn’t treat it as a sexual gesture, it was just what was most convenient for her. Or at least, that’s how she put it…”

The others gave no reply, they just stared at him with tightly clenched lips. Wes couldn’t gauge their thoughts to any degree. In response, Wes’ face drooped, but he carried on with his tale anyway.

Well, I guess I won’t go into too much detail about the journey. To be honest I can’t really recall that much about it. It was dark, chaotic, and hot as hell. I mean, aside from all that I can’t complain that much. I was thrown around a good bit, and her...errr flesh, slammed against me so much that I started to lose consciousness at one point. Though I couldn’t see I could tell we were going insanely fast. It it wasn’t for the...support, I would have probably blacked out from the speed alone. At one point I closed my eyes, hoping to wake up from the nightmare, but nothing ever came of it. Even when I regained some sense of calm after half an hour or so I would be suddenly jostled in some random direction, slamming into well...yeah…

Eventually, she slowed down. Or it felt like she slowed down. I can’t really say with any certainty what exactly happened. I could hardly tell which way was up, down, left, or right. The later afternoon light caught my eye and I was able to crawl my way back to the surface. I didn’t have much to propel myself from so I only barely got a breath of fresh air. I saw the vast expanse of her neck and head hanging over me, flanked on both sides by cascades of chestnut hair. I….sorry...I lost myself there. It's even mind boggling just to remember it all.

Anyway, I remember just sort of sitting there, staring up at this endless titaness thinking: ‘damn, I’m either the luckiest or unluckiest son of a bitch on the goddamn planet’. I must have been propped up for another ten minutes before she finally looked down. She caught me staring and gave me a weak smile. Then her lips parted as if she was going to say something but nothing followed. With her attention back on me I felt uncomfortable again and wanted to retreat back into the darkness but I knew that it wasn’t really safe there. I turned away and she finally touched back down on the ground. The slight shockwave sent me reeling and I lost my footing, tumbling back down into shadow, ricocheting off of each breast in turn. Before I could recollect myself I felt something tug on my arm and I was yanked upward. A tremendous pressure, the likes of which I had never felt before, crushed down on my radius and ulna. In that moment I was certain the entire limb had been reduced to nothing but jelly. I cried out in pain, and the bright ambient light of the sun blinded me as I was removed from my ample prison.

A few seconds went by as I blinked through the disorienting haze. Again, i felt like I was about to expel the contents of my stomach but there was nothing there to vomit. I eventually saw those two silver discs again boring into my very heart. The length of her face extend far above and below me, sending my sense of safety over the proverbial edge once more. It was hard to judge her expression being so close, I was more enamored with the perfection of her skin. Like I said, it was as pristine as well...damn I can’t even think of a good benchmark with which to compare it. Oh well, it doesn’t matter, because immediately after my eyes readjusted she dropped me, just like that. I was only in the air for a few seconds but it felt like I fell hundreds of feet, despite the fact that it was really more like ten or so. I landed hard on the surface of her palm, which made all my senses ring from hyperstimulation.

“You alright then mortal?”
My heart and lungs moved faster than my mind. I wanted to say so many things, ask why she had taken me, and who or what she was, but all I could do was lay there and pant wildly. Eventually she grew tired of waiting for my response and gave her hand a slight bob, rocking me from my exhausted stupor. When I snapped back up I saw that she looked annoyed.

“Why do you ignore me little one?”

“I-I don’t know” I replied squeamishly. I expected some kind of fierce retribution but she did nothing except stare at me.

“Did I harm you?”

“No, not...not exactly”

“Then you are hurt?” she asked with a voice laden with concern. Those piercing eyes of her softened as she began searching my comparatively tiny body for injury.

“No, just...I’m very o-o-overwhelmed…” I managed to stammer back. Then there was confusion. She clearly wasn’t used to casual english. I might’ve guessed based of the slight accent she had. It wasn’t like any I knew.

“You are...frightened?” she asked. Could she honestly not tell? It seemed not. Her ignorance on the matter made me feel a lot better for some reason. It was fleeting though, as I soon realized that, although she didn’t seem to wish me dead, she clearly wasn’t used to dealing with people of my size.

“Yeah” I countered rather boldly.

“I suppose it has been quite a while since your kind has seen me or one of my sisters. Just as it has been quite a while since I have held a mortal in or on my person. Tell me are there truly none of your people living that remembers my kin?”

“I-” no words followed. Everything I had ever learned seemed challenged by her question and existence. I went, year by year, thinking back to what she could possibly mean. I thought about old B-movies, comics, history, and more than anything, mythology. Could she be one of those legendary beings from fairy tales I heard so much about. But she could fly? What the hell was going on? “I don’t think so…” I finally replied.

She was greatly troubled by this, but did not seem surprised. She then bit her lower lip and and looked away. I watched as her eyelids fluttered carelessly in consideration.

“Such is the frailty of your species. Tell me, how many years has it been since our great war?” Instinctively her eyes flashed back to me and I looked away. I would not dare peer into her pupils when so much confusion clogged my head.

“What? Wha- what war?”

That’s when she really got upended. Her face moved from disbelief to anger to some measure of somberness before she at last returned her gaze to me. Each breath was more deliberate than the last and I felt as though some great rage was about to be released.

“How can this be? When so many of your kind was- Nevermind. Clearly things are different now, the world is not at all as we left it.”

“What is going on!” I finally cried out.

“Little one, I will explain everything, but know that I too am puzzled by our current affairs. I have been asleep for far too long and everything here is now alien to me.”

Nothing was making any sense. My body ached and my head still spun. While I was once muted by terror and the oncoming specter of madness I now wished to expel every thought, word, and sentence jumbling around in my brain. At first I just let out a frightened whimper to which she responded with:

“What was that now?”

“I just, I don’t know, I’m so lost. Where even are we?” at that I tore my attentions away from her looming face and swept my gaze out at my surroundings. The land was fairly mountainous, with rolling forested hills and dark green dells beneath a blazing orange sky. Though I saw some distant clearings and developed lands it looked far less populated than the Baltimore city limits.

           “If you wish to know the name of this place I cannot tell you, as I do not yet know myself. Thus far it is but the most desolate location I can find. Your people have spread over this earth like water.”

        Though her words brought me discomfort I could not tear my eyes away from the wide expanse of rural land. I could see for miles, and somehow even the beveled mountains seemed dwarfed by my captress. By that point I suppose I realized that my situation was hopeless and that my life was quite literally in the hands of another. My shaking knees finally gave out and I collapsed onto her palm. Whilst staring at the sky and I saw the long visage of her head eclipse the fading blue and white hanging over me. I saw her befuddled eyes move over me whilst I lay prone. She looked all the more human upside down, I don’t know why, almost like a familiar face coming back to haunt me.

        “Are you ill?”

        “I think so…”

        “What is wrong?”

        “I just…I don’t know. This is all so…”

        She waited. I waited. Nothing. Eventually she tilted her hand towards her such that I began sliding down the length of her palm. I began to panic and quickly stopped my descent by sticking out both my arms. Her palm leveled back out and she spoke.

        “I understand this must be unsettling for you, but I did not realize how lost you all have become.”

        “Lost?”

        “Yes, lost. Either so much time has passed that we have truly become forgotten, or your kind made a very strong effort to forget us, maybe both.”

        “I don’t like where this is going….”

        “Nor I…” her last few worlds trailed off like receding thunder. She looked away for a moment and began taking a few careful steps through the forest, flattening dozens of trees of with each footfall. She came to a small rounded mountain. Or at least, as close to what you would call a mountain without it just being a hill. With her other hand she knelt down and brushed away tremendous boulders and pines, upsetting the nature to suit her own whims. That was perhaps even more upsetting than her careless destruction back in the city. She turned about and took a seat before turning back to me.

        “What d-d-do you w-want?” I asked after another long drag of strenuous eye contact. Having launched into another fit of stuttering I began to lose control of my limbs once again. Was it shock? Probably but I don’t know for certain. My gigantic companion took pity on my shattering emotions and moved her hand back a bit, probably so I wouldn’t feel so claustrophobic.

        “I want to warn everyone, I want your help, but most of I think you are one of the promised ones…”

        “Promised? Promised for what? And what warning?”

        “To warn you all that my sisters are coming…”

        Of course I had no idea what she meant by all of this and I had a feeling she wouldn’t be clearing it up any time soon. She must have noticed by blank expression because immediately afterward she rolled her eyes and went on to explain…

        “Maybe I should start very generally then.” she lamented “My name is Raia, I am one of the eldest of the old daughters. First to reawaken”

        “Rye-ah?” I repeated rather poorly. She stifled a smile and responded.

        “It is short for Raianiel, but that doesn’t matter. Just listen little one…”

        I tried to make myself look interested, though I probably overdid it just a tad. I never was a very good actor, but she seemed pleased by the attempt. After straightening myself out in the center of her palm I stared up with uncertain focus.

        “You see, a long time ago, there were eighty-four of us…our parents were…well I don’t know much about them, by the time I grew up they had disappeared. But there were forty two brothers and forty-two sisters. Our parents’ first born, the twins Dianus and Gadaral, ruled over us for a time. Dianus ruled my sisters and I, and Gadaral controlled our brothers. We had nearly free reign over the earth as nothing matched us in might or longevity.” She paused and looked back out toward the skyline, the last of the sun’s retreating light still casting out from the mountain crests. Clearly the memory of all those years, however long it was, still sat heavily upon her.

        After a sigh she continued, “In time though, our wicked brothers began to subjugate everything else on the planet. They tried to bend the will of nature with their unnatural malice and even their own blood, my sisters, fell victim to their treachery. Finally, Dianus called us together, all forty-two of us, and we plotted to murder our brothers and steal their power. So we did, I won’t go into detail about that but it made us…different. We became larger. Larger than they ever had been, among other things. But in time, I realized that we were not fighting for freedom or peace, but control. Dianus only wanted control of the world for herself and soon my sisters and I fell to preying upon lesser creatures for our entertainment. Humans were our main target as you were so small and so numerous.”

At this I nearly fainted. The lower portion of my spine gave out and I fell backwards onto her hand. t lay prone for but a second before I planted both hands and propped myself back up on my elbows. I could hardly count the rapid breaths I took as I stared back up at her. She tried to appear consoling, but I was yet unconvinced.

“Do not be so troubled mortal. After a few years I came upon a town that was ravaged by two of my younger sisters. I saw how cruel they were to your ancestors and decided to drive them out. Though I was outnumbered I managed to overcome them and the people were very thankful. While I had once been a terror in their eyes I immediately became a hero, and I liked it. Their leader, a wise, aged man, came and we spoke. I swore a pact with him that I would defend your kind and bring some kind of balance to the world. I won’t confuse you further with much else, as I am sure this is still troubling. To keep it brief...there was a tragedy of sorts. Great storms came, lightning from the heavens, it killed seven of my sisters before we finally decided to do something about it.”

It was then I saw true anguish in her face. Those silver eyes that once had such piercing gaze now swelled with hot tears fueled by hurtful memories. My fear subsided for but a moment and I felt pity.

“Sorry, I just…” she inhaled deeply, trying not to show such compromising emotions. “It's hard, to lose one’s you care about...no matter who they are or what they’ve done. Anyway, we decided to lay low. Sleep in hidden tombs until the storms subsided. It was only supposed to be a few years but...I...I had to do something. Its hard to just…” the last rays of light retreated behind the mountains and we were at last in a pale darkness. The shadows of her looming features mutated into gaunt lines of a supernatural presence. She seemed all the more godlike, all the more terrifying, but her words were especially calming. I shouldn’t even bother trying to describe it, you wouldn’t understand.

“No, no...that all can wait for another time. I should not overwhelm you any further anyhow, you must be very troubled.”

She was right. How do you go from a totally normal life to being swept up by some gigantic woman who claims to be...what, centuries old? You wouldn’t know it, she didn’t look a day over thirty, perhaps younger.

“Come, I must rest, and tomorrow I will answer some of your questions. Surely you would like to think on what I have revealed to you some more before the morning hours. Let me find a spot.”

At that she began to scan the ground around her. Both metallic eyes swept over the darkened earth in search of an appropriate clearing. Eventually, Raia shrugged and positioned herself at the foothills of the mountain. She swept away some of the trees with her mighty hand and began to lay down, all the while keeping me aloft on her palm. The earth rocked and quaked with every movement, no doubt causing panic in the nearby towns. Once satisfied she lowered me to her level and rolled onto her back.

“I should place you back against my heart for security, but you may move about my chest as you please. See that you do not hurt yourself. I feel that you will be important for my mission…”