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I grip the corner of a stone building as I swing around it, keeping me from colliding with an inert light pole.  Quickly I swing one leg over the other and speed across the cracked sidewalk, catching my reflection in the dark storefront windows.  Beads of sweat run down the side of my face, and I thank circumstances that I was wearing comfortable shoes instead of the more fashionable ones I would usually have on while downtown.  Momentarily I fumble with my jacket, sliding it down my arms before crumpling it into a ball and tossing it into an empty newspaper stand.

 

The downtown area is completely devoid of people aside from me.  Even in the dead of night I would expect to see people on the sidewalks or driving on the streets, but aside from me the city appears completely vacant on this overcast afternoon.  There are signs of people, of course: cars parked along the side of the street, litter on the curb, vendor carts on the sidewalks, but no customers or drivers.  Even vagrants have given up their wandering through the city, leaving behind cardboard squares and sheets tossed over benches.  It’s as though everyone suddenly vanished, leaving me all by myself.

 

The ground trembles, sending me stumbling sideways in a crosswalk.  Oh right, I’m alone aside from her, though I’m not sure it would be appropriate to call her a person.  For starters, people aren’t hundreds of feet tall, and though I know people can be cruel, outside of stories they don’t hunt other people for fun.  Other than her superhuman dimensions, however, my pursuer is completely human.  She had even called out in English when she spotted me, and no more than a few minutes pass without a taunt from her.

 

How I ended up in this situation is a mystery, though I’d had little time to think on it while running for my life.  As best I could tell I had left my apartment complex around three in the afternoon, intending to walk a few blocks to the nearby grocery store and pick up some fruit.  Everything was eerily quiet, but I didn’t think anything of it and checked if the coast was clear, as usual.  When I looked left, however, I saw a Converse All-Star, several stories tall, propped against a building.  A second one laid flat on the ground, longer than the city bus stopped beside it, and I could see small hints of white socks peeking above the shoes.

 

I stood in awe of the immense woman as I scanned upward from her sizable feet.  Long, bronzed legs – long relative for someone of her dimensions, even – climbed to the sky, one muscular pillar crossed over the other.  Most of her legs were bare, covered only by a pair of black linen shorts that barely stretched beyond her pelvis.  She leaned casually against the building, a column of shattered windows running from her hip to her shoulder.  Her arms were crossed beneath her sizable breasts, with only a plain cotton tank top covering her chest.  The building stopped at her shoulder, which made me guess she was over three hundred feet tall.  Perhaps most striking, however, were her bright blue eyes, which stood out against the browned skin of her round face and straight auburn bangs down to her eyebrows, the rest of her hair falling down her back in a tight braid.

 

I had been shocked by her standing there, casually leaning against a building as though she had been waiting for me.  She wasn’t nearly as surprised to see me, however.  Her lips curled into a smile, easily visible from so far away due to her immense size, and she pushed off the building, leaving a dent in the façade from her hip.  The ground shook when she set her foot down, and she seemed to take a moment to revel in it.  “There you are!” she exclaimed.  Her voice had tremendous power, amplified by how it echoed along the corridor of buildings, and it sounded like a terrifying rumble with a slight feminine tinge to it.  “I was starting to worry you wouldn’t show.”  She took a single ponderous step forward, covering half a city block with her stride.  “Let’s get started then, shall we?”

 

By now I’ve been running from the giantess for about fifteen minutes.  Her steps vastly outstretch mine, but due to the great distance her legs have to cover she takes significantly longer than I do to move forward.  The ground shakes and windows rattle regularly, about every five seconds, giving me a firm grasp of how quickly she could step.  Every few earthquakes is accompanied by screeching metal and a loud pop, the sound of a car being flattened beneath her enormous shoe.

 

My lungs burn for air and my face is drenched with sweat while my knees feel as though they’re about to buckle.  The only thing keeping me moving forward is adrenaline, and I know that won’t keep coming much longer.  Every time I pass a parked car or abandoned food cart I consider stopping to take a breather, but the violent tremors from a footfall convince me otherwise.  Even so I know that I’m slowing down while she isn’t even winded, and it’s only a matter of time until she catches up with me.

 

A monolithic leg swings around the corner a couple blocks ahead of me and the ground shakes when her heel hits the asphalt.  The real quake comes a moment later, when her mammoth Converse slaps against the ground.  I see a small white sedan disappear completely beneath her rubber sole, leaving behind a pile of twisted metal and shattered glass.  She winds up for another step down the boulevard and I dart into an alley, hoping that she hadn’t spotted me.

 

The alley is narrow, but I’m confident she can’t follow me down it: there’s barely enough room for me.  My body can no longer take the strain of constantly running for my life, and my legs decide more than I do that it’s time for a break.  I shuffle until coming to a stop, and find a nice, solid wall to lean against.  Red brick is cool against my overheated forehead, and for a moment I feel safe to recover.

 

An eerie silence returns to the cityscape, and I turn around so that my sweat-soaked back can rest against the wall.  Before me, towering over the apartment buildings I’m between, is my gigantic pursuer.  Neither of us say anything.  She grins while I stand frozen, paralyzed with fear.  Her foot effortlessly rises above the structures and sets down across the roofs with a tremendous crash.  Large vertical cracks appear in the walls, and broken bricks tumble down to shatter on the ground.  Casually she leans forward, placing her hands on her knee, placing more pressure on the fragile buildings.  I dash further down the alley, and moments later the buildings collapse into rubble with a horrible racket.

 

Panic surges through my limbs, giving me another burst of energy to continue running from the titaness.  Debris clatters to the ground while she withdraws her foot from the pile of ruined brick, then a particularly powerful tremor tears through the ground.  I stumble forward, just barely stopping myself from going through a window face-first with my arms, and run into a car.  Another violent quake, and the dreaded Converse come around the corner.

 

There’s no doubt that I’ve been defeated.  Her other foot comes into view and sets down on the opposite side of the street, completely blocking off that avenue.  The way I came is blocked by a pile of ruined brick, and I would be easy pickings if I tried to climb over it.  A dash across the street is also out of the question: it would take me a few seconds to get moving, and there is a half a stride at most between me and her colossal feet.

 

As though reacting to her triumph the clouds dissipate, allowing the sun to finally show itself.  Gray gives way to blue, and the empty, gloomy streets are filled with a vibrant light around me.  My street, however, is engulfed by the long shadow cast by the giantess.  The sun is directly behind her head, casting her features in darkness with only a little light creeping around her face or reflecting off windows on either side.  Menacingly she places her hands on her hips, looking down at me in front of her while a sunburst courses through the loose hairs around her head, giving her an almost divine aura.

 

Just because I’m defeated doesn’t mean I have to make it easy for her.  I turn and run down the street, hoping my legs get the message to hurry up.  Before I’m even halfway to the corner the sole of her Converse makes a brown streak over me, then sets down with a horrific crash no more than ten feet in front of me.  I’m thrown from my feet by the impact into a clumsy somersault, then slide to a stop against the white rubber of her shoe, an enormous ALL STAR billboard advertising what brought me to a halt.

 

The giantess stands astride me and looks down.  With her baleful gaze she easily spots me shriveled up against her shoe, and a grin tugs at the sides of her mouth.  Her grin quickly turns into a broad smile showing off her pearly-white teeth, then gives way to peals of booming laughter.  I lie there helplessly while her laughs shake the windows lining the street, shattering the already strained glass on the top floors and setting off nearby car alarms.  To no avail I cover my ears to protect myself from the noise, but from this close there’s little that can be done.

 

“Twenty minutes?” she booms, making my ribs shake inside my chest.  “You couldn’t even keep this going for more than twenty minutes?  You’re fucking pathetic.”  She sounds more disappointed than anything, but I don’t know what else I could have done.  I had been so thoroughly outclassed in every way that I was surprised I had made it this long.  “I set aside an entire afternoon for this, and you can’t even give me a half hour?  Honestly, I’ve half a mind to let you go and chase you down again.”

 

She lets me stew on that for a beat before continuing.  “But that wouldn’t be fair.  To the victor go the spoils.”  In a flash her heel shoots off the ground and stands almost perpendicular to the ground, kicking my feet off the white band running along the base of her shoe.  Smiling, she drags her foot back along the ground, grinding her toes along the asphalt.  A titanic rubber pillar etched with diamonds draws closer, and all I can do is gulp.

 

As quickly as she brought it up, she brings her heel down.  In a moment the hard brown rubber fills my view, and a split second later her tremendous sole makes impact.  I hear the loud crack of my bones snapping under her immense weight, accompanied by an explosion of pain throughout my body.  For an instant I feel the powerful, reverberating impact of her heel slamming into the ground before I give way under her enormous shoe, becoming little more than a pile of mush and liquid beneath her.

 

The giantess feels her tiny prey give way beneath her foot, his obliteration accompanied by a light crunch.  Momentarily she grins, imagining his flattened remains spreading out from the miniscule corpse he’ll leave in the street and intermingling with her shoe’s sole.  For good measure she lifts her leg, bringing her knee up to her chest, before bringing it back down on his smushed remains again and again.  Finally, when the force of her repeated stomps has shattered every window on the block, she stops to rest.  After a deep breath she leaves him behind to seek her next victim somewhere in the city.

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