Reynaldo spied the pair from a hole in the fence, and further through a cluster of bushes.

There, in the backyard of his next-door neighbor, he gleaned a small sandbox, within which an intricate and ornate castle of sand stood. Towers climbed high above the walls of the enclosure; its eaves were carefully saturated with water from a nearby flower-decorated pail, and the indentations of windows and even a front gate were formed in the frontal facade. And currently, a teenage girl wearing a floral dress and a ponytail was inserting a small plastic flag at the apex of this monument. Her face was twisted in perpetual consternation, and she cast a glance somewhere Rey could not decisively see. She said:

“I just mean… aren’t you a little old to be playing in sandboxes?”

“Of course not. What’s not to love about building something up just to knock it down?”

Then running footsteps. The girl with the ponytail cringed as another, taller girl came crashing into Rey’s frame of vision, sandals completely crushing the sandcastle and splashing the tiny pellets in every direction. The bush did a good enough job of protecting Rey from the spray, but the girl in the floral dress coughed as sand was sucked up her mouth and nose.

This new girl was garbed in a white blouse, shorts, and sandals, with straight black hair and a sinister smile wrapped in lipstick. Her breasts were noticeably more filled out than her companions’, and as her toes were buried in the sand, she casually flexed them and sent small rivulets down the pile of grains in which she stood.

“There’s no better feeling than smashing something up. Especially something smaller than you.”

Rey felt his heart leap as she sneered down at the pile, and the other girl looked up at her with loving eyes. He knew the ponytailed one, but he had not seen this new one before. Nor had he ever seen Janet with such an intense expression on her face.

Then – a feeling. The energy changed.

The new girl, the one with black hair, she glanced up, eyes sharp and dangerous like a wolf’s, until they landed on the fence, through the bushes. Directly at Rey’s peeping hole.

“I know what you’re doing here!”

Rey jumped, and quickly looked around him to gather the several unlabeled bottles of substance that had spilled out of his baggy pockets while he was crouched uncomfortably in front of the dividing fence. But it was too little too late; this black-haired girl plunged through a loose board, stomping directly into Rey’s yard and planting her hands on her hips, staring down as Rey was caught red-handed.

“What do you think you’re doing, huh? Spying on two beautiful young women like us? What are you, some kind of creep? Huh?!”

“Missy, it’s okay!” The girl with the ponytail chased through the loose board, getting slightly between Rey’s mortified, stricken face and Missy’s domineering smirk. “It’s fine! He’s just a neighbor.”

“Neighbor?”

Missy looked down again. Rey slightly nodded. “H-Hey, Janet,” he aimed toward the girl with ponytail, who smiled politely.

“Yes! We don’t talk much, and he’s pretty quiet… But he’s always been kind to our family. And to me especially.”

Missy turned between Rey and Janet repeatedly, until finally turning back to Rey.

“Okay, but why was he watching us?”

At this, Rey shrank, unable to truly look at the two girls. Until a click-clack sounded, sharp amidst the silence.

“Huh?” Missy leaned down, her short shorts riding up her thighs in the maneuver, and grabbed the medicine bottle that had slipped out of Rey’s unsecured pockets, onto the ground. Pellets within shook like maracas.

“Hey, wait! Careful!” Rey spoke his first confident words, leaping up and snatching the bottle away from Missy’s pouty face. He had the privilege of watching Janet grow up into a fine high school junior for the past several years since her and her family moved into the subdivision, but he had never met this girl who seemed so close to her.

Still, he needed to explain the situation. Anticipating Missy’s next move, Rey held the bottle above his head as Missy hopped and leaped, reaching hopelessly for the container.

“Hey, wait! What is it? I wanna see! Is it drugs? It’s gotta be drugs!” Missy was excited as she tried to squabble for the container, each attempt without fruit.

Rey withstood this, then glanced in Janet’s eyes, her big brown eyes that looked simply and earnestly at Rey, surely wondering what the items within were. Until Rey at last resolved to complete what he came here to do, and explain the situation.

“I’ll tell you what they are… but you need to promise not to tell anyone. Okay?”

Missy’s leaps stopped, and she nodded her head erratically.

Slowly, Rey lowered his sore arm. Taking a breath, he turned slightly and glanced in the direction of the patio set behind his home.

***

“Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!” Missy guffawed, spitting out the swig of Arizona Tea that Rey had so graciously provided her. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!”

“It’s not stupid,” Rey felt heat flaring in his cheeks, heat extinguished when Janet looked at him with big, earnest eyes. He took a breath, calming down, and continued. “I’m serious. I’ve been working on this for a while. I’ve made a medicine that can make people grow. And I want… you…”

He looked at Janet.

“I want you to test it out for me. Please.”

Janet was taken aback at the request, her face askew in all range of emotions. “Me? But I… I mean, huh? Why? Why would you want me to take it?”

“You’re so… you’ve always been so painfully shy,” Rey said, lowering his tone. “I’ve noticed. You never seem to speak to anyone. In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever seen you speaking with a friend your own age.” Rey turned to Missy, who blushed for the first time since the three of them sat down together.

“I… I-I-I--”

“She came onto me,” Janet replied, smiling gingerly. “She wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“Oh. Well, still… Your parents have told my parents about you, and they told me. About school, and how difficult it’s been for you ever since moving here.”

Rey was worried the gossiping cycle might’ve struck Janet as invasive, but all she did was chagrin slightly, turning her gaze to the floor. Rey continued: “I thought that if you had the chance to grow, people… and you... might finally realize how incredible you are. But… well…” Rey placed the bottle of pills on the glass table. “Now you know. It’s just an offer, you don’t have to take it if you don’t --”

“I’ll take it!”

Missy’s outburst was quick, and her slight smile was replaced by her typical eager grin. “A pill that can make people grow? That’s stupid, of course. And it’s not gonna work.” Missy grabbed the bottle, popping the cap and pouring a boatload into her open palm. “But if it does, that’d be the most rad thing I’ve ever seen! Imagine me, fifty feet tall!”

“Well, let’s not get crazy, now,” Rey said nervously. “I mean, we can start off with just one or two pills just to see if it --”

“Nah,” said Missy, and in one gulp, she swallowed the entire handful, washing it down with a rapid swig of her Arizona Tea. “Ahhhhh…” she sighed rapturously, opening her lust-clouded eyes to an aghast Rey and Janet. “What?”

“Missy!” Janet bounced up and snatched the bottle of pills away from her friend, looking at them as though they were poison.

“Whaaat? You’re saying you don’t wanna get big and strong? Heh, as a matter of fact…” Missy slapped her leg with devil-may-care self-assurance. “I can already feel it! The power! I… I’m…” As Missy reared, both Rey and Janet shimmied away from their shifting friend, until…

BEEEEEELLLLLCH!!!

With expert decorum, Missy gracefully said: “Excuse me.”

In the ten seconds of silence that followed, Missy could not help but break into a grin and shatter the quiet with her rambunctious guffaw.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! You all fell for it!” Blowing a faint kiss at Rey, Missy continued, “Of course the dumb pills didn’t work. They’re probably sugar cubes or something. Tasted sort of sweet. You should try some, Jan.”

“That’s… that can’t be right,” Rey said, sitting back in his chair, confusion and consternation crossing his face. “It… I…”

“Well…” Janet’s face was twisted in a mix of concern and curiosity as she swirled the dry contents of the bottle. “I guess… it can’t hurt.”

Janet plucked a single pellet out from the container, plopping it in her mouth. She swished the rough item around, trying to lather it with spit before ultimately swallowing. “Huh… it is sweet!” Grabbing another, and another, Janet began to plorp them down one by one, each swallow followed by a contented sigh from Janet, as Missy began to display something closer to discomfort, an expression that worried Rey.

“Ugh…” The normally rambunctious Missy trudged to the couch, plopping down conspicuously next to a momentarily stupefied Rey and immediately laying her head in his lap. “I’m feeling… bloated…”

Rey fought the urge to caress Missy, abandoning his protective impulses and instead getting out from underneath Missy, standing up. He grabbed Janet’s hand, who wondered aloud, “Huh? What’s wrong?”

Rey ignored her, instead leading Janet away from the patio, as a nauseous Missy slurred out, “J… Janny? Whass going on? Jannyyyyy…?”

Crack!

That first sound of wood splintering under an unexpected weight.

Rey wasn’t looking at Missy at the time, but somehow, he knew. His concoction had worked, and these teens were going to grow.

At the edge of the yard, Rey turned back to Missy, and Janet covered her mouth in fear as they saw the patio couch now on two legs, the other two snapped under the immense pressure of the prone girl. Inexplicably, her clothes appeared to have stayed at proportional sized to her, which assuaged many of Rey’s alternate fears about the serum working. Missy’s eyes were glazed over, and she was clearly confused about what was happening as yet another growth spurt overcame her.

SSSSSNAP!!!

There went the other two couch legs. Missy yelped, the swift shift in altitude tipping her off to the realization that something was… not precisely wrong. “Changing” was perhaps the better word. “Am I… am I getting big?” she wondered, her voice strong and resonant as her now six-foot body expanded to eight.

“Rey, Rey! What’s wrong with Missy?” Janet pleaded. She ripped her hand out of Rey’s grasp to cover her mouth. Rey turned to Janet, seeking to offer her some consoling words about Missy’s ultimate safety and how the serum was working properly… until…

That was odd.

Rey had never been able to look Janet directly in the eye before.

“Rey? What’s wrong…?” Janet asked before she gasped, looking at Rey, then herself, then turning around in a circle like a confused canine. “What the?!”

A groggy Missy finally beginning to crack concrete snapped them both out of their confusion. She was at last lucid enough to sit up, her twenty-foot frame causing her head to plunge through the roof of the awning. “Ouch!” Missy exclaimed. “Wait… it’s working! It’s working! I’m gonna be absolutely huge!!!” Missy flexed her arms dramatically, her powerful voice reverberating with triumph as she got to her feet, further destroying the porch affects. But her expansion was not slowing down; if anything, it was speeding up.

Missy stretched, feeling the thirty-foot breeze as she searched for Rey and an increasingly large Janet, one who now could stare down at Rey as though he were a grade schooler. Janet was afflicted with a perma-frown, worried about the future. Missy, on the other hand, laughed in the face of danger as she said, “Looks like you’re growing up too! Hey, other guy! How big are we supposed to get anyway?”

Rey dove out of the way as Janet had an especially quick and sharp spurt of growth, launching her to a height of fifteen feet. From the ground, Missy looked even more inhumanly huge, coming into her own as her head ascended from the loose canopy of two-story suburban homes. This meant that finally, finally… people were starting to take notice.

“What the hell?!”

Cecil, the resident teenage dirtbag of the neighborhood, appeared to have been visiting the mailbox for his single daily chore of letter retrieval when the oddly shaped shadow began to blanket his entire yard. As he turned around, he laid two aghast eyes on the growing lady, still reveling in her power and, graciously, oblivious to his presence.

At least, until his aforementioned exclamation.

Her ears were sharp; she turned immediately to Cecil. “Ohhhh, the first tiny person! Hiiiii, my name is Missy!” Fifty feet still wasn’t quite tall enough to clear a suburban home in a single stride, so to avoid showering her bare leg in splinters, Missy had to navigate sideways, the treads of her shoes knocking down the dividing fence as each step boom, boom, boomed her way into Cecil’s yard while Cecil simply stood there, too scared to move, or even think.

“Missy!” Janet was reaching heights of thirty feet, her own fear and apprehension keeping her glued in place; but upon hearing the confused yelps of her neighbors she realized that this problem was going to quite literally be bigger than merely the two of them. The growth did have its own exhilarating pleasure to Janet, not completely unlike riding a roller coaster. It was a frightening rush, but an unforgettable experience. Still, if there was one certainty in her life, it was Missy’s propensity for reckless behavior.

So Janet followed Missy, her meager path of destruction stopping mere steps away from Rey’s yard, realizing she barely-but-consistently stood at Missy’s chest height, a chest against which Missy currently cupped the squealing form of Cecil against her sternum, rubbing him against her mountainous mounds while smiling down at him like she was a child that was eager to show a newly-discovered cool rock to all her friends.

“What did you do?!” Janet called out.

“Don’t worry, I just --”

A new spurt of growth. Quicker. Faster. More violent.

Missy shuddered in place, vibrating. Her hand vibrated too, and the unintelligible man within bounced up and down by the momentous young woman’s inertia. As if on cue, Janet too suffered a similar fit, neither noticing as Cecil was tossed out of Missy’s grip, dozens of feet below, smashing into the tough packed dirt of a lawn becoming increasingly occupied by Missy’s sandals.

Rey was barely able to keep up with Janet’s gait, especially as his own focus was split between keeping up with the two girls and his astonishment that his invention actually worked. The fence dividing the two homes was in tatters, and spires’ worth of legs rose up casting odd shadows everywhere. Rey was hesitant, fearful of stepping amidst these pillars of flesh, a hesitancy that only gave way to… an emotion that was difficult to parse, as he laid eyes on the remains of Cecil.

He wasn’t dead yet. But more blood pooled beneath his twitching body with each passing moment.

Rey stood, still, eyes locked onto Cecil’s tattered remains. He remained there, unsure. Should I go help him? thought Rey. By all rights, this was his fault, he -- Rey -- was the reason Cecil was practically in pieces, chest caved in, dozens if not hundreds of broken bones, a shell of his former self.

Then --

THROOM…!

An errant readjustment of Missy’s now minivan-sized sandal put an end to Cecil for good.

When she stepped off, all that remained were the ground-up leftovers of a blood splatter, still stamping the concrete wherever Missy happened to move her foot later on.

The sight.

The power she exhibited without even trying.

It reminded Rey again of his ultimate aim in all of this. The reason he created the growth serum.

He looked up at his reason, still trying her darndest to catch up in height to Missy, as Missy looked down at the red spots on the ground. Putting two and two together, the 80-foot woman said to herself and the surrounding neighborhood…

“Whoops…” Lifting her leg up in the air, Missy expertly balanced on one foot as she removed her sandal, petting down at the red chalk outline in the treads.

“Oh, my goodness!” Janet shrieked, her hand going to her mouth as she saw the grisly sight. “You… you… Where’s Rey? He can fix this! He can fix us! Reyyyy!” Janet screamed manically, searching the ground for Rey’s form until it landed upon him by a stroke of luck; there he stood at the corner of the house that was once Cecil’s abode. “There you are!”

Rey, duck-and-covering his head out of sheer habit, barely noticing as both Janet and Missy quickly began to expand beyond the borders of the properties that tried to contain them, nearly jumped as he was taken in by Janet’s slender yet inexperienced fingers, scooped and lifted at amusement park speeds, taking the screaming teenager in front of her face. “You have to stop this! Missy just… she just --”

“Stop this?” Missy said, turning to face Janet, staring down at the slightly more minuscule teen even as the both of them were shooting up into the sky. The back wall of Cecil’s house had officially caved in from Janet’s step, and where their shoes had been planted, only muddy green-brown patches remained. “Why would you want to stop this?” Missy asked, completely ignoring Janet. “This is amazing! I mean, look at this…”

Missy stepped out from the yard, her legs both reaching an apex that terminated in her denim blue shorts. Already, motor vehicles were swerving, terrified, minds broken as these girls broke the laws of physics. One such vehicle, a green Kia Soul, was headed dead for one of Missy’s sandals. It hit the brakes, smoking tires blazing hot trails in the asphalt, just barely managing to stop before the edge of the crater formed by Missy’s gradually expanding sandal.

“Ba-bye…” Missy purred, lifting her leg up, preparing to drop. The Kia was in shadow, wheels turning fruitlessly as they tried to find purchase over the edge of the gargantuan pothole. In a single movement, Missy slammed down…

But stopped.

The roof of the car only made the gentlest contact with the bottom of her shoe.

“Just kidding! See?” Missy said, turning to Janet with a sheepish shrug.

Then she turned back to the car, reared up, and kicked it.

Much of the vehicle exploded to pieces on the spot; the hardier parts of the frame went flying through the air, taking the nigh-unconscious occupants with them, careening through the line of houses in a diagonal, carving a brown trail of smoke and devastation for close to a thousand feet crosswise.

“Was that a goal? Because I think I just scored!” Missy said, barely able to contain the excitement in her voice. “You try, Jan! You’ll love it, I bet!”

Janet looked on… horrified. “You… why… why did you…”

Her hands shook, in turn causing Rey to jumble and bounce. For fear of falling off, he shouted up, “Janet!”

Janet gasped, suddenly remembering her passenger. But as she steadied her hands, a spark appeared in her eyes. Raising her palm upwards with care and precision, she positioned Rey in front of her big, bare forehead. “Rey! You… you must fix this! Fix us! Take us back down! Make us small again!”

“Aw, whaaat?” Missy gagged, betting Missy’s hair and tugging playfully at her ponytail. “But this is the best thing that’s ever happened to us! To me, at least.” She smiled.

Janet cringed, her face twisting into horror even more and more, before turning back to Rey. “Rey! Can’t you reverse this?”

As Janet’s face slowly expanded right before Rey’s eyes, he simply shrugged his shoulders. It was difficult to maintain balance on the surface, or project his voice in such a way for Janet to hear him, but he had to try. “Janet,” he called upwards, cupping his hands around his mouth. “There is no cure. No reversal antidote. It’s permanent.”

Janet’s face, already chock full of consternation, seemed to break as she murmured… “W…what?!”

“WHOOOOOO-HOOOOOOO!!!” Missy cheered, pumping her fist as she jumped up and down in an elated haze, her haphazard leaps bringing her 200-foot body crashing down on houses with every step. “No more school, no more parents, no more cops… and even better, everyone has to do exactly what we want! Or else…! Hey, you!”

Missy’s growth was finally, finally petering off. At the height of 240 feet, homes no longer looked like dollhouses; they were closer in proportional size to props in a stop-motion animated feature… or a monster movie. Janet was not far behind, using the utmost care and still finding it impossible to reposition her feet without inadvertently destroying a backyard, a fence, or a stationary vehicle, with only the grace of a higher power preventing these things from being occupied, hopefully.

Missy’s attention was at another house. Crouched, her tight pants rode up the interior of her crotch, barely leaving anything to the imagination as she balled up her right hand into a fist and punched her way through the roof.

It collapsed inwards like papier mache, but nobody was home.

“Trying to hide from me, are we?” Missy snarled, her canines flashing threateningly, and dug her fist even deeper, caving in more floors, rooms, and burrowing until she could not stop, finally hitting bedrock basement, and excavating the family cowering in panicked fear in the corner.

“There you are! Good thing too~” Missy’s fingers, dozing, ravenous beasts, clutched the group all in one swipe. It was a mom, and two children, one boy and one girl. She lifted them up, dangling, shrieking, begging for mercy as they were stolen from the ground. In only a few seconds, their dangles were pacified; a fall from this height would spell certain death for them all.

“I was getting reeeeal hungry,” Missy said, raising the group above her gaping maw. The cool breeze flowed into it, as well as tiny flecks of rubble and drywall that were dripping from the tousled clothes of her new captives. Missy’s tongue licked her lips and teeth, moistening them in preparation as the family begged and begged, pleaded for any semblance of mercy, until…

Plorp!

Down they went, into the swirling liquid fleshy abyss, gaping, giggling, surrounded by pearly teeth that could gnash them all to pieces in an instant and end their suffering. But their refusal to do so would be no boon, as the screaming family was tugged by Missy’s tongue as though it were the appendage of an ancient Lovecraftian horror, deeper, deeper into the pulsating abyss of Missy’s throat, down, down, down into a stomach that was only getting more acrid and empty, and would soon need ever more sustenance to maintain this growing girl.

Gulp!

“Ahhh…” Missy rubbed her stomach as Janet was slowly achieving a similar height, utterly horrified.

“W... why?!” Janet muttered.

“Why not? I was hungry!”

Janet was twitching, shaking, balling her one fist as she stared at Rey. She yelled out to him, “But this is wrong! ...Right?”

Rey looked at Janet’s eyes for the longest, mostly because his ears were ringing too loudly to talk. Eventually, he gestured for her to bring him closer to her ear, which she did so.

Janet’s flowing side-locks were like curtains, pushed aside as Rey now gazed into the depth that was Janet’s earhole. Cupping his hands, he spoke with a voice just short of yelling, “Janet… isn’t this what you wanted? All your life?”

“No!” Janet screamed. “Of course not! I never even thought about being a giant –”

“You wanted to be noticed, didn’t you? You wanted to have friends? For people to pay attention to you?”

Janet was silent, watching as Missy playfully poked the toe of her sandal against another house, annihilating its facade. As the people within began to stream out like lemmings, they noticed too late the hanging foot above them like a guillotine, until –

SLAM!!!

A congealed mass of dirt and blood splattered from beneath Missy’s shoe, and as she lifted it up, she giggled. “That was fun!”

Rey noticed the direction of Janet’s gaze, and he continued. “You’ve found someone you want to be with, haven’t you? The two of you want the same thing: to be acknowledged, right?”

“Y... yes…” Janet’s words were low, though impossible to miss for the tiny Rey. Missy meanwhile was too busy crouched in the middle of the road, shorts once again riding up her crack, grasping speeding cars and waving them in her hands. Her grip accidentally crushed one, so she groaned, tossing it to the side, where it bulldozed another house, and grabbed another one to race around like a Hot Wheel.

“You want the same thing she wants… don’t you?” Rey went on, as a colossal teardrop began to flow down Janet’s face.

“Y-yes!” Janet gasped, as though she were surprised by herself. “I do…! But… this is still wrong, isn’t it? We don’t… we can’t…”

“This world is dictated by the strong, who lord over the weak.” Rey became solemn. “Nothing in this life is fair. Minorities are oppressed because the strong will it. Children are abused because they lack the power to overcome their parents. That’s just the way the world is.”

A car in Missy’s hands was squeezed, harder and harder. The metal caved in, the glass cracked, the individuals inside pounded helplessly, until something clicked.

BOOM!!!

The gas within the vehicle exploded into a fiery conflagration, turning everyone within into smoldered cinders. Missy’s face, wreathed in flame and traces of blood, merely curled into a tight smile as she turned back to Janet. An implicit invitation to, as the kids say these days, “Get in on this”.

“You have a gift, Janet,” Rey implored. “I’ve made you so much more powerful than anyone. You’re the strongest things in the world right now. Don’t you want to use it?”

Janet’s mouth became a thin line, and she nodded, eyes steeled to keep herself from crying as her brain threatened to rip in half. “Mm hmm…!”

Up ahead, the fires were spreading. Missy was rearing up to height; the flames licked and nipped at her own clothes, embers that ate at the material forming her own blouse and pants, yet her skin seemed entirely unaffected. Truly, she had ascended. Massive form darkly silhouetted against the fires, her transformation into an angel of death was complete. “Cool…” she whispered.

The houses, however, lacked this invulnerability. As the storm of heat spread spread, Missy looked all around her, seeing that there was nary a single un-destroyed house in the entire subdivision. An easy feat when a single step could crush a single home to dust.

Longingly… Missy stared out across the horizon. In the direction of the city. And she began to walk.

Janet was left behind, standing amidst carnage she had no hand in creating.

She watched her friend leave for the longest, until even her colossal form simply became an indistinct blur on the skyline.

Rey watched too, feeling his heart pang in solemn camaraderie for Janet. He reached a hand down to her finger, reminding him he was still here, and he still cared.

“Don’t you want to go with her?” He called out to Janet.

SNIFFFFFF!

Janet snorted, raising her forearm to her nose as massive globules of snot dribbled out. “Mm hmm!”

“Are you ready to accept your new place in this world?”

Silence.

Then, Janet clenched her other fist. A single canine tooth peeked from between her lips as her eyes hardened. “Mm hmm…”

“Then go. I know she’ll be glad to see you again.”

Janet looked down at Rey, a smile on her face. “Hold on, this might be a bit bumpy…” She began to slowly close her fingers around Rey, a maneuver that surprised him as the shadowy canopies of her digits enveloped him in a fleshy prison. But this prison was much preferred to the alternative, as Janet dug her heels into the burning remains of the neighborhood.

She pounced.

Breaking into a sprint, each step brought with it catastrophic quakes. Her strides soon took her into mostly untouched sections of the city, reeling but content to have survived Missy’s initial walk through their jurisdictions, only to be the site of the meteor-like crashing of Janet’s own strides.

I’m coming for you, Missy, thought Janet.

And I’m not going to let you go.