Chapter 5

Then, the unbelievable happened. Holding the hair with the glass case in front of her, Isabell grew anew. But now, she shot up even quicker, she gained hundreds of feet per second. Mike saw the ground get away from him first. He thought for an instant Isabell lifted him up, but turning to her, he saw her grow. And grow.
Laughing a thunderous laugh that rattled the few remaining buildings of Vienna, Isabell reached the one-mile mark in an instant. Still growing, her feet shoved entire city blocks aside like little pebbles. She took care she didn't destroy the shopping mall, since she didn't want to hurt her still unconscious lover, as she told Mike. People who were kind to her were rewarded, she added.
Isabell reached two miles, then three. Her enormous expanding feet bulldozed everything, her thick skin crumbling concrete and bricks. To the few survivors, it looked as if a gigantic white/pink wall of flesh came rolling towards them, even the smallest wrinkles in her skin were huge cracks. The earth, not able to carry the ever-increasing weight of the now 4 mile girl sank deeper and deeper under her soles, while her toes, bigger than the biggest building and far more massive, rammed and obliterated everything that was unlucky enough to be in their way.

BUMP! They hit a small mountain outside Vienna. The now 5 mile woman had outgrown most of Austria's capital now, standing on dozens of city blocks all at once. And still she grew, only looking at the microscopic glass case that contained Mike. Her toes slid up against the mountain's edge, wriggled a little, then pressed down, as if she was playing with the mountain with her toes. Numerous mountain villages were scraped off it's surface and crumbled this way, entire forests torn down. All because five enormous toes subconsciously toying.
But soon Isabell, now ten miles, was even too large for that. Growing and growing, a distant onlooker would have witnessed the mountain becoming nothing more than a small heap of dirt, her toes growing over it, relatively slow but steady.
When Isabell stopped her growth, she was 15 miles tall.
The mountain had found it's place between the space of her big and second toe. Vienna ended under her two feet, the once-proud capital of one of Europe most influential empires was now less than a ruin. It was compressed debris, metal vaporized under her weight, organic material pressed to diamond. All because of a girl standing on it. Only the shopping mall, no more than a crumb to her now, was still standing between her feet.

"Aaahh! I am now 15 miles! I guess that will be enough for a trip to Egypt, don't you agree, Mikey? I always wanted to go there, since you said it was such a nice country. I'm sure I can entertain myself there, contrary what you always said."

Isabell grinned. "Oh, and I weigh about 180 billion tons now," she remarked matter-of-factly. "Do you think I need a diet? Ha ha!"

180 billion tons! Mike's view narrowed and blackened. This was unbelievable! A moving mountain of flesh and bone, once his girlfriend, now a giant of epic proportions. And even worse, one with a total lack of moral. Was this his little Isabell? He couldn't believe it.

"If only I could straighten out what I have done to her...", he thought with grief as she started to move away from Vienna, pressing Alpine mountains in the ground like stones in a muddy meadow.
   
Mike, dangling in the glass case held by one of Isabell's hairs, witnessed a scene he even couldn't made up himself in his darkest nightmares. Isabell held the hair, miles long (it somehow had grown with her as well), in front of her as she moved towards Egypt. It reached below the clouds, so Mike was unable to see his ex's entire body. He could only see her feet. Enormous, humongous bare feet, crushing entire cities in one step!

Mike saw patches of grey, with thin lines that were streets in them, disappear under her soles, her toes crunching dozens of houses as they hit the ground. Two huge feet, the cloud layer playing around her calves, walking, stomping, destroying everything they trod upon. Hills were flattened like small heaps of sand on the beach, whole forests destroyed like moss patches. Villages were nothing even in comparison to Isabell's big toe, its white yellowish callus thicker than the thickest wall.
People in the doomed places saw Isabell's head rising above the horizon first. Then her torso followed, followed by her legs. It all happened very quick, since her strides covered many miles each. Earthquakes, increasing in magnitude, followed. Within a few steps, the female giant was upon them. The last thing the inhabitants of Austrian and Croatian places saw was a huge shadow, in the shape of a bare foot, filling the heavens and coming down at them, just before it covered them among thousands of others. They died so quickly, no pain was felt.
Mike, tears welling up in his eyes, had to watch how Austria's and Croatia's cities were destroyed, the work of centuries obliterated within seconds. For no reason but to bring the owner of those huge feet towards Egypt.
He felt light-headed as Isabell reached Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. It's huge cathedral was seemed so tiny now, it's spire didn't even reach Isabell's big toenail. Did people in the middle Ages work and toil decades for that? To build something that looked almost ridiculous compared to this gigantic woman, whose big toe alone was much vaster than it?
Mike saw Isabell take another step, the cathedral smashed as her toe bumped into it as her foot swung forward. She didn't even feel it, mankind's achievements were nothing to her but small brittle crumbs under her soles.
Isabell deliberately took a route to Egypt over crowded land areas. She wanted to show Mike how evil she was, how cruel and, of course, how mighty. She didn't pick up her feet up purpose as well, she let them sweep over the ground. Small, tickling feelings were accompanied with every step she took. Isabell guessed what it was she was destroying now. Something crunched under her feet, to Isabell it felt like aluminum foil. What was it? A large city? A forest? A harbor? It crunched at least nicely under her feet.
Mike saw the large industrial complex, that was what it was, disappear under her sole as she stepped on countless factories, store houses, an entire railway station and several office buildings. It was covered in shadow, just a split second before her foot was brought down on it.
Mike watched as she shifted her weight on her foot, now covering the complex entirely, without doubt destroying life under the enormous pressure of the billions of tons of mass. Nothing, not even the smallest bacteria, would survive the weight of this 20 mile female's body. Then, she lifted her foot, revealing a large footprint, easily a hundred feet deep, in which melted metal and unrecognizable debris lay embedded. This woman disrupted not only day-to day life, but entire economies as well! She was a weapon of mass destruction.

Isabell entered the sea, the water barely reaching her calves. Mike saw the two humungous feet that destroyed cities wade though the Mediterranean as if it was a shallow puddle. No barrier of nature could stop this behemoth, that was obvious now. She didn't simply step over mountain ranges, no, she stepped ON them, pressing the huge piles of solid stone into the ground. No canyon was too wide and deep for her, no ocean could drown her. And now, this colossus entered Egypt, squashing Alexandria in one step as she came ashore and heading towards Cairo. Mike trembled as Isabell trampled Egypt's capital, destroying the Pyramids with nothing but her big toe, just like that, in a split second.

"Is that the wonder of the world you bragged about, Mikey,"  Isabell said, pointing her big toe towards the glass cage. "Is that what the ancient Egyptians needed decades and thousands of workers for to build? A small grain of sand, now dust on the tip of my big toe? Destroyed by me like nothing? Come on! You are either very dumb, or you are a liar! That is not a big cultural achievement, is it? Ha ha ha!"

Isabell had fun. She deliberately didn't toy with the Pyramids as she did when she was in the matrixer, no, she wanted to destroy the Wonders as quickly as possible, to show Mike the insignificance of everything he knew and loved, to demonstrate her disdain for the buildings and cities. Not worth to waste a lot of time on, that was her message to Mike, who understood it all to well. He had been crying in the cage, shaking all over, his head swimming. His beloved Pyramids, now dust on his ex-girlfriends big toe! What had he done to deserve this? What had the world done to deserve this? A huge, 20 mile demon destroying everything mankind had build. He saw through his wet eyes Isabell's feet stamping on the Giza plateau, destroying the smaller Pyramids, the Sphinx and whatever was left of Cairo.

"Not so cheeky now, are you?", he heard Isabell's voice boom. "But that isn't all. I am a goddess. A true, vengeful goddess. And it is time to give you a true demonstration of my might. But, you need a better view. Hold on, Mikey!"

Mike suddenly felt an enormous pressure on his eardrums as the glass cage was swung around at an enormous speed. Isabell, he realized, was swinging the cage, still attached to one of her hairs, like a sling, round and round. Then, she let loose. The glass prison, Mike pressed against one wall because of the G-forces, flew up into the sky. He saw Earth getting smaller and smaller, daylight faded away, making place for darkness and stars.

When Mike reached outer space, he dropped back from the wall. He put his fingers through some of the holes in the glass walls to hold himself in place, because he now threatened to float due to the absence of gravity. This was horrible! What had gotten into Isabell? He had known her as a nice, shy girl from a small hamlet, pretty and naive, but boy, was he mistaken! That woman was a devil. A demon. A merciless, psychopathic killer, able to destroy thousands into a split second without remorse.

"If only I had been nicer," he thought again and again, regretting ever making her his. Looking down at Earth, which he was orbiting now, his heart skipped a beat again. His torture wasn't finished yet.