Desert Goddess outline
Open with a ramshackle desert city, definitely on the post apocalyptic side. Things are fairly low tech but they’ve carved out thriving fields of agriculture in the rocky desert sands.
The city is bustling but unbelievably isolated. From their perspective nothing is visible in any direction but sand and ruined asphalt.
Suddenly the city starts vibrating, like some massive force is rumbling their way. In the distance an impossibly large vehicle is seen tearing down a black asphalt clearing that leads near the city. A gigantic motorbike pulls up alongside the city, reach many times taller than the highest buildings. The city is cast in shadow by this titanic desert rider as the bike lets out a spout of black smoke that briefly blankets tens of thousands of people in its wake.
Stepping off the bike the gigantic rider looms over the city, then crouches down. Compared to the desert rider the citizens can’t be more than a 1/4 inch tall. The rider removes the mask and goggles that kept the dust and sun out, revealing a cute 16 year old girl. Our hero, Melissa.
She crouches down over the city, taking in the thousands of 1/4 inch tall citizens that have gathered up to see her. With a big toothy smile she says in a girlish voice that booms like loudspeaker “Hey little fellas, miss me? Now what’s for lunch, I could sure use a snack!”
—
The shrinking virus was man made, that much is known.
Earth was dying from overpopulation, it just didn’t have enough resources to keep going. Running out of food, energy, and just pure space. The desert spreads across America.
So one day a shrinking virus begins spreading through the population. One by one people find themselves reduced to a few inches tall. Nobody knows where it began, but projections show that the entire world is going to be shrunk over the next year. This includes fauna (mammals, insects, fish…) but not flora.
Society collapses in a mad scramble to either cure the disease or make the new world livable. Communities build miniature habitats as quickly as they can.
1 year later, and societies begin anew. America consists of tiny isolated communities, thousands of proportionally shrunk miles apart. Although many millions perish, the new societies are able to survive in a way that the dying full sized world couldn’t, finding enough resources in the ground to grow crops for the surviving citizens.
The shrinking virus saved humanity.
What wasn’t anticipated by whatever madman designed the virus is the 1 in 10,000,000 life forms that proved immune to the virus.
Our protagonist is Melissa. 13 years old when the shrinking of the world completes, she simply stays normal sized. 3 years later she’s 16 and has adapted to her new life as a goddess of the desert plains, drifting from miniature community to miniature community on her motor bike.
When the shrinking first occurred, Melissa stayed near her hometown, but without infrastructure maintenance all full sized cities became dangerous places..
At first she was terrified as her friends, family, even her dog shrank to smaller than her finger nail. She found the miniature community that her hometown had retreated to, but they far from any structure that could house Melissa and certainly couldn’t feed her.
She learned to survive, living off of canned food gathered on the road. Over time as she grew strong, she learned to even enjoy her new life, lonely as it was. She explored the American southwest, now empty of all animal life. She visited different miniature communities and learned about the new world, and did her part to help them with what they needed.
After a year she returned home and found her family. Looming over a city of 50,000 shrunken people, she raised her family to exalted status in the community, assigning her mother to community leader. In exchange she could perform infrastructure miracles, plowing fields in an hour that would normally take months, diverting water sources, digging wells.
And the only thing she asked in return for all this good was that they treat her like a goddess.
She was even able to track down the trio of girls who used to bully her in middle school, making her life hell. She now keeps them with her at all time in her vest pockets as her personal pets, naked, collared and trained. She treats them as kindly as anyone would treat a finger nail sized pet, showering them with love and kisses and treats, but also training them to perform tricks, beg for food, and worship her.
—
She travels from desert community to desert community, helping where she can and basking in worship. She’s become a totemic figure for many, this unbelievably large desert wanderer who comes in an out of their lives.
Different communities react to her differently. Some reject her, some reluctantly agree to her help and terms, some come to revere and even worship her.
The primary thing that communities need her help with are attacks by gigantic monsters. Melissa isn’t the only creature who stayed unshrunk, there are still a handful of full sized desert animals that prey on the cities like roaming Godzillas. City life often involves fleeing for shelter as a skyscraper sized coyote runs in, wrecks a few buildings, eats a dozen people and pees all over main street.
When this happens, the call goes out across the desert via radio and Melissa is informed. She rides her motor bike to the city and will spend a few days hunting down the monster with her trusty rifle.
In exchange she demands fealty and tribute. She lives mostly off of canned food, and is sick of it. She’s also complete crap as a cook. She demands that the cities prepare meals for her from their crops, tasty things.
After a kill, if the carcass is safe (no rabies) she’ll bring it back to the city and have them cook it for her, then they’ll have a big city festival where everyone shares the meat. Usually quite a party.
Different communities make different tributes.
Melissa is a desert behemoth striding in and out of their lives, venturing into the unfathomable distances like a badass goddess of vengeance.
—
Melissa’s life is as a rough and tumble desert camper. Body tanned to bronze brilliance, toned by constant hiking (all the gas has gone bad, barely enough to power her motor bike), wears hiking gear and aviators. Proper 16 year old giantess bad ass.
Dotes on her pets, the three girls that used to bully her. She also has little lovers in the different cities.
—
Main plot is that she gets a radio buzz from her home town of a completely mysterious Godzilla terrorizing them. It’s an almost shapeless shambling beast that runs in at night, stumbles about wrecking buildings, and steals crops before running off.
Nobody has been killed, but the people are terrified.
The people are demanding that Melissa kill the monster. Her family is being hassled, there’s a lot of unrest.
Reporting in, Melissa hides in a sniper’s nest and waits for the creature. After several nights it shows up, and instinct tells her not to shoot. She approaches and it runs away, knocking Melissa over and injuring her as she knocks her head on a rock.
She tracks the creature through the desert, hurt but her instinct tells her that something is going on. She tracks it to a nearby cave and enters, slowly approaching the creature.
It attacks her but she’s ready this time and wrestles it to the ground. She tears it’s mask away and reveals a young boy, maybe 9 years old and terrified.
He keeps fighting her, but she manages to restrain him. She pulls a few cans of food out of her bag and he tears into them, starving.
She figures out that he must have been six when the shrinking happened. Lost in the desert he was terrified and became almost feral to survive. He made a costume of whatever rags he could find to protect himself from the desert and in desperation attacked the city to steal food.
She stays with him awhile, bringing him back to sanity.
Then she takes him back to the town. He’s talking now, returning to humanity.
She makes a deal with the town. If they help keep him fed, he’ll be their full time protector, at least until he gets older. That means he keeps all beasts away, he helps them with construction, and doesn’t wreck anything.
The townspeople are leery, uncomfortable with living under the power of a 9 year old child. Melissa asks them if they think they have any choice, and they accept that they don’t.
Hopping on her bike she rides back into the desert, the rumble of her motor sending a quake through the town.
The young boy, Micky, leans down over all the little people and
grins, trying his best not to scare anyone. “My name’s Micky, can anyone tell me a story?”