Steve got into his ambulance and sighed loudly. He loved being a paramedic – his passion was helping people, and he was lucky enough to score his dream job right out of college. But he couldn’t focus today - he couldn’t stop thinking about Tasha. He wanted to go over to her place and profess his undying love to her, to scoop her up in his arms and carry her off into the sunset like he always fantasized. But he had a job to do.
Steve glanced at his watch. He’d expected his partner to be there by now – he only lived a few blocks away, meaning he was never late for work. As he pulled his phone out to text him, the entire ambulance shook, its suspension loudly squeaking in protest. Steve’s phone slipped out of his hand and dropped to the floor as he instinctively gripped the wheel to brace himself. He looked into his side mirror to see if he’d been rear-ended, but there was nothing behind him.
“What the…”
Before he could finish, the ambulance started shaking again. As he steadied himself, Steve noticed it wasn’t just his vehicle that was shaking – it was the entire street. Traffic lights violently swayed back and forth while plants fell out of windows and trash cans spilled over onto the street. People everywhere looked around in confusion while steadying themselves on the rumbling ground. Any panicked shouts were drown out by what sounded like an unending torrent of thunder coming from the earth itself.
After maybe half a minute, the calamitous rumbling stopped as suddenly as it began, replaced with an uneasy silence that didn’t belong to a weekday morning. Steve took a deep breath and grabbed the radio plugged into the dash. He started counting to sixty in his head, radio in hand. In school, he’d learned if you were the first responder at ground zero in a possible disaster, to wait at least a minute before contacting dispatch in case of radio signal loss. “Let them contact you,” he could hear his old mentor say.
Before he got to thirty, a loud BOOOOOM echoed throughout the street, although much shorter and not quite as loud as the previous ear piercing sounds. This booming continued rhythmically, gradually getting quieter, as if the source were moving further and further away.
“Dispatch calling all units, repeat dispatch calling ALL units: response required at 28th and 6th immediately – building collapse confirmed. MCI, repeat MCI at 28th and 6th – mass casualty incident confirmed…” the metallic-sounding voice rang through the radio as Steve jammed the keys into the ignition and fired the engine up. His partner lived on that block.
“Unit 742 on route to MCI, over!” Steve barked into the radio before slamming it back into its holder. He flipped his siren on and waited a few seconds for the cars around him to clear out before peeling onto the street. Earthquake, Steve realized. It had to have been an earthquake that he felt, and there was obviously an old building in Midtown without the structural integrity to survive such a seismic event. Earthquakes were rare, but not unheard of in New York. Thankfully Steve had done several case studies on emergency disasters along the San Andreas Fault, and although incredibly nervous, he couldn’t help but be excited for his first catastrophic incident. He knew that if he could save just one person, he could make a difference.
The tires screeched as Steve made a sharp turn onto 6th Ave., nearly causing the ambulance to go on two wheels. “Fuck!” Steve yelled as he slammed on the brakes. A thick wall of brown dust engulfed the vehicle like a swarm of locust, completely blinding Steve. He turned on his wipers to brush away the dirt and debris, although it took a few minutes for the dust to settle below the windshield before Steve could start moving again. When the dust finally settled, Steve got out of the ambulance and stared at the pile of rubble that used to be his partner’s apartment.
Immediately, Steve ran to the nearest person he saw needed help - a middle-aged man writhing in pain in the middle of the street, screaming hysterically. Steve dropped to his knees and did a quick visual examination. The man had several cuts and abrasions on his face and upper body, and his shirt was ripped in several spots - likely due to falling debris, Steve concluded. As he looked below the man’s waist, he saw the source of his agony. The man’s entire left leg had been crushed into an unrecognizable pulp. Steve ripped open the blood-soaked pants, and nearly threw up at what he saw. Instead of a bloodied leg, there was nothing but a pile of twisted skin and sinew attached to the man’s waist by nothing more than a few strands of exposed muscle fibre.
Steve tried to comfort the wailing man as he looked around trying to identify what could have decimated his leg so thoroughly. He knew there wasn’t anything he could do for this man, not out in the street, and not with how much blood he had already lost. Within seconds, the man started gurgling on the blood pooling in his throat before going silent. Steve closed the man’s eyes, and noticed a trail of blood he had made, like that of a crawling slug. Eyeing the trail, Steve noticed it originated from a large sinkhole in the pavement right in the middle of the street.
Confused, Steve jumped up on the roof of his ambulance to get a better vantage point of his surroundings, as there was a still a cloud of billowing dust creeping along the ground. On top of the vehicle, he could see dozens of people that needed his help. But he also saw there were numerous giant craters in the middle of the street like the one the dead man had apparently crawled out of, and Steve had no idea what they were. They were all exactly the same size, and positioned about the same length from each other, going all the way down the street.
As Steve followed the pathing of the large holes, he almost couldn’t comprehend what he saw a few blocks away. Up in the sky, staring back at him was the naked backside of a beautiful, blond woman, blown up to unimaginable proportions. He wasn’t sure how he hadn’t noticed the enormous woman earlier, as she dominated the landscape. Her slow movements seemed unnatural, considering she was as large as some of the surrounding buildings. Steve was mesmerized by her giant, round ass as it swayed from side to side with every step she took. Without taking his eyes off it, he got down on his stomach and reached into the ambulance for his radio.
“Dispatch, you’re not going to believe this…” Steve breathed into the radio, his voice cracking slightly. As he spoke, the giantess turned her head to the side, just enough for Steve to get a look at her face. The same face he’d been enamoured with for years. His hands began to tremble, causing him to drop the radio. The spiralled cord pulled tight, causing it to slam up against the side of the ambulance door.
“Come in 7-4-2, come in… 7-4-2, do you copy?” Steve could still hear the tinny voice resonating out of the radio, but he couldn’t move. He just laid there, staring up at the giant, naked woman standing a half-dozen blocks away. His lip quivered, and his briefs began tightening. Amidst all the chaos around him, with all of the injured people he had sworn to protect and help, Steve couldn’t look away from the giant version of his brother’s ex-girlfriend, instead whispering quietly to himself, “T…Tasha…?”