Giantess World
A wind came whistling through the street and knocked over a can, sending it rattling down a footpath. This had been the most exciting thing to happen on the road for a while, and Oliver opened his door to peek out after the noise. He strained to see far around the corner, not even daring to look up at the sky, and the intense brightness wasnt helping; it was usually night, so Oliver wasnt used to this kind of garish light. There was a very faint rumble up above that gave him a fright, like a storm that came out of nowhere. Oliver had become very sheepish over the passed few months, then again, as had everyone else. He heard a skidding of feet on the road around the corner and shot a glance to see a shadow moving closer.
Jack, he hissed at the approacher, Is that you? The footsteps sped up, twisting around the bend as a hooded figure ran across and reached out to grab him, and Oliver tried to leap away.
Dont fucking shout out here, Jack said, pushing Oliver back into his house and swiping the door shut.
The two men stood grumbling in the hallway, dimly lit as Oliver had earlier pulled down all the blinds.
What were you doing? Jack continued, tearing off his coat and wiping sweat away, I told you to stay inside and wait for me to come back!
Anything could have happened to you out there! Oliver snapped. Hed been pacing and reassuring himself all evening, he wasnt going to settle down and rest anytime soon.
It isnt my fault she turned up while I was gone, I ran home as soon as I found out, Jack muttered. He dropped a bag of food to the floor and sidled into the living room to stand beside the fire, shaking for a while. Oliver walked in behind him, folding his arms and scowling. There was a cold silence, save for the low crackling wood that made things feel even more uncomfortable. Jack coughed and turned a little to see Oliver out of the corner of his eye.
You do this every time, he said.
Do what?
She arrives, then you get all pissy and take it out on me!
Well, I dont know how to feel, Jack! Other than fucking terrified-
Im terrified too. Jack turned to face Oliver, there was another silence as they stared. There was a rumble outside, it only lasted a few seconds, and the lights flickered and buzzed. Oliver was going red and his eyes were watering up. The sight of this made Jack the same way.
Shuffling as though his feet were chained up, Oliver made his way up to the fire, pressing up against the mantel piece and rustling for a tissue in his pockets. His mouth wobbled a little like there was something he was trying to say, and Jack reached out to hold his hand. They stared and clutched tighter at each other, moving so close they could feel the others breath.
We always survive this. Every time, Jack said, And we always see each other again, dont we? Oliver started to cry. Jack pulled him into his arms and held his body, grasping tight as Oliver did the same. The room filled with quiet sniffles and the lights blinked again to remind them of the storm. It wouldnt be long now.
Cathy leaned against the desk holding a chip in her hand, and she smiled at it with an expression that suggested anything other than kindly motives. The screen displayed a city, something larger than most of what shed made before, and she was all too proud for it. Bending her head close, Cathy opened her mouth wide and breathed on the glass, fogging up the view. She lifted a finger, pressing it lightly down and smoothing out a crude smiley face on the screen. Down on the streets, panic was breaking out. People jumped on top of cars to avoid the riots as storefronts smashed open and guns fired off, society having completely broken down long ago. Gizmos crumbled to their feet in horror as they saw the cartoony face stretched across the sky, the blurred image of the woman they had come to hate and fear behind it smiling too. Fires and smoke bounded about the place, car alarms and people screeching in a parade of terror flooding down every road of the inner city and spreading outwards at an uncontrollable rate. Cathy gritted her teeth and winced a bit.
Yeeeaah, that time again Im afraid, she spoke almost in sing-song, struggling to take any of this seriously, I know its a bummer, but you know Cathy pulled her phone out of her pocket, turning it on and showing it to the captive gizmos, I really need this old thing charged. Her callous smirk radiated across the sky, sending waves of madness and brutal dread through the streets. An explosion sent bodies flying and a shop falling into pieces, glass and stone spinning out around the war zone, the ground shaking and the rumbling so loud it set off whatever car alarms werent already hollering.
Cathy flipped the chip around so that a connector coming out the side could slot into her phone. She held both devices in one hand and watched in morbid fascination at the city slowly plunging into fire, then looking to the battery icon on her phone screen. All she had to do now was activate it, and she didnt even give a first thought to it, as if the command just came by itself;
Begin.
On the outskirts, Oliver and Jack still held each other; they had heard everything she said, and they knew what was going on out there. The fireplace cooled as the flames started to die, but in the dimming red light, they still had each others warmth.
Jack, I dont know what to say, Oliver whispered, struggling to speak through tears. He didnt get an answer, Jack only held him tight. The ground started to shake again, this time it kept going, and the tremors burst into a quake that brought a groaning sound of land turning in on itself, and a cruel ringing that shook and smashed glass. Anything that wasnt nailed down jumped and slipped around the roads and inside the houses, Jack and Oliver clutching tight, refusing to watch as the table in the centre of the room went whacking against the wall. Frames and wall plaster tumbled from their places and entire shelves unloaded onto the floor, the noise of breaking chaos washing through the house as it had on the streets. The screams outside had been provoked by fright, but soon morphed into ones of pain, and buildings were tumbling down on top of themselves like they had just turned to sand. This was the moment they had anticipated, the one they feared everyday of their waking lives. Even tucked away, hiding in each others arms, the two men could not escape that same pain, beginning soft in their necks but soon becoming more.
J-Jack, Oliver cried, I love you. His voice was desperate and hardly comforting.
I love you too, so much, Jack replied. Stabbing discomfort crawled down both their arms, reaching into their hands and leaving only numb spots behind. The soreness spread, clinging to every muscle it could cut into, penetrating their hearts and lungs, and everywhere else in time. Oliver couldnt stand anymore, collapsing to his knees as Jack followed him, tossed into convulsions. They tried to reach for reach other, sticking clawed hands out just to touch one last time, if only theyd be given that. It felt like a fire was inside them now, or millions of insects scrawling and biting and bursting out of their flesh, leaving trails of blood pouring out of every orifice, or just a deadly acid even. One would think theyd have been used to it by now, but just like the first time, Jack and Oliver screeched and gurgled in painful foetal positions, wailing even louder for it to stop as their skin slopped into a hot, sticky goo. Feeling away at their faces, they could take whole bits off, and the last sounds they made were chittering pops mixed with broken shrieks matched to the sight of two fleshy masses slicking down into waste and flowing into each other. The house suddenly gave way, pouring apart as every foundation liquified and fell, gushing into a torrential street-wide surge, whirling up into the cascade of melted scrap and people the city had become, spinning around in a gigantic maelstrom, all in one girls hand.
What does that one do? Ciara asked as she glanced up from her makeshift bed on the floor. Cathy had briefly forgotten her friend was there, lost in fascination with the destruction she had wrought.
Oh, yeah, she laughed, Just charges my phone. She leaned the screen towards Ciara who crawled over on her knees to get a closer look, and through the turning clouds of dirty smoke, the gizmos were greeted to the face of a second god. Those who still could scream did so into the sky and hoped the cry cracked through the glass, Jack and Oliver among those thousands. Whatever essence of a heart that remained in their drooping husks was lifted, her expression seemed kindly, though too distant to tell what she was thinking.
And are they in pain?, the woman in the sky said, raising her eyebrows in mild concern and turning to Cathy who was out of sight.
They dont mind. After this, no more was said. Clara smiled a little, albeit still reserved about the whole thing, and turned back to her blankets. Its fast as fuck though, Cathy said as she noted the phones charge boosting at an unbelievable speed.
As Ciara made up the last arrangement of pillows and sheets on the ground, Cathy laid the two machines on her bedside drawer. The things vibrated against the wood as she undressed and slipped her socks off. The phone buzzed, it was fully charged. Every second felt like hundreds of years to Oliver, Jack, and the thousands of others caught between worlds, morphing and contorting in absolute hell. Cathy leaned in to look, the city still spinning in a storm of torturous movement; in that whirl, not a single piece of matter remained still, thrown by winds constantly, no rest was given to anybody hurtling in the uncomfortable nightmare. They had all heard the buzz too, a shockwave that passed through the storm and made it worse. They knew this meant it was over, at least for now, the phone was full on charge. Cathy thought she would give them just a few seconds more of it, and she gleamed to herself about how powerful she was as her pyjamas shuffled up and around her skin. The fact that she could make a decision like that, to let all those people suffer, turned her on. Throwing the covers back, tiny particles of plastic flew about. She cleared them away with a few strokes of her hand and slid into bed, planting the pillow at the angle she enjoyed every night and tucking the sheets around her body, a routine she practiced every evening and one that came almost as an instinct.
Anything I can get you? she asked her friend, but Ciara was just eager to fall asleep. They had been hanging out all evening, watching films and talking, playing with a few of the gizmos, and at three in the morning neither of them could even stand anymore. Even as their day was ending however, the gizmos would not be free of tyranny, and some of them dreaded the night as it brought the worst for them. Cathy and Ciara would get sweet rest, but none of the gizmos would.
Undoing her bracelet and setting it down on the floor, Cathy looked back on creating Fig with fond memories, and snapped her fingers, switching the lights off. She took off most of whatever shiny stuff remained and placed it all on the carpet beside the bed, the last being Jams chip. She found herself bending only halfway to reach her feet, choosing then to go the lazier route as she placed the big toe of her other foot behind the toe ring and pushed it. She took it off rarely enough, so the little metal band clung to her toe for a moment, jittering down the length of it before hitting the duvet with a light thud. Cathy just nudged it off the bed and it clanged to the floor with a swish of her foot, shed find it wherever it had landed in the morning. One of the few pieces she left on was the chip planted in her belly button piercing, easily among the smallest she had ever made; in actuality, looking closer revealed the top of the piercing had three small chips wedged in beside each other, each recently upgraded. The chips had basic touchscreen technology that allowed Cathy to tap them, activating a torture for the gizmo inside that involved tensing every muscle in their body, slowly tighter and tighter. The longer she pressed the screen, the stronger the tension in the gizmo as they would curl and crunch up into a painful point and still keep crushing inwards. Even when the code would have to abandon the realistic physics engine and allow the body to pass through itself, which apparently caused the gizmo unendurable agony, the simulation would keep going until Cathys tap released. To ensure that no one was left out, as she put it, the three chips were also intricately linked so that, when one gizmo was tortured, the other two would experience half its pain. She left these chips attached to her piercing, resting in the dark beneath the blankets, inside her belly button, and her hand moved to feel it.
Her finger lightly dashed against the screens, moving around in a circling motion so that every gizmo got fair treatment. Her eyes were fluttering a bit, and keeping them open became an ordeal pretty soon. She sent her other hand into the darkest behind her pillow and it pulled out a beanie lump that she clutched between her fingers like she was trying to suffocate it. She was holding a small, plush toy in the round shape of a bear, squishy with insides of thousands of little beads, and a furry skin wrapped around it all. She never took it out during the day, so Cathy was beginning to forget what it really looked like. All she had to know was that a chip was nestled deep in the toy, cosy, at least for her; whenever she squeezed on it, the gizmos were given a warning to start working, every one of the dozens of them bouncing into a sprint and running the length of a cyclical track, over and over again without resting for hours. This generated great heat in the chip that made the plush warm, and if any gizmo refused to go along with it, or simply was too slow, theyd be fired. This literally meant the ground opened up and consumed them, tossing them into a tight cubicle where flames bit in and burned the gizmo alive constantly and indefinitely. This generated heat too, just not much. Cathy hugged the toy bear tight, it made no sound but it got slightly warmer, and she moved it down passed her belly, stuffing the plush between her legs. Like every night, it was left pressed between two walls of skin, inside her pyjama trousers, where it warmed her crotch. Her finger kept moving around the chips in her belly button until she could stay awake no longer, drifting off with her mouth drooping open and her hands relaxing into stillness.
Usually the rumbling low snores brought peace to the gizmos in her belly button, but this time was going to be different. Her fingers rested as a tired claw hanging over the chips, the shadow unnoticeable in the already gloomy world the gizmos usually knew, and the palm of her hand floated directly over them. When the view shifted, she had turned a smidgen in a dream of some kind, and her fingers bent just a little to scratch her skin. When her hand froze again, only a second had gone by, but everything had changed. A single finger rested pressing against one of the screens, and while the gizmos might have hoped for it, Cathys hand didnt move an inch for the rest of the night. For the next ten odd hours, all three felt an exponential torture none of them had experienced before, her single fingertip giving way to their bodies crunching into impossibly excruciating points. She yawned loud and deep, returning to an obnoxious snore that chilled every gizmo that could hear, especially those still in the city, if it could be called that anymore. Through the deafening hurricane and screams, they all heard her repeating breaths as if each were a trumpet of the apocalypse, announcing theyre doom with the fact that, in her complete negligence and sheer sloth, Cathy had forgotten to unplug the chip from the charger. The screams grew louder and full of absolute hopelessness as the gizmos remained in their suspended punishment, yet not a spit of sound spewed out of the chip. The room was quiet all else considered, and messy with wires and bits of what looked to belong in some mad craft project, and clothing warped across the floor, and several old and new chips, tossed about like they ultimately meant nothing at all.
Ciara fell asleep even faster than Cathy had. During the day, she had been impossible to keep still, a trait that slightly got on everyone elses nerves. Then again, she could never help showing off her sporty spirit. It had been a good thing that Cathy gave little care to her creations well beings, even revelling in watching them at the mercy of another; Ciara had almost broken several chips as she stumbled around that evening. At least she had made sure to kick off her sneakers so as not to completely wreck the place, but in one instance, this didnt help as a tiny chip had been left on the ground at the edge of the bed. Slamming down onto the blankets and sending chunks of old plastic flying up into the air, she had been completely unaware of it, tapping her feet either side of it as gizmos screamed up for help. Cathy had trapped them in a cramped room with a floor covered in a thick layer of acid that perpetually dissolved them without killing anyone. She had clearly forgotten about it, and now the tiny, cracked helps for salvation struggled against the chips screen, failing to break through. Ciara moved her foot just a little and caught the thing in her toes, the fibres of her sock wrapping in and around it as it hung from them. She had kicked and wiped the chip against the ground, eventually tearing the device out by pushing it away with the other toes, although in the flurry, something inside had broken and the screen cut out. The gizmos were suddenly left in darkness without a single way of communicating with the outside anymore, and in their pained screaming came further flares of hate and ultimate despair. The chip just lay there, Ciara then kicking it away under the bed, unaware she had just needlessly convicted a dozen souls to eternal hell, something that could have been avoided if she had just looked down at the right moment.
Cathy had also been very adamant to show off her efforts in drastically downscaling chip size. Shed managed to flatten a few test pieces the previous night, almost paper thin with one of their sides covered in a flat screen. Just for fun, she had also slathered the back of some with an adhesive, and she was playing with them like stickers. The two had spent over an hour just messing with them, treating the chips like they were just toys to fiddle with and forget about. Inside each one were between two to twenty gizmos, all suffering in some kind of hell, sometimes literally as many of them were just burning and screaming constantly with no end. In the case of a few special chips though, Cathy had made sure to decorate the worlds they simulated with bright and happy images, cheerful moving pictures that repeated the same brief motion again and again. The gizmos inside were designed to look like cute and cuddly characters, stuck in a constant loop of jumping or giving a crude dance or some other exhausting action. With these chips, Cathy had stuck each loose sticker to her fingernails and flaunted her fingers about, and while two or three of them were still stuck to her now, shed quickly forgotten about them. Most fell off after a few minutes, sticking to her clothes which now lay crumpled up on the floor, or landing on the ground becoming lost among the rubbish.
One sticker-chip in particular had fallen directly onto one of Cathys sneakers, cracking off the rim and dropping down inside the shoe. It landed on the soft, mushy padding where her foot had soaked the fabric in sweat, filling the cavern up with a mild but thick stink. The thirty gizmos in the chip didnt notice this however, they could only see the skylight out of her shoe through the battered screen that twitched every so often as though it were about to cut out. The sticker glued as tight to the fabric as it could, and the digital people inside knew they hadnt a hope. The collision had knocked out some of the chips functions to the gizmos incredible surprise; in such misfortune, they had been granted the relief of ending their motion loops and finally being able to move by themselves. In their anger and sheer lack of any chance of freedom from their confinements, they conferred in the morning, they would only be found anyway, so what could they do? It was quickly decided they would strike back in a last ditch attack the only way they knew how, by moving. Every gizmo would spend the rest of the night, no matter how long and painful it would be, constantly rushing about the environment, making the greatest attempts to create frenzied motion inside the simulation. The idea was that by the time Cathy slipped her foot inside, the gizmos would have overheated the chip immensely, not only killing them all and preventing her from retrieving and torturing them, but also hopefully leaving a lasting, aching bruise on her skin. It was pitiful, but it was all they had, and they set to work in that tiny chip inside Cathys sneaker.
Other sticker-chips were used to spruce up the walls and the furniture, and the cases of Cathy and Ciaras phones. Ciara had especially loved the look of one depicting thousands of stars and a moon moving around a dark purple sky, and Cathy was happy to let her keep it, just so happening to forget to mention that every single star was an extremely tiny gizmo trapped in a box, burning in sheer light to illuminate a speck of the screen. Even the moon was a collection of millions of people incapable of doing anything but clawing at the glass to get the attention of Ciara who gazed in unaware awe at the beautiful digital art. Even if she stared closely at the screen, she wouldnt have noticed anything strange; each gizmo was so small, it was only displayed on the screen as just a pixel or two. Now, the little glowing sticker shone into the dark room, stuck to the tip of Ciaras nose where she had playfully tapped it on. Another few chips were stuck across her body, one of them clinging to her chin where she had rolled over and pressed against it, another on her ass where Cathy had slapped it on as a joke. That was hours ago, and the fifty odd gizmos inside were gradually peeling off and sliding down into her crack. The feeling was feather-light and ticklish, making Ciara smile a little and nudge her hand over to touch it.
Her lazy arm dragged across the ground, scraping the chips attached to her wrist sweatband but, to the hopeless dismay of everyone inside, not coming close to breaking them. Her fingers glided up to the smooth screen and started to gently scratch, etching through the chip and slowly cracking through it. Bits of the device came off on her fingers, some falling down onto the floor and other getting caught on her skin. Most gizmos inside died slowly as they panicked, sizzling out of existence as a glitchy mess of broken code surged through the world, infecting everything near it. In the end, only a slither of the wafer-thin chip remained. Her fingers snaked away, dragging a few tiny fragments behind them, one of the minuscule pieces still harbouring a barely intact gizmo in a constant death loop where it was dying in agony then spawning alive again, and this crumb of hardware got caught under one of Ciaras fingernails. The larger surviving chip piece continued its way rolling down her butt cheeks, falling into the darkness and wedging deep between them where the intense moisture and heat would cook the machine throughout the night. By the morning, the gizmos inside would be dead.
Absolutely no plans had been made for the next day, and so the sunlight had been bursting into Cathys room for hours into the morning before either of the girls woke up. Ciara was the first, her yawning so boorish it snapped Cathy awake too. They stayed still staring at the ceiling, talking for a while. They considered plans for meeting again, and Ciara asked if she could bring a few gizmos home which Cathy was very snappy to oblige to. When she felt half ready, Ciara blew out a long, dry sigh and shuffled up to get out of the dirty bubble of her own breath that had formed around her during the night. Her hands clutched the blankets and sent them flying out across the ground, covering several chips strewn about, and she began to change into her vest and shorts. Giggling a little as she realised two sticker-chips were still on her face, she carefully nipped them off and stuck them to her clothes, one to the front of her shorts like a belt buckle, the other starry sky one to her converse shoe. Ciara gave it a firm slap as she glued it to the side of the shoe and put it on, the millions upon millions of gizmos still wailing to be seen even though it was impossible for her to notice them. Cathy slumped out of her bed soon after. Her feet lowered to the floor and stuck to her jeans lying directly below, and she spent the next minute or so just stretching as Ciara gathered her things.
You goin now? Its early, Cathy mumbled.
Its one.
Oh shit, what? The two laughed as Cathy jumped to attention and patrolled around the room kicking pieces of rubbish away under furniture rather than picking any up.
Well you can take the charger, Cathy said, picking her phone up and clicking the chip out of it, End. This command finally brought the citys night-long apocalypse to an abrupt end. Ciara turned around shocked.
What? But I thought you loved it-
I can make more, Cathy muttered, reaching out to hand the thing over. Ciara was hesitant, but so as not to seem rude, she took it. It did look cool, she thought, and the charging speed was unbelievable, Thank y-
Dont mention it, Cathy waved a hand and tripped back to her bedside to pull on her trousers, Just remember to say Begin and End when youre using it. Ciara nodded and was eager to whip out her own phone to test it. It didnt need a charge, it was at about eighty percent, but she wanted to see anyway;
Begin! she laughed, and the chips inhabitants were suddenly thrown into that hell all over again, never having been subjected to it at such short notice and so soon after the last time. In Cathys hands it was misery, but at least she knew what she was doing. Ciara had no notion of the level of inhumanity her words had just inflicted, and she stared wide-eyed and grinning at the gizmos she could not see, reaching up to her out of hell for comfort, or in a fruitless attempt to grab and strangle her.
Aaaand end!
See? Easy.
Yeah, this is great, Ciara said, sliding the chip into her back pocket, I better head. Cathy smiled back and threw on the rest of her clothes, shuffling her feet into her sneakers without bothering to put any socks on. She couldnt care less if she was only going to be wearing them to escort Ciara out of the place. Through the entire night and well into the morning, the gizmos trapped in that soggy sticker-chip now at Cathys foot had been tireless and moving at a mad pace. Around them, the strain of their efforts was taking its toll, sending glitches and noise across the landscape and ripping apart swathes of the world. Several had already died, but the few who remained kept going. It was becoming completely unbearable but seeing her face after all those hours filled them with enough energy to keep pushing.
The chip got caught between her toes as she pushed her foot down into the shoe, and the fluster and speed of her made the device go skidding down under her sole. When her foot landed softly and fit into the sneaker, the gizmos could only see the pitch black which was slightly penetrated by light that illuminated her skin. They all stopped and collapsed, embracing each other, and waiting. They could only hear the muffles of conversation and Cathys skin rubbing against the inside of her shoe, there was nothing else. This was when she was supposed to leap up in pain with the soaring heat they had created. In reality, they had overheated the chip, to the degree that permanent damage had been physically done in fact, but the sticker-chip was so small that whatever relatively incredible heat it produced was completely insignificant to Cathys senses. She nudged her foot a little, perhaps feeling a slight sting, but the chip just got stuck to her sole and was left hanging there, halfway to breaking. She wrinkled her skin just a little bit as she rose her foot to wiggle it securely inside the shoe, and the screen of the chip cracked, plunging the gizmos into absolute darkness. Confused and scared, they didnt know how to react, and some started up running again to try and push the heat a little further. All it took was for Cathy to drop her foot to the ground and press it down on the first step, and the chip shattered into countless pieces that got stuck between the wrinkles of her sole and left even less of an impression on her.
The two friends walked up to the door and chatted just a little longer, Ciara packing a few last things into her bag and slinging it over her shoulder.
You coming round to the pitch? Going to cheer me on? Ciara chuckled, she knew the answer.
Fuck off, I hope you lose, Cathy snarled. They laughed and made their way outside. A few minutes later, Cathy came back alone and shut the door hard as if to let anyone nearby know she wanted to be alone. She turned to see her room in a state, chips casually tossed anywhere and everywhere, packets and cans were the same, and the swivel chair had been scooted over to the wrong side of the room. She could have cleaned it all up, then again she could just have slept longer. Kicking her sneakers off, it didnt take her long to pick one. She was she had given Ciara her charger chip, it was a very kind thing to do. Ciara had been so ecstatic to yell those commands, it clearly made her feel powerful, and Cathy knew just how good that feeling could be. Ciara didnt need to know the chip charged her phone regardless of whether she called the commands or not, those gizmos needed a little excitement in their lives anyway. Cathy fell onto the bed sending the sheets scattering up and about in a flapping explosion, and she was snoring again seconds later.