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Pedro rubbed his eyes and glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was three in the morning. Apart from the buzzing fluorescent lights the store was still and silent. Only two more hours until the next shift came in and he could go home. Pedro closed his eyes and imagined how good it was going to feel to pop some nyquil, crawl back into bed, and drift off to sleep.

THOOM!

“Fuck!” Pedro cried out as his entire body was jostled by a powerful tremor. Merchandise tumbled off the shelves, milk bottles fell and shattered on the floor, and the lights flickered wildly. As a San Diego native, Pedro was no stranger to earthquakes. He dropped to his knees, covering his neck with his arms and steadying himself against the counter. His whole body tensed in anticipation of the next tremor. 

It never came. Pedro eased himself onto his feet. His heart sank as he surveyed the mess. The sound of running water could be heard coming from behind the bathroom door. The quake must have burst a pipe.

Pedro walked to the door, stepping over piles of merchandise on the way. He hoped his car wasn’t damaged. The door had been wrenched slightly out of its frame by the quake and hairline cracks ran through both glass panes. He braced his shoulder against it and pushed his way out into the parking lot. 

It was still dark out. The parking lot was still and calm, as if nothing had happened. The asphalt had buckled in some places. Pedro glanced apprehensively at the fueling stations, assessing the damage, but as far as he could tell they were fine. He took out his phone, flicked on the flashlight, and jogged over to his truck. The earthquake had shifted the car several feet forward, pushing it against the guardrail and badly denting the front bumper. Fixing that was gonna cost him a few hundred bucks for sure. The tires, chassis, and bed were unharmed. He climbed inside and tried the engine. It sputtered to life on the first try. Thank fuck, he thought. There was no way he could have afforded big repairs.

Pedro looked back at the store. He could see the flourescent lights flickering weakly through the window. The neon budweiser sign was cracked in half and hanging at an angle.  It was going to take some serious work to get the place back into shape. Not even Mr. Langley could reasonably expect him to take care of that mess himself. On top of that had no idea how his condo had fared during the earthquake. Nobody could possibly blame him for heading home right now. Hell, it might not even be safe to stick around. The whole place could go up in flames any minute. Pedro spit out the window and shifted the car into gear. A dead end job at a gas station wasn’t worth losing his life in an explosion.

He pulled out of the parking lot and turned onto the road. The car bounced over a large pothole on his way out. That’s new. The fields of grain on either side of the interstate looked untouched. Pedro steadied the wheel with his knees and fished out a cigarette. He was still feeling a little shaken. The sun was starting to rise in earnest now. He could see further down the road, past the dim yellow light of his headlights. A thick crack ran through the middle of the asphalt. A fallen sapling blocked the way a few hundred feet ahead of him. And past that…

Past that the road stopped.

Pedro’s pulse quickened. He didn’t know how to process what he was seeing. About a quarter mile ahead of him the road just stopped, cleaved by a dun colored wall covering the entire field of view his windshield afforded him. He slowed down. For some reason Pedro was reminded of a TV show he had seen where a huge dome descended on a small town, trapping everyone underneath. As he got closer he could see the wall wasn’t smooth, but rather covered in shallow ridges. He stopped the car and got out.

Pedro’s parents had taken him to see the Grand Canyon as a child. Some of his most vivid memories were of looking down into the canyon, feeling an overwhelming sense of awe at its sheer size and grandeur, at the way it dominated the surrounding landscape. He had never seen anything so BIG. And now, staring up at the wall, cigarette hanging limply out of the corner of his mouth, he was gripped by that same feeling of dumbstruck amazement. He saw the wall wasn’t endless, although getting around it would entail a serious detour. It was maybe 800 feet from end to end, easily covering the road and flattening the grain fields on either side. Its height, however, was much more formidable. Pedro craned his neck, his eyes tracing the curvature of the structure. It was more like a skyscraper than a wall, although he got the feeling that even the tallest skyscraper he’d ever seen would have barely reached halfway up this monolith. There was something unnerving about its color. His heart was pounding now. Pedro looked up as far as he could, straining to see the structure’s summit. 

His cigarette dropped to the ground, and his stomach followed suit.

Those were toes.

A range of tan hills, the smallest the size of a football stadium, the largest several times that, each with a delicate pattern of prints. Shaking, Pedro took a step back. The feeling of awe turned into terror, and then hopelessness. He was an insect. A speck of dust. He had never felt so small, so totally insignificant. Pedro screamed and sprinted back to his truck. As if on cue, the earth began to shake once more as the gigantic foot stirred from its resting place. He tripped, bloodying his hands and knees on the asphalt. There was a sound like a distant avalanche, an enormous sigh that split the air and shook his body like rolling thunder. The voice of a god. Pedro clasped his ears in pain. The huge toes spread apart slightly and wiggled in a terrifying display of causal power. Like a mountain being ripped up by its roots the gargantuan foot rose into the air with an audible whoosh, blotting out the sun. He was cast in darkness. There was nowhere to go. It was simply too big. He was going to be crushed underfoot like an ant. Pedro watched as the building sized toes spread slightly to brace for impact with the ground and his vision was filled with nothing but tan. He raised his arms pathetically, as if he could somehow hope to withstand the inevitable, unimaginable impact. There was a sound of rushing wind, an instant of unbelievable pressure.

And the earth shook for miles around. 

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Emily opened her eyes. It was dark and cold. Her temples were throbbing. She squeezed her eyes shut and grimaced. She felt foggy and lethargic, almost hungover. Her arms and legs felt heavy. She tried to piece together what had happened. Her car had broken down. There had been a bright light. Terrible pain.

The ship! Emily had never given much thought to UFOs, but there just wasn’t another explanation for what she had seen. Had she been abducted? She opened her eyes again. The sun was barely starting to rise through the fog. Around her was nothing but flat tan colored ground. Maybe they had returned her to earth and wiped her memory? 

Emily suddenly realized why she was cold - her clothing was gone. She groaned. With some effort she pushed herself up onto her feet and took a shaky step. The wispy knee-high fog blanketing the ground swirled around her legs, dissipating at her touch. She bent down and swirled it with her hand. The cloudy vapor churned around her fingers like smoke. It felt cold - and surprisingly wet. She flicked the moisture off her hand and straightened up to look around. The empty, flat, field stretched as far as she could see. Most of it was covered by uneven patches of the unusual fog. The parts of the ground she could see were mottled tan and green, almost like a patterned carpet. There were no landmarks, no roads, no signs of civilization. Maybe this isn’t earth after all. 

Emily was surprised that, lost as she was, she barely felt any anxiety. In fact she felt better than she had in a long time - as if she had just awoken from an especially refreshing nap. Her headache was subsiding as well. The whole situation was so surreal it felt like a dream. In any case, there didn’t seem to be any immediate danger. With nothing better to do, Emily picked a direction and started walking. The ground beneath her feet was soft and yielded a little under every step. It was reassuring to know that she would be able to retrace her footprints if need be. As she walked, her heavy breasts jiggled and swayed. The cool air was making her nipples hard. Emily hoped her clothes turned up before she bumped into someone.

The sun had risen in earnest now, and along with it a bit of a breeze. The fog began to disperse, giving Emily a better view of the ground. It really did look quite a lot like a carpet. A seemingly random pattern of squares and circles, each about the size of her hand, colored varying shades of green and tan. In some places the geometric patterns gave way to rough edged patches of darker brown. She was reminded of a zen garden she had visited once in the city, where monks had raked beautiful patterns in the sand accented with arrangements of smooth stones. A glimmer of light in the distance caught her eye. She saw what looked like a large puddle of water a few yards ahead. As she got closer, she noticed that the dirt around the puddle was grey rather than green. The texture looked different too, more like tiny crystals than soil. An intricate pattern of gossamer thin lines crisscrossed the grey patch like a spiderweb. Emily furrowed her brow, what the hell is going on here. Cautiously, she extended a foot and prodded the crystals with her toe. They disintegrated with no resistance. A small puff of smoke wafted up from her toe print. Curious, she got on her hands and knees and brought her face up to the crystals to get a closer look. Her hefty tits swung low, almost brushing the ground. She squinted her eyes. The tiny structures were so fine that it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to their level of detail. 

Her heart skipped a beat.

A city. A tiny, living, city. The structures weren’t crystals, but houses and buildings, the largest of which was barely the size of a grain of rice. The criss crossing lines were roads covered in streams of colorful dots which must have been cars. She focused harder. There, between the houses and cars, streaming around the streets and city blocks were tiny swarms of black specs, barely the size of mites.

People.

They were obviously running, trying desperately to get away from her, she realized. She also realized what a terrifying sight she must have made, a naked titaness peering down at them from the sky. It all made sense now. The strange fog, the patterns on the field. She was huge. Miles tall. Her approaching steps must have felt like earthquakes to these people. Emily’s heart sank as she realized how much damage she caused with her foot earlier. The buildings had crumbled so easily beneath her big toe. How many homes had been destroyed? How many people had died because of her careless curiosity? Emily felt hot tears begin to form in the corners of her eyes.

“I’m so so sorry!”

She stood up, and took a step back. Suddenly feeling very naked she covered her crotch with one hand and tried to hide her breasts with the other, with limited success.

What am I going to do?