He'd tracked them for four days. Four hot days. A group of twenty five. Mixed. Guarded. They carried a dozen or so of the fried potato treats that the giants called 'chips'. One of those would be worth a fortune to another tribe.

Insects were reasonably easy to come by in summer, especially snails. But snails were nobody's favorite. So slimey and stale. The things that the giants nurished on however; mhhh, spicey, exciting, rewarding. Nucky had just seen the matriarch of some tribe by a shallow river a week towards the great forrest gorge herself to death on a bag of those chips that had floated a little upstream.

He'd used it as a raft to get to them and didn't even know what he was sitting on. He'd made a bad deal however. Originally come to sell them mouse teeth in exchange for snail meat he got far more than he could have hoped for. And lost it all.

Nucky had still been counting the wealth of things the matriarch had given him in exchange for his 'raft'. A warrior with a glass shard had opened the bag and the fat ugly matriarch woman started to feast. It wasn't long before she grunted, grabbed her left breast and collapsed; dead.

He killed the first warrior that wanted to seize him. Nucky wasn't near as huge and bulky as him but three years roaming the land alone had turned him into a killer who knew his craft. There weren't many lone strayers such as him. They didn't live very long either. And neither would Nucky lest he got some new equipment and things he could trade. He ran away having to leave most of his stuff behind. Now he didn't have a weapon, no food supplies, nothing to trade. Just his sturdy clothes.

And a group of twenty five was not easy to tackle. Small enough to be manageble, big enough to be strong. They had no idea he was there though. He'd been stalking around their camps in the night, but they were cautious. They knew how valuable their goods were.

This lack of opportunity couldn't last forever, he thought. Maybe tonight Nucky would get lucky. He smiled as he observed the group carefully march forward towards a wide patch of black wasteland that divided the green landscape. A road.

They were allready advancing to it through the shallow grass beside the road but Nucky knew roads were a place where one could die a quick and merciless death if not carefull. He found a decent young forb at the edge of the brush and strated climbing. Half way up he noticed the group hadn't even bothered to check left or right for the terrifying vehicles that owned the roads in this world.

When he was at the tob of the forb the group had luckily allready covered most of the way. A truck's double tires could have ridden Nucky of all his problems at once. But he spotted another source of danger in the distance. A giant woman was running on the smaller black patch that was beside the road toward the group. Neither the street nor the shallow grass beside it offered any cover for the group and they hadn't even noticed the woman yet.

Giants were dangerous per se even if they were gentle towards Nucky's kind. He remembered how scared he was back when a group of kids had captured him. They had stroked his skin and marvelled at how 'cute' he was. All they did was rub his skin sore and make him feel depressed.

But they gave him food, which was good. Still their sheer size meant that coexistence was only possible in very limited ways.

If the group was lucky the giantess would either not notice them or ignore them. She was running steadily in the hot sun, her brown skin shiny with fresh sweat. She wore the typical runner's attire for a giant. An extremly tight, blue pair of shiny short trowsers, a white shirt of the same material and white running shoes.

Nucky noticed how gorgeous she was. Young and fit, beautifull face. Her long brown hair bound to a pony tail that swung left and right with every huge step she took. She also wore one of those things on her head that many runners had. A silver bow with two shells that covered their ears. A device to listen to music, Nucky had learned. He wondered what the giant's music was like. Propably something more sophisticated than his people's shamanesque ritual rubbish.

The giantess didn't pay much attention to the ground below her so it looked like the group would go unnoticed. If they didn't screw up. And screw up they did. When faced with an animal like a cat, a dog or a fox don't move at all. Breath as softly as you can, and what ever it does, do not move. That's the best chance you'll get if you want to survive.

If, however, confronted with a giant, hide. Hide as well as you can and then don't move, don't make a sound. The group should've pressed themselves to the ground and wait for the huge girl to pass them. Instead they started screaming like maniacs and ran for the high grass on the other side of the sidewalk. They had underestimated her speed too.

She was only two strides away when she noticed them. Now it was to see whether she'd be gentle, violent or indifferent. Nucky had a feeling that this wouldn't end well. She slowed down and had her right foot land on the foremost runner, his liquified body spraying the sidewalk.

The group, in their stupidity, stopped running. This was the best Nucky could hope for. The girl would take them out and he'd go over there and collect as much of their stuff as he could carry. He was supposed to dance and scream with joy but he didn't. Not at the prospect of watching the gruesome abuse of unstoppable force that was about to take place. Against his own kind.

The tallest people didn't even reach the giantesse's ankles. She had her hands on her hips and stood between the group and the relative safety of the high grass. Her smile was as playful as it was frightening.

"Hey there little guys.", she mused from above, "What'chy'all doing?" She was still standing on the remains of her first victim. Nucky wanted to scream at them to run like hell. Either back over the road or better yet past her feet into the grass. She'd kill five to ten if they did. Which was reasonably preferable over twenty four more dead people. But they didn't move.

He saw one of the men raise his arms and gesture like he was pleading. He was rewarded with a pityfull smile before her foot crushed him to death. Another man made a run for it and was flattened in a similar casual fashion.

"What's with the potato chips?", the giantess asked amused and stomped two of the people along with the stack of four or so chips they were carrying. This time a girl tried to run but didn't get very far. Every time Nucky could hear the wet squelch when one of the poor, stupid people was liquified und the giantesse's weight. They were reasonably lucky to get stomped though; Nucky knew of stories where the giants had taken much more time and pleasure in killing innocent people.

Still, this was just wrong. The falsity of it offended him deeply. He found himself breathing hard and having squeezed the plant he was holding to so tightly that some of it's juice had squirted out. But there wasn't anything he could do about it. The rest of them would die too, just because a spoiled giantess was propably a bit bored.

The first rule of survival in this world was to avoid anything that could kill one without any significant effort, which included any animal larger than a rat and especially giants and their vehicles. Nucky would feel bad later when he would collect the loot. The thought of having to scrape their bodies off the sidewalk in order to get it didn't disgust him at all. The only bad thing about it was that he'd be exposed on the tarmac for some time.

The giantess now stomped right into the group. One after another they were decimated beneath her. Guts, blood and other body matter sprayed from under her sole. Sometimes she'd kill two with a single stomp. Her face meanwhile didn't show any animosity.

Just a mix of curiosity and amusement and a hint of disgust. For Nucky it added a touch of absurdity to her malice. But whatever, he thought, if something was this big it was propably entitled to do what ever it liked no matter how inane it was.

The stomping had turned almost rythmically, a drum beat of death. Some of the group tried to run but the runners the giantess killed first. It went on until only three people were left. They cowered on the floor, drenched in the blood and flesh of their companions.

The giantess laughed pityfully: "Umm, sorry guys. I'd take you home and give you to my sister but you're way to dirty to pick up!" Thud, thud, thud and they were gone. The girl payed a last , slightly disgusted look at the scene, laughed and continued her exercise. Nucky looked after her for some time.

How could something so beautiful be so malicious? He checked the road left and right before he quickly climbed down to the floor and ran towards the scene of the gratutious massacre. Although largely undernurished he was able to cover the street very quickly. Just in time.

Not long after he had entered the short grass between the road and the sidewalk a car thundered past. The wind that it dragged along threw him of his feet. When he got up he checked the sidewalk again, left-right-okay, and inspected closer the gruesome scene infront of him.

Smashed bodies all over the place. Some heads were still intact though, the faces empty eyed yet still engraved with a grimace of terror. Some skulls had cracked open and the brains they once contained were lying about as a pink puddle of mush. But for the most part, innards made up the goofy stuff that was everywhere. The smell was nauseating, but Nucky had smelled worse in his life. He'd 'dug' himself into a three day dead rabbit once trying to find a decent piece of meat.

Not long until he found what he was looking for. One of their warriors had carried a wooden club that had not taken any damage from the giantess. He also found a glassshard shaped like a dagger, the thicker end even wrapped in frog skin to protect the wielder's hand. He was fit for combat again.

The potato chips of course were shattered to bits and most of them drenched in blood and gore. He managed to find about four bits that were sellable and a piece of snail meat that he immediately fed to himself.

He noticed a girl on the ground that was still alive. A pretty one he'd payed special attention to earlier when he'd observed them waiting for an opportunity to take their goods. She had blonde hair that was now blood-drenched and dirty, blue eyes and a gorgeous young face.

He had fantasized about her finding him, falling in love with him and them having steaming hot sex while her comrades were asleep. Of course such a thing didn't happen. Such a thing never happened. Those that like Nucky walked alone in this dangerous world were treated with suspicion by the clans if they were lucky, outright hatred and hostility if they were not.

One time an especially vile clan that was known for having an arrangement with a giantess to provide sex slaves offered him one of their girls in exchange for two frog skins he was peddling at the time. The girl was as young and gorgeous as this one and he had been tempted very much.

But he had refused. The fear in her eyes had made him decline. He just couldn't stand being a part of such a grave injustice. "Ai'ght.", the clansman had said, "She goes to the big bitch 'en." Why the giantess required new slaves so frequently, a young and naive Nucky had asked. "'ell", the brutal clansman had said after a throaty laugh, "She focks'em flat."

Nucky should've taken the girl and safed her. He still caught himself thinking about her sometimes before he went to sleep.

The girl on the floor infront of him opened her mouth but only a soft gargle escaped her lips. Blood was running out of the corner of her mouth. She was dead, her brain just didn't know it yet. He rushed to her side, took her hand and hushed trying to calm her down. Half her torso was intact, her lower half, pelvis and legs were one with the tarmac.

Nucky wanted to cry, cry loudly, but he'd seen too much in his life to be able to. Great sadness befell him as he craddled the girl's hand. Her fearfull eyes looking right into his widened when the earth started to shake. Softly at first, but more significant with every step. Something big was comming their way.

Nucky cursed himself for having allowed stupid feelings to disrupt his caution. He left the girl were she was, grabbed his loot and ran into the high grass as fast as he could. There was a large tuft of grass right next to the sidewalk that he hid behind, carefull not to move the grass too much and give away his position.

Whatever was comming was allready too close for him to be able to run further away without being detected. When he saw her face his heart dropped into his pants. It was the same girl. The jogging giantess. She'd come back from the direction she went, propably returning to her house now.

She looked to the ground infront of her and smiled but didn't bother to stop. Her foot landed square on top of the blonde girl, now mercifully crushing her completely. Nucky huffed and shivered, beside himself with rage. He wanted to kill this human. More than anything in the world he wanted to kill her, and make her suffer for what she had done.

If the 'Mother', the religious superstition most of the clans believed in was real, she had to grant him this wish. But she wouldn't, because she wasn't. When the huge girl had thundered away Nucky forced himself to turn and press on. He knew a tribe not far from here living in a garden. They allways had tasty vegetables and fruits but almost never got to taste any giant-processed food. He'd make a good trade there and be back in business. It would take him a day and a half to get there.

-

All the way his mind was troubled by thoughts about the girl he could've bought and saved but didn't. And the other girl he never got to talk to before her life had so brutally ended. The loneliness that had defined his life ever since he could remember suddenly pulled very hard on him.

Maybe he'd try and stay with the clan for as long as he could and maybe meet a girl there too. He reckonned his chances to be bad though. The garden-tribes-people were a closed up, superstitious and suspicious community.

He hated his life at the moment. Although he supposed he'd hate to live in a tribe aswell. Nucky knew he would suffer nightmares again tonight. He considered marching through the night for a moment but found it to be too dangerous. Cats and owls were on the hunt at night.

He stumbled upon a glade in the high grass and found a remedy for his troubles. A huge glass bottle containing a rest of a clear liquid. The bottle had blue letters on it that Nucky wasn't able to read but the smell that emitted from the opening told him what this was. It was the human's drink for forgetting and feeling happy.

The scent disgusted him. It smelled worse than any poison he had ever been confronted with. Of course, the makers of poison didn't want their product to smell like poison. A concept the makers of this 'drink' apparently didn't understand. Nucky didn't like it at all and he never drank it before, he just knew what it did, that it would make him forget, which was everything he wanted.

He dropped his stuff infront of the bottle and squeezed himself inside. Even the first breath he took inside made him feel dizy. He didn't mind the dead flies that swam into the puddle when he crouched down and took a sip of the clear liquid.

It tasted almost as bad as it smelled and it burned horribly in his mouth and throat. When he swallowed he almost threw it back up. But it did it's job right away too. A pleasant warmth filled him, he was getting a little jolly. Still company would be nice know. A beautiful girl perhaps...

Another two handfull of it and he had no need for company anymore. He squeezed out of the bottle, took his stuff and stumbled into the evening. Every heartbeat pumped more of it from his belly into his system. Suddenly he was very happy, very hungry, and then very sad. If an owl or cat would get him now, it wouldn't matter. His life was shit anyway.

-

When he awoke he had no idea where he was. The sun was almost at it's zenith allready, he had apparently eaten three of his precious pieces of potato chip and to top it all off he had a pounding head ache. 'Good job, Nucky', he thought bitterly.

Still he had his weapons, which was good, and he noticed that he must have stumbled into the right direction in the night. It would only be a matter of hours from here. A head ache wouldn't stop him either, only the loss of the treats bugged him. Well, if he didn't have something to trade, he'd have to take it from them. Maybe he'd just harvest some crops by himself in the dark and be gone by the morning.

He had visited this clan only once before but the garden hadn't changed much. There was a huge house at the other side of the garden with white plaster and a flat black roof. It looked rather old and not very luxurious. The garden was in excelent shape though.

Immediately Nucky noticed numbers of footprints on the soft topsoil. Those were the flower-beds-tribe's paths. He kept away from them and, moving from cover to cover, he scouted the area. He came by some wholes in the ground and he was able to observe several of the flower-bed-tribes people but none of them noticed him. They propably kept their food underneath the ground, he reasoned, a den with only one exit. Too risky for him to go in there.

When he heard the voice of a female giant from the patio the group of flower-bed-tribes people he was watching quickly ran into their cave. But the giantess didn't seem to leave the patio at all. Perhaps Nucky could exploit their caution. Maybe there would be cat food to steal at the patio too.

He carefully made his way towards the patio when he heard someone or something, his size, walking torwards him a few brushes away. Quickly he cowered behind a scrub from where he was able to observe the flower-bed-tribe people's path.

Two men, a warrior and a skinny one escorted a female. Her hands were bound and she was gagged. She wore an odd poncho and trousers and seemed to be trembling with fear. Her eyes were swollen red and still crying. Her hair had the same color as the girl's that Nucky had failed to safe at the slavers clan...

She was pretty too. He'd safe her. Then they'd talk. Maybe she'd be grateful towards him and repay his selflessness. But he wouldn't force her. Unlike these two bastards would, he thought. When they had passed his position Nucky focussed. No fears, no feelings now. This was what he was born to do.

Without making a sound he came up behind the warrior within two steps. When the big man noticed him and drew his weapon it had been allready too late. Almost. Somehow he was able to block Nucky's blow to his head. But he had counted his chickens before they were hatched.

Nucky pulled his left hand with the dagger from behind his back and buried it into the warrior's throat. He hurled the man to the floor and continued to cut through his throat completely. He expected the skinny man to attack him but he didn't do anything of the sort. Instead the youngling screamed like a girl and ran.

Nucky jumped to his feet and went after him but a strong hand held him by his ankle. The warrior was gargling blood and was clearly dying, still he faught on. Nucky delivered a blow to his face with the cudgel and ran after the skinny man. But he was gone, somewhere, propably organizing reinforcements allready.

Nucky ran back to the girl. She just stood there and looked at him with fear. He would've liked to explain that he wasn't going to hurt her, but there had to be time for that later. He grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder. There were allready footsteps comming his way.

He ran away from trail into the scrub, fighting himself through until he found a decent and empty space inside a forb. He gently lowered the girl to the ground and began to undo her gag. "Don't scream, I'm not going to hurt you.", he tried to calm her down. She was shivering and tears were running down her cheeks. He wiped them away with his blood stained hand.

He noticed that he was shivering too. This was the first time ever he was alone with a girl and the first one he would propably have a longer conversation with. The urge to punch himself in the face arose in him as he realized he had just fearlessly killed a man bigger and stronger than him but now trembled in sight of a small girl.

When her gag was undone she sobbed and shifted away from him. He went after her only to unbind her hands. He noticed the bruises on her arms. They didn't look fresh. Nucky had the strong urge to comfort her. Her hands untied she crawled away from him more frantically.

He raised his hands in a peacefull gesture and leaned back, eying her from a distance. If only she knew he was as scared of her as she was of him. She had wraped her arms around her knees and cowered in a corner of what little space there was in the forb, silently staring at him.

Gathering all resolve he could he broke the awkward silence. "Noone is going to hurt you.", he repeated softly with an embarassing quake to his voice. "Well, not unless they find us in which case we're propably both dead.", he added wittily with a sudden boost of confidence that surprised himself.

Her eyes narrowed and he thought to have seen the hint of a smile on her lips for a moment. "What's your name?", he whispered. She didn't say anything. "I'm Nucky.", he continued, "Just that." 'And I just just fucking saved your life so go ahead and talk to me!', he wanted to add but didn't.

"What tribe are you of?", the girl asked with a shaking voice. Nucky sighed with relief. She was speaking to him. "I am of no tribe. I'm a goods peddler of sorts; I roam this world alone."

Lea saw the stranger painfully bite his tounge in his mouth when she flinched. Everyone had allways warned her about these men. They were dangerous. Thieving, spoiling and raping anything they could. The only reason they didn't come together and do their evil deeds in groups was because their were all so utterly capricious that they'd end up killing each other one way or another.

The only time they allowed them to enter their territory was when the lone straiders brought them much needed or exotic things from far away. She'd rather be captive with the flower-beds-tribe right now, she thought. However, something seemed to be different about this one.

He was wiry built and propably a little below average height. He had a bony, scared over face, dark hair and deep black eyes. He was young, but he looked like life had allready taken a large toll on him. Lea couldn't tell if he was lurking or genuinely nervous. She noticed that his skin was actually pale white, he just looked dark skinned because he had rubbed himself in dirt propably to stay hidden while he was preying on innocent people. She had to get away from him.

"You can sell me back to the flower-beds-tribe", Lea suggested reluctantly, "I expect they'd give you the best price for me." Was that disappointment in his eyes? The stranger sighed and broke eye contact. "My name is Lea.", she added insecurely. Their eyes met again.