In this chapter: Arin’s tiny perspective is told as he is thrown into the military engagement with Jessica. Lacy makes a friend that lives in the city atop her nightstand. Lacy gets creative with a lit candle and her camera.
Day 2 – Trebizand
Arin was one of the many young men forced into a makeshift militia group to aid the army in the defense of the proud desert metropolis of Trebizand. The 22-year-old university student witnessed his city of 8 million people warp through space and time only to be terrorized by a young woman referring to herself as a living goddess. Arin was violently escorted out of his small student apartment and tossed into a truck after the city’s first encounter with the apocalyptic Jessica. Arin was placed within a large hangar with a few hundred other young men, Arin noticed that most of the unfortunate people were even younger than himself, just kids at 15 and 16 in Arin’s eyes.
An older group of military officials barked orders and stated their purpose as a newly formed militia, a purpose that was surely suicide to Arin in his mind. Arin rolled his eyes when they were told to equip old and used up military gear that was in the facility, Arin grabbed a slightly rusted rifle out of an old wooden crate with a group of teenagers next to him. “Hey, this is fucking suicide, we need to run as soon as there’s an opportunity” Arin whispered to the small group around him. Arin knew that “supporting” the actual military with supplies and running ammo and fuel between battalions was absolutely crazy.
“No way! That bitch is going to die for what she did to us” the young teenager’s voice sounded shaky and unconfident.
“She is miles tall; did you not see what she did earlier?! She ripped a fucking skyscraper out of the ground and-” Arin said raising his voice. An officer from the Royal Army overheard Arin and ran over to him, the officer started to beat Arin with a small nightstick over his back and head, Arin tried to defend himself by putting his arms and hands up but collapsed on the floor with a busted nose and swollen eye.
“There will be no cowards in this militia, either she dies, or we all die, if anyone retreats, they will be shot and left to rot in the sand” the officer said.
Arin clambered on the ground covering his face and coughing, he was commanded to get up and fall back into formation or be beaten again. Arin found his feet and fell in line with the teenagers around him. Arin had one eye nearly swollen shut and his nose bled down to his mouth, the taste of blood weighed heavily on Arin as the dread of death washed over him. Arin and the others were loaded into old trucks with their makeshift gear and loads of supplies. The ride out to where the sandy dunes met the carpet felt like forever to Arin whose pain was starting to subside. Arin contemplated jumping out of the back of the truck, but he would be surely ran over, or caught by the truck behind him and shot for retreating.
Heavy tanks sped by the trucks on the dunes and dozens of war planes flew in the still and cool air above them. Arin peaked out of the truck once more and scanned the environment, he looked up towards the ceiling where a light as bright as a star shined down on them, the desert landscape did not reflect the temperature either, it was slightly cold to him. He noticed the mile tall shoes surrounding the city’s border on nearly all sides as the shoes lined up against the wall of the spacious closet, he looked up further to see a plethora of expensive looking clothes and other random items hanging on the walls.
Arin was forced out of the truck and told to wait a few dozen yards behind all the tanks and artillery, he was specifically told to hold his position until the tanks needed extra rounds, or if possible, to start shooting his rifle at the girl. The wait for action felt like an eternity, seeds of doubt began to grow amongst the teenagers and Arin who was being suspiciously eyed by the officers. Arin found himself where the sand started to meld into the carpet, he was behind a line of hundreds of tanks and thousands of actual trained soldiers. A few hours went by, Arin was still trying to devise an escape plan when he felt a low rumble shake the ground. The rumbles grew louder as the military was on high alert. Arin saw the tanks raise their cannons upwards towards the door, the battlefield was dead quiet. The ground started to shake more violently, and the sand kicked up a bit as Arin knew what was about to happen.
The door swung open; Jessica stood in the doorway with her arms crossed. Arin craned his neck to look all the way up at her beautiful face while her light-brown eyes peered down. The 10-mile-tall goddess wasn’t wearing any panties he thought, “This is just a fucking game to her!” Arin shouted; everyone was so transfixed on Jessica that Arin’s words went unnoticed. Jessica began to speak, after a few sentences the entire army opened fire, Arin dropped his rifle and covered his ears as the blasts grew loud.
Arin noticed Jessica began to pick up her mile-long foot and tease her high-heel above a large collection of tanks and soldiers hundreds of yards away. The platform of her shoe still loomed over Arin’s area in the most menacing fashion, he saw the deep treads of her shoe where many individuals would become squished remains in-between. Arin saw the heel of her shoes pivot and slowly descend upon dozens of tanks and soldiers, the agonizing sound of her heel impacting the tanks and the soldiers made Arin grimace with fear, he saw them flattened with no resistance whatsoever, the power this girl had over them was incomparable.
In the mass hysteria of soldiers and tanks being flattened and squished into human paste between the expensive treads of the red heel Arin started running back towards the city with a small group of young teenaged boys. In the sporadic running Arin didn’t notice that Jessica removed her shoes, but he could smell the stench of her feet masked behind the thin see-through stockings. He felt the loud vibrations from her goddess like speech and the impact of her feet while she crushed countless innocents between her toes and under her soles. Jessica began to drag her toes around the sand and carpet obliterating the remaining forces, Arin saw massive wall of pseudo black and clear material coming at him when he noticed it was the goddess’s toes dragging through the sand at alarming speeds, kicking up sand and guts in all directions as it plowed the soldiers and the landscape.
The chilling and grinding noise of toes getting closer made him dive backwards in a split-second decision. The young boys kept running towards what they thought was safety, Arin tried to yell at the boys to stop moving, but it was too late for them. Arin picked his head up and saw the wall of flesh and soft stocking material roll over the boys, he heard feint half-screams that lasted a under a second, mostly washed out from the noise of the young goddess giggling miles above him. The boys were decimated into red paste between the fibers of her stocking or left as red spots to moisturize the sand with blood.
The impact threw Arin backwards, he landed on his shoulder fracturing his clavicle and became buried under a pile of sand. Arin, bruised, and bleeding slowly drifted into a deep sleep, his vision fading to black from the pain as he heard the girl close the door miles off in the distance. When Arin woke, he would find himself broken amongst the harrowing and flattened battlefield, remains and splotches of what used to be tanks and people dug into the sand from the weight of the 20-year-old goddess’ feet.
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Day 2 - Lacy and Biraal City
Biraal City found itself spread out across the flat surface of a nightstand that belonged to a 21-year-old pale-faced woman named Lacy. The relatively small city of about 2 million inhabitants came from peaceful world, what they encountered in this young woman’s bedroom would completely change how they viewed their lives, her hazel eye and her light-brown eye struck fear into the hearts of all the microscopic people below her. After Lacy pressed down on a district of warehouses with her pinky crushing them into a twisted heap of metal and fractured bodies, the city planned on how to communicate with the girl. Lacy made her intentions clear, don’t mess with me and I won’t mess with you, but things could change whenever she pleased as she had all the power over them, which was a frightening thought to many of the citizens. She also provided her phone number to the city. Biraal was a peaceful city with no real police force or military, a few separate engineers started to try to figure out how to use the environment of this new world to make contact with Lacy, but their attempts were not working.
A young girl named Elle was always fascinated with technology, she found herself bullied through school for being awkward and too shy. She passed her time by taking apart small appliances and machines and putting them back together. At 16 years old, Elle was barely halfway through high school, she ignored most of her classmates now, she wore whatever she wanted and never expressed emotion to anyone, and her parents were distant and not too friendly either. When Elle witnessed her city relocate to another world, she became intrigued, she saw Lacy’s colossal body and massive display of power by just using her pinky and by speaking to the city, her words seemed frightening and stern to everyone apart from her.
Elle wanted that power, punishing all the people who have hurt her would be Elle’s dream come true. Elle took her tech savvy mind and started to apply all of her effort into an old radio transmitter that her grandmother gave her when she was younger. She worked for hours while Lacy was at the mall purchasing things for her girlfriend. Elle began to tinker at the machine, ripping it apart and adjusting numerous sensors and wires. She programmed the numbers into the transmitter and turned it on, the meters began to fluctuate and hiss. Elle began to type into the transmitter while sitting in her bedroom looking out of her window at the massive bed that belonged to Lacy.
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“I think that’s all I need, thank you” Lacy smiled as she finished paying for her last item, she grabbed her bags and quickly exited the store to her beaten up older car in the parking lot. Lacy began her short drive back to the apartment when she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. Lacy parked her car in the resident section and pulled out her phone, it was from an unknown and hidden contact.
“Hello, Lacy. My name is Elle, I figured out how to communicate with you” Lacy read the text aloud to herself. Lacy became giddy in her car and smiled wide, “holy shit! Someone actually figured out how to talk to me, huh, I should reply” Lacy said.
“Hi, Elle, you’re about to see something cool.” Lacy messaged. Lacy grabbed her bags then put her phone back in the pocket of her black skinny jeans. Lacy walked up the stairs and opened the door, “someone forgot to fucking lock the door,” she thought. Lacy locked the door behind her and hurried to her room, her black converse smacked against the floor, “huh, only one crunch this time, I guess they’re learning,” Lacy giggled to herself as she opened her bedroom door. Lacy kicked off her converse and peeled her socks off, she threw her bags by the side of her bed and jumped on the soft, thick comforter that lays on top.
She backed herself up against the wall and kicked her bare feet up on the edge of the nightstand just barely out of reach of the tiny city, her feet a mile long each dominated the skyline, her soles rising above the tallest buildings. She curled and wriggled her black painted toes up and down, “Sorry about the smell, I’ve been running around all day” Lacy said, not even looking at the city, she pulled her phone out of her black skinny jean pocket once more.
Lacy noticed a message pop up on the screen of her phone as she quietly hummed to herself. “I can fucking smell your feet from inside my room, I can see your toes through my window, my eyes are watering, can you please take your feet away??” Elle's desperate message read.
“Hmm… no” Lacy said to the city, the citizens were already in panic when they saw her massive toes curling over the table. Lacy kicked up her right foot to rest on top of her left she then exhaled a long and relaxing sigh; she batted her feet forwards and backwards to make sure the scent of her feet wafted throughout all the corners of the city.
“I don’t need another bully in my life, please, I’m about to throw up, please!” Lacy read the message in her head. Lacy immediately was filled with overwhelming thoughts of her anxiety and how much it affected her growing up, the harsh bullying she encountered from the other girls her age and how it made Lacy hate the world and most of the people in it, she remembered how her parents just ignored her cries for help until she felt abandoned and too depressed to take on the world at a younger age. Lacy slowly retracted her feet and curled her legs up to her chin, she replied to the girl named Elle.
“I’m sorry, I don’t want to be your bully… tell me about yourself, Elle” Lacy messaged. Lacy hid her face behind her knees as the microscopic city grew increasingly nervous. The smell of her feet began to dissipate out of the tiny environment.
“I’m only 16, I figured out how to talk to you so that I tell you how much I envy you, I wish I could show all the people that hurting me was a mistake and that they should pay… I just really want a friend” Elle messaged back.
“I know what that’s like, Elle, that gives me an idea, tell me where you are” Lacy replied.
“Do you see where the picture frame is closest to your bed and feet? I’m a few hundred yards from that border in a small neighborhood, well, probably just a few inches to you” Elle messaged.
Lacy kicked her feet out and crawled off her bed, she stood above the city on her nightstand that was about waist-high to her, she lowered her face to the city and located a tiny neighborhood by Lacy’s picture with Ki. “Okay, I see you, I think… well your neighborhood at least...” Lacy whispered to the city, confusing the citizens. “I have an idea! You have a lucky winner, someone figured out how to talk to me!” Lacy giggled, the scent from her breath blowing outward onto the tiny city. Lacy turned around to walk over to her dresser, she grabbed a lighter off her dresser and a small candle that’s only been used a few times. Lacy walked back over to the city and lit the candle with her lighter, she tossed the lighter on the bed.
Lacy held the bottom of the candle until the wax on top started to liquefy and melt. Lacy bent over the city above one of the busier downtown looking areas, she carefully tilted the candle to its side and let a drop of hot wax fall off the top, it impacted the busy streets below, “Hmm… how about one more” she smirked, she again tilted the candle and began to circle it around the city in a random pattern, making sure to avoid Elle’s neighborhood in the corner “This is too much fun” Lacy said. Lacy blew out the candle when she saw the second drop of hot wax fall somewhere in the city, she blew some of the smoke towards the microscopic people.
She placed the candle back on her dresser and grabbed her professional camera out of her bag underneath her bed, she turned it on and brought the lens about eye-level to the city, with the power of the expensive camera, she zoomed in as far as she could, after she adjusted the focus she could almost make out the microscopic peoples’ features, she began to take pictures of the city and where the candle wax dripped, she noticed hundreds of dots trapped in place after the wax cooled and solidified, it reminded Lacy of the statues of people frozen in time when Pompeii erupted. When Lacy was satisfied with her snapshots, she placed the camera on the floor and jumped on her bed, she brought her phone back up to her face and texted Elle, “How’s that?”
“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to this city…” Elle responded.
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Hundreds of thousands of people looked up to see the falling wax from the candle thousands of feet above them, the hot wax impacted the crowded streets in a plop and expanded outward slowly like lava, the people caught directly under the molten liquid were instantly emulsified from the intense temperature where their remains became liquid and unidentifiable. Others were swept into the wax while inside their vehicles as they became trapped when the wax cooled, some wax seeped through the car windows and melted people into their seats, thousands died and suffocated as they were burned to death or half burned and trapped as the wax started to harden around their bodies, crushing them slowly and painfully, the wax was too thick for any of the people’s tools to chip through to save anyone.
When Lacy blew the smoke from the extinguished candle outward, hundreds of people with respiratory conditions feinted from lack of air, some died as their lungs couldn’t handle the change in conditions. When the crowds of people recovered, they noticed a gigantic camera lens pointed right at them, the people could hear clicks of the aperture shutting over and over again. They were just fucking toys to her the people thought, she’s taking pictures of the encased victims as if it were an art project. A few citizens dropped to their knees and started to beg for forgiveness in the name of the multi-eye colored Lacy, they would do anything for her to spare them, anything…