Melissa had returned, much earlier than they had expected. In addition, the news that Ray's group had not returned resonated through the Refugee camp site like wild fire, possibly implying that they had been captured by Melissa. With their food scavenger squad potentially incapacitated, panic began to befall the Refugees.
Chapter 8: Death Clock
Both Thomas and Dawson stood outside of Thomas' tent, watching the other Refugees become more and more worrisome.
"Why is Melissa back already?" Dawson asked. "This is odd."
"Maybe her class ended early," Thomas replied. "Or maybe it was cancelled. Stuff like that happens."
"It's never happened to us."
"Really? ...Well, in any case, hopefully Ray and the rest are on their way back up here."
"Yeah... I hope so. If not, then we're in trouble..." Dawson said.
~~~
Though Gloria was relatively far away from the campsite, she could hear the increasingly loud uproar that her comrades were evoking, though the overall sounds were still rather faint.
Looking in that direction, she said to herself, "Why are they getting so nois-"
Just then, she heard the door open through the hole overlooking the bathroom. She turned her head back towards the hole, and saw Melissa entering into the room. She stood up in shock.
"Shit."
~~~
"Hey!" Shawn called out while standing in the center of the campsite. "Quiet! Everyone, quiet! You all got on Thomas' case about him being loud, but listen to yourselves!"
Hearing this, the Refugees started to slowly quiet down.
"Listen," Shawn continued. "You all should sit down and wait. It's too early to jump to conclusions."
Some of the Refugees nodded, though some also in obvious doubt.
As Thomas watched Shawn attempt to becalm the Refugees, Dawson turned towards him.
"If Ray is captured, Bruce is gonna be pissed," Dawson said. "He personally hand-picked Ray to be on the Food Squad, and the two of them are tight like brothers. ...Or maybe even lovers."
Thomas turned towards Dawson, with a look of disbelief on his face. "Lovers? I don't think so."
Either way, if Ray had indeed been captured, he did not want to be around to see Bruce's reaction to the news.
~~~
Ray, Joe, and Hunter all sat in a glass jar that Melissa had placed them inside, one whose light inside had been dimmed by the dark cloth covering its opening and the majority of the sides around it.
"What do you think she's gonna do to us?" Hunter asked.
"Kill us," Joe responded, his arms crossed.
"Yeah, besides that?"
"She'll find some why to torture us," Ray said. "Damn. I hate to think that it's my fault that we got into this. Ah well... That's our life for you."
"Why are you so casual about this?" Joe asked. "Don't you know that you're probably going to die?"
"Yeah, well, all I have to do is endure whatever she throws at me until she finally decides to off me, right?" Ray began to twist his green hair around his index finger. "Then I'll be free from this hell."
"Hell? You have no idea what hell is like. ...But you'll be going there soon enough."
Ray shot a glare at Joe. "Come again?"
"You're an awful young man if I've ever seen one, with barely a good bone in you," Joe continued. "As it stands now, our eternal destination is very clear to me; which is great, because someone like you does not deserve the eternal bliss of a peaceful afterlife. ...In fact, I'm inclined to think that Hell is too good for you."
Gritting his teeth in anger, Ray stood up, and started to walk towards Joe, who merely sat in his spot and watched the indignant man approached him. As soon as Ray came arm's reach, he threw a punch a Joe's face, which connected right on his right eye. Joe did not move at all as Ray continued to pummel him in the face, until Hunter intervened and pulled Ray away from the battered man.
"Don't ever insult me again, bitch!" Ray spat out.
Joe wiped away a bit of the blood that was trickling from his nose. "Do you feel better now, or do you need to wail on me again? Because I can take your punches all way; they actually feel like feathers."
"Joe!" Hunter said as he tried to restain the now more enraged Ray. "What's up with you? You're usually so calm..."
Joe sighed. "I guess it because of the fact that we could all be killed in a few minutes, but before this happened, I couldn't speak my mind about Ray. If I did, he'd just go and bitch about it to Bruce, and get me kicked out. But now, all bets are off."
"Then fight me like a man!" Ray blurted.
"Heh. I'm not going to give you the satisfaction."
"Coward! YOU COWARD!!"
"I actually don't like fighting," Joe said. "It's not me."
"Dammit, Joe," Hunter said.
"Also, you're not free of this, either," Joe said as he turned his attention to Hunter, "but you seem more redeema-"
Before Joe could finish his sentence, the jar shook slightly, before the covering was removed, bathing the inside with the light outside. Standing above them was none other than Melissa; it seemed that in he heat of their skirmish, they did not hear her reenter the room.
"Oh my!" Melissa covered her mouth in shock. "What's going on here?!"
"Nothing you need to concern yourself with, bitch!" Ray shouted, his remark receiving nervous looks from both Hunter and Joe.
Instead of becoming angry like they had expected, she instead laughed. "Come now. There's no need for such language. I'm feeling a bit generous today, so you three might have a chance to live."
"Wh-what?!" Joe exclaimed. Hunter finally released his hold of Ray, who fell onto the jar's floor.
Melissa grabbed the jar, and turned around with it in hand, giving the three men inside a good view of the floor in front of her. Twelve small white boxes--numbered 1 through 12--were arranged in a circle like the numbers on a clock.
"What is this?!" Ray asked.
Melissa stepped closer to this circle and crouched onto the floor, and then tilted the jar so much so that the three men inside spilled out into the middle of the arrangement.
"Your game," Melissa answered. "I call it 'The Death Clock'."
"Death Clock?" Hunter repeated.
"Yes, Death Clock," Melissa replied. "Here are the rules. There are 12 boxes. You three will take turns opening them. Eight of them have prizes in them. The remaining 4 are Death Boxes: If you open one of those, I'll kill you." She smiled at them. "If whoever's left manages to open all 8 of the safe boxes, they'll be spared... for now."
"Sounds simple enough..." Joe stated.
"You may start," Melissa said with a smile. "Who'll be first?"
~~~
The confused air of the Refugee campsite was broken by the loud voice of a male Refugee rushing towards the area. "Guys! She's starting another game!"
With this, the majority of the Refugees rushed toward the hole overlooking Melissa's room. Shawn, Thomas, and Dawson looked on at their running companions.
"I have a bad feeling about this..." Dawson said.
"Hey!" Gloria's voice called from the opposite direction. After running to reach them, she stopped and started to pant.
"I guess you know, too," Shawn said.
"That she's here? Yeah." Gloria rose her head.
"She's also started another game," Thomas added.
"What?! Is Ray's group here?"
"No." Shawn answered.
Without another word, Gloria again started to run, this time towards the hole. Thomas, Shawn, and Dawson followed after her.
Soon, they arrived at the hole. After asking, they were then filled in by the other Refugees about what was presently going on out in Melissa's room. Some of them resumed their earlier panicking, as they now knew that Ray's group were the participants of Melissa's latest game.
"Dammit," Gloria said. "I can't believe they let themselves get caught."
"This 'Death Clock' game actually sounds like a game," Thomas said. "It's the only game I've see so far that isn't just her finding ways to kill people."
"Oh, there were more," Dawson said. "There was the 'Tight-rope Over Paste,' where she made people walk on a string stretched over a large bowl of glue and stuff and try to get to the other side, and if they lost their balance, which happened rather quickly, they'd fall right into a sticky death."
"Not to mention the 'Bugman Fight'," Shawn added, "where she got about 8 Homeless into a ring and made them fight each other. She would then crush the losers."
"What about the winner?" Thomas asked.
"She tortured him slowly before finally killing him."
"...Some prize..." Thomas said.
~~~
Hunter stepped toward the box labeled with "7". "I'll go first."
"Are you sure?" Joe asked.
"Hey, the odds of me getting a Death Box are 1-to-3." He gave Joe a smile. "I got this in the bag."
"If you say so." Despite this, Joe was still obviously worried.
Hunter walked to the 7 box, and pulled the lid from it. Inside was a small sheet of paper, with a design that resembled a skull and crossbones drawn on it. His confident smile quickly faded, now replaced with a fearful expression.
Melissa shook her head. "That's one down..." She then bent down and reached over to him. After grabbing him, she stood back upright. "I remember you. You stalked me wherever I went, and when I said that you could come in my house, you jumped at the opportunity. What a big mistake that was for you, huh?"
She then started to squeeze Hunter in her hand. He screamed in pain as loud as he could, but he doubted that his companions could hear him. After several seconds, she released him, letting him fall to the floor below. He laid limp on the ground, twitching but still alive.
He looked towards Melissa just in time to see her slip her right foot out of its flip-flop and placed it onto his injured body. Hunter started to flail underneath her sole, and tried to pull himself free, was was just too small and weak to do so. He could hear her laughing high above him.
~~~
"Who's next?" Melissa said, slowly pressing down on Hunter underneath her foot.
Joe looked at Ray, who was still a bit livid over the earlier events. He shook his head and stepped forward.
"I'll go, then," Joe said. He then knelt down and bowed his head.
This got Melissa's attention. "Oh yeah, I remember you, too. You were pretty religious. You didn't try to convert me or anything, but you prayedalot. What are you praying for now?"
Joe then rose his head and stood up. "For forgiveness. I know that I'm going to die here, and I'll be meeting my Lord and savior in heaven."
Ray laughed at this statement. "You're a fool. There's no such thing as a God. Christianity is nothing but a big lie. A lie that's brainwashed a good portion of the world. You're going to be in for a disappointment when all you get after you die is darkness!"
Joe ignored Ray and walked toward the box labeled with the number 4. He pulled the box cover off, and was surprised to find the box empty. Joe had a confused look on his face as he looked up at Melissa.
"Looks like you've gotten a Prize Box," she said.
"But there's nothing inside," Joe said.
"The prize is that you're safe until your next turn." Melissa giggled a little. "That tickles..." It seemed that Hunter was still struggling.
Joe walked back to the center of the circle. "Your turn." He said to Ray.
Ray moaned loudly as he started to look around at the boxes. He then started to walk towards the 6 box.
"This is stupid..." He said as he reached the box and opened it. It was empty as well. He then walked back to the center and addressed Joe. "Go."
Joe walked to the 1 box and opened it. It too was empty. Joe let out a sigh. Not one of relief, but one of disappointment.
"Three safe boxes in a row," Melissa said. "You guys are getting lucky."
Ray headed towards the 11 box. "Well, with any luck, this one will be the one that ends it for me." He opened the box, which turned out to be empty. He then quickly turned towards Melissa. "No! Let me go again!"
"Fine by me..." Joe said.
"Hmm... Alright." Melissa looked down at her right foot. The struggling from Hunter was growing more weaker. No doubt that he may be succumbing to suffication.
Ray opened the 10 box to the left of the box he had opened before. It was also empty. He let out a series of swears under his breath.
"You failed again," Melissa said, shaking her head. She then looked toward Joe. "Now, it's your turn."
Joe, following Ray's action, opened the box to the left of the already-opened 1 box: the 12 box. Upon looking inside he let out a sigh and fell to his knees. He had opened a Death Box, and inside was a skull-and-crossbones drawing similar to the one that Hunter had found.
Melissa started to clap. "You found another one! Now you can finally meet God and live in peace, like you wanted!" She said, somewhat teasingly. "But first..."
Hunter had become completely immobile. Whether he was dead or just had no strength left was unknown to her. However, what was certain to her was that he's be dead for sure in a matter of seconds; and so she started to press her foot down on his body. She could feel his body compress flat, and along with it a sticky liquid spread around his body. She lifted her foot and looked down on the floor underneath it. Hunter's flattened body laid in a pool of blood on the floor. Now, there was no doubt in her mind: the perverted stalker was dead.
"That felt good," she said. "You're next." She reached down and grabbed Joe from the floor.
Joe closed his eyes and lowered his head. "Just get it over with."
Melissa prepared to sqeeze him, but stopped. She then stared down at the small man, who had given up all hope of living, and was already prepared for whatever awaited him in the afterlife. She shook her head and let out a sigh, and simply squeezed his small head inbetween her index finger and thumb on her free hand. His head burst in an explosion of blood, gore, and skull fragments. He was dead instantly, a quick death and show of mercy on Melissa's part.
Afterwards, she walked to her desk and grabbed several sheets of tissue from her Kleenex box. She wrapped the body in several layers of the tissue and then dropped the body into her garbage can. She pulled out another sheet to wipe the blood from her hands and the sole of her foot.
~~~
After witnessing the recent events, Gloria fell to her knees in anguish. "Oh, Joe..."
"Two of them are dead, now," Dawson said. "In less than a minute, too..."
Shawn placed his left hand on Gloria's shoulder. "At least he didn't suffer. That's the best thing he could've gotten from her."
"...Yeah..." Gloria said, closing her eyes.
"Tell me more about Joe later," Thomas whispered to Shawn.
Shawn nodded in response.
"...But I'm mad about how Hunter died," Dawson said, becoming a bit angry. "He got my dream death."
"...Idiot..." Gloria muttered.
~~~
Ray was now alone. His comrades, whom he had set out with to find food for his colony, were dead. He wanted to die as well. He wanted to get this ordeal over with so he could be free from his several-month-long hell. He may have failed to get his colony the food he set out for, but that did not matter any longer. He knew that he would never see the Refugees again, so as far as he was concerned, they could all just die. Even Bruce. His present feelings were also fueled by Joe's earlier comments towards him that were still lingering inside of his head.
"And then there was one," Melissa said, throwing the bloody tissue into her trash can, then slipping her foot back into its flip-flop. "It's your turn. Will you live? Will you die? Who knows?"
"Shut up. JUST SHUT UP!" Ray yelled to the giantess. He walked to the box labeled with the number 3. "I hope this is a Death Box, because I just can't stand you anymore!"
"Well, I agree with you there," Melissa responded. "I can't stand you, either. Just open it, and maybe you'll get the chance to die."
Ray opened the box, and saw that it was empty. "Goddammit!" He then looked towards the 9 Box. "It's 50-50 now." He ran to the box and threw its lid off, and saw that this box, too, was empty. Growing more enraged, he rushed to the 5 box and threw its lid off as well. He heard Melissa giggle as he looked down inside of the box.
"Well, lucky you," Melissa said with a giggle.
The box was empty. The game was now over. Ray had won. Or rather, in his opinion, he lost. He kicked the box and let out a frustrated scream. Melissa could not help but laugh.
"Looks like you get to live," Melissa said. "Which means that you get to partake in a future game!"
"Just kill me now!" Ray yelled at her.
"No." She picked him up from the floor, and placed him into the same jar that he had been in before. She then placed the jar on her desk. "If you want to die so badly, lose your next game."
Ray muttered several swears under his breath.
"Now, hold on a minute," Melissa said. "I'm still in a bit of a killing mood. Maybe two of them will do..." She walked away from the desk, and headed towards her closet.
~~~
"I can't believe Ray won," Thomas said in disbelief. "You'd think that she would have stacked the stakes against him."
"Yeah..." Shawn said, still holding onto Gloria's shoulder. "I almost feel sorry for him, though. Now he's her toy, to be called on whenever she comes up with another game."
Thomas looked toward the opened closet door. "No doubt she's getting two of the Homeless. I wonder what she's going to do with them?"
"What else?" Dawson replied.
"Besides that." Thomas looked back down into the room, just as Melissa exited her closet with two Homeless in hand.
~~~
Ray watched Melissa come out from her closet, clutching two small men in her hand. She dropped them in the middle of the circle of mostly-opened boxes.
"Listen," she said to them. "Look around you. See those boxes. Two of them are still closed." She pointed to the closed boxes. "Boxes 2 and 8."
The men looked at the boxes. They seemed to also notice a bloody splatter near her foot. Ray could just barely see them shake, as if the sense of danger had just become much more real to them.
"One of them is safe," Melissa continued. "You get to live if you open it. However, if one of you opens the other box, the Death Box, that person will die. I think you'll know which one is the Death Box when you open it. Understand?"
They nodded slowly.
"And, GO!"
Ray watched as the two men briefly spoke with each other, before seperating and heading for the boxes.
"Damn," he said under his breath. "They don't realize that it doesn't matter . ...Stupid Homeless..."
The two men reached their respective boxes and lifted the covers off of them. Ray leaned forward, to try to get a closer look at their reactions at seeing the ominous drawing inside.
Both boxes were empty.
Ray's mouth dropped in disbelief.
The men looked around in confusion, before they were both covered by Melissa's shadow as se approached them.
She laughed at them, and then turned around to face Ray. "There were never 4 Death Boxes." She smiled at him before turning back to the men in the circle.
Ray was stunned. "You... bitch..." He had played a game that he had won as soon as Joe died.
~~~
Melissa reached down and grabbed one of the men. She then tossed him up into the air, so high that he hit the ceiling with force. He then fell back to the floor, so fast that, upon impact, his body burst, creating a red explosion of blood and innards. She then stamped on the destroyed body with her foot.
The other man looked in horror as Melissa turned to face him.
"Why?" He asked. "Why did you kill him?! Both boxes were safe, right?!"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk," Melissa shook her head. "I had no intention of letting you two live. You don't know me very well, do you?"
She walked closer to the man. He started to run, but Melissa kicked him down to the floor. The man laid face-down on the floor, screaming in pain. With her right foot, Melissa flipped him over onto his back. She knelt down to him and stretched his arms out to the side of his body. As she stood back upright, the man tried to pull his arm back closer to his body.
"No," Melissa said. "Leave them like that, or else."
The man returned his arms to their previous positions. As soon as he finished doing so, Melissa stomped down on his right arm with her left foot. The man screamed in pain as she pressed down on his limb.
"Oh, shut up." Melissa then lifted her other foot and stepped on his other arm. The man's screaming became louder as he was now between her feet, save for his arms currently being crushed. After what seemed like an eternity for the man, she finally stepped off of the man's arms. They were completely flattened, the both of them probably pasted onto the floor by the pool of blood surrounding each.
The man, now unable to even slightly move his arm, started to flail his legs. This quickly ended as Melissa stomped on his lower body. Like his arms before, his legs and pelvis were also crushed as she pressed down on them. The man's voice faded, worn out from all of the screaming that he was doing. Instead, it looked as if he began to cry.
"Oh, you're crying now?" Melissa said as she twisted her foot on his lower body. "What happened to that scream from before? I kinda enjoyed that."
The man just looked up at her as she lifted her foot from his body, revealing his demonlished legs and the blood that they laid in.
She walked to her desk and turned to the tiny man in jar. "Just think. That could have been you." After saying this to him--which garnered him flipping his middle finger at her--she reached behind the jar and grabbed a bottle of tea that she had brought in with her. She then walked back to the small, incapacitated man laying in the middle of the box circle.
"Let me drink this first," she said. "Then I'll finish you off."
With that, she twisted the cap from the bottle and started to chug down the beverage. She did her best to savor every drop of the sweet drink, to make it last as long as possible to prolong the man's suffering.
~~~
As the Refugees were watching Melissa drink her beverage, Gloria finally stood up and started to walk away from the hole. Thomas began to follow her, but was stopped by Shawn's hand grabbing onto his shoulder.
"Let her be," Shawn said. "She and Joe were pretty close. She got along better with him than with anyone else here."
"I see..." Thomas then turned back to the hole. "...This is just evil. He's in the worst pain ever, and she's just drinking her tea nonchalantly."
"She's making me thirsty," Dawson said. "That tea looks better than that warm water we have."
"That's just too bad, isn't it?" said a male Refugee.
"Hey, shut up!" Dawson responded. "You feel the same way, don't you?!"
Thomas and Shawn paid this exchange barely any attention, mainly focusing their attention instead on Melissa and her hapless victim.
~~~
Amazingly, the man managed to stay alive during the three-and-a-half minutes Melissa had spent drinking her tea. Of course, it was all bad luck for him. That he had not succumbed to blood loss during that timeframe was a curse. Melissa threw the empty bottle into the trash can and let out a small burp, covering her mouth during.
"Excuse me." She laughed a little as she stepped closer to the man. "I see you stayed alive for me. You're a nice little Bugman, aren't you?" She smiled at him.
The man may not have been able to talk, but he could still spit, which he attempted to do, but it came nowhere near her as it fell back down on the floor near him. Even though she was a safe distance from his phlegm, Melissa felt rather insulted at his action.
"Fine. Be like that."
She then started to walk toward the man, and soon felt a small crunch underneath her foot. Whatever pain he was in was extinguished; he was dead. After stepping off of him, she turned around and examined the completely pulverized body of the homeless man she had just brought in that past weekend. She clapped her hand together in a geisture of "good-riddance."
"That's the end of that," she said.
~~~
With the events outside winding down, the Refugees started to walk away from the hole. Some of them were depressed. Their Food Squad was no more: two of them were dead, and one was being held captive. They also were not eager to see Bruce's reaction to this news.
"Bruce is going to be pissed off," Dawson said as he walked from the hole.
"Tell me about it..." Shawn said. "It'll probably be a few days to even a week before we can put together another team. But I don't think we can afford to lose any more people."
"But we don't have a choice." Dawson then had an idea. "Hey! Why don't we try to rescue him from the closet?"
"We have to find out where she put him first," Shawn said. "If she placed him in the top cage on the left, we could get him. If not, then it's a lost cause."
Thomas listened to the two as he followed them back to the campsite. He was afraid of--but also curious about--how Bruce would react to what happened today.
~~~
Melissa had finished cleaning up the bloody messes left behind by the men she had killed. The floor was as if the gruesome event had not taken place at all. She turned to her desk and faced Ray inside of the jar.
"Well, that's all for today," Melissa said as she grabbed the jar and carried it into the closet. "If I ever need you again, I'll be sure to let you know!" She gave him a smile, one he could barely see due to the dim lighting inside of the closet.
"Oh, God, kill me now..." Ray said.
"Hey! I thought you didn't believe in God!"
She placed the jar in a dark corner on the floor, on top of a small stand that looked to be inches high. In addition, she also twisted a cap with air holes onto the jar.
"Be nice and stay here, alright?" Melissa said before turning towards the cages of Homeless. "Do I even need to say if your "Reps" won or not?"
"No!" said a female voice from within the cage, one that Ray could hardly make out.
Melissa laughed. "That's right. You all failed again. That's not a good streak you have going. ...Well, ciao." With that, she pulled her racks of clothes together and left the closet, closing the door behind her.
Ray looked toward the glass cages. He could see the people inside looking back at him.
"What're you looking at, you Homeless freaks?!" he yelled at them. He still had anger spiraling within his body.
[End Chapter]
Giantess World
Author's Chapter Notes:
(Rewritten as of March 2010.)