Man’s
Best Friend
by
SeeguyShade
You
input the last couple values into the terminal. Pausing for a moment,
you look around the room. Electronic equipment hums and CPUs groan
with the stress your instructions place on them. They don’t have to
last long though, just long enough. You take a deep cleansing breath
savoring the last moments on Earth that anything will be close to
normal. Your ascension is at hand. Your machinery has tapped into a
meta-energetic field, one of the fundamental forces of the
multiverse, you theorize. The scientist in you regrets that you won’t
be able to explore its properties and uses a little more, but that’s
okay. The sadistic size pervert in you is finally free to get what
it’s always wanted; free reign and absolute power over the world
and every little mote of a human on it. You savor the thought of them
fleeing, driven before your immensity. Everyone on the run from you,
but there’s no place left to hide. You’ve destroyed any shelter
with your bare hands and feet and other assorted body parts.
A
green light bursts to life, and a klaxon sounds through the room.
BUZZ
BUZZ
You
stand up, peel every bit of clothing off, discarding them without a
care on the lab floor, and walk over to the round metal sheathed
platform. It is surrounded by 6 cylindrical towers attached to the
main chamber by telescoping armatures and surging with so much energy
that your body hairs stand on end. The combination of energy, cold,
and excitement raises hundreds of little goosebumps along your skin.
You step up onto the platform and stand, legs ever so slightly apart
and arms held out to your sides. The automated sequence begins. The
klaxon cuts out and you can hear a crackle in the air as the exotic
materials in the towers and beneath the platform receive massive
amounts of energy. The lab lights flicker and dim as the chamber
reroutes electricity to itself. Surely someone will notice the power
surge in a minute or two, but by that time it will be too late.
For
them anyway.
The
towers begin to rotate, each at a very specific individual rate. As
they do the armatures attaching them to the platform begin rotating
around like planets orbiting the sun. You would be the sun in this
analogy, which you find very fitting since you’re going to be above
everything and everyone.
They
spin around and round, round and round, narrowing closer and closer
in to the platform as they spin faster and faster. You feel the
massive energy leaking from the machinery as static electricity. Your
nipples go stiff, and you feel arousal activating in your genitals
and in your brain. The towers close in tighter and tighter until they
form a glowing cylinder of sorts spinning around and around you at
high speed. You feel the whoosh of the air being removed from the
chamber as it seals. It wont matter to you in a few seconds. The
vents on the towers open emitting a purple glow that expands and
brightens until it’s a nearly blinding white. You feel a warm wind
caress every inch of your body. If your math is right, this should be
the primal substance of the multiverse leaking through the little
Swiss cheese holes your machine has created in reality. The light is
warm, almost like a fluid bathing your skin. The platform beneath you
activates, emitting a thunderous roar.
A
whoosh, and you feel absolutely weightless. The sensation lasts. The
warmth is gone. The light is gone. Your eyes adjust to the darkness.
It doesn’t take too long, because, of course, there’s lots of
light below you. Looking down, you see that the building you’d been
working in was no longer there. That was to be expected. Your
calculations predicted a certain amount of matter displacement
outside the chamber. Mass shunted to the spaces between universes,
some of it absorbed into your body contributing to its new size. It’s
convenient too, far less likely someone could figure out what you did
and repeat it. That wouldn’t do. Your plans for this world are for
you and you alone.
You
gaze down at the little cityscape sprawled out beneath you. The
office buildings immediately before you look about as big as your
toes, the “skyscrapers” over in the downtown section of the city
look like they might come about up to your ankles with a couple of
the very tallest possibly reaching your knees. With some quick math,
you suppose you must be around 3000 feet tall now, but numbers aren’t
important. What is important is that through science and hard work
you have fulfilled your fantasy; now it’s time to enjoy the fruits of
your efforts.
You
lift one foot away from the unnaturally smooth ground beneath you and
bring your foot down on some of those office buildings you noticed,
the ones no bigger than your big toe. They crumble dryly under your
sole, as if made out of little crackers. As your foot impacts the
ground, you notice that your vision now zooms in like a camera, an
unexpected side effect of the energy infusion you suppose. You can
see the bits of broken building coming up between your toes like
little crumbs. You can feel them too. You wiggle your toes a bit and
enjoy the sensations of crumbling and the thought of how easily you
demolished these little buildings. You notice that your foot only
takes up about a tenth, or a little more than that, of the city
block. You smile with pleasure, anticipating that it will take lots
of stomping and smashing to obliterate this city, and every other
after it. You wiggle your toes in the debris and can’t help but
notice a definite squishing sensation between them. You guessed that
there were probably some people in those buildings, but you hadn’t
known for sure until now. Your smile widens; your first victims. You
look, zooming in even closer. You can see little blotches of brownish
red bits clinging to the skin between your mighty merciless toes. As
you lick your upper lip in anticipation, you try to listen hard.
Drifting up to your enhanced ears you hear the pitiful cries and
gurgles of those left alive within the wreckage. Their lives are
entirely yours now. You are the most pressing fact in the lives of
the millions of people living immediately below you, and in the wider
context, the billions of people around the world.
You
take a step with your other foot and bring it down on the same block
as the first, annihilating more office buildings. Your ears hear the
squishing and screaming amid the crumbling, telling you that you’ve
snuffed out more little lives. You wiggle all your toes, luxuriating
in pure destructive power. You listen to the surrounding cityscape
and zoom in to see what’s going on in the streets around you.
The
people try to run, scrambling like little bugs. You relish their
panic and terror. In a way, you think they should thank you. You’ve
taken the endless complexities of their daily lives (jobs, families,
responsibilities, mortgage payments) and narrowed them down until
only one fact of life is really of any importance at all.
And
it’s you.
You
listen in on their screams. Men and women yell and run as hard as
they can. Police try to direct them in a pointless attempt to exert
some control over a situation beyond the control of any human.
That
situation is you.
You
hear the shouts of families. Parents pulling their children close
trying to get them away from danger. You hear the children crying and
screaming. They cannot sway your heart. The morals of this world no
longer apply. Your size has made all equal before you and you see no
less reason to torment children and use them as your playthings as
you would an adult. All humanity is one mass, one granular toy for
you to enjoy as you see fit. Some seem to have accepted their fate;
families staying completely still, huddled together in fear.
You
are that fear.
You
see an elder, gray and wizened, perhaps witness to, and survivor of,
the many disasters and inhumanities of their time, but none were like
you. You hear their heart beating faster and faster as they stare up
at your body, trying to contemplate your scale. The very sight seems
about to give them a heart attack.
That
heart attack is you.
If
you could smile any wider, you would. You look down at the city,
contemplating your next move. You might crush a few more buildings
under your feet or use one of the taller buildings to gratify your
carnal urges. Your stomach is a bit rumbly. Perhaps a handful of
screaming wriggling snacks is in order. The menu of giant size
activities is wide open to you.
Then
you hear one more thing, something you hadn’t thought of.
“Woof!”
You
listen in again.
“Woof!
Woof!” and then a whining noise, then more. More barking and
howling and panting and whining.
You
hadn’t thought about dogs. Millions of them in the city alongside
their human owners. Dogs that would get squished, dogs you would end
up eating, and dogs that would get squished into your genitals. The
last thought makes you shudder. You look around at the teeming mobs
of humans still fleeing and screaming. They call to your lust, your
cruelty, and your right as a giant monster to play with their little
lives.
The
dogs continue barking and howling. They call to your heart.
You
look around at the ground. Frustration builds, warming the inside of
your face. You take a deep breath, then exhale sharply through your
nostrils. By the time your lungs are empty, your mind is made up, but
you don’t like it. You clear your throat, and give a long sharp
whistle. The chaos beneath you goes quiet. A few helicopters fly by.
You recognize the logo of a major broadcast company on one. The world
is watching you, so you lay it all out for them.
“Alright
folks,” you say. “You can see that I’m a massive destructive
giant. What some of you might not realize yet is that I’m
completely sadistic and depraved. Completely indifferent to human
life. At this scale you exist only for me to play with, eat, and
squish nicely against my body. The only thing keeping me from doing
just that at this particular moment is the existence of dogs.
“Now,
I’m going to reduce my size back down to the rest of you, but you
should know that I have enough stored energy in my body to regrow
myself any time I want, as often as I want. I’m also completely
invincible to physical harm, and have vastly enhanced senses that can
hear things from miles and miles away. Anyone I catch abusing or
neglecting a dog will be dealt with severely and slowly. All the
sadistic fun I’m giving up on right now will be directed completely
and solely at you. You should also all know that if enough people
continue mistreating their dogs, I’ll just say 'fuck it', and go
with my original plan. If you don’t all shape up, it might be more
merciful for a dog to live in the ruins I create. Heaven knows there
will be plenty of fresh steaming meat for them to enjoy in the
wreckage.”
And
that’s that. You shrink yourself down. Refuse and ignore all
attempts to arrest or interview you. A couple hotheads try shooting
you, but their bullets just bounce off your still invulnerable body.
A few who’d had their loved ones smashed in the buildings you
crushed cry and beg you to bring them back, and that gives you some
satisfaction at least.
Eventually
you just sort of walk off into the night after threatening
obliteration to anyone who tries following you. After a few blocks
you come to an activewear oriented clothing store. You tell the shift
manager there that you got mugged for all your clothes. They’re
sympathetic and comp you some sandals and a tracksuit that got
damaged in shipping. They ask you if you’d felt the earthquake
earlier that night, and you just smile silently, savoring the moment.
As
you leave the shop you see someone walking their dog, a border collie
with a glossy well cared for coat. You watch them as they pass you
and go up the street. As they walk into the distance, it almost seems
like they’re shrinking bit by bit. You put out your hand so that
the distant dog walker’s figure is positioned right between your
thumb and forefinger.
“Better
thank them,” you say to no one in particular, “otherwise…”
You
squeeze your thumb and forefinger together.
“...squish.”