Chapter 1: Action!

"This is Ella Russo, me and my crew here are here at the Jones Stress Suite, as you can see I'm standing here in a large room filled with what looks like tiny buildings. I've just entered a stress relief session here at the Stress Suite. Allowing you to destroy a replica of your town. Like a wreck room! Like- like a wreck-" Ella stopped suddenly, a reflective expression on her face, her cameraman looking around the side of the camera to get a better look at her face.

"Why'd you stop? that was great!"

"Is it called a wreck room? the place where they destroy things with baseball bats and stuff?" Ella asked inquisitively.

"I think so. Does it matter?" Jason retorted lowering the camera towards the ground. Distant moving spots could be seen through the footage.

"Of course it does, Jason. Film students need to do a lot better than janky on-the-spot writing otherwise that's all we'll be, shitty film students." Ella angrily shouted in her own cute way, to Jason's amusement.

"Maybe if this place was more interesting..." he suggested, looking around at the room disapprovingly. He sighed, rubbing his super short blonde hair with his spare hand, camera in the other.

"It is. They wouldn't even let you bring the camera in here, so clearly there is a story somewhere! A story they don't want us to have." She explained.

"...well it better show up because this suuucks." Jason whispered lowering the camera to look around at the room. He looked at their third and last amateur film crew member, Lucy. Her short bouncy blonde hair blocking half her face as she chewed on her gum making eye contact with Jason.

"It sucks right." he mouthed with his lips, not making a sound towards Lucy. She rolled her eyes and smiled in agreement as she blew a bubble with her gum.

"Excuse me? Miss Director, you could at least write me some good lines since you're sitting around doing nothing." Ella said, throwing shade at Lucy's activity.

"Me? A director does not write lines, El." Lucy replied bewilderedly, was this girl for real?

"What does a director do then? because it looks like nothing if you are an example." Ella spoke with sass and a cheeky smile.

"Coming from you, you stand in front of the camera with a mic in your hand. I do nothing yet I still have more skill than you." Lucy returned the sass without the cheeky smile but instead a real general annoyance at Ella's comments.

Ella waved her brown hair around her face as she pursed her lips. - "To look pretty in front of the camera. To also keep the energy going so the viewer keeps watching. I'm engaging, in more ways than one." added Ella whilst shaking her chest implying her breasts were a focal point for viewers.

"What are we making, porn?" Lucy replied disgustedly shooing Ella away with her hand as she crossed to the other side of the room, walking along the platform near the door away from the tiny town.

"Ooo, good idea. We could do that for our third project. An eye into the porn industry." Ella suggested.

"I'm so in." Jason excitedly nodded frantically drooling over the idea.

"Ew. Jason." Ella responded.

"What??" he shouted embarrassedly. Did he make it that obvious?

"Really? A tour of the zoo, followed by a creepy science facility that makes replica towns, finalized by porn. Some portfolio we're going to have on our belt, can we just make a real documentary for once? one that's interesting."

"This is interesting!" Ella exclaimed

"Just because Jason couldn't bring a camera in? most places don't let you do that, El. It's just because they don't want competitors seeing how they operate, it's better for business. Don't read into it too much." Lucy shook her head in disappointment whilst leaning against the suite wall chewing her gum with her arms crossed, her energy was a constant stream of negativity and logic.

"Can we get back on track? Please. If it's so boring then you'll want to get out fast, so let's get this show on the road." Ella tried to get her team motivated by the prospect of leaving which seemed to work well enough as Lucy lazily got off the wall, sloppily dragging her black boots along the floor to her behind-camera post.

"Alright, let's just get some footage of you trying the stress relief stuff, the wreck room line is fine, we'll edit out the stumble at the end. Alright?" Lucy finally started to direct, ready to get out of this place as quickly as possible.

"Sure thing." Ella shook herself around getting her blood pumping.

"5, 4, 3, 2." Lucy used her fingers to count down, stopping at 2 vocally but continuing down her fingers still.

"So just how good is the stress suite you might ask? we'll be answering that question for you now. Down below you can see how absurdly realistic this town is." Ella continued as Jason panned the camera down, zooming in slowly. A bunch of buildings filled the shot.

"You'd probably think this was a drone shot of the town if it weren't for my black vans here." Ella lifted the toe of her shoe at the same time she commented on them for effect.

"Let's walk deeper into town..." Ella requested whilst using her hand to command the camera towards her, Jason finally stepped down into the town feeling the ground crumple in a strange way distracting him from his camera work. The pair walked deeper into the large room both bewildered by the strange feeling and noises under their shoes, Lucy closely followed behind the camera.

"This demo would be better with someone else." Ella peeked around the camera towards Lucy with a light smile.

"What... no! I- I- couldn't possibly- I'm a director!" Lucy commanded, desperately avoiding screen time.

"Come on, girl. This is your big break, two pretty girls on screen are better than one." Ella pulled Lucy in front of the camera, she stared into the lens as Jason focused on her face causing her to blush and look away.

"Get that thing out my face or else you're gonna die." She hid behind her arms looking away from the camera, Jason laughed.

"Come on now, ladies. Can we get some footage?" Jason asked.

Ella nodded at the camera as Jason re-centered onto both of the girls standing shoulder to shoulder showcasing their height difference as Ella stood 5 inches taller than Lucy, both sharing similarities in body size, however.

Ella crouched to the floor, scooping up a building pulling it straight out the floor from next to Lucy's boots, holding it up to the camera in her hand.

"Let's see how realistic this destruction is, shall we?" Ella narrated as the camera closed in for a close-up. Jason watched closely through the camera preview, making sure the shot was perfect, his scrutinization causing him to pick up movement, fearing his head was making it up he looked closer. Something minuscule was moving, it looked like a waving arm in the cracked window of the building.

"What the f-" he was cut-off by Ella's hand closing around the structure tight, turning it into a bundle of sand-like dust as it dribbled from her hand. The camera revealed her mouth agape with surprise as it fell from her hand, falling through the air like fairy dust. She slapped her hands together in order to clear them of the grey dust.

"That was... amazing. That was not what I was expecting at all." Ella looked into the camera further documenting her findings.

"For real, you both need to try this." Ella seemed to break her reporter personality, resorting instead to a personal acknowledgment of her friends, off-camera style. Ella repeated her action crushing another building in her grasp as Lucy did the same.

"What the shit.. that- that feels so bizarre." Lucy similarly described with a more confused look on her face than surprise. - "It's like a hand massage."

This description invoked yet another surprised look on Ella's face, a lightbulb going off in her head. - "You're right! It is. That's exactly what it feels like." she turned her head thinking for a while.

"What- what's that look on your face? what are you doing?" Lucy asked whilst leaning in to see the girl's weird expression.

"I wonder what it feels like without..." Ella looked down at her black vans. - "I've gotta try this." she said leaning down, pulling her white laces with her fingertips, loosening the grip of the shoe on her socked foot.

"You're crazy." Lucy commented.

"What's going on?" Derek crawled out of his car shouting after being swerved into, cars were overtaking each other some were totally ignoring road markings entirely, it was total chaos. - "Can someone tell me what the fuck is going on?" he screamed at the running pedestrians around him, could it have something to do with those loud noises he heard in the air, were they at war? it was unlikely he'd ever know, being that everyone was ignoring him and running for safety.

Derek's car was surrounded by other cars, drivers who had crashed into him and bailed due to getting stuck thus cementing his lack of transportation. How would he get home to his wife?

"WHAT THE SHIT. THAT. THAT FEELS SO BIZZAAAREEEE" a massive voice bellowed over the entire city, the sound waves were so stretched and loud that you could tell they were travelling over a huge distance, what was loud enough to even make such a noise? He checked his phone to no signal or internet, if something dangerous was happening then he needed to get his family to safety, no car, no phone, he'd have to run but it was miles down the road in front that stretched into a huge straight line.

"Mary... Ella... please be safe." he whispered as he began running, joining the fast-paced chaos of people running for their lives and families.

After running for a while Derek spotted debris falling from the sky, it looked like ash however as it got closer the debris appeared to be the size of baseballs, conglomerated into a large sphere, the air was carrying it through the air when in fact they were heavy enough to fall hard towards the ground.

Derek was suddenly thrown violently onto his back to the right nearly colliding with a building, a ruthless shockwave sending people flying away from the impact like ragdolls, many people slamming into cars or buildings instantly killing them, cars also shot off the ground like they weighed nothing smashing into people and rolling over them. Derek held his bleeding head trying to focus, looking up at where the shockwave flew from.

Where an entire row of buildings just was now taken up by a random white jagged wall, "buildings don't just vanish" he thought. Quickly piecing together that this large object had landed on top of the buildings flattening them, such destruction was impossible to visualize from a mortal's perspective. He looked up and beyond catching a glimpse of blue rugged material in the shape of a cylinder vanishing into the sky.

"WHAT'S THAT LOOK ON YOUR FACE? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" the noise this time was absurdly loud compared to before, Derek knew for a fact that it was coming from above, it was words from a human person. The words seemed candid rather than instructional, not like they were coming from a gargantuan speaker on a warplane or such. No speaker on Earth could be this loud.

Derek held his hands over his ears to no avail, the sound waves shot through them violently attacking his delicate eardrums which couldn't bear any longer. He felt touching on his shoulder, turning to see what it was, it was a younger man handing him earplugs and motioning with his fingers into his ears. Derek quickly plugged his ears, reducing the noise to a still loud level, the noise stopped talking however this would prove useless as all their ears were ringing out.

The man then cusped his hands over his ears as a demonstration to Derek. Earplugs and hands. The voice started again.

"I WONDER WHAT IT FEELS LIKE WITHOUT SHOES." the voice shot once again from above, this one was slightly lighter but still just as powerful. Derek could bear it much better than before however, it was still loud, looking around he saw people writhing on the floor with bleeding ears, many bleeding out from the shockwave damage, some already dead. Just he and this man appeared to be the safest ones. Derek placed hands together and bowed his head at the man, a visual signal of a thank you, he nodded in return.

They started focusing on what was going on in front of them, another shockwave could kill them. The younger man tugged on Derek's t-shirt from his shoulder, moving his head to the right signaling that they need to move.

"ELLA. I THINK YOU'RE GETTING DISTRACTED." the voices continued.

As the two men ran down the street away from the mysterious wall Derek's curiosity was peeked, turning his attention to behind them as they continued running. - "Did the voice just say Ella?" he thought.

The white jagged wall started to rise, the noise of rubble falling, the buildings it half-crushed collapsing after losing it's support. The men turned around noticing it was moving, the next shock wave was coming. The young man violently tugged Derek pulling him into a street behind a building, covering their view of the object. A huge collision erupted as predicted, violently throwing bodies and cars in their direction, the building they used for cover toppling over on top of them.

Derek got up once again, feeling like total shit from this war zone, his eyes connecting with the young man's dead eyes, he was crushed by the building wall on his right. A sadness filling him, unable to process this having to return home as quickly as possible and away from this danger. He surveyed around the barely standing building to see where the object had moved, it had shuffled to the left into the middle of the street, it must've killed everyone under it and it was closer to them than it was before.

On the back of the object was a large red billboard, at least 8x bigger than he was, it read. - "VANS OFF THE WALL".

Staring at the sign for far too long he connected the dots as best as he could, a giant shoe? he thought with a terrified look on his face. A giant peach tentacle-looking monster appeared from the sky towards the object. Derek also figured this was a hand, this explained the voices too, there was a giant human wandering around their city.

"RELAX, LUCE. THIS IS GOOD FOR THE STORY." The lighter voice bellowed.

"SOUNDS LIKE IT'S GOOD FOR YOU. NOT THE STORY." A deeper voice responded.

Why were their giants on Earth? how could this even happen? There were rumors of shrinking technology, but growth? this hadn't been invented yet, scientists said growth was physically impossible. Why were these people specifically grown? it sounded like they were doing it for some form of 'story' whatever that meant. How could they take innocent lives for a good story?

Derek felt rage building in him, distracting him from his original goal to save himself and his family. He tried to focus, thinking of the fastest way away from this giant, his house was not far down this street. He turned to his right looking to where his house was, able to spot it from this corner in the distance, there were still cars driving way further along the road, the destruction likely didn't get that far, if he could get Jullie & Ella then he could drive them into a non-destroyed road out of the city. - "I'm coming, girls." he whispered.

He surveyed the shoe one last time as he began to journey down the street, seeing another shoe pressing into the heel of the one he'd been evading, a white object popped out from inside, no- not a white object. A white socked foot. It lifted the shoe which dangled from the sock into the sky moving forwards through miles of distance in the air, throwing itself backward the shoe flew through the air down the street, destroying hundreds of buildings, none of them able to stop the force or weight of the shoe. Horror grew in Derek's eyes as he watched his house get swept out of existence, the shoe destroying the entire street for two miles.

He began running out towards his house with shock on his face, slowly turning into fearful tears hoping that his wife and daughter were okay.