The redhead walked over to me and embraced me. This girl, named Emily, I recognized. Not only was this the first of my kind I had seen in 10 years, she had been my neighbor, the best friend of my elder sisters. It had been a remarkable coincidence that the two families produced twin girls at the same time, and they’d been friends ever since. I was hard from the show, and she smelled like Isabel’s crotch having been there just moments earlier. We shattered the commandments on the spot. I, having not even seen a lilli for 10 years, didn’t last long. But Emily seemed to be greatly enjoying it. I knew she was 19 and probably inexperienced also. But it seemed to be cathartic for her. Isabel and Maddie loomed overhead and snickered as we finished. Emily’s face was filled with a look that I could only describe as a mix of loathing and fear as she looked back up at Isabel. I assume Isabel could not make out her facial expressions.
“You two catch up, we’re going to the gym for a couple of hours” Isabel told us. I gave an awkward thumbs up. They looked us over once again and then began to leave the room.
….
Emily and I didn’t speak for a few minutes. But there was lots of catching up to do.
“After all these years, you’re still on the property where we all grew up”
“yeah”. I replied, “I was taken in by the mother, I landed on her sneaker and she took pity on me and raised me with her 2 daughters”.
Emily sneered at that. “That’s nice. But those 2 bitches- still genocidal and cruel like their mother”.
I laughed, something which she did not appreciate it. “You know, the military was idiotic to attack and pester a bunch of 3000 foot giants. Especially the girls. It’s like attacking grizzly cubs in front of the mama bear”.
She gave me a thoughtful look, as if she had never considered that notion. I, being mostly alone, had plenty of time to reflect on this. She sighed and launched into her story.
She’d caught up with a group of survivors after the incident. Her sister, and my 2 sisters were among them. They wandered a few hundred miles away, in the dead of night they crossed the road which was a mile wide to them. They were looking for another lilli civilization, around 250 miles away (0.5 miles in brobi terms). She’d grown up there, an orphan, but among many orphans. Other than that, they had a pretty normal life. The four girls, bounced from foster care to foster care, were nonetheless graciously kept together as a unit, and they had each other. Then, lightning struck twice. They were forcibly evicted from their land. This time, they moved. However, the structure being built was a High School, and they had cryptically been promised compensation, now a legal requirement for the destruction of lilli habitats.
They were contacted VIA phone and email by Isabel. She was the President of Student Council at the High School, and was in charge of a scholarship for 4 lillis to attend brobi college, and upon completion of a degree, be given a size-change procedure to grow to brobi size.
Isabel seemed like a very sincere and charming girl, and the 4 were shoe-ins for the scholarship, being great students who overcame a lot of adversity. The notion of departing the traumatic lilli world also had great allure to them. Isabel explained they would be in her custody and they would be rooming with them.
It had gone well at first. But, like what sometimes happens with roommates, conflict can brew. But the dynamics are different when one is 3000 feet tall and has absolute power over the others.
…….
Memorial Day weekend, 2022:
Mary choked back tears as Adam embraced her, likely for the last time. ‘Why does this have to happen?’ she thought despairingly. She knew that Adam felt the same, but was trying to remain strong for his young bride. He’d always been on borrowed time, and they both knew it.
Mary and Adam were citizens of the Levan Republic, descendants of a highly intelligent race of lillis. Living on what, in brobi terms, was now the upper Midwest of the U.S., they were largely left alone until the 1800s. There weren’t that many native brobi inhabitants of the region, and they’d in fact never been discovered by them, until European settlers began to flood the region. These brobis, standing over half a mile to them, easily dominated their species. In order to avoid this, they decided to do something counterintuitive. They would shrink themselves down and isolate in a region where they would never encounter brobis. They shrunk themselves to 1/238th of their original size, and took refuge in a cave on Lake Superior. It was as well lit as a cave could be, but about ½ of the cave, in the middle, was not.
By 2022, their population had grown to 350 million covering (on their scale) 1.5 million square miles. The divide between those who resided in lit regions versus those who resided in dark regions widened. It was a silly difference, but due to the needs of each they had different lifestyles, level of prosperity (due to the need to have agriculture) and more. A brutal and violent civil war had broken out nearly 10 years earlier.
Adam and Mary resided in the well-lit region; where the central government still held control. All males of military age were to be conscripted. Later, females were to be conscripted into non-combat roles. Having received college deferments, both Adam and Mary finally joined a radio communications and reconnaissance battalion. After 1 year, and after few months after the two 23-year-olds decided to marry, Adam was to be sent to the front line.
The day before, Adam had picked up a bombardment of signals from the rebels directed out of the cave. Although the government propaganda would deny it- he was astute enough to know that a rebel city had been breached after a long siege and government forces were massacring the inhabitants. It did make Adam uneasy, as although not as economically prosperous and with far fewer people, the rebels were advanced in technology. He didn’t give it much thought, as he had to worry about himself and the 30% casualty rate of front-line troops which he would imminently face.