Chapter 7

Tom suddenly found himself up in the air, but Julia didn't hold him. He seemed to float and only to exist out of his senses. He couldn't see his own body, he didn't seem to have any limbs or torso. He was noncorporeal, able to see, hear or smell everything around him but unable to interact with it. No doubt Julia's doing.

The self-appointed Aztec goddess stood in the center of Dallas, her 350 feet long feet right in Victory Park. As Tom saw her from above, he estimated he was about 3500 feet up in the air.

Julia looked up at him and waved. Still looking at him, she took a step forward and crushed a fairly large office building under her foot. She raised her eyebrows in mock surprise.

"Oops," she said.

Julia looked down and raised her foot, revealing the ruins of the building. "Oh, my. What a waste."

Taking a step backwards, she crushed about a dozen homes in a living area at once, including the trees and shrubs in their gardens, cars and street lanterns. Her foot covered easily half a street, and nothing was able to withstand Julia's tremendous weight.

"Aaww. What a pity. Tiny houses with tiny people crushed under my sweet little foot," she said. Tom witnessed it all from above, feeling sick again.

Julia turned around, and again her footfall destroyed several houses. With a soft "krrtch" they collapsed before the sound was muffled under Julia’s vast sole. A large tree stood erect between her toes, stripped by them of its branches as she brought her foot down. It resembled a toothpick.

"Damn. Why do they build the houses so small? With each step a few are flattened. Don't they take giant goddesses into account around here?" Julia remarked in a mocking voice.

She walked around in Dallas, her every move compulsory watched by Tom. Her feet were wider than the streets, but that didn't bother Julia. She simply kicked the skyscrapers out of her way, the large (to the normal sized humans) buildings collapsed into heaps of rubble and dust clouds.
Julia's feet squashed scores of tiny people with every step like they were lice, while cars and busses crunched like cockroaches on a tiled floor. Nothing stood erect when she lifted her feet, nor did anything move anymore.
Julia tore the JPMorgan Chase Bank Tower out of the ground, smiling at Tom as she held it up. Then she licked the famous building like a lolly. Winking at a disgusted Tom, she bit the building in two. Tom could hear the stone and glass crunch as she chewed. After swallowing, she ate the other half the same way. Tom's head spun again. One of Dallas' landmarks eaten by a giantess.

"Yummy. Nothing like a famous building for lunch, eh?" she grinned.

Looking at Tom with an expression of a kid getting Christmas presents, she trod upon rows of houses. Julia spread her toes, wrapped her big and second toe around a smaller skyscraper and tried to tear it out of the ground with them. She failed as the building crumbed almost immediately between her toes like made of dried sugar.

"Look at this," she exclaimed, pointing at a brown building with six white pillars at its entrance. It was the building of the Southern Methodist University, it's height of three stories dwarfed by Julia's gigantic feet alone.

"Watch, Tommy," she said. Julia placed her foot on the building and slowly pressed down. The six pillars cracked, long black lines appeared horizontally in them before they slowly fell apart. The rest of the building followed. Almost in slow motion, it yielded to Julia's sole and immense weight.

"Liked that? Shall we do it again, but with you seeing it more closely? I am a goddess after all, so I can crush the same building more than once. You can see me destroying it from different angles. Watch!"

Tom, who had been high up in the air, found himself on the ground next to the suddenly reappeared Southern Methodist University building she just crushed. Julia's foot came down again, casting a huge shadow over the building as it descended. To Tom, her sole seemed like the ceiling of a plane hangar. He tried to get away, tried to turn his head, but couldn't. He was forced to see Julia crush the Southern Methodist University a second time, now from below. The pillars cracked anew, bricks loosed as her foot made contact with the walls and fell down, windows shattered. Julia brought her foot slowly down, her vast weight demolishing the stonework and breaking huge chunks off the walls, which fell to the ground like sheets of cardboard.
CRUNCH! Julia's foot totally covered the Southern Methodist University, surely leaving nothing but debris under it. She playfully wiggled her toes, grinning down at Tom.

"Gee, that feels good! A whole University building under my sole! Like my feet now Tom? How about another toenail growth?"

Julia didn't wait for an answer. Tom could just dive away as her toenails shot forward, like whitish beams, wider than most streets. They shot over the campus into nearby buildings and trees, taking everything down. Like enormous pythons, her toenails curled and strangled entire skyscrapers, clawing, clinging around them. Tom remembered a B-movie in which plants, it might have been a mutant growing ivy, entangled dozens of buildings in a city. This was far worse. The mere toenail of a woman destroying houses by growing and turning proud buildings into helpless objects.

Julia brought her foot back, smearing the remains of the Southern Methodist University over the ground and tearing half a dozen skyscrapers out of the ground with her toenails. The result was a pandemonium of dust and smoke, screams and rumbles.

Julia laughed. In an instant, her toenails returned to their former length. "OK, enough," she said. "And that counts also for you," she added and walked towards the debris field. Tom, now up in the air again, saw her trampling the area the toppled skyscrapers laid, as if she was extinguishing a campfire. The dust and smoke vanished under her feet, as did the screaming.

Winking at Tom, Julia turned and went further into Dallas.