"Its all straight back to subjugation from here on out, trust me. Two weeks. I give it two weeks."

"The girl looks pretty sincere, though. If you ask me."

"If you're talking about the blond, then I say yes. If you're talking about that other broad, then I say take another good look. She's nothing but trouble, I'm telling ya."

"Why did the Savior bring her in any way?"

"Why don't you go and ask her?! She'll probably be more than happy to fill you in, don't you think?"

Ralph's vision of the two men talking on the balcony got obscured when someone shoved a glass of water in front of his face.

"Care for a drink, sir?" Theresa, Ralph's caretaker, asked. Age lines became prominent when the woman's face folded into a gentle smile.

Ralph shook his head. "Ralph, remember Theresa? You can call me Ralph."

"I know, sir. I will, sir." Theresa placed the long drink glass of water on a side table next to him, despite Ralph's clear answer that he did not want it.

Theresa walked off. "Theresa!" Ralph called out. The woman spun on her heels, beaming at him with a smile so broad that it made Ralph feel sorry for the woman's jaw muscles.

"Yes, s–"

"Ralph," Ralph interrupted.

"Rrrralph," Theresa said like she was forced to say some blasphemous word she rather not did.

"What are those two lads talking about?" Ralph pointed at the two men standing on the balcony – the ones whose conversation he was eavesdropping earlier.

"Our Savior, s, Ralph." Theresa edited herself. "She has returned."

"Savior?" Ralph frowned.

Theresa nodded with her characteristic gentle smile. "Yes, a youthful Brobdingnagian girl named Madison. She saved us all from demise. You're gonna love her!"

"Can you roll me over there, please? I'd like to have a better view," Ralph asked.

"Of course… Ralph." Theresa walked over to push Ralph's wheelchair towards the balcony on the 18th floor of the building he was recovering in.

As Ralph entered the balcony – giving him a wide view of the surroundings – he saw two Brobdingnagian girls, roughly of Ashley's age, looming in the distance. Their chats boomed clearly audible throughout the vast cave they were residing in. The younger one – the one with the golden locks scratching her shoulders and painfully bright, pink crop top compelling you to beg for shades when looking at it – seemed to give her friend some explanation about the place. Ralph's experience with real-life Brobdingnagians was pretty limited. He had only encountered three thus far. These encounters culminated in pretty disastrous events, though – one of them nearly killed him even. Images of the catastrophic shipwreck from yesterday lit up in his head. Two pretty sloshed college-aged Brob girls had attacked their fleet. All ships were picked up entirely in one hand and brought up to their gleeful faces before being stuffed between a bunch of toes.

The last thing Ralph could remember was that he was shouting in vain for his friend Stan while their ship was teetering between two toes of one of the Brob girls. Everything after that was nothing but thick fog in his memory. He did not know how, but he somehow survived this horrible ordeal. While lying unconscious in the sand for God knows how long, among wrecked ship parts and innumerable dead bodies, he was found by a patrol of friendly humans who brought him to this place – this so-called sanctuary. He was told that there were no other survivors next to a woman and two children. No sign of his friend Stan too, who was presumed dead.

Luckily, these horrible events did not lead Ralph to believe that every Brobdingnagian was evil. He still trusted in his judge of character. And he was pretty confident that this soft-hearted looking character, this Madison, with her vivid, lake-blue eyes, posed zero threat to them. That was not to say for the other Brobdingnagian girl, though. Ralph saw those charming, full lips smiling, and he saw her nodding eagerly every time Madison pointed at something and gave an explanation. This girl – with her short shaggy hairdo draped over her ears – was feigning interest in Madison's story. Ralph saw it. And he had tremendous doubts that Madison herself was noticing that. Something was brewing behind the façade of amiability of this brunette beauty. Ralph shrieked as an earthquake vibrated through the whole building. His wheelchair – which Theresa forgot to put on the brake – rolled and banged against the balcony's railing. Someone helped him and repositioned him. As Ralph regained his composure, he saw the cause of this nuisance.

One of the Brobdingnagian girls – the brunette beauty, which kept being called Vianna by the other – had stepped a little too enthusiastic while following Madison. The latter wanted to show her friend something, so she ushered her to follow. She did, however forget to warn her about her steps. While this Madison walked slowly and carefully – the girl was obviously used to traveling through Lilliputian territory – her friend sashayed after her like she was parading on a catwalk. Her black, mid-calf boot created quite some turbulence among the Lilliputian communities sprawling in this cave when it crashed down. The girl was probably not aware of this effect. Or maybe she was and did not give a damn about it. If Ralph had to put money on it, he would bet on option two.

It also helped that Madison was wearing simple sneakers with thin soles to lessen the impact when she took a step.

Ralph saw the girls walking toward a human settlement. These Humans were gigantic to the Lilliputians but still relatively puny compared to a Brobdingnagian. Most human structures did not even manage to reach above a Brobdingnagian's knees. A thing that definitely applied to this particular settlement that was still in its early development stage.

Vianna wore a gleaming white cut-off shoulder dress – ending at the upper region of her thighs. Its fabric fluttered gracefully around the girl's slender legs – amply out of reach of even the highest human structures – as she struts over to her friend.

Madison sat down on her haunches in her denim shorts – and almost toppled over some sort of water tower. She gave an explanation to Vianna about an impressive-looking solar device in the shape of a grand sunflower.

Ralph's attention was drawn towards the sound of machinery and racket coming from a crew of humans further ahead. They were busy dismantling a massive translucent box those Brob girls had brought along with them. It contained a whole lilliputian city by the sight of it – and one that was fairly large even. It had a remarkable resemblance with some of the bruising metropolises of his homeland.

"Need this, Sir?"

Ralph flinched and saw that Theresa stood next to him. She smiled down upon him and held out a binocular. He felt slightly vexed because this woman was able to sneak up at him and also because she was calling him 'sir' again. He was also pretty desperate to take a better look at that metropolis in the distance and was glad that she had anticipated that. So he swallowed his pride and took the binocular over from her with a curt 'thank you' and a nod.

Placing the binoculars in front of his eyes, Ralph adjusted it for a sharp sight and took a look. His heart was already beating with suspense, and he wanted to see if his hunch was correct.

And there he saw it! The big red dome, the eye-catching roof of New Oakton's courthouse. And over there! New Oakton's Townhall, with its inconceivable building design. And even the bowstring arch bridge was there – still twinkly white and soaring above a dried-up river trench. But there was something else over there vying for Ralph's attention too. A view so unbelievably disturbing that he fluttered with his eyes and shook his head to take another gander before he was convinced that it was truly real what he saw.

A live-sized pile of rubble heaped up in an even wider-sized crater was formed right in the middle of the city. No doubt that this was the work of a Brobdingnagian. This awful view made it once again clear to Ralph that these Brobdingnagians were ridiculously powerful compared to them. They were literally nothing to these Gods.

Ralph's eyes took a quick peek at the two immature Brob girls still conversing with each other in the distance. Would one of them be responsible for this carnage? Who knows? If Ralph had to guess, he would point this Vianna gal as the culprit.

Ralph looked through the binoculars again and cussed when it was impossible for him – from his point of view – to see the farm, the home of his parents. Would they still be alive? His thoughts went to his brother Kelvin and his kid sister Ashley. He wanted to see them. He wanted to see them all. Now.