Amanda Singles, 24, yoga teacher, was the first one. She fell unconscious on the floor of the shopping mall on the 25th May, at 15.45. This was not much of a commotion. Yet another victim of the shopping frenzy. It did become more of en event when her clothing started to crack, a few minutes later, as she was installed by some helpful hands on the sofa of a coffee shop nearby. (She still hadn’t regained consciousness when they moved her.) When her body started to spill out of the sofa, her clothing in tatters hanging from her hips and shoulders, it became quite clear something unusual was taking place. Worried mothers covered the eyes of their children and the Security staff of the mall called the police.
By the time the police arrived, the event was already being aired by a small local radio station. When the officers reached the woman, half the mall was already occupied by the huge body. The facades of a few shops had exploded under the pressure of the vast feet pressing against them; a few metallic pillars were under strain as well as a massive arm was trying to find some expansion room. It became quickly apparent that the pillars , which were supporting the structure of the roof , would soon cease to do so.
An hour later, while the naked body was pushing and compressing everything in its vicinity, the ceiling gave way, crashing onto the sleeping woman. That did not perturb her sleep. And for all eye-witness accounts, it did not seem to hurt her in the slightest. As her feet started to crash in a nearby building, while her head blocked all traffic on Main avenue, the event was already international news. Mankind was faced with its first recorded giantess.
I was having a break in the canteen of our quiet office when the excited voice of the newsman pronounced the fatidic words on the small TV set hanging from the far corner. A human being had been spotted in my own town, growing to an enormous size through walls and buildings, crushing all structures under her formidable weight. She was close to 300 feet long. (He used that term, instead of tall, as the giantess, Amanda Singles, was lying on top of the city center like a giant beached whale). The woman was said to be alive and breathing, but totally unconscious.
In the canteen, we looked at each other. This was a bit much. Last I check April’s fool was long past. But then came the first footage. A shaky hand held camera was panning the incredible mass of the body, while the reporter was walking along the wall of flesh, in a chaos of debris. We all peered closer to the screen. Was this a new blockbuster movie? I could not spot any stars. Just as the footage was released, we all heard the din of many firemen wagons rushing to the city ( our office was slightly off center).
Vaguely chuckling, but looking uneasily to my co-workers for proof this was a prank, I still went to the window and stretching out, I stared in the direction of the city center. I could not see much, but there definitely was a huge cloud of dust hanging over it, and not the usual mist of pollution. And then I spotted it in the far distance. A rosy structure was there, that should not have been there, an apparition between the base of our usual skyscrapers. I stared in disbelief. It was a foot. A huge foot in the distance, stuck somehow between two tall buildings, like the inflated rosy canopy of some circus tent. Below me, a flow of people in the streets were walking towards the center, in small excited group. I was about to call Michelle, my secretary and ask her to come and confirm the sight I was witnessing, when a loud grumble started afar. I saw the skyscraper close to the foot sway right and left. Shouts and cries echoed in the distance. With a slow majestic motion the entire building started to collapse, in a vertiginous fall, while a cloud of smoke rose on the site. Something seemed to have crashed the base of the building and send it toppling down like a house card. I would find soon enough that the second foot of the giantess was indeed embedded in the lower floors and had brought about the destruction.
Stunned, I came back inside, looked at my colleagues and said :“Guys, I think we’re taking the afternoon off”.
The collapse of the building has not created any casualties. Evacuation of the entire district had been on-going from the moment it had become clear the gigantic body was about to spill into the nearby streets. Still two people found their death in the event and the fact was horribly advertised by all channels. I remember when we saw for the first time on the TV the ugly scene of this man slowly engulfed by the huge buttock expanding on him. He had been caught somehow trying to salvage something too close to the body and a sudden spurt of growth had tumbled him down and overrun him. His pitiful cries as the firemen desperately pulled at him from under the threatening fleshy wall had been a trauma to many viewers. A security staff member of the shopping mall had also been victim of the incredible expansion, when he found himself cornered by the advance of a massive thigh against an unyielding wall.
We all went to the city, attracted by the event like moths to a light. Everyone walking along with us was just incredibly excited. It was as if Magic had suddenly entered our dull universe, as if legends were about to come true. The walls of science and reason had been shattered as easily as the toppling skyscraper. As we got closer, the dust started to enter our noses and we had to use handkerchiefs. Coming from the opposite directions, frightened people, covered in the white dust were stumbling away from the scene, looking at us with angry eyes.
We weren’t allowed close to the crime scene obviously, battalions of police cars and army folks were already cordoning the place. But even from the distance, I will remember for ever my first glimpse at her face.
She looked like a giant sleeping beauty out of a fairy tale. The vast curtain of her blond hair was spilling over the streets like a golden flood. Her face was high in the air, exhibiting a perfect profile. I could see her chest heaving up and down, a tremendous and yet silent breathing that animated her perfect mountainous breasts with a gentle rhythm. I must say, that past the initial shock of the enormous size of the body lying on top of our town, the second thought was somewhat a mix of fear and wonderment at the beauty of the amplified Amanda Singles ( who had become the most famous human being on the planet in a matter of hours). Many a guy I’m sure found in the contemplation of her huge naked body a source of rather un-religious feelings. Walking on her face , a man in a white suit was leaning forward on her lower lip, apparently introducing some sort of pipe in the giant mouth. I was dying to walk up there and touch the rosy humongous lips myself.
Like many, I stayed in the vicinity till late in the night. The girl had stopped her expansion, but there was no sign that Amanda Singles was ever going to come to. Around her much activity was taking place, police army, scientists, news people, all were there, busy with their own tasks. The spotlights installed by the firemen had turned the giant body in some unreal funfair of sounds and lights. Vast tarpaulins had been brought upon the body, covering at least the parts that required some decency. That night, Gulliver’s’ travels were on everyone’s mind, and maybe because of this, no action was taken to actually try and shackle the huge woman under a network of chains and other cable. On the TV, on the radios, everywhere, commentators were bringing their arguments as to the significance of this unbelievable occurrence.
I went back home at last , my mind full of the incredible sight, my heart still racing from excitement. After all this was taking place here, in my hometown, and I was there to see it. The destruction had not been so bad, and only the fairy tale feeling seemed to linger. I guess I was feeling also, like everyone in the world, that a strange era was opening in human history. But apart from some really insightful or pessimistic people, (some of them fearing she may expand to infinity) no one ever saw the Event for what is was: the beginning of the end.
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It’s quite incredible how we come to accept the impossible. After a week in the shadow of the giantess, life started to go back to normal in our community. Giving up on the daily visit to the giant woman, I opened the office again, and occasionally leaned out of the window to get a glimpse of her enormous shape. She was still asleep, her face quiet and immobile (although REM movements were clearly visible under her eyelids). Scientists from all over the planets were discussing the case. Was she dying? Would she ever awake? It had been proved that every part of her body had expanded harmoniously. Her brains were now the single most powerful thinking organ on the planet. Whatever happened to the real Amanda Singles?
Incredible tales were spinned about the actual phenomenon, the favourite explanations revolving around Aliens, a lot about new Eve and God’s will, some others about a freak accident at the quantum level of matter. The sudden growth of mass did not seem to have required any original energy. No strange entropic motion was detected at the same time on the planet. Yet this intrusion of matter required a source, and research was just beginning to investigate that source.
Disruption in traffic, touristy opportunities , news, our little world had suddenly found a new toy to play with and a new challenge to tackle.
A week later three young women collapsed on the floor in their respective towns and countries.
The young Japanese actress that went unconscious in the center of Hiroshima expanded so fast , hundreds of people fell victim to a crushing death under her pale skin. Her size reached the 650 feet mark in less than twenty minutes. Many pictures showed her long black hair strewn with human bodies. (This type of phenomenon would be labelled later “ explosive birth”)
In Paris, a young Dutch tourist fell on to the floor of the Louvres museum, crushed four people under her expanding body and destroyed the entire building. At 700 feet tall, she was a colossal sight among the old French districts. I still remember the famous pic showing tourists staring at the huge hand resting on an old building, like a gigantic sculpture.
A tiny village in Zimbabwe disappeared under the body of a young woman, who, at more than 500 feet, became a sudden dark hill in the flat landscape.
The news hit the networks and the world realised this was indeed something serious. A strange unease started to spread . Was it an epidemic? What strange lottery was at play here? The four giants had in common to be young and female. Nothing more united them. Their sizes seemed to vary. All of them were unconscious. The world gazed worryingly at this new species. Armies went on alert. No one expected hostilities, but the Hiroshima disaster pointed out toward some serious precautions. All towns in the world started to think about evacuation techniques.
I was reading about all the theories and watching the pictures of the munificent shapes of the sleeping giantesses (we had been disappointed top see our local giantess was pretty small after all) with a colleague of mine, in my usual coffee shop, when I saw a man rushing from the kitchen into the main room. He was white. “600!!” he shouted, “600!!” All customers looked at him in shock. “Not another one, please!” “ 600 feet again”, oh man!” I walked to the cook, who looked visibly shaken and showed him a seat. “Sit down, man, it’s all right. Where about?”
“You don’ understand! There are 600 of them now!!”
For the first time, the cold fear settled in my stomach. And the world simply did not sleep that night. 600 cities ploughed under the weight of 600 giantesses. All young, all female. This was an epidemic.
A few hours later, all female citizens under the ages of 35 were kindly asked to leave the urban centers, as a measure of precaution.
The Explosion had started, all over the world, at increased rate. Within a month 7 000 human beings had evolved in this new life form, causing massive destruction.
Then came the Day of the Awakening...
tbc
nostromo