Kari made her way over to the mall. It was a two-story building with a glass roof. Below the roof, Kari could make out a series of escalators that went down about 4 floors below ground level. One of those floors must be the connection for subway, Kari thought. She just had to find a way to get people to evacuate.
Kari’s feet were massive by the scale of the city’s inhabitants. One foot could easily crush a city bus. Her feet were firm and callused because indeed they had crushed many buses. With her tough feet she smashed through the glass roof with her left foot. She brought her right down to the ground and guided her other foot to the basement of the mall. She flicked the escalators loose with her toes and sent them crashing down. When she was firmly planted she brought her other foot into the opening. She tried to lower herself down but her knees couldn’t deform the floors enough and her butt was pushing against the exterior wall. Her ability to move was quite limited. She shifted around until she could get one hand between her legs and in between the basement floors. With all her might and loud, echoing yelp she was able to rip off most of the first floor. She could now see the stairwell that went down into the subway but it was too far for her to reach.
Kari stood to her full and height and surveyed what she had to work with. She stepped out of the mall and began walking to a gas station at the other end of the parking lot. There she found a tanker truck. She picked it up and was delighted to find that it had been abandoned full. The truck fit nicely into her hands, now all she had to do was find something she could use as a match. For that she ripped up a half dozen wooden electrical utility poles. She put the poles and the tanker near the hole she had made in the mall.
The last thing to do was to start a fire that she could use to ignite the poles. She began by picking up cars and pinching the undersides near where she thought the gas tank was. About every second car, she was able to get gasoline to spill out of onto the ground. When she was satisfied with her small pool of gasoline, she picked up to cars and began to rub them together. The metal creaked and deformed in her hands until she found and angle that made sparks. She pressed the crushed passenger door of Honda Civic into the under side of a Jeep creating a flurry of sparks. The gasoline whooshed into an open flame.
Delighted Kari stepped back into the mall. She got down as low as she could and placed the tanker on the floor with the subway stairs. With two fingers and thumb she played with the tanker like it was a shuffleboard rock. She shot it down the hallway and it hit the back wall, ricocheting and then part of the tanker got caught in the stairs and stopped. Kari picked up a utility pole, ignited it and let it burn. The char built up on the edge of the pole and she flicked it towards the tanker.
At first nothing happened. The pole’s flame diminished and burned beside the tanker. Eventually, the pole went out with only a red ember at the tip. Kari turned around at her hips to light another pole when she heard the explosion. Bits of flooring and ceiling went out like shrapnel. Black smoke filled the mall. The burning gasoline was a crackling red flame. Kari quickly hoisted herself out of the mall. She was coughing, she could only imagine what it was like inside.
The mall was alive with panic. People streamed out of the subway. In the mall the fire spread quickly and those who had hid away in stores made a break for it. They knew the giantess was waiting for them outside but what choice did they have? They fled out the exits only to be scooped up and put into Kari’s bag. Handful by handful until Kari had filled her bag entirely.
“It’s cute that you tinies thought that you could out smart me. And I appreciated the challenge. But you can’t win against a giantess.” She said as she looked down at the top level of her satchel. People were trying to climb the edges but it was too slick for them to make it. “Just accept it. This is the natural order of things.”
Kari sealed up her satchel. Her satchel was about five stories tall crammed with 2,500 cowering humans. She brought out a second strap and reformed it as backpack. With her bag secure she stood up to her full height. People were still streaming out of the flame engulfed mall. The parking lot was filled with people. Kari had hit the motherload, this was easier than shooting fish in barrel.
Realizing that she had probably done better than the others, she decide that her last act would be to tin some tinies to eat later that night. Kari’s feet smashed into groups of fleeing people. She was uninterested in them but enjoyed the warm bursts on her feet. She was not even paying attention to them and they could not escape her. Eventually she found her target, a few empty seacans that she could pack people into. She scooped them into three sea cans but ran into a problem. Her fingers were too big to seal them.
---
The giantess placed the seacan onto the ground not far from the crowd. With her fingers, the doors were held closed against the helpless shoving of the people entombed in them. Mob mentality ruled over the fleeing crowds. They could not predict her movements and reacted to any movement by running the opposite way.
The giantess knew this and would fake her intentions. With her free hand she swiped at the crowd but didn’t make contact. Her shadow hovering over them, they changed direction. But she brought her arm down several rows of people behind her initial fake. The momentum of the crowd, drove those closest to her arm right into her forearm. They crashed into her arm, toppled over but were, miraculously, alive.
Jay didn’t know what was happening. He had lost his balance and now his foot was definitely touching the giantess. Should he get up and run? Should admit that he has lost? He was frozen in fear. That’s when he noticed that she was staring directly at him.
“You lot.” The giantess spoke as she pointed at the few who had tumbled over.
“I need someone to close these containers.” No one moved. “Get up and close these containers.”
Jay stood up. He was dazed but his quick math told him he should comply. He could not comply and definitely die or he could comply and probably die. His suspicion was confirmed when the giantess’ forearm bowled over the half dozen or so people who did not move. It was so quick there was not even a cry, which helped Jay keep his nerve.
“Finally. Thank you. Now if you don’t mind.” The giantess said. Her eyes broke from following him as she wiped the guts off of her arm.
Jay’s adrenaline was pumping. There was screaming in the container but there was also screaming all around him. It felt like an all encompassing white noise. He could hear the banging and pushing behind the steel wall. But with one giant finger each container as held closed. Jay was now standing under this giant finger while he pulled the first latch together. The door then pushed in from the pressure of the giant finger. Did she even notice that movement? He latched the door closed and stepped away. The giant finger withdrew tentatively and then totally when the door held closed.
He contemplated what to do at the next two. It crossed his mind that he would screw up the latching. The giantess probably wouldn’t even know. But how could those inside escape? She’d almost definitely crush them before many could even escape from the container. So Jay dutifully condemned those in the next two boxes. The giantess’ final finger pulled away. There was a pause that felt like hours as Jay fought his body’s urge to run as fast he could.
“Thanks.” The giantess said to him. From his vantage point her could see that her finger was in her mouth. Jay had no idea what to make of this gesture. “As your reward, you won’t have to wait.”
Her giant, wet finger suddenly came down. His clothing adhered to her spit and he was raised into the air faster than any carnival ride. Her lips parted around him and he was accosted by the humid air of her waiting mouth. The lips sealed behind him and her tongue pried him off the finger. The pressure of the mammoth tongue against his chest caused Jay to black out and he was promptly swallowed.
Jay came to just as he began his free fall into the giantess’ stomach. The acid was only knee deep but was hot and viscous. Jay fished out his phone so that he could have a flashlight. The humidity made it hard to work his phone but he got the camera light on. He spotted a lump of partially digested food and climbed onto it to get away from the acid. He paused for a moment when he realized what food was a to a giantess, and then discarded the thought and looked up.
Astonishingly, there was weak cell service in the giantess’ stomach. He took a video of his surroundings in the hope that maybe knowing what was going on inside the giantess might help the next person who gets swallowed. He tried to talk in the video but the churn of the stomach and the rhythmic beating of her heart was all that anyone could heat in the video. Jay’s thoughts turned to bile sitting in mounds in the stomach. It was food. He was food.