When a Fantasy Turns Real - Giant Couple Story

Another story that was recently commissioned by YaraTa. Much appreciated :D

This is not a canonical story since there is a lot of crushing in our current world... so nothing we usually do. ^^

So... really... there is no connection to the Mega-Ryung stories whatsoever. This is based on a dream YaraTa had and we wanted to keep it as close as possible to that :)

CONTENT: giga / couple / feet / crush / rampage

When a Fantasy Turns Real

It was around ten o’clock on a quiet Saturday morning in Istanbul. The city was already awake, but for Istanbul’s standards the traffic and noise were still somewhat bearable.

Yara sat on her balcony, legs crossed, a steaming cup of tea in her hands. The warm herbal scent rose with the steam, while a gentle breeze played with her hair as she enjoyed the view over the rooftops.

With her laptop on her lap, she opened the DeviantArt page of Ryung and Rick. Pictures and stories of the two depicted them as giants, striding through metropolises—or in some images, so massive they could flatten entire cities with a single step. The artworks were good, the scale was breathtaking, and Yara’s imagination soared. She couldn’t help but feel captivated. Slowly she scrolled through the gallery, her eyes glowing with excitement.

“God, it would be so awesome if they trampled my city. That must be so thrilling!”

She scrolled further. There was an image of Rick striding through an Arabian city, his massive feet looming over the buildings, threatening to crush everything beneath them.

Yara swallowed, overwhelmed by the idea of such impossible size and power.

In one video, Ryung towered kilometers high, trampling entire industrial districts full of towers and people—barefoot, as always.

Both of them really had pretty feet. ^ ^

Yara leaned back slightly and took a sip of tea. The warmth calmed her, yet her eyes stayed fixed on every detail: the dust, the rubble, the tiny cries for help one could almost imagine hearing. A shiver of fascinated awe ran down her spine. She pictured herself standing there, between those enormous feet—close enough to see everything, to feel the power of giants… of Ryung and Rick, right up close. It would be unbelievable.

She leaned back further, cup in hand, scrolling on. She couldn’t stop losing herself in the fantasy of the giants.

But sadly, the two hadn’t posted in quite a while. Apparently they were on vacation with family in Korea? At least, that’s what they had mentioned in a blog post some weeks ago. A pity. She longed for new content…

Yara was still browsing through the gallery when her phone buzzed on the table beside her cup. A new WhatsApp message. It was from Leyla, an old friend who lived in the bustling district of Kadıköy.

“Have you seen the news? If not, check it now!!”

Yara frowned. Leyla wasn’t the type to be rattled easily. With a shrug, she took another sip of tea, set the laptop aside, and picked up her phone to reply.

“Why? What’s going on?”

No sooner had she sent the message than more texts came in. This time from Serkan, a colleague:

“Yara, turn on the TV, quickly!”

Her heart skipped a beat. She set her cup down with a clink, opened Google, and searched for breaking news. The feeds were already full of disturbing videos: shaky recordings, people running, a deep rumble drowning out reporters’ microphones.

“Unbelievable scenes are reaching us from China, India, and Iran,” the news anchor’s voice announced. “Two unfathomably gigantic figures—a man and a woman—are moving across countries and cities. Entire districts have already been trampled. Reports speak of millions dead! Experts urge the population to seek shelter in the interior of large buildings or in basements.”

Yara stared in disbelief at the screen. The footage showed blurred images of a colossal female foot slamming down into a Chinese city with unimaginable force. Buildings burst into clouds of dust and debris, tiny vehicles hurled into the air as if they were pebbles.

Her phone vibrated again. Leyla had written once more:

“They say they’re coming through Türkiye towards Istanbul… I think their path is leading straight here. Please tell me this isn’t real…”

Yara’s heart raced. She thought of the pictures she had just admired on DeviantArt—the enormous soles crushing cities flat. But this was no artwork, no fantasy. This was live. This was real. Or was it? In the age of AI, could anyone be sure? Could this all be fake? But it looked so terrifyingly real.

A faint trembling made Yara’s teacup rattle. She looked down at the table, picked the cup up—but the shaking only grew stronger. At first, it was like a distant tremor. Then like dull crashes, repeating rhythmically. The balcony floor beneath her feet vibrated.

“An earthquake?” she murmured. But no—it didn’t fit. It was too steady, too rhythmic.

She raised her gaze. Beyond the city, across the Bosporus, outlines blurred in the hazy sky. At first she thought it was a cloud formation. But her breath caught when she recognized the colossal silhouette: a human body, so vast it disappeared into the haze. She could see it moving with her bare eyes, swallowing entire stretches of land beneath its steps.

Ryung.

Yara shook her head, rubbed her eyes. But the figure remained. A gigantic Asian woman striding across Greece. The contours blurred in the distance, yet the motion, the rhythmic crashing—that was real. Each step sent quakes into Istanbul, even though it was hundreds of kilometers away.

“This… this can’t be… Ryung? Ryung is… a real giantess?”

Her knees went weak as she lifted her gaze again. Now, another silhouette appeared on the horizon. Larger. Broader. Every step doubled the tremors, windows rattled, birds scattered in shrieking flocks.

Rick.

Her heart pounded. She had seen them countless times on DeviantArt—pictures, videos, stories, fantasies. But now they towered truly before her, so immense the sky itself seemed too small to contain them.

For a moment she doubted her sanity. Was this a hallucination? A dream? But the vibrations in the ground, the deafening detonations of their footsteps, and the wailing sirens of the city left no doubt.

It was real.

Rick and Ryung were here.

And they were marching straight toward Istanbul!

+++

A few hours earlier…

At Incheon International Airport, the usual bustle reigned. People dragged suitcases behind them, announcements echoed through the halls, and the massive display board in the main terminal flashed flight after flight to every corner of the world. Rick and Ryung stood side by side, arms crossed, their eyes scanning the flight information.

“Canceled… canceled… delayed… canceled.”

Rick frowned. “Our flight to Frankfurt… canceled. Just like that.”

Ryung sighed softly, shaking her head as she studied the display as though sheer willpower could fix it. “No reason given. Just ‘unforeseen circumstances.’”

Rick pressed his lips together. “So we’re stuck here for a few days. Hotel hunting, waiting around, packed crowds…” He let out a frustrated snort. “This is going to be fun.”

Ryung was quiet for a moment. Then she reached into her bag and pulled out a slim, white, gleaming bracelet. It was fairly wide and looked at first like a discreet smartwatch with its black display, but the design was strikingly futuristic on closer inspection. She turned it in her hand so the polished surface caught the light.

“Maybe,” she said casually, “it’s time we used this.”

Rick raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure? We’ve never tried it before… just written stories and stuff... We have no idea what could actually happen.”

Ryung met his gaze with a thin, determined smile. “Trial and error. We were always going to test it sooner or later. And when would be a better time than now? Besides—we could be careful. Very careful.”

Rick glanced at the bracelet, then at the swarming masses of people around them. He thought for a moment. “Hmm. If we grow, we don’t need a flight. We could walk home in five to ten hours maybe. No waiting, no lines, no endless hours stuck in a plane.”

Ryung nodded. “Exactly. And we both love hiking anyway. On the way, we could pass through entire countries, see places from above. Almost like flying—but we could stop whenever we wanted to take a closer look.”

“Just start walking, huh?” he muttered. “From Korea to Europe. A few steps through the sea, and that’s it. Honestly… kind of a brilliant idea.”

Ryung nodded slowly. “yes.”

A moment of silence. Only the honking of taxis outside, the murmur of travelers, the clinking of coffee cups in the terminal. Then Rick drew a deep breath.

“Alright,” he said finally. “But we can’t grow here. We’d destroy everything. We need to get outside.” He gestured toward the large glass frontage where buses and taxis rolled by. “…We’ll have to walk a bit first if we don’t want to flatten the entire Incheon Airport.”

+++

Outside. Half an hour later.

The sun was high, the sky clear. Airplanes taxied on the distant runways while tourists and business travelers with rolling suitcases crowded the entrance area. No one suspected what was about to happen.

Rick and Ryung had walked past the Orange Dunes Yeongjong Golf Club and found a fairly open spot near the estuary.

“I think we’ve got enough space here, don’t you?” Rick asked.

Ryung nodded, and the two exchanged a brief glance. They slipped on the bracelets. A faint hum emanated from them, followed by a tingling vibration spreading instantly through their bodies. A faint purple glow shimmered over their skin…

And then the growth began.

Slow at first, but quickly accelerating. Their bodies shot skyward! People screamed, stumbled back, phones lifted to record. The pace only increased. Their frames stretched higher and higher—far more than either of them had imagined!

At the airport, chaos erupted. Panicked cries tore through the terminals as travelers saw the gigantic figures swelling in the distance—until a vast wall of rubber swept over them, crushing everything. Passengers on the planes and staff on the tarmac barely realized what was happening before they, along with their aircraft, were flattened beneath the expanding soles of the new colossi.

Seconds later, the entire airport was nothing more than a carpet of concrete and asphalt beneath the sneakers and sandals of the giant couple.

WUMPH.

Rick’s foot came down. The heel of his Converse alone buried dozens of planes and multiple buildings. The shockwave hurled survivors across the runways like insects.

BOOOM.

Ryung followed, her Birkenstock sandal slamming down onto the main terminal. One single movement—and the thousands of people still screaming vanished beneath the colossal shoe. A cloud of dust burst upward as glass, steel, and concrete compressed into a deep footprint.

Ryung blinked in surprise, staring at her sandal. “Oh? …Oops? Did we just flatten the airport?”

Rick stood beside her, now over 18 kilometers tall, his vast body looming over the entire coastline. He looked down at the gray blotch where one of Asia’s largest airports had stood only moments ago.

“Yeah,” he said flatly. “Looks like it. Hard to judge distances—or pay attention to everything—at this scale.”

He lifted his foot again; sticky debris and hundreds of mangled bodies clung stubbornly to the sole before raining down on the ruins below. He shrugged. “But whatever. If we’re already this big… let’s go.”

Ryung gave a small, almost childlike laugh.

Rick turned toward the sea. “We should take our shoes off and roll up our pants. We’ll have to wade through some water.”

Both crouched down, pulled off their shoes, and Rick stuffed them into his backpack. Then, barefoot, the towering giga-giants began their walk toward home.

“Well then,” he murmured. “Here we go!”

+++

A Few Minutes Later – East China Sea

The creaking of wooden planks mixed with the steady beat of the engines as the Chinese fishing boats glided over the gray-blue water. Nets full of squirming fish lay scattered on the decks, and the men worked in silence, each in their routine. Only the cries of the seagulls and the gurgling of the waves could be heard.

"The sea is calm today, but..." muttered one, an old seaman. "Something's not right today."

And he was right. A deep rumble suddenly vibrated through the ship, as if the very earth beneath the ocean was shaking. One of the younger men dropped his net and stared out at the endless water. "What... is that?"

And then they saw it.

On the horizon, two colossal silhouettes rose from the sea, just barely visible through the ocean haze and because they were so far away. Their bodies were so gigantic that they towered above the clouds, seemingly only touching them at the knees.

And... They were moving! With each step, they waded through the sea, their legs acting like massive pillars, displacing the water for kilometers.

"My God!" someone gasped. Hands trembled, faces paled. "That... that can't be real! It must be a trick!"

But the old seaman shook his head and pointed at a gigantic wave forming on the horizon. "It's no trick. Look at what's already coming our way!"

Some yelled, others held their breath and tried to mentally prepare for the onrushing tsunami... But for something like this, you could hardly prepare. The gigantic wave, triggered by a single step into the water by Rick, finally rolled over the fishing boats.

"Hold on tight!" the captain of a cutter roared, but his voice was drowned out by the roaring water.

Two smaller boats capsized and disappeared into the wave. Men screamed, their voices stifled by the sea.

Other boats and ships lasted a little longer by pointing their bows into the wave, but they eventually flipped over and were literally buried and crushed by the masses of water.

The seamen were gone forever...

+++

"Ah, this is wonderfully refreshing!" Ryung called out, striding through the ankle-deep waves. The water splashed pleasantly around her feet. She could hardly imagine that this pleasant splashing was extreme tsunami waves for normal people!

On numerous coasts in the region, shorelines and half of cities were flooded by the water masses, which swept away cars and people like toys.

"You're right, Ryung," Rick said cheerfully. "A walk in the water like this is really relaxing. We should do this more often."

Ryung nodded and then pointed ahead of them at the ground as they almost reached the Chinese coast. "That there should be Beijing, right? But it looks different. Did they build canals in the city? Or did they build this far out into the sea?"

Rick's eyes widened and he stepped closer to the city, generating new tsunami waves that flooded through the streets. "Oh, no... that, uh, was us. We're probably causing much more damage just by existing as giants than we had assumed!"

Ryung laughed. "Haha... that's so cute. Now I'm sure everyone is trying to get to safety from our waves. Some are probably even swimming in the streets." xD

Rick laughed too. "I bet people can swim in half the city now."

Ryung lifted her barefoot over the city, casting a dark shadow over numerous buildings and causing saltwater to rain down on entire city blocks. "Let's see how the people here react when I step on a district... hello down there! Get ready for my cute foot!"

+++

In the city beneath her, there was absolute panic and confusion. Everything happened so fast that many hadn't even realized what was happening. Massive amounts of water had suddenly flooded through the streets, some people were screaming crazy stuff about giants and such.

Zhang Wei ran. His district had been spared from the major floods so far, but apocalyptic chaos surrounded him here too. People fleeing everywhere, car crashes, and sheer terror. Again and again, the earth trembled, and unbelievably loud voices could be heard. Were there giants after all? Was it not all nonsense?

Then it suddenly grew dark, and inexplicable, torrential rains of salt water began to fall, turning the streets into raging streams within seconds. Then came the panic, washing through the crowd like a wave—people fleeing from something they didn't understand or, due to the obstructed view from the tall buildings, couldn't properly see, except for vague, huge shadowy outlines.

Now he stopped, panting, leaning against a bus door. His expensive suit was soaked, covered in a crumbly, salty crust. He looked up to find the source of this absurd saltwater deluge.

And then he saw it. No, her.

The sky wasn't blocked by a cloud, but by a living, flesh-toned landscape, crisscrossed by massive furrows and lines that made it perfectly clear to him what it was! It was the bare sole of a woman, so immense that his mind refused to comprehend it. It hung motionless for a moment over the city, a threatening ceiling that promised evil. Salt water still dripped from it, and the smell was incredibly strong: a mix of clean, warm skin, ocean, and… something foreign, perhaps the remnants of other cities already clinging to it.

Then the sole began to descend.

Slowly. Relentlessly. Almost elegantly. The arched sole came closer, and with it an ear-splitting, deep roar that wasn't just heard but felt throughout his entire body. It was the sound of a hundred collapsing buildings, already shattering under the approaching weight. Zhang Wei saw the skyscraper two blocks away simply implode as the tip of Ryung's little toe grazed it. Dust clouds shot up, only to be immediately pressed down by the descending sole.

The air grew thick, warm, and hard to breathe. The pressure on his eardrums became unbearable. He could now see the finest details of the skin above him: the moist folds that looked like canyons, the pores, skin cells, everything gigantic. The heat radiating from the gigantic sole was like that of an oven. It was the living, deadly warmth of a true Titaness.

His whole body trembled, paralyzed by a mixture of absolute terror and an absurd, fascinating awe. This was the end.

The touch didn't come as an impact, but as an all-encompassing, yielding pressure. He was already lying on the ground, feeling everything around him vibrating even before the sole touched him. It was fascinating, somehow beautiful and extremely frightening at the same time. Everywhere, people were screaming, well aware that these were their final moments. When he was touched by the skin ridges and pressed into them; everything happened terribly fast. He felt his bones giving way under the unimaginable load. It wasn't a sharp pain, but a deep, dull creaking and cracking inside him as his bones were pulverized. The world around him became tight, dark, and hot. The last thing he felt was the soft, yet merciless texture of Ryung's skin pressing down hard on him and thousands of others all around. His consciousness faded in a feeling of warm, moist darkness and the overwhelming, buzzing roar of her sole, which continued to sink deeper, until nothing remained of the city district and its hundreds of thousands of inhabitants but a flat, sticky impression in the earth.

+++

Ryung slowly and deliberately lifted her foot. A soft, sucking sound could be heard as her sole, now covered in a sticky, gray-brown paste of pulverized concrete, asphalt, and everything that had once been life, detached from the ground. She leaned forward, examining her handiwork with a satisfied, almost childishly curious smile.

"Wow, look at that, Rick!" she called out, pointing at the massive imprint her foot had pressed into the city's fabric. Deep furrows corresponding to her skin lines ran through the rubble, surrounded by the flattened remnants of what had once been a living district of Beijing.

Rick stepped next to her and said admiringly, "Now that's an imprint! Really deep and detailed." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Do you know how many people were just living there? A hundred thousand? A million? And now... pffft." He made a dismissive hand gesture. "Now they're all just flat... mush in your beautiful footprint."

As he spoke, they watched the water from the tsunamis they had created slowly flow into the gigantic depression. It filled the individual lines and furrows of the footsole, pouring into the imprint of the heel and the toes. Within minutes, the site of destruction had become a brand new, bizarre lake, tracing the shape of Ryung's foot in perfect, eerie detail.

"Whoa, that's so cool!" Rick was thrilled. "A footprint lake! I wanna try something like that too!"

Without further ado, he turned around and lifted his own massive foot over a neighboring, still intact part of the city. The panic in the streets below was palpable; tiny figures ran in all directions like disturbed ants.

"My turn!" he announced to Ryung with a grin.

Then he let his foot fall.

It wasn't a slow, elegant descent like Ryung's. It was a determined, powerful stomp—after all, he wanted to leave a nice imprint. The impact was a thunderous roar that made the surrounding lands tremble. Hundreds of buildings dissolved under his sole. Skyscrapers of steel and glass didn't just shatter; they were pulverized in a single, mighty moment, along with all the people who had been inside them.

The desperate screams of people, the wailing of sirens, the screeching of metal – all these sounds were compressed into a brief, stifled crunch, immediately drowned out by the deafening roar of the impact.

When Rick lifted his foot, all that remained here—where just moments before numerous skyscrapers and hundreds of thousands of people had lived—was a deep, perfect footprint, littered with the sticky remains of all the people who had been crushed in that brief instant.

Some remnants of buildings and people had even stuck to the sole of the giant's foot, but he hadn't even noticed.

"Well then," Rick said contentedly. "Now we have a pair." He pointed at Ryung's foot-shaped lake and his own, more rugged devastation.

Ryung giggled. "Your footprint is much bigger and more elongated. You definitely crushed more people than I did."

Rick shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah, of course. But yours looks cute and chubby."

"Yes! And I think it looks good. On our way, we'll leave a whole bunch of imprints. That's pretty cool, isn't it?"

"And we can flatten more cities and villages."

Ryung looked at him cheerfully and took his hand: "Then let's go. It's still a long way to Frankfurt after all..."

Hand in hand, the giga-giants strode on with mighty, thunderous steps through China and then through India, not missing any opportunity on their way to demonstrate their immense size by not only casually crushing entire villages and cities, but also sometimes flattening mountains and mountain ranges!

Hikers who had climbed mountains specifically to look down on everything from above could do nothing but stare up in disbelief as Rick's colossal foot came down upon them, flattening them along with the entire mountain and pressing them deep into the ground.

It was no exaggeration to say that the two giants massively altered entire landscapes...

+++

In a city in India, the honking was deafening. A single, endless roar from a thousand stuffy cars jammed in the streets. No one was moving forward anymore. Arun pressed his hands against his ears, trapped in his rickety compact car. Beside him, his daughter was crying softly.

"Those giants... they're getting closer!" a woman on the street screamed, her voice cracking with panic.

The tremors were no longer just something you felt; they were a permanent state of being. The buildings wobbled, cracks spread across the facades. Arun rolled down his window and looked up, between the skyscrapers.

And then he saw him.

Rick. So close that Arun had to lean his head far back just to see anything. The giant towered so unimaginably high that his upper body seemed lost in the haze of the sky. His left leg was incredibly close and unfathomably large. He was no longer a silhouette; he was a wall of flesh and fabric, erasing the world.

Then it happened. Slowly, relentlessly, something enormously large, beyond comprehension, lowered from the sky. It was Rick's bare foot, gigantic, with dirt and the remnants of earlier cities caught in its skin furrows. It blotted out the sky, devoured the light, and with it came a storm wind that flipped cars and sent people whirling through the air like leaves.

A collective scream, a final, desperate shriek from hundreds of thousands, rose from the city. Arun hugged his daughter, pressed her close, looked into her fear-widened eyes.

Then everything happened very quickly.

The sole made contact. The impact was a true catastrophe. Buildings crumbled, they were simply flattened, ground into dust and rubble. Arun felt the car he was in being compressed into a flat tin can. The windows burst, the roof came down, and the pressure was indescribable, an all-crushing sensation, then there was only darkness. Nothing escaped. Arun and his daughter were crushed. Everything that was life around them was likewise trampled into a single, dirty imprint, into a mass of dust, blood, concrete, steel, and earth.

++++

Rick laughed cheerfully as they continued their journey. "Haha... it crunches so funnily under our soles when we step on cities. Such a satisfying sound."

Ryung looked thoughtfully at the landscape below them, which was marked by their footprints. "Do you actually know how many cities we've flattened along the way?"

Rick shrugged his shoulders. "Hundreds, I guess. Hard to keep count. Doesn't really matter, right?" He examined the sticky residue on his sole. "The main thing is we're making progress."

"Walking is getting tiresome for me," mentioned Ryung, wiping sweat from her brow. "It's so super hot here." She rummaged in her handbag, pulled out a water bottle, and took a sip. "This has to last until we get home." Her whole body gleamed with sweat, which dripped from her legs onto the earth.

"Or do you have any water left?"

Rick shrugged. "I think I have another small bottle in the backpack. But we'd better save it for later. We still have quite a way to walk..."

+++

While the giants were chatting so relaxed, people in numerous cities experienced absolute horror.

In Mumbai, the panic was similarly absolute. Masses of people streamed along the Marine Drive, a hopeless attempt to escape. The wind suddenly shifted, lashing through the streets with unprecedented force and tearing people off their feet.

"What is that smell?" a man wondered as a salty, acrid breeze arose. It smelled of sweat. Of an unimaginable amount of sweat.

They looked up. Above them, Ryung's foot was swinging forward. Unbelievably huge and gleaming with her sweat. Drops as big as watermelons began to fall on the city, lashing down onto the streets and shattering everything they hit.

Then the foot itself came down.

The sweaty sole descended onto buildings, streets, and the promenade. And of course, thousands of people were there. The impact was a wet, crushing squash. Buildings virtually imploded under the extreme pressure. Families clinging to each other in a final embrace were literally pulped. A father threw himself over his son, a final, meaningless gesture of protection, as the soft, beautiful but lethal skin crushed him and everything around him into a uniform mass and pressed it deep into the earth.

Ryung walked on leisurely, and as she lifted her foot again, all that remained was a giant, steaming footprint full of crushed buildings and completely pulverized little people, who looked like tiny red stains. She felt a light tickle on her hot, sweaty sole, where several crushed people had stuck.

"Oh, that was tickly," she murmured and walked on, without a second glance, comfortably beside Rick.

+++

Somewhere in Western India…

General Kapoor watched through his binoculars as the two titans approached his position with thunderous steps. The ground shook with every one of their footfalls.

"All units, open fire! Concentrate fire on the joints! We must inflict as much damage as possible! Tanks, fire on my command!" His voice was sharp with tension, but also carried a glimmer of hope. Thousands of soldiers, hundreds of tanks and rocket launchers had assembled on the plain. It was the largest concentration of firepower he had ever commanded.

A deafening roar broke loose. Tank shells hissed through the air en masse, impacting against Rick's ankles and shins. Rockets tore through the sky and exploded in small, sooty smudges on his jeans. The soldiers fired their assault rifles, a futile, buzzing noise completely drowned out by the din of the footsteps and explosions.

Rick felt nothing more than a light, tickling prickle. He didn't even perceive the attack and simply kept walking.

"India looks quite pretty from up here, doesn't it?" he asked her, while taking his next step.

His foot, a colossus of flesh and bone, lifted up and blotted out the sun above General Kapoor's entire force. The General looked up in horror. The sole was like a moon crashing down upon them. The tanks, which had just been firing, were buried in the shadow.

"No...", was all Kapoor could manage.

Then the foot came down. WUUMPF. Thousands of soldiers, hundreds of tanks – they weren't just flattened, they were literally pressed into the earth. In one second, the state-of-the-art army became nothing but a flat, metallic-bloody smear within the giant's vast, steaming footprint. Rick felt a brief, barely noticeable crunch and a slight yielding of the ground, as if he had stepped on a sandy patch.

"Uh, yes, it does look really nice. Especially the mountains. Well, for us they're more like little hills on the ground. But it looks nice," Ryung answered with a smile. She shook her long hair slightly. At that moment, high above, barely visible like a swarm of silver birds, a squadron of fighter jets formed up. They turned and initiated an attack on Ryung.

The jets raced towards her at supersonic speed and fired their air-to-air missiles. The projectiles impacted against the vast, flesh-toned surface of her arm. Some struck the fabric surface of her shirt and exploded in a spectacular fireworks display of orange and black – from the pilots' perspective.

From Ryung's perspective, it wasn't even a tickle. She barely felt the attack. The fighter squadron tried to break away, but too late… They had misjudged Ryung's movements as she took her next step, and raced directly into the fabric folds of her top.

Pfft. Pft… pffff….

There was a barely audible sound as the machines shattered against Ryung's gigantic breasts. A tiny, sooty mark was visible for a moment, before the smoke dispersed in the wind of her own stride. The explosion was no more perceptible to her than a soap bubble popping.

"Oh?" Ryung wondered, looking down at herself. "I think a few planes just crashed on my chest."

Rick giggled. "Well… the pilots were probably a little distracted." ^^

"Yeah? You think so?" Ryung replied obliviously, brushing a loose strand of hair from her forehead without stopping for a second.

Hand in hand, they marched on, leaving the smoking, crushed remnants of the army and the scattered wreckage of the jets behind them, without having the slightest idea of the ludicrous resistance humanity had just attempted.

And with every further step, villages and cities full of people were crushed beneath their colossal soles…

+++

New Delhi – Live Broadcast from Reporter Rajiv Sharma

The camera shook violently as the ground beneath the reporter's feet trembled. In the background, sirens, screams, and the distant but steadily louder BOOM... BOOM... BOOM could be heard.

"This is Rajiv Sharma for NDTV... live from the heart of New Delhi," the reporter's voice was cracking, he was breathing heavily. His whole body was trembling, his shirt soaked with sweat. "The situation is... is completely out of control. What we are witnessing here is... is the end of India! Perhaps even other countries!"

Behind him, at the end of the wide street, an unimaginable silhouette loomed. Ryung. Each of her steps made the camera shudder as she approached with thunderous footsteps. Her legs were like towers reaching into the sky, her body disappearing into the clouds.

"Look... look at the size!" screamed Sharma, his voice breaking with fear and awe. "She is... a Titaness... a monster... I don't know! Please, if you are seeing this, get to safety! Flee! For us, there is unfortunately no escape, the streets are clogged, we are trapped!"

Then the inevitable happened. Ryung lifted her right foot. Slowly, almost gracefully, it swung forward and then rose above the district where Sharma was standing. A shadow fell over the street as Ryung's colossal foot blotted out the sky, plunging everything into darkness.

"NO! DO YOU SEE? HER FOOT IS COMING OVER US? WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!" Sharma roared, pointing a trembling finger upwards. The camera tilted up and was completely filled with the image of the huge, beautiful skin-pattern of her sole. The furrows looked like canyons, remnants of steel and concrete and stains from thousands of crushed people stuck to it. "OH NO, OUR FINAL SECONDS! SHE IS GOING TO CRUSH US!"

His scream was drowned out by a multi-thousand-voiced, desperate outcry from the crowd. Then the foot descended.

The broadcast showed the rooflines of the surrounding buildings crumble, how steel girders bent like matchsticks. The screams were abruptly cut off by a deafening ROAR and a horrific CRUNCHING. The camera image tilted, spun wildly, then went permanently dark.

Silence.

+++

Istanbul – Yara's Apartment

Yara put her phone down with her heart pounding. The black, silent screen reflected her horrified face. She had followed the video breathlessly, a live stream recorded hours ago.

To her, Ryung had looked unbelievably gigantic. And yet... also impressively beautiful. The pure, unshakeable power emanating from her was exactly what had always fascinated Yara in the stories and pictures. But it was no longer just fantasy. It was real. And it was dreadful. The crunching she had heard in the video... those had been people. Thousands. Pulverized. They were all dead! Lost forever!

Her gaze drifted magnetically to the balcony. She stepped out and her hands gripped the railing convulsively.

There they were.

Ryung and Rick. Much closer now. They were no longer blurry silhouettes on the horizon. They were clearly recognizable. Two living mountains striding through the landscape. With every step, they seemed perspectively larger, more threatening, filling the entire view. The thunder of their footsteps was now a permanent, deep rumble that vibrated through her body.

+++

Yara's breath caught as she watched the movements of the titans on the horizon in complete bewilderment. The gigantic, kilometers-tall Ryung stepped out into the sea with a mighty, almost elegant stride. The water, which must have reached her ankles, seemed to swallow entire stretches of coastline and undoubtedly triggered high tidal waves as she stomped towards Bulgaria. She apparently chose the path over the water.

But Rick, whose size was utterly incomprehensible, stayed on land. Each of his steps was a thunderclap that was no longer just heard, but felt as a vibration through the foundations of Yara's building and through her own bones. Everyone could hear him, see him, and feel his powerful stomps! He was walking directly across the Turkish land. Towards Istanbul... her home city!

"No..." whispered Yara, her fingers gripping the balcony railing so tightly that her knuckles turned white. "He's coming this way. Right here!"

Her heart raced, a wild, fearful drumbeat in her chest. With each of those terrible, dull booms from outside, Rick seemed to grow larger. She could now make out the coarse texture of his jeans, the massive contours of his legs. The thought of how many towns and villages back in the regions he was currently walking through had already been turned to dust and bloody mush under his powerful, all-crushing feet made her dizzy. It was a mixture of sheer horror and a deep fascination she still couldn't explain to herself. This was the power she had dreamed of. And it was so much more terrifying and overwhelming than she could ever have imagined.

Suddenly, the tense silence from the neighbouring apartment snapped her out of her thoughts. Mr. Yilmaz had turned his radio on his balcony up so loud that she could hear every word. The news anchor's voice was hoarse with fear and outrage.

"...it's terrible! We're no longer receiving any signals from Bollu! The city has apparently been completely crushed by the giant, by this Rick! Just flattened! Celebi was also crushed and his foot is currently hovering over Kurfalli! Everything is just being crushed as if we were nothing but dirt under his feet! Entire landscapes are being wiped out! How can he do such a thing? We are people here! We are people! Oh shit… he's going to step on us next… NOOOOO!"

The speaker's voice broke off in a desperate sob before the transmission cut out abruptly.

Yara felt the colour drain from her face. The radio was silent, but the words echoed inside her. “Dirt under his feet.” There it was… that feeling deep inside her that fascinated her profoundly but also filled her with panicked fear – the insignificance in the face of unimaginable power. Now that it was real, it was ice-cold and cruel.

Yara's heart pounded wildly, a nervous, rapid rhythm throbbing in her ears. What should she do? What could she even do? In giant stories, this was the moment she had always waited for. The ultimate thrill. The presence of the Titans.

Now, standing here, she was overcome by a paralyzing fear. She knew what was happening under those feet. She had just seen it.

What if today is your last day? a voice whispered in her head. She loved macrophilia and giants and everything this fantasy had to offer…. But she didn't want to die! She loved her life!

Should she be afraid? Hide in the bathroom and hope Rick didn't step on her district?

Or should she enjoy this completely insane, catastrophically exciting prospect? Let herself be swept away by the force of the moment, experience the finale of her wildest fantasies live and in colour, even as she died in it?

She didn't know. She trembled. With fear. And with deep excitement.

Rick was now so close that she could no longer see all of him… only his legs… She had to look far up to see his face high up in the sky… and he kept getting closer.

Then an idea came to her mind! Why hadn't she thought of it sooner! She could message him! She followed him on DeviantArt!

Quickly she grabbed her phone again and opened DeviantArt… was briefly distracted by giant pictures and news from today, but she quickly pulled herself together, searched for Rick's account and wrote him a message…

YARA: "Please Rick read this! You're heading straight for Istanbul! I live here!"

Sent…. But would he read the message in time?

She looked up again. Rick was so close that she had to lean her head back to see his hips. His shadow already fell on the suburbs of Istanbul. Just a few more steps and he would step on her city. She trembled all over, trapped between the pure, animalistic fear for her life and the breathtaking, terrible beauty of the sight.

Her phone rang and she had the insane hope that it was Rick calling her… but it was her best friend Leyla. "Shit Yara! That giant is going to flatten us… all of us! What should we do?"

Yara broke out in a sweat. "I don't know! I… I … we have to get away!"

But Leyla objected: "The streets here are already full of panicked people and cars blocking each other. I'm stuck! I can't get out of here!"

Yara could hear Leyla sobbing… She looked down from her balcony and noticed that the traffic here was getting worse too, but it was still moving.

Quickly, she ran out of her house, while listening to the crying Leyla on the phone and trying to say something comforting now and then…

+++

The sun blazed from the sky, but the fresh sea breeze made the stroll pleasant. Rick and Ryung strode along leisurely, two giga-giants on a journey through a world made of toys. From their perspective, people weren't even ants anymore.

"Ah, the weather is really perfect here, don't you think?" said Rick, breathing in the salty air deeply. He focused for a moment on the sensations under his feet. With every step came a satisfying, quiet crunching and crumbling as another city was pulverized under his sole, the soft earth yielding and being pressed in under his gigantic foot. "And this feeling... simply unbeatable."

Behind him was a trail of deep footprints… several places where beautiful Turkish cities full of life had once been were now simply replaced by imprints in the ground that perfectly mirrored the shape of his foot, complete with the skin ridge patterns that had left large lines in the earth. Where he had stepped close to the shore, the imprints even filled with seawater, becoming a new bay in the shape of the giant's foot.

Meanwhile, Ryung waded placidly through the shallow seawater that reached her ankles. "Mmmh, for me it's just right. I'm sweating so terribly in this heat. The water cools my feet wonderfully." She smiled and lightly tapped her toes, sending a miniature tidal wave crashing into the coasts of Bulgaria and Turkey. "It feels like a walk on the beach. Only... in gigantic."

Rick laughed. "I'll cool off later. Right now, I like it how it is. Lightly sweaty. This way, the people down there can experience my soles in a very special way, you understand? The smell, the warmth, the moisture... an intense, final experience full of different sensations before they're pulped."

"You're crazy," said Ryung, shaking her head, but an appreciative smile played on her lips. "Somehow sweet, though."

At that moment, Rick's phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled out the huge SAMSUNG device and frowned. "Huh, a message on DeviantArt. From... YaraTa? That name sounds familiar."

He read the message: "Please Rick read this! You're heading straight for Istanbul! I live here!"

"Ryung, listen to this," he said, showing her the display. "That's Yara, a fan from DeviantArt. The one who likes the giant stories and pictures so much. She lives in Istanbul."

Ryung shrugged her shoulders. "Ah. I remember. But do you want to spare Istanbul because of that? That would be unfair. We treat everyone equally, after all. 그래도 이스탄불 밟기 싫으면, 괜찮아."

"Yeah, you're right. I will definitely step on Istanbul," Rick agreed, putting his phone away. "But a little more drama never hurts, right? I'll just take a bit more time for Istanbul. A special farewell for a special fan is the least I can do." A playful grin spread across his face. "I hope she has a chance to survive. Maybe she'll get lucky… if not…. then at least a good show according to her taste as a final experience…"

+++

Yara ran along the street, her heart hammering against her ribs. "Taxi! PLEASE!", she screamed, but every vehicle was already occupied, stuffed full of desperate people. The traffic was complete chaos.

On the phone, she heard Leyla hyperventilating. "I... I can't... Yara, I'm dying of fear! He's so close!"

Yara looked up and froze. Rick's feet were now so close that they were clearly visible behind the rows of houses. His toes were like huge, living boulders, each one larger than a tall building. But then she noticed something. He paused. He was looking at his phone!

"Leyla! He saw it! He saw my message!" Yara cried, overwhelmed by a sudden, mad hope. "He'll spare us! He has to!"

The giants said something to each other in German. Their voices were like extremely loud thunder cracking through the air. The pressure waves caused windows in entire streets to shatter, and a rain of glass shards fell on the fleeing people. Yara covered her ears, her hope overshadowed by pure fear.

Then it happened. Rick lifted his right foot. Slowly, almost tenderly, he let it glide over the city, so that the enormous shadow crept over West Istanbul.

Yara's breath caught in her throat. The scene was incredible, breathtakingly beautiful and terrible at the same time. The curves of his sole, the immense expanse, the pretty, intense skin ridge pattern... the giant was so ultra-gigantic, so overwhelming. Tears shot into her eyes, and she didn't know why. Was it fear? Despair? Or simply the overwhelming power of this moment?

The giant laughed thunderously and even waved at them from above. Then he called out something in German that she couldn't understand: "Hallo da unten! Keine Sorge, Ich werde euch sanft zertreten. Bereit? Hier kommt mein Fuß!"

His bare foot descended. Very slowly. Yara saw with relief that she wasn't directly under the center of the sole… ore on its side… But then she realized he was going to step on West Istanbul! Leyla!

"LEYLA!" she screamed into the phone.

Her friend answered only with a blood-curdling scream. "YARA! HELP! NO... NO!"

"Leyla! It will... all... be okay," Yara tried to reassure her, but the connection broke as the colossal sole slowly touched the ground….

For Yara, it all happened in slow motion… she saw the gigantic toes pressing down entire buildings, which crumbled beneath them… with such ease… She heard screams… saw smoke rise and people being flung away. For a second, it was dead silent.

Then the shockwave hit her, grabbed her, and hurled her like a doll down the street. The world turned into a swirling vortex of noise, dust, and the all-drowning, drone of Rick's foot, even though the giant had only stepped down gently!

Yara felt a dull pain as she slammed back-first into a car. She was completely dazed but managed to get back up. Apparently, she was barely injured. All around her were similarly confused and utterly terrified people… parents were bandaging their children or trying to get them to safety somehow, but where were they supposed to go?

Tears streamed down Yara's face… Leyla was dead! He had simply crushed her along with half of West Istanbul! Just like that! Why had he ignored her message? Did her life mean nothing to him? And the lives of all the other people here? Were they really just dirt under his foot?

+++

Yara's mind was reeling, torn between panicked mortal fear and Rick's unbelievably huge, all-eclipsing presence. What could she do? Nothing, came into her mind. Absolutely nothing. She was smaller than an ant to him. She was a speck of dust, a tiny speck of color on the vast carpet of concrete that had been her home-city!

Her gaze flew to the colossal toes that had just moved a bit over the rubble. Each toe was larger than several buildings. Beneath that single, seemingly casual footprint now lay... how many? A million people? More? A whole million unique lives, dreams, memories – simply wiped out. Pulped. Turned into a wet, bloody paste, mingled with steel and concrete. The sheer number was impossible to grasp. She felt so incredibly worthless and tiny.

With a spectacular, deafening roar, Rick lifted his foot slowly. Rubble, dust, torn-apart cars, and other unrecognizable, sticky remnants showered from his sole and hailed down on the city like a dirty, deadly rain. The earth trembled and roared so violently that Yara lost her balance and sank to her knees. The entire ground beneath her wobbled and shook from the sheer mass that was moving.

Then the sole hovered directly above her. The vast, arched plane of skin blotted out the sky, plunging the world into an eerie twilight. For one long, seemingly endless moment, it hung there, and Yara got a perfect, unobstructed view of what her fate could be. She saw the deep skin ridges, wide as streets, the sticky traces of devastation that stretched across the entire immense area. The pure size was breathtaking. So much destructive potential in a single body part.

Slowly, almost playfully, the toes descended – but not on her. Further west, maybe a few kilometers away, they came down again.

BOOM!

The thunder of the impact was physically painful. The pressure wave swept through the streets, once again tearing people off their feet and hurling them through the air like dolls. Cars were overturned, walls burst. Yara, prepared this time, clawed at a house wall that was cracking dangerously from the immense tremors. She heard the brief, collective scream of thousands, which abruptly died in squishing and crunching sounds.

Crying from fear, despair, and a kind of traumatic awe, she looked up. Above her, she saw the mighty arch of Rick's instep. The entire sole was a living, curved landscape that seemed to stretch into eternity. And even further above, high, high in the sky, wreathed in clouds, was his face.

He grinned a slight, playful grin as he watched her hometown disappear piece by piece under his bare feet. He was enjoying this. The eradication of so many lives was his entertainment. This final realization hit Yara harder than any pressure wave. They weren't just insignificant. They were dying in a game.

And he even knew she was down here!!

+++

Rick had only stepped down with his toes so far... but now the rest of the sole was coming down!

Yara was lucky again - it hit the district north of hers. Yet the screams of the people there reached her ears, a blood-curdling chorus of mortal terror that would have been somehow exciting if it weren't so infinitely sad!

It thundered once more, and although she held on frantically, the pressure wave hurled her to the ground this time again. She was slowly losing her strength. So many people were dying, and she was sure she would be next. That thought struck her deep within. It was no longer a question of ‘if’ she would die today, but only ‘how’.

How did she want to die? Crushed by rubble? Pulped inside a house? In a car during a futile escape? Definitely not!

She had had this giant fantasy for so long... If she had to die, then at least to be crushed under the soft, powerful sole of that awesome giant! That would be a small comfort in this hopeless situation.

Rick's foot lifted again... the earth trembled once more... and this time the sole came directly over her district. This was it!

She was going to die!

Her heart contracted painfully, tears shot into her eyes. The colossal presence was overwhelming, the sole above her a powerfully beautiful sight... but deep inside she knew only one thing: She didn't want to die! She wanted to live!

The sole descended relentlessly.

Crying, Yara started to run. There were no more houses to hide in, no more possibility of escape. So she just ran to the next large square, where she wanted to mentally prepare herself to be caught by the sole... To be crushed... To be squished underfoot like an ant!

She looked up and realized she was in the area of the ball of the foot, which was slowly but steadily coming down. It was unbelievable! The wind grew fiercer, even the air pressure increased significantly! She lay down on the ground in the large square so as not to be blown away, and just kept looking up, to spend her last seconds at least with this incredible sight.

The sole came closer and was still moving... The skin ridges grew larger and larger, more detailed. It was a fantastic, overwhelming sight, but she was terribly afraid of how painful it would be to get crushed to pulp!

The foot moved a little more, so that Yara was now closer to the toes... but that didn't change her fate. She would be pulped.

She heard the screams of the people in her district and knew that she and everyone else would die now. The first houses collapsed under the weight as the sole touched them... It became so loud and dark that a wave of sensory impressions washed over Yara - warmth, a distinct smell... and then the unbearable air pressure that increased drastically!

Her whole body trembled uncontrollably and she closed her eyes to prepare for death. This was it....

Then everything shook, it roared so loudly that Yara could no longer hear anything at all. Everything became silent, and she felt extreme warmth and pressure bearing down on her. She was pressed into the rough skin and knew that she would now be pulped....

At least she thought so... but...

It didn't happen. She tried to breathe, but couldn't. Her ribcage was completely flattened. She was pressed under the skin... but somehow still alive!

Yara couldn't comprehend it at all. She was still alive. That was impossible! She should be dead by now. But as the huge foot slowly lifted again, the deafening roar of falling rubble filling the air, she understood.

She had been lying right under the arch of the second toe! The foot had been pressed deep into the earth and had razed the entire district around her to the ground... but some areas, especially the instep and the arched bridges between the toes, had only lightly touched the ground because these parts were slightly higher than the rest of the sole. In these narrow zones, there were a few, incredibly lucky survivors.

And she was one of them!

The foot lifted higher, and a hail of debris, chunks of concrete, and other remnants came down. Yara screamed, scrambled to her feet, and instinctively dodged some of the falling pieces. She had massively good luck. A young man next to her, who had also gotten up, was hit by a falling steel girder and was literally pulverized. His blood sprayed, warm and thick, onto Yara's face and clothes.

She was completely shocked, paralyzed by all those events. She mechanically wiped the blood from her face and her gaze swept over the devastation.

She was standing in a gigantic, steaming footprint that stretched for kilometers. Her entire neighborhood, the familiar streets, everything was gone. Only a few, half-destroyed houses remained at the very edge of the imprint. Her own house was sheared in half, the interior exposed and bare like a dollhouse.

And as she looked beyond the edge of the footprint, she saw that all of Istanbul was almost unrecognizable. Columns of smoke rose everywhere, and the city's silhouette was interspersed with gigantic, footprints.

Trembling, she looked up and saw Rick's foot moving on… suddenly she saw the clear sunlight again and his entire huge body looming over the city as his sole didn’t block the view anymore…

+++

Ryung, wading leisurely through the sea, shot Rick a challenging look. "Hey Rick, I thought we treat all cities equally? That didn't mean you had to make extra sure Yara definitely got flattened. She likes giants, but still deserves a chance to survive, doesn't she? After all the stories she created with us?"

Rick, who was just lifting his foot from the freshly created crater in Istanbul, grinned sheepishly and glanced down at his toes. "Oh... uh... yeah... you're right. But... I'm sure she'll appreciate the show. It was a spectacular farewell, wasn't it? Be honest." He winked at her. "Alright, let's keep going. Istanbul is half flat anyway. Whatever." ^^

He set his foot down again further west with a dull thunder, while Ryung sighed and shook her head, but with a small smile on her lips, strode along beside him.

+++

Yara stood trembling on the plateau that was surrounded by the huge, steaming pits that together formed Rick's colossal footprint. The smell of sweat, dust, blood, and destruction hung heavily in the air. All around her was nothing but chaos and devastation. She still couldn't grasp that she had survived – a pure coincidence, a tiny safe space under the elevation between his toes.

Her gaze swept over the destroyed Istanbul. Crumbled buildings, flattened cars, pulped people... the smoking remnants of what had once been her home. And then she saw Rick's foot lifting again in the distance and setting down further west. Another thunderclap, more dead. It wasn't over.

Trembling, she scrambled down from the plateau, which had been formed by the raised arch of the toe, and wandered in horror through the footprint. The skin ridges had left thick lines in the concrete and earth, making the pattern of the gigantic sole clearly visible everywhere… deeply impressed into Istanbul and probably now a permanent part of the city's landscape.

The imprint was unbelievably large and wide. It would take her a long time to reach the edge of the imprint and get to her half-destroyed house. It was a truly fascinating image, like a new landscape that had been created here… and it would have been really cool if it weren't so incredibly dreadful!

She walked on, panting. Everywhere were completely pulped bodies, her fellow human beings, her neighbors, all dead.

What was she supposed to do now? Where should she go? Try to rebuild the rest of her house, her apartment? But how would life go on? This couldn't all be real!

Suddenly, she remembered something. Her phone! She reached into her pocket and pulled it out with trembling fingers. The screen was cracked, but it still worked. She opened DeviantArt and typed a new message to Rick with shaking fingers.

YARA: "I'm still alive... But… I don't know what to say. Why? Why are you doing this? You destroyed my entire city! Leyla is dead! My best friend! Thousands are dead! How can you do something like that? This isn't a joke! And you're doing it on purpose! And you know I live here! Did you want to kill me too?"

She sent the message without knowing if he would read it or even care. She was just a tiny, insignificant dot on his path of destruction.

+++

Rick felt the familiar buzz in his pocket. He pulled out his huge phone, read the message, shrugged, and grinned at Ryung. "Yara is writing again. She survived. And she's... angry."

Ryung raised an eyebrow. "Of course she's angry. You flattened her hometown. What did you expect? Gratitude?"

"Well," said Rick, taking a big stride over the Mediterranean towards Greece. "I gave her a show like she always wanted. Up close. That should be worth something, right?"

He shrugged and set his foot down on Greek soil. A picturesque coastal village disappeared under his sole. A light, tickling crumbling was all he felt while thousands got crushed.

"See?", he said to Ryung. "It's unavoidable, the massive destruction we cause. And somehow... it's beautiful too, don't you think?"

Ryung shook her head, but a slight smile played on her lips. "You're despicable. But yes... it is fascinating."

They looked west, towards their home. A few more hours, and they would be home. Countless more towns and villages lay before them, ready to turn to dust under their feet.

Rick typed a reply as he walked on, crushing more cities with countless people under his feet.

+++

Yara was just looking at an entire family lying completely crushed in front of her. She couldn't even tell how many bodies there were because they were utterly squashed and almost unrecognizable. At that moment, she got the message. She read:

"Oh, that sounds like you didn't enjoy the show. Wasn't it cool though? I thought you would like being crushed by me. Sorry that I thought wrong and that I might have squashed some friends of yours. But just be positive and be happy you survived. You can still talk about an event like this for decades to come."

What kind of answer is that? He can't be serious! Yara was beside herself with rage, and a storm of emotions welled up inside her.

She replied in the chat: "Of course I didn't enjoy it! You destroyed everything! Millions died here! Millions! And you crushed friends of mine! I've lost everything because of you! I don't even know what to do anymore! How could I possibly enjoy that? Are you completely insane?"

She sent the message and wandered on through the footprint, trembling, crying. She couldn't even properly understand what she was feeling and thinking; it was all just too much to bear.

But a reply came immediately:

Rick: "Oh Yara, you think too much. You have to understand that we giants are on a much higher level than you normal humans. You tiny ones are literally the ground we walk on. And honestly: Shouldn't everyone be happy to be crushed by us? Isn't that the coolest and best death one can imagine? Pulped under a huge, soft bare sole? By such amazing giants like us? Isn't that awesome? Besides, it was great fun for me… and that's definitely more important than all you tinies down there."

Yara breathed heavily as she read this. Rick was obviously trying to trigger her fantasy to divert her feelings away from the pain, but it didn't work – the experiences were too intense, too traumatic!

She replied again: "But millions are just dead because of you! So many lives lost forever! You and Ryung walked over so many cities and flattened everything…. Please, I'm begging you, please don't grow any further! I don't want to live in fear of being crushed someday or losing more friends, just because you enjoy it! We are people too, just like you!"

Rick replied directly just a few seconds later:

"Haha… well, you're right about that, but you're misjudging your position. You have to accept your place. From now on, you tiny ones literally belong under our soles. That's just the way it is. That is your place. And you can only accept it now. And then maybe it will be easier for you to simply admire our footprints instead of getting angry about the destruction. I could, of course, just come back and wipe out you and the rest of Istanbul too… But I'm not mean. I want people to survive and be able to tell what they experienced. Anyway, we're moving on. Maybe we can write another time when you've calmed down. Bye for now!"

Yara read the message and was simply stunned. She looked up again, tears welling in her eyes, as her gaze again swept over the ruins of the city…

Everything was destroyed… countless people gone forever… and for her, everything would change… everything!

THE END