Study of Microfauna by Ben G. Thomas - 7

Eddie had heard Ben's voice but couldn't believe the word he was saying. Could Ben really be so callous? It was bad enough when he thought Ben was just unaware of what he'd done but now Ben had admitted he'd enjoyed it. He didn't know what to do, he sat there on the lip of Ben's discarded shoe shaking, his voice quivering at the thought of what Ben might be capable of. His terrified stupor was broken as a voice broke through on his mobile… he was still on call with Ben, maybe he could persuade him to stop, maybe he could convince Ben the find somewhere safe where they could figure out how this happened and how to reverse-


"Hey Eddie, where are you right now?" Ben's voice called from the tiny speaker on Eddie's phone yet even at this distance he could feel the vibrations caused by every word that Ben spoke.


Eddie gasped and stuttered through his words as he replied.

"Um i- i'm sitting on the edge of y-your sh-sh-shoe, where you left it". Now was his chance if he could convince Ben to stop this could all end. "H-hey Ben, you can stop this you know, we can figure it out" as he said it confidence built up within Eddie with every word he spoke, as hope welled up from within. "We can reverse this I'm su-" Ben cut him off.


"Yeah screw that, wait there i'll come find you in a minute, there's just something I need to do first" and with that the call clicked off severing the one link that Ben had to humanity for the time being.


The moment the call ended Eddie reflexively curled up into a ball, tears flooding down his face as the reality of the situation set in, there was nothing he could do now to stop Ben all of the death he had failed to prevent filled his mind. He could hear the screams of every person he had failed to save.

Collapsing to his side he let his body role further into the deep soft cavern he was perched in, letting the darkness of Ben's cavernous footwear engulf him hoping to get lost in it and lose his connection to the outside world… the outside world he had just failed to save, he rolled and rolled down the plush incline before colliding like a marble with the firm insole that towered overhead, the outline of Ben's heel firmly imprinted upon it. As Eddie cowered in its shadow his mind was filled with images of Ben causing havoc across the country, cities in flames, people reduced to smears or crumpled masses of flesh, mountain ranges reduced to deep canyon like footprints and silhouetted above like a looming God was Ben.


This was what the world had become, a plaything for a God, a God he had once called a friend. Ben had already proven himself to be a force of nature but now there was intent behind every action it almost broke Eddie's mind at the callous power Ben now held, and there was nothing that could be done to prevent it, it was like a deity had been unleashed upon the globe.


—


Many miles away within the city of Portsmouth chaos had erupted at the sight of the towering figure of Ben whose foot filled their horizon like a fleshy mountain range. They had heard every word of Ben's call with Eddie, and their hearts sank at the finality that the end of the call brought.


What could be Ben's unfinished business that he wanted to complete before finding his friend, the look on his face as he smiled down at them brought them their answers.


Ben stared down at the miniscule city laid out before him, the entire thing no larger than a CD or an A5 piece of paper. He had power over every living thing within it and now knowing what he was doing he really wanted to enjoy what he was about to do. So slowly he crouched down resting on his immense haunches.

His soles lifting from the ground as the balls of his feet took the full force of his immense mass, pressing them even deeper into the ground, deforming the landscape around them, great cracks formed in the landscape stretching from his toes, snaking towards the prone little city cutting off rivers and streams as well as many major roadways.


Many trying to flee the city found themselves trapped in standstill traffic jams that snaked for miles in every direction, unable to move they simply watched horrified as a great shadow loomed as Ben lowered himself towards the ground, his immense bulge filling the sky overhead, as his titanic torso filled the sky for the city behind them. As this happened the ground trembled at magnitude rarely recorded in human history as the trapped drivers watched the immense toes on the horizon flex and sink lower into the ground, then suddenly the landscape ahead of them began to disappear, roadways and vehicles disappearing into the ground as it swallowed them whole dropping thousands of feet to their deaths in the bowels of the earth. Screams were unheeded as thousands were lost to the earth beneath Ben's feet.


Ben however had failed to notice the catastrophe occurring near his feet and instead turned his attention to the city. He chuckled to himself as he lowered a long slender finger towards the outskirts of the city and began to trace an outline cutting the city off from the world outside. He watched amused as the lush green belt landscape, snaking roads and some small suburbs bordering the city were soon replaced by a deep brown smear that sank nearly a thousand feet into the ground.

Tracing the outskirt he soon found his finger reaching the coastline, wanting to make sure there was no escape Ben pressed his fingertip against the coast and began to trace along the edge of the cities bay and coastline leaving not a single port standing, the cities famous naval base and historic naval museums were instantly wiped from the map beneath the long digit, it didn't take long before his fingertip reached where he had started to trace the city's outline. Leaving a brown smear bordering the entire city and a broiling sea beyond, the immense water displacement caused by Ben's finger caused the sea to swamp over the trench and into the first few blocks along the coast washing away buildings and inhabitants.


To those in the city the apocalypse had come as many in untouched areas found their sky blackened as they tried to withstand record breaking earthquakes. The distant booming of destruction as Ben's enormous finger encircled them, trapping them within the doomed city. Distant blood curdling screams reached their ears before they were instantly silenced as the immense digit steamrolled them into a fine gory paste then compressed that paste to nothing but atoms.


Ben let out a laugh at the sight of the now trapped city, already buildings and streets were in flames rubble strewn across the tiny roads that crisscrossed the grey patch that was Portsmouth.

To those below a thunder clap louder than anything ever recorded shattered windows and caused ears to bleed as Ben's laugh cracked cement with the force of the air unleashed.


"This really is pathetic how easily this city crumbles, I expected it to put up more resistance than this… you need better architects and scientists" he chuckled again at his unfunny joke as an idea crossed his mind.


"Hang on where the university campus" he studied the burning city figuring out the road layouts remembering the streets he had walked often before today, wondering what it would be like to see him overhead as those familiar streets were reduced to nothing, before finally coming across what he had been searching for, the university, the reason he had headed towards portsmouth in the first place. Originally before his call with Eddie he had partially hoped that the university could figure out what had happened to him, now he had something better in mind.


The staff and students of Portsmouth university had been going about a normal day before the chaos had begun now they watched awed, some of them even recognising the being causing this as one of their classmates. Now they stood terrified as his immense mass shifted again as he rose back to his full height, his heels touching down on the ground again far outside the city sending a shockwave over the landscape that wiped out some other nearby towns as a fierce hurricane force wind blasted these towns and their inhabitants off the map.


Now the inhabitants of Portsmouth uni could see the form of Ben looming far above, a grin plastered upon his face as on the horizon his mountainous left foot shifted, tonnes of dust and debris of the ruined landscape fell from his soft skin as it lifted skyward as thunderous winds blasted across the city carrying some people and vehicles into the air that was displaced beneath him and into his footprint that stretched for miles.

They could only watch helpless as daylight slowly disappeared, the glittering rays of the sun first illuminating the edges of Ben's sole then being blocked entirely by it. Any power left in the city shot to its streetlights and sent a sickly orange glow up to the slowly looming sole.


It amused Ben greatly to see that what was left of the city fit neatly under half of his foot, his immense toes twitching and flexing over this pathetic piece of dirt, but rather than extinguishing this city in an instant under his awaiting sole Ben flexed his big toe downward holding it ominously over the portion of city containing Portsmouth Uni the long digit dwarfing it tenfold.


The inhabitants of the university began to break down in fear as they realised what was about to happen, some crumbling to their knees helplessly staring up at the soft slender sole that loomed overhead, the toe alone seemingly filling their sky, his mild foot musk drifting into those below causing some to choke and others to get inexplicably aroused. It hung there for a moment as terrified anticipatory silence fell across the campus and surrounding area. Ben's thunderous heartbeat was all that could be heard as some people began to beg and plead to this God silently to spare them, yet those pleas went unanswered as with unimaginable speed and a vast displacement of air the toe fell. Screams erupted again as their doom approached, yet its descent was so fast that some failed to even open their mouths before the landscape around them began to buckle and crumble from the force being exerted upon it before finally the toe touched down wiping the area and everyone within it from existence with a blood curdling boom.


Ben looked down at his toe now, placed in the centre of the city, clouds of dust and tonnes of debris thrown into the air above the surrounding area of the city coming to rest slowly around the monolithic digit that had swallowed half of what remained of the city. At this sight Ben felt something twitch at his crotch and a slight moan escape his mouth blowing away accumulated clouds around his head and blowing some reconnaissance planes off course sending them tumbling towards various parts of his immense body. Giving his toe a twist to smear the remains of the university into dirt Ben began to remove his toe from the ground debris falling into the imprint that remained.


Glancing down Ben saw what little remained of the city, now looking like a ruined dirt patch with half of it swallowed in the centre by the imprint of his immense toe, snorting at how unimpressive it looked Ben simply moved his foot into position looming the ball of his foot over it covering everything that remained with room to spare and swiftly and without ceremony dropped it. He felt the landscape buckle from the weight placed on the ball of his foot, he felt some of the larger surviving building tickle his sole before collapsing into heaps of nothing, and most importantly he heard the pathetic whimpering screams cut off instantly as his fleshy sole wiped every living thing beneath it out of existence.


Removing his foot he looked down at what was once the famous port city and saw simply a greyish-brown smear of dirt compressed into a canyon shaped like his footprint. The thought of the ease with which he wiped it from existence was intoxicating, ideas swirled through his head of what else he was capable of doing to this world sending shivers of pleasure through his body. But before he could do any of them he first had a promise to keep to Eddie.


Right time to go get my shoes" Ben chuckled to himself, as he started to walk back the way he came now paying attention to every town and settlement that was in his path, some as small as bugs. He truly felt like a God as he crushed the human world beneath his feet the human germs scrambling in vain to escape his sweaty soles.


"God I'm loving this already, Let's save some fun with Eddie" a malicious grin spread across his face.