Hugh is now 100 times his current size. He is now in a new civilisation.
Now hysteria gripped the crowd floating in the sky. Their desperate pleas fell on deaf ears.
The boy's footfalls were devastating.
Hugh then looked at those soles which were covered in debris and dirt.
"Here, I still have the remains of the last civilization I trampled on."
Hugh scoffed, kicking his toes, dislodging some of the accumulated detritus that had lodged itself between his fingers.
Though the cluster of small dwellers was but a speck of dust compared to him, he could still feel thousands of small, dexterous insects twisting and beating the sensitive flesh of his feet, their collective mass forming a soft, clumpy cushion under the arch of his toe.
"Curious how many mites will be left down there when I'm done trampling your planet."
He smiled to himself as he slipped his foot into his flip-flop. Squeezing his toes against the strap. Increasing the unbearable pressure for those trapped between his fingers.
Then he began rubbing his foot from side to side as if he were putting out a cigarette, enlarging the already massive crater. To him, the sound of the barren earth being torn apart by the soft foam of his flip-flops was like the crunch of dried leaves.
And it was just as satisfying.
An ecstatic feeling of dominance coursed through his veins at the sensation of the rock crumbling under his feet. A pressure rose in his head at the sight of the chaos unleashed by his every move, disastrous for the dwellings of this puny civilisation. Everything on the surface was reduced to powder, swept away by the twisting of his feet, enveloping whole swathes of land in waves of uprooted rubble. It made the bleak wasteland of ruins even more unrecognisable. One step had turned a thriving coastline into a tomb for millions.
Hugh then looked inland, to the urban landscape teeming with life.
A whole world he could dispose of at will.
The earth's crust groaned as the boy shifted his weight once more. The tectonic plates shook as if afraid of the god now trampling them.
More cracks opened as the boy's fleshy toes lifted from the crater. Hugh's vast left foot shot across the sky to the ground.
The hiss of displaced air sounded like artillery inbound. His shin went through columns of low cloud, swirls of condensation escaping from the straps of his flip-flops. Debris cascaded from the worn mossy sole, millions of tons of powdered stone spilled from its grooved underside, falling onto the untouched countryside.
Its shadow passed eerily over several small settlements before expanding as its feet tilted back and arched downwards, aiming for a large city on the fringes of the metropolitan expansion.
There was nothing in the galaxy that could compare to Hugh's footsteps. They were more powerful than any thermonuclear detonation. Each one was a biblical event. His feet sank unchallenged into the strata.
An explosive shockwave spread from the epicenters, faster than the speed of sound, pulverising the landscape for miles. His gargantuan feet rolled forward, compressing everything beneath them, turning the soft earth to mush and turning it into clay around his flip-flops.
Waves of explosions ripped through nearby settlements, decimating entire streets, dismantling modern high-tech skyscrapers into shards of concrete and glass. Further out, the surrounding area succumbed to the sounds of settling; seismic activity caused the ground to shake violently, vibrating like a trampoline. Houses and office towers swayed like blades of grass in the wind before collapsing in plumes of ash. Cracks opened up as the surface split, engulfing swathes of civilisation, water and gas pipes sparked, causing explosions that ravaged flooded neighbouring neighbourhoods.
The earth liquefied, with earthquakes removing all rigidity from the ground, roads became rivers of mud, cars and buildings sank into the crust, creating a dark soup of dissolved infrastructure. The air was filled with the cacophony of shattering mountains, entire cities being obliterated, and the terrain being torn apart. Resounding hisses cut through the storm of destruction as the other foot emerged from the smoke, flew overhead and crashed, the first breaking away from the newly formed panic, the cataclysmic process beginning again. What had been a bustling city was now a dusty decoration for Hugh's feet. The pit matched his footsteps and felt his dirty feet the centre of scenes of devastation.
The areas would be inhospitable for years to come.
Millions of people stood in awe, stunned by the biblical being towering over the landscape and advancing towards them, pillars of legs stretching into the sky. Helpless, as their livelihoods were wiped out before them. They could not imagine the distance the divine boy could cover with a single step. Their primitive minds realised that this transcendent being was not just a figment of their imagination. One moment he was dominating the horizon, the next they were looking down at the bottom of his feet. The remains of their homes crashed into the calloused soles, debris broke off and rained down around them like meteors.
Time slowed, the realisation of their place in his universe defined by the sight of that mile-long flip-flop, looming above like a floating landscape. The cause of their annihilation taking the form of these vast flip-flops.
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