This choice: came up to his ankle, so he had to keep his distance • Go Back...Chapter #6came up to his ankle, so he had to keep his dis... by: Kilbil   As much as the sight of his dream destination being barely able to reach his ankles threw him off-guard, Sam wasn't terribly surprised. Over the past year or so, he'd been going through a lot of growth spurts, and it didn't look like they were going to be stopping anytime soon (joy for him...). In just the past couple of months alone, his parents' house had gone from being about knee height to not even being able to reach up to his toenails. Just getting to San Diego had been a challenge in spite of how little effort it took for him to get there; his feet alone took up several entire blocks by themselves, so there was no way he could ever hope to get any closer to without risking destroying the entire event himself.
Thus, he had little choice but to stay several meters away from the event, his only point of contact being the massive shadow he cast over a good chunk of San Diego as it enveloped the entire center in a muted veil of darkness. The only reason he had managed to make it as close as he had was thanks to some well-placed steps on some (hopefully vacant) parks as he deftly tiptoed past several dozen blocks of congested streets and packed-together establishments, his toes awkwardly pushing against the nearby brick buildings and causing their facades to cave in just the slightest bit.
Sam could only cross his fingers and hope from the bottom of his heart that the city didn't mind having to pay for the footprint-shaped craters that had been left where plots of lush fields and vibrant dark-green trees had once stood. Once, in a far-off time when his parents could walk up to his ear and trust that their words would be heard, his dad had mentioned something about how "collateral damage" was a pretty common occurrence these days, so they probably were already used to having to clean up after the messes giants like him made.
It... made him feel a bit really terrible, now that he thought about it. But such was the way of things.
Either way, all he could really do was watch down and stare at the throngs of multicolored blurs and specks gather around at the entrance of the convention center. No doubt they were cosplayers and other fanatics getting ready to have a blast meeting with all of the showrunners and comic writers in there. Fortunately, the center had been refabricated to have a fully glass ceiling specifically for fans of his stature, so he could at least see what was going on inside. Still, he could already imagine how ecstatic the normal-sized participants were to meet with other fans and sign autographs with comic book legends and find out the latest news about upcoming shows and everything. Meanwhile, he could only stand here and act like an overblown watchtower, all the while pretending that his presence wasn't casting the whole event in an ominous atmosphere. Having a young Titan looming over them, watching, his foot alone spanning the entire convention center and then some, had to be a bit unnerving even after having long gotten used to the giant phenomenon.
It was all kind of.... no, actually, it was really lame, if he was being honest with himself. But that was alright. He wasn't expecting to be able to do much anyway given his size, so he was just glad he was even able to come here at all. What mattered was that after months of waiting and preparation, he was finally here! He finally got to go to Comic Con after years of begging and working odd jobs to earn money, and there was nothing that could possibly ruin this for him!
...that was, assuming fate didn't decide to mess with him once more and cause him to have another growth spurt right here and then. Putting aside the obvious disaster it would spell for San Diego, he still recalled with some embarrassment the time that he'd been helping out some friends of the family clear out several acres of swampland for a theme park they wanted to build, and a growth spurt had suddenly happened right as he was finished with pulling up the last several dozen bundles of redwoods by their roots. His feet had quickly overwhelmed most of the land he had just been clearing, and his pinkie toe had knocked several nearby houses aside as though they were made of graham crackers. Fortunately, none of the occupants were home at the time, but the number of apologies he gave out for destroying most of their livelihoods was far too great to count.
Though, looking back, he supposed he had no way for sure if the dust-sized specks had actually managed to hear what he had to say. He could barely make them out as it was, and it didn't seem like they were focused on anything other than keeping steady and not going deaf from the ear-shattering onslaught of his voice. Still, Sam like to imagine that they got his intent after they'd managed to recover from feeling like a thunderstorm was yelling right at them.
In general, getting used to being thousands(?) of feet tall had been a brutal adjustment period for him. For whatever reason, whenever people told you about life as a giant, they didn't emphasize just how much worse off your day-to-day was. All of his plans for the future had to be put on hold indefinitely the day he suddenly found that his foot could now crush the garage. He was immediately pulled out from school and forced to spend every last moment on a specialized curriculum tailor-made for his size. Worse than that, he was effectively barred from going anywhere while he had studies left to attend to, meaning that he barely had time to even go visit his old friends anymore. What little free time he did get was basically wasted, as he couldn't read any of the comics books his dad had purchased over the years - as hard as he tried, he couldn't exactly read pages the size of dust specks. He couldn't watch any movies with him either - not since the projector image became too small for him to see anything more than an indistinguishable blur on a tiny square dot. He couldn't even play basketball with him anymore! The only thing he had in terms of leisure was lying down and let himself daydream about future comic book issues that he was missing out on, coming up with wild and fanciful stories that he knew would never see the light of day.
Another thing said people neglected to mention was how drastically your living standards were lowered. Since there was a lot more of him to provide for, he had to get used to living with a lot less of everything in turn: less food, less water, less clothes, and so much more. Shelter? He had none; the biggest mansions in the world couldn't even make a decent hat for his toes, let alone provide anything resembling protection from the elements. There weren't even any decently sized caves that he could fit his head through! The only option he had was to suck it up and sleep out in the open wilderness. It didn't matter whether a torrential downpour of hail was tearing through the county, or if the skies were covered in an impenetrable curtain of sleet: he had to bear it all, day and night, with only a few scraps of stretched-out fabric from recycled circus tents for clothing.
Last winter had been the worst one he'd ever experienced in his life by far. Dealing with the relentless cold had already been hard enough when he could still fit in the house, and he had a warm fireplace to rest by and several layers of blankets to nestle himself under.
This, though? This had been hell. He still recalled with perfect clarity every waking moment of that nightmare as record snowstorms raged on without end. Countless days and nights had him shivering to the bone, forced to bear the thick downpours of snow that quickly came to be like a second layer of skin for him, with only his body heat to keep him even the slightest bit warm. The thin membrane of protection his body heat afforded was barely enough. During the worst moments, when every part of his body felt numb and blue to the touch, he found himself wishing with all of his heart that he could just close his eyes and fall asleep forever...
It was only thanks to his friends and family that he'd been able to make it through the season at all. His parents had been working nonstop to do everything they could to help him out, reaching out to as many charitable organizations and as they could to provide enough layers of for him to and the entire town had gotten together and gotten numerous heat generators surrounding him as he slept. It wasn't much, but it did help to ward off the cold, and he appreciated the gesture.
There was so much that he had to be thankful for, given everything that had happened.
But even though he constantly chastised himself any time his thoughts leaned towards being even slightly ungrateful, he could never get rid of the lingering resentment that seemed to cloud most of his days now as he stared down at the tiny convention center.
He knew he should consider himself lucky. Some giants were so mindboggling massive, so mind-shattering in their scale, that they couldn't even get near any cities without worrying that their toes were going to accidentally find themselves right in top of them. In fact, he could just make out a couple of them right now, their blurry forms all too visible in the distance even though they were no doubt hundreds of miles away. How they managed to survive at all was completely beyond Sam's understanding, but if their skinny, borderline skeletal silhouettes were anything to go by, it was by the skin of their teeth.
Even then, it just didn't seem fair, did it? That he was forced to not have any fun by circumstances beyond his control.
Still, as Sam looked down upon the masses of dots gathering around the center, his clouded thoughts began to clear. He wasn't going to let any of that keep him down. Just because he had to keep his distance didn't mean he couldn't participate! So, what exactly could he do?  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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