Study of Microfauna by Ben G Thomas - 6

It had only been about an hour or two since Ben had first grown and since then he'd absent-mindedly laid waste to an enormous portion of the south coast of England.


Entire towns had been wiped off the map permanently reduced to atoms either underfoot of by the simple action of Ben's foot passing overhead. Thousands of people had spent their last moments looking to the sky as it blackened in the shadow of this immense young athletic youtuber's sole, the skin of which was lightly dusted in ruins of towns and the landscape.


A few tiny near microscopic splinters of wood near the edge of his little toe acting as the only remnant of one of the many large forests littering the landscape. The animals of said forest also spending their last moments panicked in a shadow of an apocalyptic footstep.


Needless to say, Ben's singular focus of discovering the source of his growth, potentially by using the university of Portsmouth's science department and equipment or at least get some students to run a few tests, had led to his inability to notice the chaos below. He had even failed to notice as his casual steps had removed entire population centres from existence. His brief growth spurt early being the last time he really paid much attention to what was happening around him.


Any attempt to contact Ben had failed so far, one resourceful RAF officer had broken off from his group sent to assess the situation. He had piloted his jet upwards in an extreme climb to reach Ben's eye level thousands of feet high and set himself on an intercept course. As he approached, the pilot had the best view of Ben that anyone had gotten since the growth happened revealing the true scale of this gigantic young man. He had flown past Ben's eye and was horrified to see that an entire football stadium would have fit within Ben's undilated pupil with room to spare.


Having reached Ben's eye level this brave pilot took his moment to fire his flares in an attempt to catch this vast monstrous man's attention. The shimmering red lights began to plummet leaving a trail of illuminated smoke behind them. To those on the ground the flares bloomed across the sky and covered a huge area. To Ben a small object had appeared before him before some flashes of light appeared, instinctually he flinched and brought his hand up to swat it away.


The Pilot was elated for a moment believing he had gained the gigantic mans attention from the vast movement outside his cockpit. This moment of elation ended very swiftly though as soon something colossal rose into view moving at speeds something so large should be incapable of going. The pilot reacted quickly as the object raced closer filling his view, he performed an extreme maneuver to fly in the opposite direction, pushing the G-forces to almost intolerable levels but the jet survived and span almost in place.


This maneuver would have seemed incredible to most if it wasn't in vain. Sadly despite the impressive motion the jet failed to escape fast enough and soon it was engulfed in flame as the vast object impacted the metal frame. The pilot spent his final seconds wondering what had hit him. The humiliation he'd have felt if he'd known that he'd been swatted from the sky like a bug by Ben's slender fingertip.


With that attempt to communicate failed, you can imagine that the moment Ben answered his phone would lead to a collective sigh of relief escaping every person in the city of Portsmouth.


"Hey Eddie, how've you been? Sorry I didn't show up before. What're you up to?" Ben's voice boomed across the landscape. The lack of worry for the situation in his voice sending chills down the spines of tens of thousands as they stare up at this colossal man dwarfing their city.


The vast speaker of Ben's phone projecting Eddie's reply as a booming voice similar in scale to Ben's.


—


Ben had pressed the answer button expecting a calm, pleasant conversation with his friend. What he got was unexpected to say the least.


"Shitting hell Ben! What the fuck do you think youre doing!?" Eddie's voice screamed down the phone at him, the panic and anger present in his tone. Ben winced at the sheer volume of the voice that blasted from his phone


"Hold on calm the fuck down mate!" Ben replied, a bit irritated to say the least.

"Tell me why you're so fucking angry at me at least!" Ben was involuntarily raising his voice in reply, to the horror of all those below.

Eddie's reply came back softer but no less angry and panicked.


""Ben, please tell me you know what's happened?"


"Of course I do, I'm not a fucking idiot, you dont grow this big without noticing" Ben chuckled back, finally understanding what had got Eddie so worked up.


"I thought I might be able to get it sorted out if I came to the university. I haven't asked them to do anything yet, I need to find it first." Ben began to survey the city spread out across the ground before him, the city from his perspective seemed to cover an area about the size of an A4 piece of paper.


"Might be a bit difficult to find them, the city looks like a patch of algae from this angle, i'll have to-" Ben couldn't finish this thought though before Eddie interjected aggressively.


"Don't fucking do anything just stand perfectly still, do you understand me!?" There was a growing sense of irritation in Eddie's voice, as if Ben had missed something obvious.


"What? why? Have I forgotten something? Is there something wrong?" Ben let a little bit of self doubt seep into his voice.


"Missed something!? Ben you're thousands of feet tall! Do you not realise the damage you cause just by existing!?" Eddie was shouting again, the irritation getting the better of him.


"What do you mean!? I know I'm big but what sort of damage do you think I can cause?" Ben replied still unable to comprehend the true scale of the events that were transpiring.

"I know I caused a little bit of property damage in Charmouth but that was accidental and it was only minor"


"Only minor! Ben, you destroyed most of the town! There's barely anything left!"


–


Eddie was slowly coming to a realisation through this conversation, that the sheer size difference had caused some kind of disassociation for Ben and this sent shivers of fear into his voice. Every word came out trembling slightly the apprehension building with each sentence. There was hope that he could get Ben to reassociate and truly comprehend what he'd done but it grew slimmer every exchange.


"Well at least it was only property damage" Ben's voice not only boomed from the speaker of Eddie's phone but also shook the landscape around him with seismic force despite the great distance between them.

"I didn't hurt anyone surely"


This sentence was Eddie's last chance to get Ben to realise so he chose his words carefully, he attempted to calm himself or as best as he could then slowly replied.


"Ben… people are dead… a lot of people, it's dreadful. It's like a natural disaster has blown through" despite calming himself each word came out shaky and panicked. Tears were stinging Eddie's face and his heart was threatening to pound its way through his chest as he waited for a reply from Ben.

There was a pause, it was flushed full of suspense and with each passing second a sense of dread built waiting for the reply.


"Dead? how? I can't have done that surely!" Ben's voice was difficult to read, if there was any remorse Eddie couldn't hear it yet, but this was the moment that could finally bring Ben down to Earth.


"Well some… erm… some were crushed by the buildings you damaged, some died in fires caused by property damage and some… well some…" Eddie's voice caught finally realising the insanity of what he was about to say.


"Some were caught under your feet, you stepped on them and crushed them. When you took your shoes off and walked off you crushed a large portion of the town under your feet and everyone that got in your way got crushed… Ben you stepped on them and crushed them like bugs under your feet and it sounds like you didnt even fucking notice!" Some anger began to creep into Eddie's voice near the end as he began to realise how Ben had absentmindedly if unintentionally reduced the lives of hundreds of people to bugs, no less than bugs, beneath his feet.


This pause began to stretch on and on, Eddie's anger and irritation starting to boil over but the level headed side of him keeping it in check as for all he knew Ben was reeling from finding out how he's ended so many lives. The thought of being in Ben's situation filled Eddie with dread, the idea that with every step he took he'd end countless lives beneath his feet sickened him, and for all he knew this revelation had sickened Ben. But he'd find out as Ben's voice crackles through his phone speaker and sends quakes across the landscape as it cracks like distant thunder, filling the air around Eddie with Ben's reply.


"Heh… that's actually pretty funny"


—


The true reality of the events of the last few hours flooded through Ben's mind. Reality that every step he had taken had been onto an inhabited landscape, and that every crunch he had felt under his foot wasn't just some piece of dirt but an entire town full of people that had gotten caught beneath his foot as he had absentmindedly headed for Portsmouth. Of course he had killed people when he had strolled through Charmouth why would he think otherwise.


Then another realisation had spread through Nen's mind. He had no idea how any of this had happened, and nothing in modern science was capable of explaining it, so why had he thought he could get some answers from the university.


He had strolled towards a city that had no chance of reversing what had happened destroying thousands of lives on the way, and he'd done it ultimately for no reason. How had he not realised earlier there was surely no chance of reversing this at the back of his mind he must have known that was the case. And if he had subconsciously known he was stuck like this, why did he make the journey? Maybe to gather information, but then he had no reason too, he was never going to write that paper after all, so why?


Ben had finally begun to realise the true intentions of his journey as he looked down at the city of Portsmouth standing like a patch of moss before his toes. This bustling metropolis reduced to a patch on the floor no bigger than a doormat. The sight of the crisscrossing streets looking like fine strands of dirt, the towering buildings of the city barely more than gravel, the screams of the microscopic populace barely even audible to him. The sight made Ben's thoughts click into place, he knew why he'd come here, he knew why he'd casually strolled across the landscape… he was enjoying himself.


"Heh… that's actually pretty funny!" Ben let his thoughts be known to Eddie and the world.


Every step, every crunch he had enjoyed it.

Feeling the landscape mold itself to his soles, and know finally understanding the terror that had been felt by thousands as they had stared up at his bare soles before he had reduced them to atoms in seconds. Genocide had become less than a pastime to Ben it had become a part of his existence. And he finally knew what he wanted to do next…