Eighty feet tall | Hachijūshaku-sama

Gazing out of the window on this foggy day, you're feeling a little reflective all of a sudden. It's October already, and where has the year gone? It's so cold outside now. A veil of mist is blanketed over the landscape. The hazy, expansive depths of the fog serve as a blank canvas for your imagination, recollections coming to you like weak radio signals, there for a second and gone the next. A certain half-remembered image from years gone by seems to keep resurfacing, though, and more vivid than the rest. An imposing figure so large that even now, it occupies all the space in your mind. The first thing that re-emerges in your mind is the smell of pine needles, then the heat of the sun, intense even under the shade of the trees, then the terror you had felt in that moment. And Finally, all the events that had lead up to your encounter with her...

ᅠ A warm summers day, Some time ago.

It was the height of summer, in the afternoon. Back then you spent a lot of time hiking, so you were no stranger to being out all day and going home only when the sun set. It'd been a while since you'd even seen another person and you couldn't remember the last time you'd uttered a word, maybe you hadn't all day, even. The woods were deep and uninhibited, filled with Japanese Black Pine. If it wasn't for the beaten trail itself, it was a place you could believe no man had even set foot in for years.

You were in a U-shaped valley traveling uphill towards the head of they valley, a summit where, according to your old beat-up map, the woods thinned out to give way to a little tarn. The trail itself criss-crossed along the contours of the hill to make it a little easier to walk up. As you marched further the steep angle flattened out, giving your legs a break. You briefly stopped by the partly dried up stream running through the heart of the valley to take a drink, breathing in the fresh, rejuvenating air. You must have only ascended 200 meters or so, but that abrupt incline took it out of you. As you rested beside the dry stream, a flock of pretty, clamorous waxwings descended on a nearby tree, stripping it of all it's berries, before methodically moving onto the next one and continuing their feast. But then, they scattered all of a sudden as the ground began to shake in low, seismic thumps. The sensation was otherworldly. You thought though, that it must be an industrial pile driving machine or something of the sort, some farmers up the hill driving posts into the ground... A dead branch dropped from a tree as the booms continued, and then stopped as soon as they started.

After your rest, you got back up to continue your hike. continuing up the arduous trail towards the head of the valley. What you saw next, however, killed your steady pace. You watched in blank awe as a a huge, white disc-like object traveled smoothly along the top of the treeline. The steady, earth shaking thumps began once more. There was long while where you had no idea what you were even looking at. At first it looked like a sci-fi flying saucer, but as you watched the subtle bob of the large object as it moved, along with the fibres visible on it's surface, you realised it was some kind of huge sun hat, on an equally huge person's head, although the rest of this mysterious giant's body was obscured by the trees with only the occasional glimpse of a bright, clean white flash beyond the pine needles. They were some distance away, heading in the direction of the tarn.

In hindsight, that was the critical moment. You should have turned back. Knowing what you know now, the very appearance of her like that means that she had wanted to be seen. Still, the thought you could've avoided all this by simply walking away plagued your mind since that day.

The near-subsonic footsteps subsided once more are the Massive sun hat vanished out of view behind a hill that framed the valley. You were sweating now, and not just from the heat. Even back then, you realised the gravity of the situation and yet, you continued. For what reason, god only knows.

You reached the tarn with in record time, with no sight of the mysterious pale behemoth in a sun hat. You begin to wonder if perhaps you had just imagined it, as impossible as it seems. The crystalline water of the mountain lake, your reward for such a difficult hike didn't bring the usual tranquillity it normally would as you sat beside it. All you could think of at that moment was what you had seen. As you were gazing contemplatively into the shimmering still water, without warning, the earth began to shake again, more intensively this time, and the sound of masses of air being displaced whooshed and caused a breeze to whip around you.

THWOOMP... THWOOMP... THWOOMP...

The sound seemed to get louder and louder, until it suddenly stopped. You were frozen in fear at this point, unmoving. If this thing you saw earlier was truly here, as you feared, then that means right now... it was standing right behind you.

You'd heard stories about giants in fairy tales before, but nothing compared to seeing one in the flesh. It shouldn't have been possible, something so... huge. As you turned around, agonizingly slowly, The first thing you noticed were two glossy, bright white pumps, the same style you see female office clerks wearing. They were too big to rightfully be called "shoes", each one was as long as a car, around the sides they were coated in the chalky brown trail dust and chunks of broken trees. Your breath caught in your throat as you craned your neck back further to take all of it in. The more you looked up, the more she just kept going... Her hips were so wide it looked like they could barely fit between two buildings lining a city street, not to mention her chest that was so utterly enormous it was bordering on ridiculous. You could only see the brim of her sun hat, her face was covered by her stupidly massive breasts. The giant woman's white one piece dress wrapped around her like cling film, hiding nothing of her obscenely erotic frame. All in all, she must have been at least 50 feet tall, at least. Out here where the trees were sparser, younger and more windswept, she towered above them, the tallest one barely scraping her lowest rib. You didn't know whether to feel terrified, confused, or aroused as you took in the sight of her.

Just then, the colossus began to shift slightly, her head cocked to one side almost playfully, finally revealing her face from beyond her chest to you. She gazed down with a strange expression, her eyes were half-lidded and serene, but her mouth was open as if she was surprised. The space between her plump lips looking like it could easily fit you and anyone else of normal size. Her face was actually quite attractive, but you had no time to focus on it, as she began to make a strange, deep, bone shaking sound.

"Po... Poppopo... Popo"

Yes indeed, it was a memory you'd tried to escape. And yet, it kept returning, haunting you in a way. It was a miracle you'd survived that day on top of the hill overlooking the pine forest. Since then, you had researched all you could about mythology and the history of the local area. Eventually you found old accounts from people who lived in the next village over from where you lived at the time. They called her "Hasshaku-sama": Eight feet tall... But the giant you saw was certainly more than eight feet. Still, everything else from her appearance to the strange "po po po" sounds matched exactly. You even went so far as to visit an old couple from that village, who were quoted in a local newspaper article from the 70's detailing a sighting of the mysterious Hasshaku-sama. It was a warm summer day when you visited them, much like the day of your original encounter. They were a friendly old married couple, offering you a cool glass of barley tea as soon as you stepped through the door. What you gleamed from the conversation was that Hasshaku-sama had been around for at least 100 years, as both of them had memories of their grandparents mentioning it. And there was also the fact that 4 matching shrines containing statues of the Buddhist icon Jizo had been set up some distance around the village on every aspect, The North, East, South and West, each roughly 5 miles from the village itself. Apparently, this was to "Contain" Hasshaku-sama, as she couldn't pass beyond those boundaries unless they were broken or damaged in some way. It was strange, neither of them seemed like superstitious people, but they were staunch in their belief of this farfetched ghost story. When you mentioned tentatively your encounter with a giant woman of a similar description in the past, both of them went quiet and pale. Not many words were exchanged after that, and you left soon after.

The fog has cleared now. Similarly, your memories of your encounter with that giant woman back then have become much clearer. The cold has had you cooped up inside the house, and you decide you should stretch your legs for a while to calm your racing mind. You put on your shoes and jacket and head outside into the leaf lined streets.

ᅠ Downtown, Present day

Quite a lot of people are out on the streets today. It's the evening on the Halloween weekend, and you see the occasional costumed person pass by in groups heading toward a Halloween party, no doubt. There are also a few kids out trick or treating, although not many since there aren't many houses around here in the city center, except for high rise apartment buildings. The sun had set now, but the glow of artificial lights spread into the sky , illuminating the frosty fog that had cleared and was now hovering ominously above the ground. You'd been walking for a while and it was getting kind of cold. But it was a nice cold that was the perfect weather for walking

As you continued wandering with no destination in mind, your mind drifted again. You remembered your parents' expression when you told them what happened, your friends. No one would believe you. You even tried to get the mountain rescue team to go investigate, which ended in a stern meeting with the head of the branch and a psychological evaluation. The memory was still sore, and a part of you just wished above anything they could have been there and saw what you saw. "I am not crazy, I know what I saw", you told yourself nearly every time you doubted if the encounter was some figment of imagination or a rare hallucination cauased by heat stroke.

Your step faltered slightly, you stopped for a brief moment, not even knowing why at first. A strange sensation was travelling up through the soles of your shoes into your legs, the steady heavy vibrations, just like that day. Your heart sank. In the blink of an eye, your mind was back there, next to tarn. Of course you didn't see her first, you saw the fallout that her arrival brought: distant screams, car horns, and over it all, the giant footsteps getting louder with each earth-shaking step. Now, there was no way anyone with a working pair of eyes could doubt your story...

It entered into your view from behind a large, glass fronted office building. She dwarfed the corporate headquarters with an ease that made your stomach drop. Chaos ensued among the sparse number of people in the streets. The bodies ran right past you as if you weren't even there. It wasn't long before the entire plaza in the center of the city was completely desolate, save from a few people watching from apartment windows in the buildings that surround the open space.

She froze mid-step as her expansive grey eyes locked onto you, before her face settled into an unsettling too wide smile. She recognizes you. Her foot, still clad in that same white heel, was suspended in mid-air when she froze, but now she slowly let it fall onto a parked car, crushing it completely as the alarm that had previously been blaring makes a pathetic sound like a dying animal barely audible above the sound of crushing and compressing scrap metal. The enormous entity was still completely unfazed, seemingly more interested in you than anything else in the city right now. Her eyes narrowed as she began to saunter your way , each footfall leaving car-sized craters deep in the asphalt and shaking your very bones. Her serene, warm expression suggesting she viewed this event as some kind of twisted reunion, which it was in a twisted way. Her expression was unnatural, a glaring imitation of a normally comforting maternal expression, like an alien copying facial expressions without ever truly understanding the emotion behind them. Her eyes were much too wide, much too hungry for words.

She was standing barely a stone's throw from you now, Looming over you. Her shoes at your eye level once more just like all those years ago. Part of you was beginning to accept your fate, another was wishing you'd wake from this terrible nightmare any moment now. Her hips hinged as she leaned forwards, casting the plaza in shadow and causing a gust of wind to whip around you as she did so. Her eyes were half-lidded now, and you had to crane your neck back so far you were nearly lying on the floor by the time you could see her face.

She began to speak, to you directly. Her gaze never leaving you. The voice was huge and deep, she dragged out every syllable as if tasting a delicious meal

"Found you~"

Your lungs burned. So did your legs. That doesn't matter now. You're engaged in a race for your own life.

Somehow, you had escaped the grasp of your "old friend" as her hand, a mass of pale flesh and long sinuous fingers roughly twice your height, had reached out for you. That giantess had tried to grab you but by divine grace you had slipped her grasp and made a break down an alley in between two buildings, a space too small for her to fit.

Now you are running aimlessly, your only destination being "as far as her from possible". Around you, the city was in chaos. bumper to bumper traffic filled every road out of the city as citizens tried in vain to escape the force of nature wearing a white sundress. Some hid inside their homes, praying she would not come their way, and others around you were still running full speed, despite the fact you haven't seen or heard her for a few minutes now. You stop, doubling over as sweat drips from your brow, gasping for air through your burning throat.

Is it safe? Have you escaped?

She answered the question with resounding chuckle that echoed throughout the entire city for miles around.

Words cannot do justice the utter feeling of dread that comes over you as you whipped your head around and watched your worst nightmare grow more and more powerful, her body seeming to expand outwards, filling the cold, empty haze of the city with a frightening speed. All the while, her "po... po... po..." could be heard drowning out the manic screams of evacuating citizens at the sight of her growing body towering over the skyline.

She has followed you outside the city centre now, all that surrounds her are stores and modest office and apartment buildings that barely reach her knees. And the worst part... She's still growing. At a guess, she stands over 300 feet tall now, nearly triple the size she was when she originally appeared once more. The industrial chimney beside her, normally a prominent landmark in this part of town, barely reaches her shoulder. Her enormous breast grazes the brick structure, making it groan precariously. You are stood still among the fleeing masses. A sense of despair washes through making your blood run cold. You realise that you will never be able to escape from something so powerful, and even if you could, the lives of all these people fleeing would be in danger. Who knows how many she has crushed under her feet already while while pursuing you...

You stood motionless, caught between your will to survive and your desire to avoid her killing anyone else and wrecking the city, which she seems to already be doing by her sheer existence. She is now so high that her uncanny facial features are obscured by the greenish yellow haze caused by the artificial light of the city. She began to walk. Every cataclysmic step shattered the asphalt and anyone or anything unfortunate enough to be caught under her stride was crushed without even the faintest acknowledgement. You have a choice: do you run away along with the innumerable in the crowd, or stay where you stand, possibly sacrificing yourself to this giant woman who seems to stop at nothing to get her hands on you?

(Create your own scenario!)