[Eelskin]

14

My mind raced. I ran through a dozen scenarios in my mind to imagine how we could possibly get out of this situation without destroying anything. Well, anything more. The bigger she gets, the more potential for destruction there is. What if she gets big enough to damage the street? What if she gets big enough to collapse a building? She couldn?t get that big, could she? I remembered that just half an hour prior, I would never have believed that she could be anywhere near as big as she was presently, and shuddered and I reminded myself that I had no idea what the limit of the bracelet?s power was- or if there was any limit at all.

Veronica was still headed south, thankfully, but as she grew, she seemed to be more and more distracted. She was gazing around in every direction and not looking where she was going. I leaned in to her ear. ?Veronica,? I began.

She turned her head and grinned at me, and I completely lost my train of thought. The immensity of her face filled my vision. She didn?t seem to mind, though, that I suddenly had nothing to say. She just bit her lip and looked down at me in a euphoric haze, feeling my arousal, whether I wanted her to or not.

I heard a horrible groaning sound of twisting metal from below, and, jerked out of my reverie, looked down. Veronica had nearly stepped on a car- that is, she had brought her foot down against the driver?s side, smashing in the door and snapping off the side view mirror. The alarm began ringing its shrill whine. ?Oops,? she laughed. ?Oh no! I?m sorry!? She bent down to get a closer look at it, forgetting completely that I was perched on her shoulder without a seatbelt.

I panicked. ?Veronica stop, stop, stop!? I yelled and clutched even more tightly to the hairs I was holding onto. They were like thin ropes, but I had no idea if they would support my body weight. It didn?t matter, because I was pitched over her shoulder and suddenly found myself falling down from high enough to kill me if I landed poorly. My body jerked as her hair went taut and I swung wildly, kicking frantically, trying to get a decent hold on it. But she was moving as well, and it was impossible for me to keep a good grip.

Upon hearing me yell, she jerked back up, which yanked me forward against her. I bounced off of her shoulder and swung around behind her, screaming in terror. ?Fuck! David?? she called, trying to find me. She turned her head, swinging me even more violently around her back, and when I swung back toward her shoulder I tried to grab onto it, but she was still turning around frantically, trying to catch me.

In her panic, she stepped on the car again, fully in the centre of the hood this time. The windows exploded outward and the alarm was silenced as she completely crushed the engine with her foot. I barely noticed this, as when she stepped on the car unexpectedly, it caused her to lose her balance and she fell backwards, across the street.

I barely realised what was happening; at first I thought that I had pulled her hairs out of her scalp and that I was falling to my death. I reflexively clutched them and closed me eyes, and was surprised when they suddenly went taut again as I heard the loudest CRASH I had ever heard, followed by Veronica yelling ?Ouch!? I was still hanging on to her hair, my knees tucked into my chest, eyes squeezed tight. Her hairs were pulled to one side again and I went with them, and suddenly I could feel something soft under my feet. I relaxed a bit and collapsed into her hand.

?David,? said Veronica. ?David, are you okay? Oh please, David, look at me.? I opened my eyes and looked around wildly to see her face less than a metre away from me. I tried to speak but I was hyperventilating and couldn?t get any words out. She seemed slightly comforted by the fact that I could open my eyes look at her, at least.

I turned my head to see that I was being held in both of her hands, resting against her breasts. I was lying on my back across her eight fingers, secure- for now. I also realised that I was still holding her hair, my knuckles white with the strain. I let them go and slowly flexed my fingers, feeling pins and needles as the blood flowed through them again. My breathing slowed and I took beep breaths through my nose. I looked up to see Veronica?s giant face above me, putting some distance between us, now that I wasn?t hanging on to her hair anymore. I took a glance around to see that she was sitting down on the ground, her back leaning against a building. I could see people looking incredulously out of the windows from behind her. Her legs stretched across the four-lane street.

?Are you okay, David?? she asked again. I propped myself up against her fingers and nodded, still wondering what to do.

?Oh, David, I?m so sorry! Oh my god, I can?t believe that almost happened! Are you sure you?re okay??

I felt her skin move, and it took me a moment to realise that she wasn?t shifting the position of her fingers, but that she was still growing and it was causing her skin to rub against my own. I was suddenly reminded that we were still in the middle of a city. I looked back up at her. ?Veronica, I?m fine. But we need to keep going.?

?Let?s sit here for a minute. I want to make sure you?re alright. David, you don?t know how much you-?

I interrupted her. The absurdity of it hit me only afterwards, but I actually interrupted my building-sized girlfriend while she was talking to me.

?No, Veronica. We need to keep moving. You?re still getting bigger.?

She looked down at me, then looked around at her surroundings, then back at me and nodded. ?Okay.? She slowly, gently, set me down on the sidewalk and stood up.

She placed her right hand on the sidewalk in front of me and propped herself up, and I was shocked to see that when her fingers were outstretched, her hand was almost as big as my entire body. She placed her left hand in the middle of the street and her face rose high above me as she placed her legs underneath herself. Her breasts hung down well over my head and she took a few seconds to rise to her full height. I came halfway up her shin- at the most.

As she stood, my eyes wandered to the space where she had landed. There was a pile of rubble where her bum had been, a crushed pile of flattened metal and shattered glass that had been a car. The car behind it had been damaged as well, the hood having been caved in, but the car that had taken her full weight was no longer a machine. It was scrap metal.

I looked back up to see her facing away from me, and there were bits and pieces of debris stuck to her skin. I could see what was probably a rear view mirror pasted to one of her cheeks, held in place by her sweat and the heat. She turned around to face me, crouched down and placed her hands on the street in front of me, smiling kindly. I really didn?t want to step in them? but what else was I supposed to do?

I got in and she lifted me up. She linked her fingers and held them to her chest to make a cup for me. I held on to a few stands of her hair anyway, to be safe.

As we continued down the street, I thought to myself about times I had been drunk. I occasionally did something stupid or dangerous after having had too much to drink. My memory flashed back to a moment years ago when I had walked into the middle of the street outside a bar and nearly been hit by a bus. I remembered the fear and shame of the situation, as well as the relief that came with not having been hurt or having caused anyone else to be hurt. It sobered me up every time, without exception. But this isn?t the same? is it? I thought. I had no idea what Veronica was feeling. Whatever it was, it obviously felt great, but it wasn?t drunkenness from alcohol. Feeling someone else?s emotions was probably something no human had ever felt before. Would she react the same way?

I looked up at her, at the underside of her chin. She was looking at her feet, stepping with care. As the street became narrower and narrower from her perspective, she had to pay more attention to where she was walking, and she seemed to be really doing it.

I lay my head against her chest and thought that maybe that near-death experience was a good thing. Anything to make her understand how important it was to get out of the city. I just hoped that this self-awareness would last for a few minutes more, or as long as it would take to get to the lake.

To my right was her wrist with the bracelet. It was the only thing that was growing along with her; all of her clothes were long since destroyed. Sitting here, so close to it, I noticed that it looked somehow different. It was difficult to identify exactly what it was, but after having studied it for a few moments, I realised that it was glowing. We were outside in the middle of the afternoon, so it wasn?t obvious, but it was most certainly emitting a faint light. It had never done that before; I was sure of it. I shifted over to try and get closer to it, and kneeled down on her palm to try to crawl to her wrist without having to stand up. I reached forward to touch it, and as my hand approached, I felt a wave of heat extend from it. I pulled my hand back. I wasn?t hurt, but that was so unexpected that I didn?t know what to make of it. Veronica doesn?t seem hurt by it, I reasoned. Her skin doesn?t look burned. I reached forward again, through the aura of heat that surrounded it, and placed my hand on it.

I gasped in pain as the bracelet burned the skin on my fingers. Jerking back my arm, I put my fingertips in my mouth and fell backwards into Veronica?s cupped hands. I pulled them out and looked at them, and saw that they were bright red and slightly misshapen. If that thing is hot enough to blister my fingertips after just a moment, I thought, then why doesn?t Veronica seem to feel it? I looked back up and saw that she was still concentrating on where she was stepping. Good, I thought. That?s the most important thing right now.

Looking forward, I saw that we were approaching the limits of downtown. We were once again beginning to walk by buildings that were taller than Veronica was. I leaned my head over her fingers and looked down, then immediately had to withdraw my head at the wave of dizziness that passed over me. I could not grasp the height that we were at; it was too high for me to look straight down without passing out. I decided to look ahead and pick a building on the next block, and counted the windows from the ground up to my level. I counted five. I am five floors above ground level. My girlfriend is five storeys tall. That means? I paused as I remembered that I had to look up to see her face. No. I?m five floors above ground level, which means that she is probably closer to six storeys tall.

Looking up past her face, I saw something in the sky for half a moment before it vanished behind her forehead. Without consciously understanding what it was, I felt a deep tremor of renewed horror. Then I heard it, and I understood fully what was in the sky. Veronica didn?t seem to understand, or else she hadn?t noticed it, or maybe just didn?t care. But I suddenly began to question whether we?d be able to get through downtown at all once the news helicopters began broadcasting Veronica?s image across the world.