Chapter 10

Zoe took a deep breath before opening her front door. She didn’t know what to expect. A connection to the other side of the world probably. Or perhaps even to some dimension that would break her mind and that Laurene found endearing. Murmurra purred next to her, her white and green and purple fur looking almost normal for the small woman. She caressed her beloved cat, ignoring the memories of a time she hadn’t one and opened her door, her resolve steeled.

Only to be met by the usual grey and brown and badly lighted corridor of her home’s building. She winced. She had expected something else when Laurene had told her to get her best clothes and to be prepared for an incredible little walk. She looked at herself and the new clothes that had materialized in her wardrobe as if they had always been here, a beautiful blue shirt with its complementary white jacket.

Even her white leggings and blue shoes were new - and yet they felt incredibly comfortable, as if she had worn them for a long time, without wearing them down. She sighed. The Godling was nowhere to be found for now, dissipating into thin air almost as soon as Zoe had agreed to walk with her. The tiny woman exited her apartment, closed the door and started walking. And then it happened, just in the middle of the corridor.

One step she was alone and inside the drab building. The next, she had a large arm around her shoulders, huge breasts above her head and she was outside, walking in a beautiful flowery scenery, the likes of which had ever seen only on social media. She stopped, and the larger frame of the Godling enveloped her in a warm and loving embrace, her hands resting atop the small chest of Zoe Zafiakis.

“You said you wouldn’t teleport me.”

“I didn’t,” replied Laurene softly. “I cut the space-time continuum between your home and here, that’s all. You walked normally, the world spinned. But you took your step. And isn’t it beautiful here? I thought you’d like it.”

“I do…” admitted Zoe. “But, uh… shouldn’t there be a crowd of people or something, here? Where are we, anyway?”

“We’re in the Netherlands, it’s the first day of spring, the flowers opened early and I willed the crowds to be absent. They’ll be back into existence when we leave. I just wanted to share it with you. Just the two of us, my Zoe…”

“You… you erased hundreds of people?” gasped the young woman, who tried to look up, only to see her view of the Godling’s face blocked by the prominent breasts she had chosen to have right then.

“Yes. You make it sound terrible but it’s frankly nothing. Their lives are important, of course. But they also mean nothing. Only yours is important to me, at an individual level. Well, and that of other Soulmates, because I don’t want the other 29 to involve you in their actions. But frankly, I don’t care about them as… individuals? I guess? I’m not really sure, I haven’t been confronted with such ideas in a long while.”

It was chilling, especially the way Laurene said it absent-mindedly, like she really couldn’t bother to care for individuals. And yet, she cared about the whole. But what was the whole without the individuals composing it? Zoe frowned. She didn’t want to be lost in such deep philosophical questions. She wanted to smell the flowers and see where she’d be next. After all, a walk had to be more than five steps, right?

“Can I get closer to the fields or will we change places if I move?”

“You can do whatever you want, my Zoe. We’ll change when you’ll be ready to move out somewhere else. I’m making sure I know when that is. I just hope you’ll like our next stop. It’ll be… intense, I’d rather warn you, but don’t worry about it, okay? It’ll be perfectly safe.”

Well, that’s ominous, mused Zoe, shivering a little as she approached the field of turnips. It was incredibly beautiful, and the way it swayed gently under the morning breeze filled her with wonder. It was man made, over decades, if not centuries. And it was incredibly beautiful, almost painfully so for the mentally scarred woman. She could forget how small, how weak, she was here, taking in the smell, the sight, the sounds of the wind in the fields.

“I’m ready,” she finally said, getting up and turning to see the wonderful - if normal sized - body of Laurene Beckworth, taking a step toward the incredible being.

And then there was no ground underneath her. No air around her. No gravity. Nothing, but the dimming light of distant stars and, at her back, the radiant light of something whose spectrum was vastly different from the Sun. Panic settled in and she struggled, trying to turn around, to get back and ending up spinning aimlessly, unable to stop herself now, as the laws of space left her body adapted to life on Earth unable to cope. She couldn’t even realize that she should already have been dead by now, without the help of the Godling.

Calm down, my Zoe. You’re not in danger. I’m here and I’m keeping you safe.

She was here suddenly. So vast Zoe’s mind reeled. A Goddess the size of the Sun. No, far larger. She couldn’t tell how she knew, but she knew. She had once seen a series of YouTube videos about the immense star Antares. She knew, deep down, that Laurene Beckworth was larger than it. Even the smallest glint in her eye was larger than the Sun bathing Earth in its light was.

I understand, you’re a little overwhelmed, but we’re here, far away from the Milky Way. I wanted to show you something that is happening just a few hours after we leave your apartment for our walk, but that will not be seen on Earth ever, as the light wouldn’t reach it until the Sun destroyed it. 

Somehow, when it had no right to, the voice of the Godling sooted Zoe. She wasn’t calm, she wasn’t yet feeling safe. But she felt safer. Safe enough to not freak out when she stopped spinning around, and that a hand the size of half the solar system lifted and managed to stop just under her feet, letting her walk on an endless palm, as the absence of particles in the vacuum of deep space allowed her to take in the impossibly vast body of Laurene.

Behind you my Zoe.

Zoe turned around, walking on the strange ground, and looked, past beyond the pillars of fingers extending to tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions kilometers. Past beyond the endless gulf of near nothingness, and the small dots she now understood were dead planets, balls of rock and gazes, where, hopefully, no life remained, it was waiting for her. The system’s sun, blazing, strangely flickering and bulging, as if it was on the verge of something. And then, it exploded.

It was a supernova. Laurene had brought her to the other side of the Universe to show her a freaking supernova. Zoe gasped wordlessly, as her eyes were not blinded by the light when they should have been seared shut forever. She saw the burning gazes expanding, adopting colour any other Human couldn’t have seen, extending in the immensity, a pulse of power and energy, beautiful and yet devastating, annihilating the nearby planets, as the nova expanded, returning all to stardust.

“Holy shit…” Zoe muttered, able to speak because Laurene allowed her to. “Holy shit.”

You love it? I… I was afraid it’d be a little too much for you.

It was too much, and yet it was absolutely incredible. Tears of wonders were rolling on Zoe’s cheeks as she take in that celestial event, held in the hand of a cosmic being whose scale alone had become reassuring, a presence so immense, so massive, that she couldn’t ignore her and thus felt protected, in spite of the madness of her situation. She clasped her hands like a child when she saw the swirling fluxes of gazes, forming motives in the emptiness, filling it with light and color and a semblance of life.

“It’s incredible,” she rasped. “It’s… nobody has ever seen something like that. Nobody…”

Am I and the other Godlings nobody? We see it all the time. But I guess you meant no Humans did. And I think you’re right. The other Godlings haven’t moved their Soulmates to space, at least not like that. They told me it was dangerous for you, too overwhelming, but I have faith in you, Zoe. I knew, I know, I will always know, that you can take that sort of thing.

Zoe turned around, taking in the beatific body of the Godling, her size so ridiculously immense that even on her hand, held flat and below the prodigious rack of the Entity was simply too vast to take in. Each of those breasts was so large that, somehow, it was seeing them that made Zoe’s mind reel. Nothing looking like a Human had the right to be of such an impossible scale. Asteroids belts had started to gravitate toward Laurene, and they were nothing more than minuscule specks of dust, barely visible.

“Why so massive?” Zoe asked her Godling, a little puzzled, even as she bathed in the play of lights of the supernova. “You didn’t need to. Is it… does it really make you feel better to be taller, larger? Am I… Am I keeping you uncomfortable because I’m your Soulmate and you need to accommodate me?”

Oh Zoe… You are adorable. You are… perfect. But no, you don’t keep me uncomfortable. Being with you is far more liberating than stretching my size, to add more of it in this Universe… But I do love that. It makes me feel… more deserving of you, in a way. Perhaps it doesn’t make sense to you, but believe me, it is important to me. Fundamental.

Zoe scoffed a little, but she couldn’t ignore the tone of truth in that voice that wasn’t a voice. She shook her head, almost amused. She really couldn’t understand the Godling, at a fundamental level. How could something so impossibly powerful, for all intent and purpose omnipotent, could feel the need to be deserving of someone like her, a little freak, whose growth had been stunted, who had been raped, defiled, and broken beyond any hope of repair? It seemed ridiculous.

She looked up, beyond a gulf of space so vast her mind should have broken, unable to comprehend it or even to imagine it, right into the eyes of Laurene. She was so small she could as well not have been noticeable for the Godling, nothing more than a bacteria for a bacteria, an atom-sized thing compared to an atom. And yet, as she looked up, Laurene Beckworth tilted her head and smiled tenderly, a languorous smile spreading her lips. She was looking straight at her.

Whenever you feel like returning to Earth, just take a step forward, my Zoe.

Zoe closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She turned around again, taking in the sight of the supernova expanding into space at a seemingly glacial pace, and yet incredibly quick, covering distances that no Human could cover in their whole life, even if they had started walking the moment of their birth and never stopped until the moment of their death. She realized how privileged she was to experience it. It felt strange. Unfair. She stepped forward, right into the gentle waves.

She wasn’t wearing the same clothes, nor shoes. She was in a one-piece swimsuit, the only sort she could find for someone her size. All in front of her, the sea moved, a beautiful shade of turquoise, as light traced from the distant sun to the golden sand beneath the waves. Coconut trees stood well behind and over her, casting a gentle shade. A few hundreds of meters away, a large rocky island stood in the water, covered in lush trees. And she knew where they were but needed confirmation.

“Where are we?” she asked the Godling who was next to her, back to her more “normal” size of 8 meters tall, her bombshell body clad in a deep red bikini.

“La Plage du Diamant, in Martinique, West Indies”, Laurene replied.

“The same place as in the picture on my desk,” the tiny woman whispered, her eyes bulging as she realized that she had been right and more tears rolled on her cheeks. “I’ve always dreamt of going there…”

“I know, my Zoe…” replied the Godling, sitting softly beside her, her immense body attracting the attention of the locals and the tourists alike.

Voices were rising in prayers, but some also in anger and disgust. Zoe fidgeted, but Laurene Beckworth didn’t seem to care, one way or the other. She still heard them however, as suddenly the voice calmed down and normal conversations resumed. Zoe looked at the giantess, puzzled. She saw a sly smile on Miss Beckworth’s lips, as the colossal woman-shaped goddess leant in closer to her.

“I removed their will to act on my presence here. They just accept it and move on with their lives, so we aren’t bothered by them. You can laze around if you want. No sunburns for you, my adorable Soulmate.

Zoe hesitated, then shrugged. Today had been insane, but perhaps the best day of her life, she realized. Perhaps she could forget her fears and insecurities and doubts. Perhaps she could enjoy it. She advanced in the water, entering it so easily, fresh and yet delectable, and she started swimming, leaving aside all her worries, all her past, all her future. Only the present, only the joy of the water and sun and the smell of salt in the air.

She dived, opening her eyes to see the fishes darting around. And suddenly, she saw it. A sea turtle, grazing the seaweed sprouting from some rocks submerged since times immemorial. She held her breath as much as possible, before she needed to return to the surface, breaking the thin barrier between death and life and looked at the beach, where the Godling was looking at her longingly.

“Laurene?”

“Yes, my Zoe.”

“Thanks. Thank you, so much. Can I… Can you come with me?”

Laurene smiled as her immense body entered the water. 

“Of course, I can, Zoe. And if you liked today… I think you’ll adore the rest of our lives.”