Growing Up. 2 (tf)

Saturday lunch in the Esket household was fairly odd. The four of them sat around the kitchen table in their usual positions, though with obvious discomfort. Mikael could barely guess who had had it worst ever since their bodies had started to change.

Probably Helena, his now-very-big-sister; she had gone through a further growth spurt in the hour they spent out, leaving her as a grey-skinned giant who couldn’t stand up indoors and had to sit on the floor with her knees tucked up to her wide chin. Always the largest of them, now even her own clothes wouldn’t fit the massive bulky frame and she had improvised with a large bedsheet covering her like a poncho. Not that much humanity was left to be seen anyway, her entire body looked like a poorly chiselled statue with black ridged horns sprouting from her temples, her  dark hair messed and mane-like, and thick limbs and fingers which were not equipped to deal with cutlery.

“Why did you make soup?” Helena growled as she tried to balance the spoon of cool red fluid between huge stiff digits, only for the soup to spill over her makeshift poncho again. “Why not bacon or burgers or chicken or something nice and… and solid?! Finger food!”

“It’s not that good anyway, it’s cold.” The third eldest, Susan decreed quietly as she swallowed a mouthful. She had sprouted too, to easily over six foot but incredibly spindly, with mottled green and brown skin. Ivy grew out of it and over to entangle her lithe limbs and long scarlet hair, the vines looking almost veinlike as they clung to her skin.

“Seriously, quit whining, it’s not cold; I just made it two minutes ago.” Their biggest smallest sister hissed. Somehow Liza had gone through the least changes in the past hours, merely adding on a few inches in height, and losing what little tone her skin had ever contained. Now her skin and hair were white as snow, if not for her dark green eyes she could have looked like a tall albino with a permanent frown. “Besides, tomato soup’s healthier for you than junk all the time Helen, it’ll help you feel better.”

“Isn’t it chicken soup you’re meant to have when you’re sick though?” Mikael questioned, feeling his new tail move restlessly behind him. It was nothing short of strange, a long serpentine appendage matching his new six foot height, and covered in the slick blue skin that now coated his entire body. Webs made his hands and feet frog-like and poor at spoon-use, never mind the weird oily sweat that wouldn’t stop shining his skin and dampening his ill-fitting clothes. His toungue had stretched too, and his mouth felt full of gunk as he ate the chill brew.

“Maybe, but we never have chicken soup.” Liza said quietly, eating her own portion methodically. “I didn’t fancy sending anyone to the shop like… urgh, like this.”

“That’s it, I give up! No soup, this is too hard!” Helen gasped and dropped her spoon on the table in surrender. “Gah, can’t I have something solid? I’m starving here.”

“You’re not starving Hel! Seriously, you spent the time we were out eating everything you could, never mind that abomination you called breakfast!”

“Well then her body used that food to grow. You definitely don’t become nine feet tall without mass coming from somewhere.” Susan reasoned with a frown, “I was… I was rooted so that’s where my mass must have come from, and Mickey’s been eating lots and he’s grown…”

“…and Liza barely eats anything so that’s why she’s not grown?” Mikael finishd, and dropped his spoon, “So if we don’t eat then it won’t get worse? I’m done!”

“We can’t know that, none of this makes much sense...” Liza started.

Susan pushed her own soup across the table firmly, vines creaking, “But this does make sense; it’s just the Conservation of Mass- Matter can’t be created or destroyed, so if we don’t ingest anything then we’re not going to add any mass on to ourselves.”

“Don’t start trying to rationalize this, this isn’t obeying anything…Seriously guys, Susan, Mickey just eat. Remember, you need food for energy, or you starve to death, which wouldn’t do you any favours and would leave me with funerals to sort out when I’m already behind on an essay!”

“We’re totally not going to starve to death, we just need a way to stop these… urgh, these mutations from getting any freakier. Eating’s just going to make everything worse!”

“Screw it, I’m hungry now.” Helen grumbled under her breath, now attempting to lift up the bowl of orange soup between thick fingers that looked somewhat elephantine.

“Fine sis, look- I’m eating and you can see if I change from it or not and then deduce that eating’s good and this-isn’t-cold.” Liza scowled and swallowed a spoonful of steaming soup, eyes fixed on the other girl, “Seriously, this is like the broccoli lie all over again.”

The teenager bristled as small thorns sprouted from her vines and she slammed her hands on the table, “Don’t call me a liar, Tyrant! I told you; that was just a real reaction from the broccoli batch, it must have been treated with… like, illegal pesticides or something!”

“Keep it quiet, we don’t want the Andersons coming up to complain again.” Liza muttered with a wary glance at the floor, “And anyway, there-wasn’t-a-reaction, you-just-didn’t-like-it!”

“Oh of course there wasn’t, because me suddenly deciding to be a drama queen about some vegetables made much more sense than considering you might have made a culinary mistake.”

“Look who’s talking- you never admit you’re wrong.”

“Because I’m not. Name an example where I’ve been wrong.”

“Well, what about this morning for one? You ditched your phone the exact day it would’ve been useful to call u- HELEN!” The white woman’s tirade abruptly changed target as orange fluid went flying from Helena’s mouth. “WHAT-THE-HEL-WAS-THAT!?”

“Horrible…” Helen blanched as she bent, coughed and rubbed her grey tongue, shaking all the while. “Urgh, yuk, how bloody old was that soup?! Did you stick a rat in it!?”

“So you just-spat-it-on-me!?” Liza hissed coldly, her white hands rubbing at the orange stuff all over her woollen sweater. “After-all-the-trouble-last-night-you-just-spit-SOUP-all-over-me!”

“Chill out sis, Andersons downstairs ‘member? I just… urgh, that was horrible, couldn’t help it.” She spat back, shaking her head, “Yuck… that was naaaaasty.”

“Chill out? Chill out? Like I chilled out when you were rolling-on-the-sofa-in-agony?! This is what I get for being a-nice-big-sister is it? Spat on!?” Liza hissed.

“For a given value of nice…” Susan muttered and  rolled her eyes.

“FINE! I DIDN’T BLOODY MEAN TO SPIT ON YA!” Helena roared with a rumble, green eyes flashing as her monstrous feet dug into the floor and she shot upwards. Mikael barely had time to register it before his sister’s horned skull collided with the ceiling and kept on going. Jagged cracks shot out from the impact like forked lightning, plaster dust and flakes of paint raining down from them like impromptu snow.

“HEL! Sit down before you break somethi-“ Liza’s demand was cut short by a massive fist slamming down on the table- or through was the better word. The old stout wood gave way like glass, splinters and shards of oak whizzing away as Helena fell onto her hands and knees, her back near the ceiling.

“Happy now!?” She growled through sharpening teeth, eyes fixed on her smaller sister.

“NO! SIT DOWN AND BEHAVE YOURSELF!” Liza screeched in retaliation, standing up to her full height while Susan and Mikael backed off from the broken furniture, all too aware of Helena’s growth.  She already seemed more than twice her normal height, her skin seeming harder and rougher by the second, and losing any fine features that humans normally possessed. The bedsheet tore as she grew, legs swelling thicker and longer, arms extending and growing stronger. Her thick black horns stretched out longer and curved, while her dark hair lengthened too. Her back seemed to crack and grow too, large rocky bumps and grey spikes bursting out to scrape the cracked ceiling, and her eyes widened in surprise.

“I- I’m trying to sit down Liza, it’s not working!”

“No, that’s completely impossible, that doesn’t make any sense…” Susan muttered quietly, pressing herself against the wall with wide eyes. “Where’s the mass coming from? You definitely didn’t eat that much, you can’t gain mass out of nowhere… stop it, that’s not right…”

“You try stopping growing if you think it’s so easy Sue!” Helena grunted over the creaks that were coming from the floorboards.

“Helena I’ve had enough, just… STOP!” Liza screamed and everything stopped. Mikael gasped as a wave of freezing pain slammed into him, but his lungs wouldn’t work. Nothing worked in fact, his entire body from tail-tip to tongue locked in place like a statue. Every muscle flared with protest but his crystalline prison was skin tight, frozen from the very oil that had soaked his skin and clothes, and the water inside. In fact ice covered the entire room, a thick frosty hard layer with hues of pale blue, and pure white as well as segments so clear as to be glass. It coated his sisters too, halting Helena’s growth beneath unyielding winter, and Susan was hidden within a gemlike shell.

It covered Liza too, but that didn’t stop the white woman gasping and taking a shaky step backwards, the frozen armour shifting fluidly over her skin. Her jaw fell slack and eyes widened as she took it all in, and plumes of steam rose from her skin like a misty halo.

“Ice… guys? Mickey, Helena, Susan, can you mov-… no… no-no-no-no-no!” She gasped hoarsely, falling onto her knees and staring at the frozen siblings. “I’m sorry, I didn’t…. didn’t mean to…”

More cold emanated from her and stabbed at Mikael, terrible despair laden frost digging into his skin as the ice thickened and he started to feel his lungs burn from lack of air. But he was alive! He just had to will himself to move and break the ice and break Susan free and get Helena free. That’d help surely? Just break this icy prison and then cheer up Liza… cheer her up with a joke and a hug like when they were little and weren’t blue or green or brown or grey…

His muscles didn’t move even though the pain grew and the ice dug deeper. His lungs screamed for breath but they were hard as stone, and he imagined his blood was a crystalline lattice like some sort of red twisted tree all the way through his veins. If his blood was even red now, it could be blue for all he knew.

“No… move… LET-GO-OF-THEM!” Liza panted and brought her hands up in a vague gesture at them, snowy fingers scrunching open and closed as she tried to calm down, “Melt! Shatter! Ice vanish! Do somethi- NO-NOT-THAT!”

Her body didn’t listen and Mikael caught a glance of her wincing and doubling over as her arms lengthened, legs cracked and stretched and her clothes grew tighter on a growing form. Then his eyes froze and his vision vanished into painful darkness. The black wasn’t even there anymore, he couldn’t see black he realized, he just couldn’t see.

The thought offered no comfort as his mind darkened brain growing cold and numb as neurons and sections froze and tore. Mikael felt his heat stop and sensation vanish- there was no sight, no sound, no touch or taste, nor even smell. There was no numbness, just a void and the icy icy pain that Liza had given him.

Liza. His big sister had done this! Somehow even anger was beyond him though, the void and emptiness was too overwhelming for that, like a heavy frozen blanket, covering him in complete darkness. There was nothing left, just his dying mind, a tiny fading spark amidst the ice.

Power flared up and the spark exploded into life. Ice shattered and flew across the room, hissing and melting as it went. The pain vanished utterly, replaced by sensation beyond what the tired boy could comprehend- a perception of Helena breaking free in a terrible spurt of growth, Susan’s vines and thorns bursting out of the ice, Liza falling back in surprise. That was barely the tip of the ice burg though, the pressure took up his attention as his form burst free like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. He could hear cracking and yelling and deep rumbles, and smell and taste soooo much.

He felt the wall and other things too. His lengthening tail collided with the wall, growing limbs stretched out and felt a huge rough boulder that was Helena’s massive leg. There was something cool and smooth too, and the ceiling and the floor pushed off his spine and belly. Or would if they weren’t smashing apart, pieces of plaster tumbling down all around, and the floor warping as the ice broke and huge grey feet fell through into the flat below with thundering rumbles and huge cracks. Mikael curled up tighter in vain as he grew, feeling the walls press in painfully, walls of cracking plaster and living stone, thorny branches and freezing ice pushing tighter, contesting against the pressure inside him…

Then cracking and bursting and the prison was broken. There was nothing beside him or below him. He span and tumbled, mind struggling to register the events around it before the impact came and sent him into darkness.

* *  *  *  *

Screams tore at him. He was running, hurrying up a hill that looked like it had been torn to shreds. One patch of ground was flat and sandy, another rubbly with orange grass and then there was a field of snow that froze his toes. A castle stood nearby, half of it shorn off suddenly to a pile of broken stones and rocks with grimy water pouring out of the wound. It looked awesome to him, like half of the structure had just vanished, but somehow his body didn’t follow his dreamy curiosity, barely paid any attention to anything besides running, moving its weird legs to hurry up the mountainside. Over snow, over grass, over boulders with a strange fear and focus coming from somewhere, even as thunderous bellows came from behind.

A glance back revealed the source. There was a valley there, where he must have come from but the dream hadn’t begun at the beginning. It was enormous, a huge bowl shape of smoke and mismatched patches of ground, fragments of towns and hills and twisting chasms, broken forests and flaming geysers of silver fire. A tree was fallen in the centre, though larger than anything he could remember seeing, a titanic oak that must have pierced the clouds easily when it still stood, and whose roots reached hundreds of metres into the air where they had torn up a central crater lake.

Giants fought around it. A massive, hundred foot ash grey being covered in silver fire wrestled with an even greater being, a gigantic strong being with wild untamed hair, covered in reddish armour that looked thicker than a tanks plating. Already another being was dead, there was slices of colossal burnt flesh ringing their battle, hands and fingers and scorched skulls, while hundreds of smaller beings screamed and fled away…

No. The thought from somewhere else echoed in his skull.  Keep going. Feet hammered off rocks and grass. Get away. Escape. Regroup.

“Long time no see.” A Shadow laughed as it stepped into his path. His body moved of another’s accord, throwing him to one side away from the speaker, along the hill side, over a steaming brook, through a snowy patch and grass and-

“That’s just rude, it’s hard to have a chat when you’re… uh, jogging?” The Shadow sat on a rock, a black void in the world with his legs casually crossed. “It doesn’t suit you… I was expecting you to bring out whatever was left of that Cauldron Bran broke, you must still have it, but instead you’re just runni- er, jogging away.”

Help. The thoughts whispered to Mikael. He is free. Running, getting away, moving. The Dragon freed him, opened the gateway. The Shadow was ahead again, without a hint of movement. He is free.

A flash of light turned the world pure white, before a blast threw Mikael head over heels, tumbling on the rocks and snow and grass. Only the Shadow remained visible, a black blot suddenly ahead and upright, clapping his void hands in delight, “Aw, wonderful! I didn’t think Surtr could kill the big guy, but there you go, isn’t that lovely? If you dream big, wait millennia and go slightly insane, you really can achieve your goals! Just inspiring, it’s a shame he blew up, that was like one of those… wait, what’re those called again? Uh… the big boomy things, can’t remember the name….”

Mikael ran further, legs heavy, tiring as power flee across the sea. Help. He slipped down the hill, hurrying, buying time, quicker and faster and farther from the battles and the tree and the Shadow. Help.

“By the way, have you seen Umibozu? That’s four down thanks to old Surtr, leaves just you and him, and no offense Cymedei, but no matter how tough you or that Cauldron are, you just aren’t up to beating ME, you’re no good at killing. That silent frog could be a bit annoying though, and I owe him a mauling, see if he can scream.” The Shadow was ahead again, standing limp on a rock with a final glance at the valley. Then he turned back to look back at Mikael and sighed, “Oh don’t tell me the silence is infectious- do you know how long I’ve gone without a good chat? Bloody root through my throat, I’m still getting the splinters out, and now everyone’s just silent or screaming, I’d really prefer a happy medium. Come on, let’s have a catch up!”

Then he was behind Mikael, forcing him flat on the ground, destroying the last of his concentration, the link. The voice kept going though, a booming feminine voice in his skull- He is free. He has me. Help me Mi-

*  *  *  *  *

“-ckey wake up! Come on, wakey wakey!” A rumbling voice roared.

He winced at the volume and surprise, releasing a long breath. No Shadow. No valley. Just his body, whole and unfrozen and… he flicked the unfamiliar muscles to check and felt a long extension of his spine move in response. Yes, still tailed then.

“Mikael wake up!”

“Fine…” He grunted and opened his eyes only to flinch in surprise at the three beings standing over him and the world. The world! Mikael gasped as he looked at the close they had spent all their lives in; the four story block was missing a good deal of its upper two floors, roof and walls, exposing a mess of rubbles and tiles and timber and spread all over the grassy lawns that had sat at its back. And it was so small! The huge looming figures were, at the very least, higher than the second storey windows, and the windows that he could have climbed through looked like tiny boxes barely large enough to put a hand in. But there were three of them still, white, brown and green, and grey, just like… “Guys… is… that you?”

“Yeah, relax squirt it’s just your big sisters.” The one that must have been Helena grinned, revealing sharp black teeth in a mouth that came out slightly like a muzzle. She was like a hill, as tall as the third floor easily, a colossus of stone and boulders with a veritable mountain of tough rock spikes growing from her back, and the black jagged horns were wide as bulls. He proportions were further off too, with a long lumpy torso and massive arms nearly reaching her knees, topped with sharp looking black claws, almost nothing like the big lazy teenager he knew.

Not that any of them looking like themselves. Susan seemed to be made of flexing wood and plants, a vaguely humanoid feminine figure with long blossoming vines hanging from her scalp and an extra longer set of arms reaching from her brown shoulders. The face might have been a little similar, the same green eyes, and she wasn’t as large as Helena, though still larger than him or Liza.

Liza was of snow and ice, he decided, her skin looked white and smooth as marble, though marked by strange patterns of bluish shiny ice that spiralled and zigzagged all over. Her hair seemed thicker, like icicles or frost on a spiders web, and she seemed a little thinner and more muscular than she had been before, though without human details it looked as if she was clad in a white jumpsuit. She glanced away as he looked, scowling and folding her arms self-consciously, “Sorry for the… uh, the freezing, I didn’t mean to do anything like that, it was just a… an accident.”

Mikael nodded slowly, almost flinching as he turned his attention to himself. His skin remained slick azure and oily, but his body was less than human, even compared to Helena and Susan. He must have looked like a gigantic blue eel with a strong sinuous tail and muscular limbs that he pushed himself up on. His hair was gone, his facial features blended into a snout, but the strangest thing was the size- he could have reached up and touched the third flood if he tried, and cars would barely be around his knees, more like toys than vehicles.

“What… what happened to us?” He croaked, “I don’t understand… why?”



“It doesn’t make sense, it’s impossible.” Susan snapped crossly, folding her four arms with difficulty, “Completely, utterly, totally impossible, all of this!”

“Tch, clearly not.” Helena rumbled, “Or we need to remind the world that this is impossible.”

“Not-helpful.” Liza shook her head, breathing deep as steam rose from her white body, “I don’t know what’s happening to us Mikael. I lost my temper and froze you, and then all of you and me broke out of the ice and grew to this and you fell out and ended up out cold.”

“I wonder why.” Susan glowered at her.

“I-didn’t-mean-to-freeze-anyone!” The white giantess cried and clenched her fists in an attempt to calm down like Liza always did. The motion was a little reassuring at least, familiar on her alien body, “Besides the obvious, we’re all okay though right? Mikael you’re not hurt are you?”

“Uh-uh.” He said slowly, rolling his shoulders hip and tail experimentally to find it was strangely easy. Easier than it should have been somehow, he could wrap his tail around his neck he found, shivering a little at the sensation of skin on skin. “I think I’m okay…”

“You’re good squirt.” Helena chuckled and bent to clap him on the back gently, her palm big and hard and lifeless feeling, save for the reassuring motion, “I’m good too, this is pretty cool… but that’s probably cos of the ice tyrant there.”

“I… eh think I’m intact. Apart from the obvious tree thing… argh these feet, they keep trying to plant me!” Susan scowled and lifted her trunkfish legs to pull up several feet of twisted rootish thing clinging to the soil, before stamping them down irritably. Mikael almost snickered at the sight and Helena chuckled, it was like trying to wipe dog poo off of shoes, but with a twenty foot giant… it just looked silly. “Stop laughing you two! It’s really annoying!”

“Right, so we’re alive and… eh, wellish then.” Liza confirmed with a deep steamy sigh, “Okay…well we should leave before people come then, get somewhere clear.”

“What?” Susan put her foot down in surprise, “What? No. No, no no no. We should definitely stay put, then the police can contact… someone who knows what’s going on, a scientist or something. If authorities come they can fix us, we just need to let them.”

“Hehe, I prefer the tree’s plan.” Helena grumbled, sitting down with a heavy THUMP that shook the garden and Mikael presumed left a yards deep crater beneath her monstrous weight.

“And if you grow again? If we grow again?” Liza questioned, “You must be nearly thirty foot tall and we practically demolished three flats! Three flats! If we suddenly started to grow then we could-“

“We’re not going to suddenly grow, that’s impossible.” Susan said firmly.

“Uh, Susan, we did just suddenly grow.” Mikael said slowly, standing up as his tail lashed out for balance. Talking was hard, his throat and mouth felt so gooey and congested, and his voice sounded higher and louder than before, “Liza might be right, it could happen again.”

“I… uh, I guess then. Just to be on the safe side, I don’t want to risk it either.” She sighed, shaking her head, “Should we take a phone? And how about the park?”

“We’re too big, we’d crush a phone and the park’s in the middle of town, we’re better on the outskirts, somewhere clear. I think if Dad knows what’s happening, we’ll be pretty easy to find. Come on.” Liza reased, “You too Hel.”

“Dangit… don’t know about you guys but I feel like I could sleep for a week to get my head around this…” She groaned and forced herself back upright, indeed leaving a hard depression in the dirt and grass.

“That’s normal for you.” Mikael teased, taking a shaky step forwards only to almost fall over before his tail lashed to the side as a counterbalance. Even that was hard, and he wobbled on the next one, and the next, and the next until he finally toppled. His hand lashed out and grabbed a hold of the wall with a loud slam, and Mikael pulled himself up, glancing at the wall of the tenement only to find himself looking at a second floor window.

There was a man there, a big black haired man he’d seen on the stairs a hundred times before. Mr… no not a mister, Derrick was his name he remembered, he was always going to the gym and chatting and joking. That was gone now, now his eyes were wide and jaw gaping, so small that he could have been picked up more easily than a toddler, and he threw himself back from the window in… in what?

Mikael snorted and hurried after Helena as he felt something sting his eyes. The big man was scared of him. It made sense, the others were terrifying looking, they were giants now, inhumanly large and strong never mind what else they might be capable of. It made sense for a human to be scared of something so much bigger, but still… still… he was his neighbour. He knew Mikael, the thirteen year old darting up and down the stairs with his football. He wasn’t a monster, he wouldn’t hurt people, this wasn’t his fault!

Ahead, Helena tripped as she tried to step over the wall that shielded the lawn from the street. Her weight smashed the barrier and road easily, sending bricks and tarmac flying all around and a storm of dust into the air.

“Hel! Seriously, try-not-to-break-everything!” Liza yelled out.

“Whoopsie.” The stone giant chuckled as she stood back up, and gave the left hand side a playful kick which toppled even more, “Heh, just making sure Mikael can make it though, reckon that’s wide enough squirt?”

“I think you overdid it a little…” He said quietly with a smirk and scampered after her, eager to be out of the tenement windows gaze. It didn’t do much good, the streets were quiet but by no means were they empty. Pedestrians jumped for cover or ran into gardens as the four giants came into view, and their approach was loud enough that it alerted everyone in the nearby buildings to peer out the windows. Mikael hated that, hated the entire thing. It seemed like every stare, every pair of eyes contained fear or anger, confusion or a subdued interest like the strange teenagers who stalked them with phones, taking pictures or videoing the procession. Other adults used their phones to shout down, no doubt summoning the police, and still others just shouted.

“Get down! Run, hide!”

“Freaks, get out of our town, go to Kvenland where you belong!”

“Monsters! There’s monsters coming!”

“What are you?!”

Liza didn’t answer them. She led the way like always, carefully walking between parked cars and occasionally moving one with a careful precise lift in icy fingers, and once a panicked scream from an occupant she hadn’t noticed. After her came Susan with her head bowed low and covered by vines, but her clenched fists, thorns and jagged leaves told her thoughts all too easily, and her twisted root-like feet sometimes ripped clean a section of tarmac and scattered it over the road. Helena was a bit louder, her sheer size and weight meant that the road cracked and broke with her footsteps, car alarms were set off, and she was not one to suffer insults with her head bowed.

“YEAH? MAKE US LEAVE THEN! OH, NOT SO TOUGH NOW, EH?!” She thundered, glowering darkly at anyone whose actions crossed the line. The effect was delightful, Mikael thought, seeing a gang of eighteen year olds literally turn and run at a glare from his sixteen year old sister was just perfect. He followed in her shadow a little more happily with her doing that, keeping his eyes fixed on her stony back to try and trying to block out the little humans shouts.

“Huh? Helen, why’d we stop?” He asked after a few minutes when the rubbly wall that was her spine halted.

“Police.” She grunted simply and sat down, shattering the road.