Walking With Giants (Completed)

Chapter 23

Adalyn brought her palm down on the snooze button of the droning alarm clock.

She stretched her legs from under the covers, and groaned in distaste of going to school. She tossed the loose comforter sheets off of her bed with her eyes closed onto the floor, and strained her eyelids together, squeezing them, wishing that she didn't have to go to school.

But, who cared. By this time, everybody was watching the news steaming live daily from that old Pacific island.

She sat up out of her bed and slipped some clothes on blindly from her drawer. She didn't really cared if she looked stupid - she just needed to go watch the news downstairs.

She walked quickly downstairs and flipped on the TV, which was already on the channel with the news. She sat down and watched it, expecting it to be the same old bullshit from the day before.

She was surprised by what she saw. She saw, through the pixels of the TV, a giant stone monster trudging through the forests of the island, brushing off enormous trees like trash on the side of the road. A helicopter was filming the monster, and it was shaking violently side to side with a strange lack of control. The subheading of the news report said in large bold letters: GIANTS AMONG US. The news reporter was nervously recalling the past events a few hours before, but the words weren't important. There was a change in view of the monster, and it showed a small shape on the left shoulder of the monster.

The figure on the monster looked directly into the camera, and suddenly the monster swiveled on its waist to grab a pine tree and thrust it like a spear directly into the camera.

The 'Lost Connection' icon for the channel covered the static screen.

"Everybody's going to flip out all over the country today." She turned violently to her left, startled by the voice, but it was just her older brother.

"Did you just see that!?" She exclaimed, exasperated and fearful. "That monster must have speared that tree straight through the helicopter! They must have died!"

"Adalyn, they probably have parachutes if they're filming monsters from a helicopter." Her brother seemed concerned, but not enough to make her know he was truly terrified like she was.

"You don't get scared, Coby," Adalyn said, standing up off the couch and walking away. "Sometimes that's a bad trait for you." She disappeared up the stairs.

Coby sighed and flipped the switch for the small TV, and the TV whizzed off instantly.

At Adalyn's school, lunchtime at school normally looked how a typical high school would hang out. Today, it just looked like chaos waiting to strike. Everybody was talking about the stone monster, and Adalyn saw one guy screaming as he ran down the hallways, tears streaming down his face and a wild, horrified look in his eyes.

And now, she was in the bathroom. It seemed like sort of a bad place to be at the time.

She was washing her hands when a girl about her age and ethnicity walked into the restroom and whipped out a lighter, lighting a cigarette in the corner of her mouth. She glanced at Adalyn and chuckled.

"Is this whole 'invasion' thing disturbing you, scrub?"

Adalyn didn't want to answer, but she knew nothing good would come from that. "Everybody should be disturbed," she said, trying to sound nonchalant but completely failing.

"How come you still seem tidy?" It was obviously a compliment, but Adalyn didn't catch that for a second or two.

"Uh, thanks," she said, turning off the water in the sink and reaching for a paper towel.

"I like you, scrub. What's your name?"

"Adalyn. Adalyn Paige." She saw an air of hostility with the smoker, and it made her feel a bit better.

"Nice. I'm Olivia. Ever seen my tests on the walls?"

Adalyn chuckled, catching onto that joke a bit faster than the other. "Maybe."

"You probably haven't. I don't go to this school, after all." Olivia took a big puff of her cigarette.

The hostility in the air disintegrated. Adalyn looked for a Visitor's pass on Olivia's shirt but found none. "Wait a min-"

Olivia raised her hand to silence Adalyn. "Before you say something stupid, hear me out, 'kay?"

Adalyn felt an urge to leave the bathroom before she got into the whirlpool of trouble this illegal import. But she felt that she needed to listen to Olivia. "You have two minutes."

"You wanna keep it brief? Okay. I've come to tell you that pretty soon this war isn't just gonna be on TV."

Adalyn laughed. "Are you some sort of phony prophet or something? I was hoping that whatever you said wasn't gonna be bullshit."

"If you want bullshit, I can give you bullshit. But if anyone can predict the outcome of this, it's me. I-"

"I'm not waisting my time here. Goodbye, Olivia. I'm gonna leave before the cops come." She opened the door to the restroom and was about to leave when she heard Olivia calling from behind her.

"Remember this, Adalyn. You're longer a bystander of this 'invasion' now that I talked to you. Don't act like you aren't a part of this."

Adalyn's heart skipped a beat. She slammed the door shut and walked as quickly as she could to the 'safety' of her classroom. Olivia's warning echoed in her head, causing he vision to swirl and her mind to be slightly cloudy.

Coby, it'd be a hell of a good time for you to pop up right now...