One Red Wolf

It would make sense to start at the beginning, as I stood amongst the wreckage of my home for a few brief moments before I too was snatched away by the enormous arms of a giant.

I suppose you could call what followed ‘D-day’; the end of the world as we knew it. Every human on Earth was taken from their home and the ones still living were categorised in terms of health by Instant-health-analysis-machines far beyond our understanding; I was not exempt from this process. The healthy, myself among them, were collared up into further categories (most of which we could guess were not indicated in our appearance) and carted off to suitable ‘Holding Houses’. The people deemed too unhealthy, the old, the sickly and weak were put down, a disgustingly efficient solution to one burden of our society.

It is common knowledge now the events that lead from our containment in the Holding Houses. The pointless screaming and frantic scrambling in the Holding Houses caused a major decision to be made amongst the Giant societal hierarchy; the easier and all round cleaner rehabilitation of humans into Giant society required our race to become inferior so that we could adopt such a role that we could not and would not become a challenge to their societal structure. Within the gigantic plane shed-like building I was in, we were all herded up like cattle into a line which slowly fed through a remarkably small door into a very special blue room. Every human knows this room and yet hardly anything is remembered of it. It was there that our voices were taken and most human integrity was lost. This was the final act of what would physically happen to us, after that it was simply a case of adapting to new life...

“Maz!” I feel Sanova grab a fist full of my hair and tug, having the desired effect of catching my attention.

“Don’t do that, San, you’re damaging her hair doing that and she doesn’t like it!” My mistress, Azaris, clips her daughter over the head. I smirk. They aren’t speaking English, but after five years of living in giant society, most humans can understand what they say. Much like we call ourselves ‘humans’, they call themselves ‘Kubris’; ‘ris’ meaning ‘people’ and ‘kub’ meaning ‘mighty’. When I say ‘Giant’, one’s first reaction is to think of a huge ugly ogre-like thing, but our word ‘giant’ only refers to their size. In truth, the giants are rather beautiful creatures, about three times as tall as the average human, silver-grey skin with no hair anywhere on their bodies; I guess this was the reason they value long hair on humans. Instead of hair, each giant has two antennas on the tops of their heads which curl over and sweep down either side of the spine until the hips. I belong to a rather wealthy family; I’m one of the lucky humans that belonged to a minority, who would guess we would turn out to be the popular ones. I’ve always thought of redheads as being a minority anyway, and it was my red hair that got me a nice home, as it was dark skin or tattoos for others. In the beginning, those with interesting dyes in their hair were of about the same worth as I am now, pretty expensive. But as you can imagine, once the colour began to fade and roots began to show, they were tossed out of wealthy homes like filthy rats into the gutters. As for tattoos, the giants seemed fascinated with them, from what I could see they seemed to have nothing like it amongst their kind. Humans with full body tattoos are treated here like gifts from the Gods and many Giants following the ‘Paj’ religion offered these humans as sacrifices in ceremonies. Some are built thrones of crystal and brought gifts of wealth and wisdom to please some God. But recently, the giants have developed their own tattoos and have started to tattoo their humans. Of course this decreased the price of tattooed humans and brought about a pedigree system to check the age of tattoos on a human. Usually it was easy to tell at a glance as the giant-made tattoos were far less intricate and sometimes just sloppy. Humans with extensive piercings seem to go in and out of fashion.

But second to the tattooed, I am one of the most expensive, which puts me in the rather shit position of being under constant watch. Even though I technically have quite a bit of time to myself, dwelling in such a wealthy abode, if I were to put one foot outside, my mistress would know about it instantly, thanks to a handy plant that transmits energy to its ‘mate’ tied around my mistress’ wrist. But I constantly remind myself that there is still hope of escape…I’ve seen the humans that don’t belong to anyone, the ones lucky enough to have escaped the pounds and labs and clever enough to survive this long. The giants call them ‘wild humans’, in their own language of course, and they are known as being pack animals outside of domestic living. The giants are fascinated with the difference in behaviour shown between domestic and wild humans. I’d watched their giant hologram documentaries on how House-humans are more submissive and demur by nature compared to the wildly ferocious and calculating humans of the streets. There seems to be so much fascination with them in giant society, and yet they are hardly ever sighted. But like foxes back on Earth, they live off this planet’s naturally occurring wildlife outside the townships and occasionally raid buildings known for selling human food; as you can imagine, security has tightened up which means more desperate humans lie curled up in dark street corners. I’ve seen humans die that way before, back in the days when such sights used to sadden me I would try to help them if the opportunity arose, but now that it occurs more frequently, for hygiene purposes a gap in the Giant Job Market has come about to have the bodies disposed of professionally.

Today is a great day. Today I get to visit my brothers who, call it fate or luck or whatever you will, were bought by my mistress’ sister, Hozie. Hozie, I’m pleased to say, is a gentle giant and treats her pets with respect, although other giants refer to it as overindulgence. Out of all the giants, I hold the highest respect for her because she has the highest respect for humans I have ever seen in a giant. She makes sure her humans are well-groomed and fed and she gives them plenty of affection. And on top of that, she volunteers at the human-rehabilitation centre and practically runs that show with the amount of humans she rehomes to good house-holds. If she wasn’t so obviously silver, I’d swear she was a giant human.

“Maz!” My head shoots up at my name and I skip over to my mistress who’s waiting at the front door. As soon as I’m within range she grabs my hand in the usual fashion, rather like humans do with toddlers, and strolls out the door; I stumble after her before I can be dragged away by my hand. Once we reach the street at the end of the front garden, Azaris hands me the clear pill I have to take every time I travel. Travel on this planet is done by means of water and the giants are genetically designed to dissolve on command whereas humans, unfortunately, are not. The entire planet here is covered in water, every street is knee-deep water and the motorways are as deep as a double-decker bus. The giants can survive out of water for decades as long as they drink a lot of it and so there are many places that are just dry ground. Giants can travel anywhere that is connected by water, and just a mere millimetre of water can constitute a connection. So on the first introduction of humans, a method of travel had to be established, and fast, if we were to adapt to giant society. So the great minds of the Kubris planet racked their brains and invented a pill which would allow for the temporary breaking down of human bodies so that we, like the giants, could dissolve into the water and travel with them. The houses, of course, are water-free to prevent intruders being able to just crystallise in the front room.

“For God’s sake, Maz, just swallow the damn pill! I’m already very late for lunch!” I snap out of yet another one of my frequent reveries and swallow the clear pill; I wait to disappear into droplets. The change of form is induced by the change of the giant who’s hand you’re holding, thus preventing wild humans from being able to take advantage of the pills’ abilities; it’s easier to spot the wild ones because they must wade through the water to get anywhere. It is a dream of mine to be able to take a pill and actually able to control where I go, but it’s a fantasy, in order to move, the giant-owner must initiate the direction and destination or the human is just floating bubbles. I’ve often thought about taking a load of the water-pills at once and grabbing the nearest giant to induce the change, so I could become just bubbles and droplets in the water, totally liberated in my nothingness. But these pills won’t kill me and I would eventually change back into human form and be taken back to my mistress’ house. Wild humans or unwanted humans who try this are ‘put down’, however I do not get the privilege of dying, thanks to my damned red hair. As I said before, I am a minority and therefore too valuable to just ‘throw away’; I’d go back to life in domestic hell.