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You kneeled at the top of a ruined skyscraper in a city burning. The fire raged around you even as the sky darkened with rain and thunder and lightning tore apart the heavens. Smoke and rain clouded your sight and clogged your senses to leave you blind, but it didn’t matter, you had already seen everything they hid. Once mighty skyscrapers torn to the ground.
Massive trenches tore through the streets and deep into the ground laying bare the vast network of pipes and sewage systems that ran under the city. You also knew who was to blame for the destruction the ravaging of what had once been a great city and your home.
Monsters. Gods.
Like gods of legend they had come and like gods they had fought. Their size was staggering as they rivaled even the greatest works of man. You wonder if they had they even noticed the city? The strange concrete and metal jungle they had met to do battle in? Had they noticed the screaming, pleading, masses around them or, like all gods before them, did those prayers go unheeded until they were all silenced under the fury of the battle so few had survived to remember.
The monsters had fought through the city for hours and finally in twilight's dying moments the battle ended. You had lost sight of the battle and you found you couldn’t quite figure out who you had been rooting for. When gods fight mortals don't pick sides they only hope the victor could be appeased and now in the deafening silence you wondered what came next.
Already on your knees you fell down onto your hands and screamed. It was all to much. To lose everything over the course of a single day? To watch everything you knew and love burn and be torn apart by the uncaring feet and claws of creatures so large and so dismissive of human life they could only be gods. Deities that had once been worshiped by your ancestors only to be forgotten and come back for revenge.
No. The war had been waged across the city not against it. There was no point. No anger save what those titanic venerable beings had had for each other. There had been no care for the city around them or the lives they crushed and destroyed. No vengeance had been reaped for mankind's hubris and no mercy given to anything caught in the crossfire.
You didn’t know how long you cried but your lungs screamed with you for respite before you were done and your impotent howls only died when all the air in your lungs had been expelled and your subconscious mind forced you to take a deep shuddering breath in order to keep from passing out.
The last thing you expected as you knelt alone and vulnerable, crying out your anger and pain into the rain and ruin, was to be answered. A great bugling cry rang across the city and you pushed yourself up in fear only to fall clumsily fall back holding out a hand to shield your eyes from the rain as you looked up, up, up at the being you had unwittingly summoned.
The roar broke through your shock and silenced the thunder as this creature, this King of Monsters, announced its arrival. Lightning broke the darkness and burned the monsters silhouette into your mind before you lost sight again of your unwelcome guest.
You could feel him moving closer. The fires that burned vindictively around you did little to illuminate the sky above you but you didn’t need eyes to know he was coming. You could feel it in the way the air moved, hurrying to escape the massive form that approached, sending the fires into a fearful fury before the weaker ones sputtered out under the combined weight of the rain and his presence.
You could feel the approaching heat of a body to big to logically exist in this day and age, more proof these creatures were more than mere remnants of a bygone era, and you felt an answering heat inside you reach out pitifully to the approaching God and felt shame color your
cheeks.
Why would any part of you reach out to this creature? This creature that had destroyed everything you loved as well as the lives of tens of thousands and you, or at least part of you, was glad it was here. Could it be you wished it would add you to the tally? Was it just too hard to start anew and now, emotionally raw and humbled, you begged for death to avoid turmoil and pain? Or did you simply want answers? To scream helplessly in hopes that this being would answer you. Tell you why this had happened and maybe give you some sense of direction in a life that now held no attachments or purpose.
You could see him now a massive blot in your vision that towered over you. The rain stopped and you lowered your arm as you watched the approaching form as he leaned down to look at you. You noticed then that the rain hadn’t stopped. He was just so large that he blocked it from falling on you. You let out a shuddering breath as first his teeth came into view and then the rest of his scaled snout, stubbier than you had been expecting, until finally his eyes came into view.
He stared down at you and you shuddered under the pressure of his attention. Face to face with this creature you were shocked that he had even noticed your lone figure in the dark. Even with the added altitude of the ruined building you found yourself doubting that he could hear your feeble scream from the towering height of where his ears might be above you.
His eyes looked black in the darkness above you and you found yourself wishing you could get a better look but your eyes were already as attuned to the shadows as they could be and you found it somewhat ironic that a being so large could somehow maintain an aura of mystery and remain partially unseen. Lightning flashed again and thunder growled unheeded in the moment you two shared.
You lost track of how long you stared up at him. You were buried under the gravity of his attention until again that heat from deep inside you reached out and tears, shocked into hiding, once again began to fall from your eyes. You fell forward again and it felt like the weight of the world had been taken off your shoulders both because you were no longer sharing your soul with him but also because the least expected emotion had flooded your system. Relief. The small burning part of you cried out because he was here. You were safe. He was here.
Heavy sobs wracked your body and you felt more than saw him lean even closer, the tip of his snout only inches from your shivering form, and a hot heavy breath washed over you. You let him smell you and, seemingly appeased, he drew back. You cried out when he began to leave and unconsciously reached out to him.
Your desperate hand touched his snout and he froze watching you again. His eyes held a question you weren’t sure you could answer but you were just glad that he was going to stay with you a little while longer and hold back the glowering existential dread that came with not knowing what would happen when he was gone.
His skin was unsurprisingly scaly but warm and dry despite the rain and you watched as thick curls of steam rolled off his head as his internal fire evaporated the falling water. Thin streams fell over his snout and trickled to the ground around you but otherwise left you untouched. Like before you stared into each others eyes but this time your were both exhilarated and terrified as you realized you had the power here.
Your touch is what kept him from leaving and you had no idea what to do. You shouldn’t have any power of this being, the monster that had destroyed a city so casually and thoroughly, and yet he was held in check by your skin against his. This silent exchange of souls as you stared at and into each other lasted longer than the one before and with a huff that almost blew you back he pulled away. You felt a pain to see him go but understood that you couldn’t of held him in place forever no matter how much you wanted to.
In the darkness two massive scaled pillars of muscle came crashing into view grabbing the entirety of the floor you stood on with massive four fingered hands and pulling it free from the rest of the building. You cried out in fear as you lose your footing and fell onto your back, rubble from the remains of the floors above you came crashing down and you instinctively raised your arms to defend yourself even though you knew that the only thing they would prevent was you seeing the rubble before it crushed you.
But death never came as he blocked the falling concrete, metal, and office furniture from ending your life. His ripping the floor from the building put out the last of the fires and left you at the mercy of the darkness as he carried you away from the now truly demolished building and into the night. You swayed with his steps but eventually found a way to stay standing despite the motions and slowly you made your way what you hoped was forward.
You were drawn towards the heat of him and eventually your careful and questing hands found his skin and you let out a breath of relief now that you were sure you weren’t going to fall off and into the darkness. The scales on his chest were far bigger and you tucked yourself into a groove between them until you were reasonably secure. You could feel the muscles under his scales and skin work as he moved and felt his chest rise and fall with each breath and, as a constant undercurrent, you could feel the deep resonating beat of his heart in his chest sending his powerful blood through his body.
A helicopter broke the stillness and tranquility of the moment and its spotlight momentarily blinded you. You held up a hand to block the lancing pain it caused your eyes and cowered closer to him despite a small, rationally, part of your brain telling you that you should be going toward the helicopter and its promised safety and escape; not trying to hide yourself away so you could stay with a monster.
You didn’t have time to hear out that small rational voice because with an ear splitting roar that had you covering your ears he batted the helicopter away, barely missing it, and sending it flying widely to avoid his attack and his towering body. It was quiet after the thrum of the helicopters blades faded away and you let yourself be lulled into sleep by the gentle swaying of his giant steps and the warmth of his body and the steady beat of his heart.
When you wake up you didn’t recognize the world around you. You seemed to be stuck in a massive crater with the sun shining down from above. You still lay on the ripped out floor of the building but you couldn’t waste much thought on the absurdity of that fact as a gut wrenching disappointment lanced through you.
He had left you. You could take small comfort in that he had made sure you were safe and sound before he left but it did little to quiet the pain and the feeling of betrayal that you felt put tears into your eyes. What right did you have to feel betrayed? He was a god, a King of Monsters and you were nothing. Less than nothing to a being like him. It had been a miracle he had noticed you at all. You had no right to expect any further preferential treatment or loyalty from him.
You heard a snort behind you and turned, smiling hopefully, coming face to face with a familiar snout and beyond it a set of bleary but welcome eyes. He rose slightly from his slumber and you realized the crater you found yourself in was his body wrapped around you in his sleep, keeping you safe even as he recovered from the fighting the day before.
Still laying down he pushed his snout closer until it brushed against you, sniffing you, and a tongue carefully exited from his barely open mouth. Despite only using the tip his tongue still managed to cover your entire being with his saliva and you couldn’t help a slightly disgusted, tight lipped, smile as he tasted you.
You grabbed his snout and let his next breath wash over you as you close your eyes and rested your head against it. He hadn’t left you. Despite all chances and odds you, despite your weakness, size, and frailness, had attracted the lingering attention of a god. You looked up and you could see the confirmation in his eyes. You smiled up at him and laid a kiss against his snout. You didn’t know what would happen next but you knew that with him you had no reason to fear. The King of Monsters had chosen you and you never felt so safe.