Luke groaned as he slowly blinked awake. It used to be he would have just a few precious seconds between waking up and seeing his surroundings, reminding him where he was and what his life had become. Now he didn’t even have that. He was woken every day by the same thing. Hunger. Vicious, aching, unrelenting hunger.

Luke rolled off of the foam pad he had found and pulled back to his makeshift home. It smelled slightly stale but it was better than sleeping on the cold metal floor. He wandered across the gloomy room, light coming in from smalls slits in the ceiling above. He examined three blue plastic buckets, previously they had been bottle lids but now he used them to collect water leaking from a pipe. Two buckets were mostly full but the third was totally dry.

“One for washing, one for drinking…” he said out loud to himself.

Luke bent down and grasped one of the buckets firmly with both hands and hauled it off the ground. He let out a strained grunt as he carried it across the room and placed it on a metal ledge in front of a piece of polished metal he used as a mirror. He used to be able to lift a full bucket easily but it had been so long since he had eaten a good meal that even simple tasks now were now difficult. The muscles of his now stringy upper arms burned from the effort of just carrying a few litres of water.

“Peach cobbler…” the skinny man said to his reflection in the mirror. “What I wouldn’t give to taste some of mom’s delicious peach cobbler again…”

His stomach grumbled reminding him to stop torturing himself. He threw his face into the cool, fresh water and held it there for a few seconds before throwing his head back and exhaling. Luke looked at his reflection in the mirror as the cold water dripped off his face. His once high tan cheeks had become sunken, he had dark bags under his eyes and he now had a dark, wispy beard. He’d never wanted a beard, it made him look old. He had been in his last year of college and he liked using his young, fresh face to charm the ladies.

“No chance of that happening here…” he spoke to his reflection once more.

His stomach grumbled starting to ache more, reminding him he didn’t have time to stand around talking to himself. He had to get out there and find something decent to eat before his nemesis arrived. He sighed and looked at himself in the mirror once more before walking over to a waist high, three feet wide gap in the metal wall panels and crawled out. He stopped for a minute and allowed his eyes to adjust to the bright light coming in from the grilled ceiling above him. He listened carefully for any noise, any sign of movement coming from above. He heard none.

Satisfied it was safe to head up, Luke grabbed a hold of the dirty indents in the wall and hauled himself up, one rung like indent at a time. His arms started to ache with pain again, it wouldn’t be long until he would be too weak to make this climb. He’d either need to find a new place to live or take his chances with one of the giants who wandered around the vast market place.

He didn’t trust the giants. Not one bit. The last time he laid eyes on Charlie he was being swept along in the wake of a giant Lady Gaga wannabe, he’d assumed he was dead by now. If she had of been nice then surely he would have come back for him. Luke had had his own run-ins with the giants. On more than one occasion he had been chased and nearly stomped on by people wearing what looked like military uniforms. Judging from their tone and some of the words he had picked up from their language they considered him nothing more than vermin.

Luke peaked his head up and looked around. He had learned never to move out into the open unless he was absolutely sure he wouldn’t be seen. It was late in the day in the market and all the shops seemed to have shut. He didn’t know exactly how long a day was here but it was a lot longer than at home. He could sleep twice and the market would still be open. He had to make the most of the night and find as much food as he could before heading back to his gloomy sanctuary.

He used to have plenty of food. The shopkeeper had eventually got bored of testing him and stopped setting traps for him. That’s when he had been forced to move his home to the grill under the canteen floor. He preferred to be up high where he could observe his surroundings and not get stepped on but he no longer had a choice. The patrons during the day seemed to be just as messy and lazy when it came to meals as Humans were. They would drop scraps on the floor which they would happily ignore before finishing their meal and leaving. At the end of the day he could just come along and gather up what he needed to keep him well fed for the next few sleep cycles.

All that had changed some time ago with the arrival of the person he called “his nemesis”. Not long after the canteen would close and the staff left for the night she would arrive. In a matter of minutes she would wiz round the vast expanse of the canteen, cleaning as she went and removing enough discarded food to feed Luke for weeks. Just thinking about her made his blood boil. Consciously he tried to tell himself she was just doing her job and she wasn’t evil but he hated her. His subconscious told him she made a game out it, seeing just how quickly she could remove everything he could eat, she did it for fun and she did it to torture him.

Happy he was alone and happy his nemesis had yet to appear he pulled himself between the metal grill and up onto the cold, metal floor of the canteen. He stopped for a second, doubling over and breathing heavily, exhausted from the effort of climbing.

“Go you idiot before she gets here!” he told himself, forcing himself to move at a light jog towards a row of tables.

His lungs burning and chest aching, Luke ran into the shadow under the massive canopy of the table. The chairs and table reminded of him of a cheap diner. A painted metal frame linked the table to the chairs which were coated with a cheap padding. The whole structure was then fastened to a wall. This had the advantage of giving him a clear view along the underside of the entire row but also allowed his nemesis to go about her task a lot faster.

He spotted a rolled up scrap of grease paper in the distance under one of the tables and took off towards it. He was hopeful there might be a few scraps of meat or bread left over inside that could help satiate his hunger. Luke panted as he ran, the paper was easily 200 metres away. He had to cover as much ground as possible before she turned up and went about her cleaning routine.

Luke practically dived into the grease paper, not stopping to catch his breath. He crawled into the five foot tall mess of slippery paper. It smelled delicious. Something meaty had been in there at some point. He could feel the inside of his cheeks starting to run with saliva already. His eyes lit up as he spotted a finger sized sliver of meat. He quickly grabbed it and bit down on it, chewing the small luxury for as long as he could before swallowing.

“Oh that’s good…” he muttered as he pressed on through the paper looking for anything else edible inside.

Luke spent the next few minutes crawling through the greasy paper. He found a few more flecks of meat, much smaller than his first morsel but nothing near substantial enough to stop his stomach from aching. He emerged from the paper covered in a slick film of grease. He looked around at the tables stretching off into the distance failing to spot anything that looked appetising. He saw some scraps of vegetables under the next table. He recognised the distinct red colour. He’d eaten them before and was violently ill for the next day. He wasn’t quite desperate enough to risk it again.

Luke continued to the bottom of the row of tables all the while listening out for the distinctive thuds that his nemesis made as she walked. He was happy not to hear anything more than his own footfalls as he made it to the last table. He quickly ran across the open expanse towards the next row of tables and then hugged the wall that separated them from the next row. He stopped to catch his breath once he was safely hidden in the shadow of the looming table.

The exhausted man gasped audibly as he eyes locked on to something he had been looking for. In the distance, right in the centre of the aisle between two rows of tables was what looked like enough food to feed Luke for a week. He set off quickly towards the pile of food. It resembled a hamburger, two thick pieces of bread with greasy meat stuck in between. Luke smacked his lips and ran towards it as fast as he could, his hunger driving him on. The hamburger was still about 200 metres away. He pushed on as fast as his tired legs would carry him

He was no more than 15 metres away when he heard it, the first deep thud. He stopped in his tracks and looked around. He couldn’t see anything. There was another thud, quickly followed by another. Off in the distance emerging from behind a partition at the end of the aisle he caught his first glimpse of her, just a foot. A massive foot clad in a white sneaker big enough to crush two cars underneath.

“FUCK!” he shouted and dashed towards the hamburger. He dug his hands deep in to the waist high meat and started to pull at it. Some he ate but most he stashed in a cloth sack.

That was when he heard it, a high pitched whining noise that made his skin crawl. She’d turned on her cleaning device. He stepped out from behind the pile of food and locked his eyes on to the towering feminine form. He felt his blood starting to boil as he looked at her. She was well over one hundred feet tall. She had long, thin legs, modest hips and a thin waist. She looked quite scrawny and her chest was far from ample. She was wearing a dull t-shirt with dark leggings, probably so she didn’t mess up her good clothes while cleaning. He looked up to her face as she started to quickly and gracefully move down the aisle, stopping at each table. She had long, wavy locks of bright yellow hair falling past her shoulders. A pale skinned face with red cheeks, plump red lips and huge blue eyes. She was absolutely beautiful. If Luke had met her at home he would have needed at least three drinks before he could work up the gall to approach her.

But he was not at home. He was here in this hell. And this colossal, beautiful girl in her early twenties was now sweeping under each table with her instrument of death. She grasped a handle at the top of a long metal arm which leg to a large disk, about twenty feet across. The underside of it glowed green, a horrible radioactive looking green. Luke had seen what happened to anything caught underneath it. It was vaporised in an instant. Luke had absolutely no desire to end up under it, he could think of few worse ways to die than be ripped apart like he was a piece of rubbish on the floor. He grabbed another handful of meat and then started to run as fast as his legs would carry him in the opposite direction.

“Sooooo boring…” Aisell thought to herself as she swept the decon unit under a table. She heard the distinct hissing noise it made as it dissolved away some food lying underneath. “Seven more days…seven more days and I’ll have enough money to buy a ticket home and get off this dull rock!”

Aisell quickly turned on her heel and swept the decon unit under the table running parallel to the one she had just cleaned. She stopped for a second as she caught something move in the corner of her eye. She shrugged and carried on, sweeping the decon unit under the table in front of her, quickly moving on to the next one.

Luke gasped and wheezed as he ran as if his very life depended on it. At the moment it very much did. The distant whining noise was growing ever closer, he could feel vibrations in the floor as the gigantic woman spun round and moved the device into the aisle. He looked over his shoulder as he heard a great hissing noise. The burger he had been digging into hissed and fizzed for a second or two before dissolving into nothingness leaving no trace it ever existed. The beautiful giant then moved the deadly instrument underneath a table not far behind the one he was currently under. If the girl chose to go down each row at a time rather than skipping between he would surely have been done for.

He could hear his heart pounding in his ears. He could see the grate in the distance now, he was going to make it. He’d get back to his poor excuse for a home with a bag full of meaty goodness and he could stuff himself until his belly ached. He dropped his hand to his side to pat his bag of meat to check the size of his haul and then an alarm went off in his mind. He stopped dead in his tracks. It wasn’t there. He turned around and looked behind him. It was lying on the ground about twenty metres behind him. His eyes leapt to the giant blonde woman. She was getting closer. He was too hungry, he had to risk it. He turned round and ran towards his bag of food. He stopped as his nemesis turned on her heel again and whizzed the terrifying device over to the table directly facing the one where he now stood.

Luke had only taken a few more steps when he had to stop and dive back as the huge device swept over towards him. The whining noise was now deafening and Luke could only watch in horror as it hovered over the bag of meat, quickly ripping it apart, atom by atom. Luke scrambled to his feet and ran along the edge of the canopy, completely petrified, he only had seconds to escape.

Aisell hummed to herself as she worked. She was trying to pretend she was dancing, like one of the cartoon characters from the films she watched when she was a little girl. Her duties always seemed to go a lot faster if she pretended she was a beautiful undiscovered princess in a children’s film. She heard another hiss as the decon unit dissolved something else. She was about to sweep the unit on when she spotted something moving under the table. Curious, Aisell bent her knees and lowered herself to get a view under the table. She could make out a familiar silhouette running as fast as it could under the tables. It looked like a Titan but it was far too small, it looked no bigger than her finger.

“A Human roaming free on the station?” Aisell thought to herself. “Poor little thing must be terrified!”

The blonde girl quickly realised she couldn’t catch up to it and decided to watch to see where it went. She was quite surprised to see it disappear into a grate in the floor she hadn’t even realised was there.

“I wonder what it was doing here…” she wondered as she got back to her cleaning.

Luke braced himself against the wall under the grate. He was breathing deeply and quickly. His heart was pounding furiously and his kidney’s ached, complaining at the lack of blood which had been sent to his legs where it was needed more. The Human slowly slid down the wall until he was sitting on the cold steel floor. His stomach rumbled, demanding to be fed but he had nothing to give it. The few scraps he had eaten had only set him off. There was no way he could go back up there while his nemesis was at her work. Even if he did go back up there would be nothing left. She was thorough in her task to the point it was infuriating. He’d never met a cleaning lady that put this much effort into her job.

Luke pulled himself wearily to his feet and went into his home. He walked over to his water basin and dunked his head under the water trying to wash the grease from his face.

“I swear…” he panted “If that happens again I’ll stop and give her a piece of my mind!”