The harder I rise, The harder I fall, a Sink with extra effort.

As I understand it, whenever an eye is bigger than a beach ball it has the ability to rotate shockingly quickly and focus on the bug in front of it. This comes only a moment after the person arrives at their perilous location, leaving room for the target to hold their breath at the zenith of their arc.

“Nononono,” I squeaked, then froze while holding my breath. The sound of a bass played in my mind as I rose level with the bloodshot eyes. A part of me hoped that, if I held still, it wouldn’t see me.

I screamed anyway, and the orbs swiveled with unerring precision onto me.

The giant roared, spittle and flecks of uneaten things splattering me as it stepped back. At first, I was hopeful until I saw it swinging its club up at me from the left as it prepared to turn me into bird food- Carion edition. The club bounced and rippled along the shield, rising toward me with deceptive slowness.

“EEEEK!” I clutched onto the spear at the oncoming club, which was practically below me. I ended up holding the spear between my legs, feet on the long bits of metal sticking out below the head. As if the spear were a Pogo stick.

I was about to die, so I didn’t feel like letting go to die in a more heroic stance.

WHAM!

Somehow, I didn’t die instantly. Despite being on an express trip to heaven. I didn’t think about this fact at the time since every ounce of my body was slammed back as I was violently propelled upwards. My fat pulled and rippled like a slow-motion water balloon, pulling my cheeks back and forcing my eyelids open.

“AaAaAaH!” I screamed as the air was forced from my lungs and I clung as tightly as I could. That was probably my best Tarzan impression to date.

Suddenly, the force changed and I was ripped the other way. I felt my knuckle scream and pop as I barely held onto the spear, swinging around like New Year's Noise-maker. When the world stopped spinning, I hung from a now horizontal spear, dangling as I tried to orient myself.

To my left, the spear was embedded into the end of the club. The spear was sagging down from my weight, waiting for a couple of jolts to send me plummeting. In front of me, the sun was setting beyond an enormous forest as a distant storm turned the air into a rich vermilion sunset. I heard a soft ding.

And below me, the giant squinted upwards and grinned.

Oh, scurvy! I thought, Human on a stick.

The club moved slowly, a stark difference from the murderous attack before, and the giant opened its mouth. It was a man-eating monster then, rather than the type which viciously disembowels and leaves the corpse. Just lowering me to its mouth as if I was a bundle of grapes.

It seemed…lazy. Confident in its meal. The idea of me fighting back did not occur to him at all, knowing that I could never win. I was too weak, ugly, and stupid to ever succeed against it.

To be fair, I don’t know if it thought I was ugly. But still, the entitled attitude of a forty-foot giant kinda ticked me off.

“I look like a tasty meal don’t I?!” I screamed, feeling helpless tears well up as I spat back, “At least me being fat will be good for something. I hope you get a heart attack from this deep-fried butt.”

I never could fight with anything but my words, I thought.

Despair swelled as I was lowered towards the monster’s near-perfect teeth. The smell drifting up curled my nose hairs and made me gag. I had endured years of insults, beatings, and being the skimmed waste that floated sickeningly to the top of the barrel.

My only mark on the world was that I made people happy that they weren’t me. My siblings hated me, my mother had only looked twice out of horror, and I’d never had a friend last longer than a week. My last memory in life would be a funeral since the tabloids would definitely notice a superstar’s Quasimodo kid disappearing. Too bad that would take a few years. Maybe they’d put AI pictures up for my funeral since I knew my mom didn’t have any.

I had some online acquaintances that would probably remember me for a few months. Then there was that girl I saved. She would probably remember me, as a three hundred pound man getting beaten by thugs isn’t something you forget. She might even be grateful, and I could live on in a story to her children. Maybe grandchildren. But no more.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Not a single thing more would remain of me in either world.

I wasn’t going to die with a single soul to mourn me, a single deed to my name. Without a single, true IRL friend.

“I may not have been good for anything in my life,” I said, wiggling the spear side to side and feeling it slip further out, “Grandpa had such big dreams for me, and I’ve let him down. I might have failed a grade and averaged a D-, but I still know one thing. I know how to obey the law of gravity, and I know how much damage three hundred pounds can do.”

And if I’m going to die, I thought, I want to go out with a bit of flair.

The spear slipped free and I whipped it around as I fell, putting it back into the pogo position.

I screamed with all my breath, “DEAD WEIGHT DROP!”

Golden light erupted from the spear and I managed to hold on as a roar filled my ears. Then everything went wet, and I gasped. Something foul filled my mouth and lungs and I tried to cough it out before-

Wham!

The spear hit something, and this time the forces tore me from the spear and sent me rolling. I tumbled like a rolling water balloon before I crashed into a tree. The world spun for a couple of seconds before I was able to get my hands under me.

I pushed my trembling frame to my knees and coughed violently, expelling foul liquid. For a second, I thought my ears were ringing. But it was that soft dinging that I had heard before, except it rang probably twenty times before I was able to wipe my eyes. Like a group chat that everyone mutes.

I looked around, seeing dark forest as black rain fell. There was a clang to my left, and I startled away. Squinting I saw that it was a massive sword, then flinched as a large skull shattered to my right. Below me was a growing pool of a stick foul black liquid.

Forward lay the fence and the barrier. Behind me lay the unprotected Greater Demon Forrest and the path the giant’s footsteps had carved through the trees. Finally, I looked up and saw the giant. As well as sunlight shining through the hole I’d carved in it.

The giant teetered and started to fall.

“Oh crap,” I said, scrambling and slipping to my feet as the blood-covered ground churned to mud beneath my weight, “Oh plague sores and loathsome toads-”

It rained trophies as the giant started to almost crumple, the remains of battles fought cluttering my way to shield. I hauled myself along, moving how I had always dreamed. Everything felt so much easier! I was vaulting sun-bleached skulls and dodging falling greatswords, rolling back to my feet whenever I tripped. I built up speed as I kept my eyes fixed on the safety of the fence. Praying that it would let me back in.

With one final vault I launched myself headfirst into the barrier and felt the barrier bend, pressing into me like a trampoline. Just as I thought that it was going to shoot me back out, it plopped me out gently on the other side. Then, a second later, the dinging finally stopped.

Panting, I rolled over and tried to wipe my eyes again but got something in my right eye. I fumbled, half-blind, back into the kitchen and tried to work the levers of the sink. Unfortunately no water came out.

Rooting hogs! I thought. I guess that the water bill hasn’t been paid here for two years.

But grandpa had said something about a garden and I made my way back outside. The darkness of twilight was setting in when I turned the corner and saw a pump beside a bucket of water. I rushed over and pumped it but nothing came out and a voice sounded in my head.

“The pump needs to be primed,” the lady’s voice said, “you must give water to get water, Shun Mi.”

I looked at the bucket, a layer of algae growing on top of what had to have been water. In any other circumstance, I would have rather not bathed than touch that. But I was one hundred percent covered in giant guts, with my only blessing that it had also plugged my nose.

The bar for cleanliness was six feet under.

I scooped the slime out in great, squelchy handfuls, before lifting the bucket. Then I poured some water into the bowl-like depression at the top of the pump. I quickly set the bucket down as water ran out of the pump and I seized the handle. I pumped furiously, my newfound strength churning at the metal lever like a machine. The raspy sound of the pump turned watery and became fractionally harder to move. Then it exploded with sweet, clear, clean H2O.

I would like to say that I bathed rationally. That I found the wooden tub leaning against the house and hauled it over to have a truly thorough bath. The truth is, I didn’t even think to look for one.

Washing in a sink with extra effort, I did my best to scrub hours of grime from myself. It may have been an outside shower, but since no one was around I was able to clean without shame. But still, it was an affair reminiscent of Shrek.

My wet clothes clung to my body as I shivered, trying to light the fire. My grandpa had taught me how to years before, but the wavering sparks didn’t want to catch the kindling. They sputtered and danced away from the fluffy firestarter, determined to make me work for it. I had finally got the sparks to catch, accompanied by another ‘ding’, when I heard a sharp cracking sound in the distance.

I blew on the fire, quickly feeding it more kindling before I pushed myself to my feet. I rushed to the door and squeezed through, something I was pretty sure hadn’t happened before. Was I getting fatter? How?

There were several monsters gathered around where the giant had been. Some of them were hitting the shield while the rest were rummaging through the refuse of the giant, torches in hand. The health display for the Shield wasn’t dropping as fast as when the giant was attacking, but it was constant.

I thought, Probably best I find a way to deal with these foul deformities.

In the back of the group, one of the biggest monsters picked up an enormous sword from among the giant’s trophies. The monster swung, and the Shield health dropped by a hundred points. A lot more significant, although the monster was now staggering away from the impact of it.

I went back in and looked at the umbrella stand. Somehow, I had thought that the spear would have returned there. But the stand stood empty (except for umbrellas). Did I leave it out there? I turned to the coat rack and grabbed the gun, surprised when it wasn’t as heavy as I anticipated. Nothing had been as heavy as it should have been, including me.

“This should work,” I said, looking at the gun, then the magazines of rounds, “Now how does this work?”

Squinting in the dim light of moon and fire, I carefully examined the workings of the unloaded gun. With how many video games I played, I recognized most of the components if not the name. Still, it was an awkward minute or two fiddling with it before I got the pieces together right. I managed to load it by copying the reloading movements from countless video games and sighed when it clicked into place.

“All right,” I said, turning back to the monsters, “who’s ready to di- oh skainsmates!”

Several monsters were wailing uselessly against the shield, but a few were clustered around a blood-soaked spear. Grandpa's spear. The one that had killed a giant in a single blow.

I stretched a hand out to it and shouted “Spear to me!”

Nothing.

So I said, “Come back spear! Return to your master! Who’s a good boy?!”

My voice died as a particularly weak-looking goblin pulled it out of the ground. That spear had one-shot a giant. This shield wouldn’t stand a chance.