I know what you're thinking; a lot of you are probably waiting for me to update my other stories, because I know I haven't done it in forever. But maybe this'll be worth your while.

Quite a funny story behind this story, actually; I was browsing on the internet for some more Cloverfield fan fiction, since the section here had on the slow side for awhile now. While I was doing that, I happened to stumble upon a fan fiction contest on the Cloverfield Movie Forum, which is the largest Cloverfield forum on the internet. (Since then, the majority of my time on the internet has been spent there, which is probably the biggest reason I haven't updated any of my stories in so long). So anyway, this is my entry in the contest (which, even though I probably sound very boastful saying it, actually won first place). And, well, it's not really like me to keep something I wrote away from anyone who wants to read it (although I did wait until today to post it, in celebration of it being summer vacation at long last), so I'm posting it here.

Well, enough ramblings. Just read and enjoy!

Life

By GodzillaGuy

Too big. Much too big.

With every fiber of his being, all Hud wanted to do was to run - run as fast and as far as he could, until he was safe. His heart pounded against his chest frantically, as if it wanted to escape and run away on its own too. His breaths were quick and shallow, fueling his increased heart rate, and every muscle in his body was fully tensed, ready to leap into action.

But he couldn't move. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how forcefully he told his legs to whirl him around and sprint in the other direction, they stayed firm as stone. His feet were rooted to the ground, and his spine had seemingly been replaced by a long, rigid stake. Only his right arm had the ability to break free, following the thing's movements against his own will as if the camera he was holding was magnetized to it. The rest of his body stayed absolutely still, paralyzed by the massive form that towered above him.

The silhouette of its body was gargantuan, reaching what must have been three hundred feet into the air and nearly blocking all of the sky from Hud's view. Its skin was a dull, translucent grayish color, stretched tight over its body. In the places where the hide was pitted and folded in on itself, barnacles encrusted the surface like mold. A pair of stout legs in the back preceded a long, powerful tail, with a primitive-looking fin sprouting out at its end. Two small, arm-like protuberances tipped with small, grasping claws were tucked close to its chest, groping idly at the air like they had minds of their own.

Hud couldn't tell whether the things sprouting from its wide shoulders would more accurately be called arms or legs. They bent upward, the elbows reaching above shoulder-level, before bending back down yet another three hundred feet before its clawed hands came to a rest on the ground. It walked on its knuckles in a way that might have resembled a gorilla, had the sight of the rest of the creature not been so overwhelming that any resemblance to any other living thing was effectively obliterated from Hud's mind. Even its lone wrists were enormous, easily taller than streetlamps or telephone poles, so that the joint almost looked like it could be a second elbow.

Sticking out from between the shoulders was a small, slightly rounded head. He couldn't make out much of the features, but what he could was totally alien. On either side sat two flexible, pinkish sacs that steadily inflated then deflated again; each time they expanded or contracted, Hud heard a low, ragged rush of air. Its eyes gazed above him, staring intently forward and slowly looking around, as if by its sheer height it could see over the edge of the horizon. Its short neck looked like it could easily bend downward, but its upward movement was vastly restricted. And it was just as well; there was nothing worth looking up at, nothing larger than it, nothing that so much as looked like it could ever pose the slightest threat.

It looked too bizarre and terrible for someone to so much as imagine, yet it was surely and unmistakably not only real, but alive.

Hud was not particularly religious, but a small part of his mind wondered what kind of God would ever make something like this. And another part answered the first: How could anything but a God ever manage to create anything like this?

This creature, this... this monster... it hit Hud at that moment that it had single-handedly taken reality, ripped it to shreds, and tossed the mutilated remains aside like an old gum wrapper. He had thought that he had heard of everything, any disaster that could possibly happen. Tsunamis, hurricanes, volcanoes... none of which could ever affect New York. In Hud's reality, he was safe from all those things, anything that could possibly do him harm. And in Hud's reality, any artificial threat, like a terrorist attack or an all-out war, could be beaten back with force. If something was alive, it could be killed.

But neither he nor the world could have ever been prepared for something like this. For a completely unknown natural disaster, more powerful and terrible than any other in the planet's history. For the fires of destruction that swept across Manhattan in a single night. For an enemy that couldn't be fought or reasoned with.

Hud remembered he had always wanted to have a career in... what had it been? The whole rest of his life seemed so far away. Comic books? Yes, that was it. He had loved reading comic books ever since he was a kid. And he remembered other beings from them - giant robots constructed by supervillains and huge mutants that rose from the depths of the oceans. When he had taken Biology class, his teacher had always told him that living things that large simply couldn't exist. Their capillary networks would lose their functionality through the sheer size required, and weight of their own muscles required would be too heavy for them to drag around.

Yet here was living proof against all of these laws, its very existence defiantly challenging them. Humans had thought that science could explain everything - it had been a wonderful concept that had started with thinkers like Newton and had lasted to the present day. But now science had failed them; this creature was here, standing bold as brass directly in the center of mankind's achievements, and no weapons produced by science could so much as hinder it.

The mammoth creature abruptly turned its gaze downward to stare right at him. A fresh spike of fear rose inside Hud like fizz bubbling up from an opened soda can, and he heard a high-pitched whimper escape from his throat against his bidding. As if it had heard him, the monster bent down even closer, so that its head was only fifty feet or so above the ground.

Its features instantly became hideously clear. A huge, powerful set of jaws that stretched back out of Hud's view was plastered onto its face. Ivory fangs, larger than elephant tusks, protruded from its closed mouth in scattered locations. A small pair of nostrils flared in conjunction with the deflation of the pink sacs, and a warm, moist wind mixed with an unpleasant odor of rotting fish washed over him. Two plain, dark eyes bored into his own with a mixture of bland curiosity and mild hunger. Hud could see a small, pathetic-looking figure reflected in them; it took him a moment to realize numbly that it was him.

Only seven hours ago - or perhaps it was seven years - Hud's life had in no way resembled what its was now. His primary concern had been to have a single non-embarrassing chat with Marlena and wish his best friend good luck in Japan. Never had the thought occurred to him that maybe such things were trivial in the long run.

That was how he'd always thought. Pass college. Get a job. Marry a beautiful girl. Start a family. That was what they all said life was about, and if you did that much then you had done your job and done it well.

But there was more, far more to life than that, he could see now. The thing bearing down over him had seen to that. In Hud's past reality, Marlena was alive, and Jason was there to tease him about it, and Manhattan was there for them to experience it all in. No more. Now Jason was floating at the bottom of the river, and Marlena's bloodied remains most likely unburied, and the whole of Manhattan reduced to nothing more and nothing less than the world's largest smoking pile of rubble. All of it torn down and destroyed by this monstrous creature overnight.

Life in its true purpose was incomprehensible to mankind. They had blinded themselves with their own petty delusions of what was important, so that when a disaster such as this struck, they were caught completely off guard and defenseless. Life couldn't even be understood properly - the results of the night's events had proved that beyond a measure of a doubt - much less predicted or planned out. Life threw you curveballs, things you could have never expected, and it was only with this one that the truth revealed itself, when it was already too late.

And what place did Hud possess in all this? What prevented his fate from being any different from everything he had known and loved before? What kept his life and all of his personal accomplishments that had formed the center of it all from being extinguished just as quickly and easily by this monster? How was he unique in all this?

His question was answered immediately.

With a feral snarl, the creature opened its jaws and lunged forward, and Hud realized in those last few moments before his whole world was reduced to an empty black void that he wasn't different at all.