Dr. Elara flicked on the screen, the morgue's sterile white backdrop abruptly replaced by a gruesome tableau. Her understudy, the wide-eyed Amelia, leaned closer, the fluorescent light reflecting in her nervous pupils.
"This," Elara said, her voice a surgeon's precise cut through the oppressive silence, "is John Doe number 231. Cause of death: blunt force trauma to the thorax, most likely from sustained weight compression."
On the screen, a man, eerily similar in build to John Doe, lay sprawled, his chest a macabre canvas of purple bruises and shattered ribs. Elara tapped a specific area, just below the sternum.
"Notice the concentrated fractures here, Amelia," she continued, her pointer becoming a scalpel of light, "aligned perfectly with the pressure points of bare heels. This, combined with the collapsed lungs and the telltale hemorrhagic pattern, points to a very specific weight distribution. A woman, roughly 400 pounds, standing directly on his chest."
Amelia's jaw dropped, her eyes flickering to John Doe on the slab. The similarities were undeniable, but…
"But this," Elara spoke, her voice dropping to a hushed murmur, "this is different."
She switched the image, the grainy photograph replaced by the stark reality of John Doe's broken form. The fractures, Amelia saw with a gasp, were more than just cracks – they were pulverized sections, ribs splintered like twigs under a colossus' foot. The lungs, instead of collapsed, were crushed into oblivion, a morbid tapestry woven from blood and tissue.
"This, Amelia," Elara's voice was a cold whisper, "is the footprint of a giantess."
Amelia's breath caught in her throat. Giantesses. Myths, legends, campfire tales whispered in hushed tones. Now, staring at the mangled remains before her, the legend felt terrifyingly real.
Elara continued, her words painting a gruesome picture. "The sheer force, Amelia. Imagine the weight of not just a woman, but a creature taller than a house, her foot as wide as your torso. The ribs wouldn't just break, they'd shatter. The lungs wouldn't just collapse, they'd be obliterated."
Amelia felt a wave of nausea, but her eyes remained glued to the screen, morbidly fascinated by the evidence of the impossible.
"This isn't just a murder," Elara declared, her voice tight with a mixture of grim fascination and scientific curiosity, "it's a window into a world beyond ours. A world where myths walk the earth, and death comes not from a blade or a bullet, but from the crushing weight of a giantess' foot."
The morgue, once a sterile haven of scientific inquiry, now hummed with the thrum of the unknown. The body on the slab wasn't just a corpse, it was a portal, a grotesque clue in a game of shadows played by giants. And Dr. Elara Crow, with her scalpel and her insatiable hunger for knowledge, was determined to unravel the mystery, one bone-crushing revelation at a time.
