It was a mistake to take the mission involving a Giant. Everyone knew it was. They had whispered it before we left, and they shouted it when we came back. A waste of manpower, they said, or more likely, a fool’s dream. Giants were like hurricanes or earthquakes. You hoped they passed you by and dealt with the damage after they left.
But not Edward McNabb. No, McNabb was our greatest asset. A monster slayer, a hero, a warrior beyond all others. But most of all, he was a dreamer. He dreamt of a time when we could kill the beasts that plagued our world, and the beast’s blasted god-kings with them. He had called the hunt together, and taken fifty of our best hunters with him. Great men of a generation. Above and beyond all others in their feats of daring, now they faced the ultimate challenge. To kill terror itself.
I still remember that bright summer's day. My master shone greater than any star, and there was so much hope. We drank and made merry, until it was finally time to leave. We were ready, we had everything we thought was needed. So off the party went. Into the depths.
They failed... We failed. The hunt lasted three weeks, and in the end we found our terror, our anathema. It was worse than we could have believed. The day we found a giant, we found the Giant called South. South - the green one - was a terror that entire settlements moved away from. You could not stand firm, nor could you hide. He simply destroyed everything in his path. We fought, and within the first minute, half of us lay on the floor, broken or dead. I saw McNabb die first. He was furthest ahead, leading the charge. I still remember the rocks that flew when South's monolithic foot fell, smashing through McNabb and then the rest of the men. We were like ants to him, but we kept going. We fought until there were five, all hacking and cutting, shooting and burning, trying to do anything to hurt it. If terror could be hurt, then it could die. But it could not. In the end I was left, a lone man. A boy really, far out of my depth. I saw the Devil itself ignore our very existence and kill us as we would a mite.
My first instinct was simply to lay down and cry. Not that it would have made any difference to South. God is uncaring, and the Devil more-so. In the end, after I had recovered myself, I took the memory stones from each corpse and headed home. To lose the skills of all these men would be an even greater crime than coming out here in the first place, so I could do nothing but. Home called me, but I knew it would never end. Not until the last man was dead.
The town welcomed me home with open arms. I left that place a bright young man, and came back a grizzled old soul who had seen too much. My friends, dead. My betters, dead. And what stung the most was my master, Edward McNabb, had dared to try and spit on terror, costing the lives of near fifty other people. People saw me and thought they understood, but they couldn't. If they could, they would not be able to bear the hopelessness. I am honestly not sure how I did either. I made a name for myself after that. A survivor. A man who faced down terror itself and lived to tell the tale. They wrote stories about me, and yet only my wife knows I still cry myself to sleep every night in fear. I faced terror and lost.
Now here I sit, training my son to become what I was, what I still am. I gave him McNabb’s gem, as I was the only one who dared touch it. It would make him better than the other children, stronger and faster. Then one day he would become like me, a man who hunts the things in the dark because I have seen terror, and know that there is no hope. But I also know there must be the façade. One day soon I will go out into the wild, and on that day I will face terror again. It will be my end. There is no other way.
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