Chapter 9.1: Adamah

It was a bright and sunny day in the forest as a white blur streaked across the sky, and then disappeared, a twinkle in one's eye.

Then they repeated, over and over, the little sparkles fading in the distance, and the people down below on the soft brown earth looked up in awe as the sky was alive, a light show in the day, somehow bright enough to see against the sun.

For many years the white streaks blurred against the sky, at day and night, a common occurrence, and people paid them no mind, the heavens doing as they pleased, making no sense to a mortal man.

It was another bright and sunny day when another white blur streaked across the sky, over the desert and its various oases, and plummeted to the ground, through the forest, pummeling trees and scarring the earth until it slowed to a stop.

A star had fallen from the heavens and the nearby villagers in the mountain who had seen it all needed to investigate. Was it an omen? A sign of good things to come? All the men got their spears and slings, and their wives kissed them goodbye, all their children asked when they would come back, and they replied soon, and they all left to find the star.

The first to find the star was Naomi.

Naomi was curious, and her father, the tribe's chief told her she could not come, but she did not listen, because she never listened, so she followed from afar until it was apparent they were close to the site of the star, and Naomi ran ahead, to be the first to see a star in person.

The trees were toppled over and it was impossible to see anything, and she couldn't move any tree, no man alone could. She turned to leave, to try and get home before her father did when a loud crack came out behind her. She clutched her shawl and panicked, suddenly remembering that there are wild animals out and about, and she had ventured out on her own.

The cracks got louder, and the trees started to shift, her heart racing because no man could move an entire tree. The head of a man was seen, a blonde bob of hair as he pushed a tree to the side, with a loud crash, and he looked at her, teeth bared, afraid.

She was afraid, and she didn't move.

The pale man's chin trembled and he decided that the woman was no threat after their staring contest. He climbed over the pile, and he fell over once she screamed because he was naked.

Naomi covered her eyes and screamed, and the men of her village ran and they saw her crying next to a tall man that stood above them, naked and also crying. Naomi's father grabbed her and held her close, worried that he had done something to her, but she assured her nothing happened.

One of the men chucked a spear, and the tall man caught it as it flew towards him.

"Stop."

They all stopped and smiled.

His voice was so wonderful, so pleasant, the most wonderful thing that had graced their ears, and they wanted to hear more. So a short man bent to the ground and picked up a stone and threw it, and the disgruntled giant caught it as it soared to his face.

"Why must you treat me so? You are so scary, I have heard the stories myself."

Now they were all upset that they had hurt his feelings. The frown was pretty, and disturbing at the same time because his face seemed to change many times until it settled onto one face again as his frown disappeared.

"I'm going home."

"No, don't!"

They all shouted, and the pale giant was taken aback, and they pleaded for him to stay, they asked him where he was from. He pointed at the sky, and they knew that they had found what they had searched for.

The pale giant promised that he would visit soon, but he was nervous, and he told them to go home.

Every night the pale giant would stay in the woods he would find a new gift given to him, by one of the villagers. First, it was clothing, made too small, the lower half being the only part that fits. Next was a goat, for food, and dry corn.

The gifts increased in frequency, and the pale giant did not mind.

He did mind, until one day the gift was a young woman.

It was Naomi.

Naomi was dressed in fine jewelry and perfumes and told the pale giant that she was to be his wife if he would come back to the village and let them hear his voice one more time.

When the pale giant had arrived on Adamah he did not want a wife nor any earthly pleasure, but the longer he stayed, the more he wanted these things. He looked at Naomi, and said, "Why must I speak with people that would give up a beautiful woman just to hear me speak?"

She couldn't answer, and she looked at the ground, her brown hair covering her face, and her white garments draping her body. The pale giant said he could live with her in the forest if she pleased, or she could leave, and the choice was up to her.

So she stayed.

Every day the pale giant stayed on Adamah the more he worried that he would get in trouble for being away from home for so long. He left out of curiosity, but now it might be too late to return. So he put it out of his mind because he had more important things to worry about.

From the trees, he broke when he fell from the heavens he fashioned a home.

From mud from the nearby lake, he fashioned a kiln.

After a few years, a few children, and some complaints from his wife, they went to the village, because Naomi said their children needed to talk to other people.

The pale giant did not like how the villagers treated his children. They would follow from behind and whisper, sometimes touch their hair and skin without asking, and he would turn red with rage that they thought it okay to do such a thing.

They would ask them to sing and dance for them because the pale giant refused to do so, and they would sing, their voices beautiful, but not as beautiful as his.

So the pale giant refused to let his children go into the village any longer, and once a week he would go in himself, he would sing for the townspeople for money and food, so they would get what they needed and leave his children be.

It was how it went for many years, and many years went, and Naomi and the pale giant had many children, but the pale giant noticed something peculiar. Naomi began to wrinkle and get slower, while his children did the same, and he did not.

His children grew, and they stayed in the forest with him, refusing to leave, because wherever they went, people would follow, in a trance by their melodic voices. The pale giant himself wondered if Naomi loved him or his voice, but it had been so many years, it did not matter to ask.

Naomi died one night, and the pale giant, and all his brown and yellow-haired children buried her by the lake.

The youngest one did not take it well, because he had only been alive eight years, still clinging to his mother, especially in her final days, in her frail state. The pale giant was relieved when she died because every breath seemed painful, but it was not something he could explain to a child.

At night, as all his children slept inside the wooden house near the lake, streaks of white light danced across the sky, and the pale giant smiled, because Naomi told him it was what she saw the day he arrived, and he hoped that it was the same, that he would have his family come to visit, that they would forgive him for leaving and never coming to visit.

The pale giant could not sleep, his mind giddy at the thought of visitors, and he stood up, and gently placed his foot on the water. One step, two, he walked across the lake, the water splashing beneath his feet, never sinking through, and walked to the other side of the forest.

He told himself that if he were to stay up all night he should get some timber for the cold months because his children could become cold, yet he could not. So he walked around, and he found a few little things here and there, and he stopped when the air shifted.

He could smell smoke.

He ran from the forest, and through the trees, and saw the other side of the lake, on fire, the village on fire up the side of the mountain, his children being pulled out, one by one, unable to fight back, not a singular bad bone in their body.

He ran across the water, but they caught him, swooping down, their skeletal bones clattering in the wind, their bony fingers digging into him, and he fought as three of them held him down.

The giant pushed out his wings and pushed off one of them, but the other held him by his hair and pushed him into the water, the surface hard like stone, while the second, boney and tall, the skeletons laughing at his demise. The third returned, and pulled out a vial from his black robe and his skull clattered, passing his judgment over the screams of children and fire.

You cannot leave nor lie with man.

The pale giant struggled as the skeleton unscrewed the glass bottle, filled with red, sparkling fluid, and they poured it into his mouth, keeping his jaw open, but he struggled.

Make sure to get it all in or it might not work, one said.

I think it's working, the other replied.

It was because the pale giant started to sink through the water, his blessings all gone, and they let him go, and they flew off, cackling, back home, a job well done.

The pale giant struggled to shore, never once having swam in his life, and cried, as water spilled out of his mouth, and he crawled, gazing at his life taken from him because he dared to leave.

He stumbled upwards and ran towards what was left of his family, but there was nothing.

Nothing.

All of his children, all of the little and big heads Naomi had worked so hard to push out, and feed, all to soothe in the night, they were dead in the dirt, eyes open in shock, and the pale giant cried because he was alone.

With Naomi gone he told himself it was okay because he had his children.

There were two, and then one day three, and after many years nine, but now there was one.

The pale giant picked up the youngest of them all, and to his delight he is alive.

He struggled to breathe, his little body slashed all over his chest, and the pale giant cradled his son close to his body. He carried him away from the flames and towards the lake, which was now bright red.

The glass bottle floated in the distance, sparkling in the dark, and the giant sat on the shore, crying, holding his son, trying to make the pain lessen as he left. The cries became louder as his skin turned darker, and his tears became bloody, his hair rougher and darker, and now his dying son was consoling him, rubbing his face and holding him tight.

Bloody tears streaked his face as the flames approached them, and he entered the lake, afraid that it would take them both. The no longer pale giant held onto his son and decided that he would rather stay down below with him, to die together, because he didn't want to be alone ever again.