THE TALL ONES

I was told stories by my people about the tall ones, I never believed them, until i saw one. Tall skinny thin skin and eyes so dark your couldnt see your own reflection, they looked human but something about all of them was off, they werent giants, but they were taller than any human they were about 20 feet tall, and the shortest ones were at least 15 feet tall. When i saw the tall one i was about eight, i remember it was staring down at me like i was nothing more than a helpless bug, its eyes then jumped over to my parents, it grabbed them, one in each hand, and it took them, god knows were but there were rumors they were used for entertainment or to be worked till death told you to stop. I remember their screams, high pitched and terrified, i remember mine too, soft and scared, but loud enough for my people to hear me and rush to my side but by the time they arrived the tall one had vanished leaving only a rotten smell of its flesh and an image of its face still engraved into my head. I sat there sobbing with my people, we had lost members of our tribe, and we had lost a part of family and lost a piece of hope. We went back to our huts mourning the loss of my parents. We started up a blazing fire to keep warm but the snow of the mountains refused to let it burn, as we sat near the fire fighting for it's warmth we listened to the roar of the wind, like the battle cry of nature getting ready to go to war, but as we listened closer I heard the roar of the tall ones and it sounded close. As i huddled close to the dying fire three men with spears of my tribe rushed out in to the forrest hoping to kill it. After minutes passed we hoped they would come back, but they never did. After about an hour had past we heard screams and roars but the men never returned. As the full bright moon passed over us daylight had finally showed her face, i woke up in my hut with two people sitting near a heating pot, it was my parents, "good morning son" said my father, "how was your rest" asked my mother, as i sat there puzzled wondering how my parents were there i heard a horn blow, and everything went dark, when i woke up there was no boiling pot, no parents, and no happiness. I walked out of my hut, only for my feet to be engulfed by the snow that rested upon the ground, it was wet, it felt sad. Winter had come, so I stepped back into my hut to put on more layers, so that the cold wouldn't bother me. I walked out the see my tribes people with sadness in their eyes but no expression on their face, they said they were going up into the burial hill and that i had to come, i asked what had happened, but by the time i finished asking i knew the answer, it was the tribes men that had went out to find the tall ones, but there was something else too, something unexpected, my parents, laying there, blood frozen to there face and tears frozen half way down their once warm cheek, I couldn't bare to look and turned my head. We had to carry the body up the snow engulfed hill,which was no easy task. As we walked up carrying the bodies I could only think about what I wanted upon the foul beasts that had taken the lives of my loving parents. As we reached the top of the hill, we found the graves of past members of our tribes, but we saw something unsettling, tears one of our members threw up upon the sight we saw, there was a brown rusted steel cross sitting in the middle of the burial ground. The cross was soaked in blood, and rope tying down body parts was fastened to the cross, they were the men that had went out, that had never come back. As we simply looked at the steel cross we stood still and not a single person had moved, about 30 seconds had passed and we were still standing when the silence broke "what sort of thing would do this, was it the tall ones" said john, "it couldn't have been, they are beasts not people, or at least not a person capable of this" relied robert. As a snow storm started to roll in we started to dig out two holes out of the snow where my parents would rest. We tried our best to untie the rope that held the body parts to the cross so we could also bury them, but the knots were to complex to simply untie, so we cut them, as we cut them down the parts dropped to the ground, the snow silencing the thud, the blood soon started to soak the snow, turning the snow red. The bodies must have been fresh because the blood was still warm as it melted the snow revealing grass and dirt underneath the thick snow. "Whatever tore these men apart, it must have done it recently" said robert. He dipped the tip of his fingers in the blood, but as soon as he dipped his finger he pulled it out, he screamed in pain, the blood was boiling hot, he jammed his finger in snow and steam followed out,he lifted his finger, only to see bone was revealed. As he stared in shock of his finger which bone was exposed he noticed a trail of blood leading to the other side of the hill "what the hell, were is the blood coming from" said Robert, "I'll check", said Jeremiah, Jeremiah walked along the trail of blood, he walked until it had stopped, it stopped into one big puddle, "come check this out" said Jeremiah, three men rushed over, they heard shivering coming from the snow, they started to dig, the snow was so cold their hands grew red and faded blue, they reached a solid surface, and it wasn't grass, it was a person. They uncovered the body after some more digging but the man under the snow wasn't trapped, he was being preserved. The man laid their shivering, half dead but still holding on. His stomach torn open with some organs missing. His face was pale blue and blood was frozen to his lips, they tried to get the man out of the hole, as they stood him up he walked a step before his intestines fell from his body, they splat into the snow and the snow was soaked in blood, the man collapsed, he was dead, his eyes were swollowed in blood and his pupils were torn, and his nose was missing. "Do you think he was being harvested" asked Robert, "probably, no normal person would do this" I replied, " no shit Eli, no Norma person would do this" said Eddie, Eli was my name, this was only the second time my name had been acknowledged in a while, here children were only here to be protected, just here to keep my tribe alive. The man was still laying lifless in the snow, we reburied the body just so we wouldn't have to keep staring at the lifless body. But suddenly we heard a load roar and footsteps crunching the snow coming closer to us. We hurried down the hill, running through the thick snow. But suddenly I tripped, and landed flat on my face, the cold snow numbed all the pain, when I got up my nose bled and my lip was pierced by my own tooth and the only thing I tasted was warm blood slowly cooling. And my ankle twisted almost backwards but the snow didn't numb my ankle, a large jolt of pain rushed up my ankle and I tried not to scream in hopes one of the tall one wouldn't hear me, I got up fast but my ankle couldn't hold my weight and I collapsed, one of my tribesmen ran towards me and carried me back to our huts. My ankle started to swell and became black and blue, I thought it was broke but I soon realized it was broken. I was made a splint for my ankle, a wooden stick was fastened to my ankle by cloth and some thin rope. Everything still hurt and my lip was still bleeding. I was told I needed stitches by one of the women from our tribe, she laid me down and grabbed a little needle and thread some stitching through the needle, she began to work. She pierced the needle through my lip which had been numbed by the cold, and she kept stitching my lip until it was stitched back together, at this point the cold had worn off, and I felt everything.