Chapter 1: Sleeping giants never did no harm

A young girl finds a giant statue deep into a forest. While she shouldn't be there to begin with, she's compelled to get close to it. After all, it's not like anything bad could happen to her, right?

For every action, a reaction

For every decision, a consequence

For every choice, an outcome

For every action, a reaction

Bearclaw Outskirts, Canada, August 15th, 2074.

She wasn’t supposed to be there, that far from the camp. Her father kept telling her it was dangerous, but for the longest time, she couldn’t quite understand why. That day, she finally did.

Huge. There were many various ways to describe the hole that stood in front of her. But in the mind of a 4-year-old, huge was all that could be mustered. 

She was scared. The massive crater that stood in front of her would’ve made most adults at the very least weary, let alone a child of her age. Yet, in spite of all better judgment, in spite of the fear that was spreading through her body, she pressed forward, curiosity setting the terror aside, taking the better of her. There was something in there, something in the middle of the nothingness surrounding her, a thing that stood out like a sore thumb. 

A statue? It looked like one, kind of. It didn’t look like any other statue she had ever seen, not that she had ever seen many statues before. Right in the center of that big hole stood this...thing, slouched on the ground as if it had fainted face down, or just suddenly fell asleep while on its feet, only to fall face first on the terrain. Her father did that when he got really tired. 

The more she got close, the more she noticed things: it looked more and more like a suit of armor, with metal plates covering its arms and legs, big as tree-stumps. Under the plates, she could notice bandages as if they were there to keep the stone that lied under the steel from falling apart. She took notice of the hands, as they only had three fingers each, which she thought was weird, people have five fingers! The back was not adorned with such metal, exposing its rocky back, covered in spikes, bigger on the shoulders and getting smaller on the lower back. 

It looked huge, but also innocuous. No signs of life seemed to be left, not that a statue was supposed to be alive in the first place. With that notion in mind, the little girl felt emboldened, enough to take a nearby stick and, with the childish innocence of a kid her age, started poking the sides of the giant. One, two, three, four...by the sixth she was convinced that whatever laid at her feet was dead and that she could now take credit for having vanquished such a beast. Stick in hand, she roared in victory at the defeated foe, posing around and flaunting her red pigtails as if she was surrounded by admirers. She then climbed off the statue’s back, holding on for dear life on its spikes. It was at that moment that it started moving. Slowly, but still fast enough to throw her off balance and make her fall on the ground.

It started to get up. Hunched over, slowly getting to its feet, making the child realize it was far bigger than she had expected. She backed away slowly, as to not make her presence known, but it was not enough: soon as the creature was fully on its feet, its size casting a shadow over the girl, who, scared like a lamb surrounded by wolves, was trying to move as cautiously as possible, so as to not attract attention on her. In spite of her best efforts, the stone monstrosity turned and glanced directly at her. Its face was covered by what appeared to be a sharp cornered metal helmet, its jaw reminding the little lamb of one of the bear-traps she saw at home. She couldn’t see any real facial feature on it, except for two angular holes where the eyes should’ve been, flickering with cyan light.

It just stood there, inquisitively looking at the small human in front of it. The stress eventually got too unbearable for her, who eventually started loudly crying. The statue, completely taken off guard, got on his knees and lunged at the child, grabbing her by the arms and lifting her up, scared as much as the girl was.

-“Oh my goodness how do you stop this thing?!” 

-“Put me down, you monster!” cried the child, desperate and fearing for her life. What she didn’t expect to happen was for her wish to be fulfilled, as she was gently put on the ground. Still teary-eyed, she saw the “monster”, as she called it, still on its knees, trying to figure out how to approach the situation, because it was probably even more confused than she was. Much like it did before, curiosity had taken the place of terror in the little girl, who, after wiping her tears away, mustered enough strength to ask a simple question:

-“You’re not going to hurt me?”

-“Should I?” was its immediate, confused response.

-”Of course not, you big dummy!”

-”I’m sorry, I didn’t want to scare you!”

-”Well you shouldn’t have been so scary!” she shouted as if she hadn’t been crying for dear life just a few moments before, crossing her arms and making an angry face, which was her way to show how menacing she could be, as much as a 4-year-old could, anyways. Her expression quickly changed when she saw the rocky being’s own reaction: it looked at its own hands for a moment, then fixed his gaze on the ground; its face didn’t change expression, but there was an aura of sadness in its actions.

-”Am I…Scary?”

-”Hey, you’re not that scary, really. You’re just… Really big is all. You look like you were sleeping, I didn’t know statues needed to sleep.”

-”Statue?”

-”Yeah. You’re a big statue, right? You’re made of rock!”

-”I...I think so?”

Now the little redhead was puzzled: if the stone-man didn’t know what it was, then how was she supposed to know? But whatever it was, it didn’t pose a threat to her, so she decided to finally introduce herself, extending her hand towards the giant, who, in turn, slowly and instinctively did the same. The girl took one of its fingers with her hand and vigorously shook it, mimicking what she saw her dad doing with other adults, her icy blue eyes glimmering with pride.

-”My name is Lilith Lefebvre, daughter of David Lefebvre, chieftain of Bearclaw Camp!”

-”Bearclaw Camp?”

-”Yes! The biggest Outcast camp in Canada! That’s what my dad says, anyways… Do you have a dad?”

-”I...Guess…?”

 There didn’t seem to be anything to be found by talking to the giant, no matter how hard Lilith had tried to communicate with it. Looking up in the sky, giving a small frustrated sigh, she eventually had an idea.

-”There’s an Overseer at the camp, he’ll help! Come on, follow me!” She said, grabbing his finger and starting marching out of the crater. The stone-man, with no real choice, started following the jumpy redhead.

-”And from now on, your name’s Rocky!”

***

Author's Note

This is chapter one. Bit short, I realize that. A friend that viewed this for the first time told me to trim it and separate what initially was a full chapter into smaller ones. Chapter 2 will be added soon. I appreciate any and all criticism, so please don't fear being honest with your opinions.