CHAPTER 1
Her fingertips dabbed the corners of her red eyes. Tired of the modesty, she quickly rubs at her eyes with the bottom of her calloused hands.
“The Hope failed us”
She gave a quiet smile. Which he replied with an honest one, but she directed it towards her family members.
“Yet thee didst it, and that is all that matters”
The Polished man said.
The mother curled upon herself on her seat. She cried again.
“Why? Why is that all thou say? Doth thou hast a heart?”
She screamed as she shook and tossed herself within her seat.
“What thee didst to those titans, was for the betterment of thy faith”
He continued.
“Fret not, beloved, thy faith hath waivered ‘ere”
“The Hope saves us all”
So the family returned to their ruins and drew their deceased family's blood unto their hands, and painted the Kostienki cave walls.
The mother could not bring herself to perform the ritual. For she could not stand to see the still face of her child decorated in his own blood.
“Mother, I wish The Polished to perform the services”
Her daughter requested.
“Wherefore? I shall put him out”
Soli, her ‘father’ sneered.
“Why is that?”
The daughter winced at him just before
Great uncle gathered with them in front of the cave.
“The Polished doth not know aught! And Soli, where would thou put him out? To the barren white fields?”
Great uncle huffed.
The family all stood in a neat line. Facing the bleak snow mountains shrouding their demolished homes at the Kostienki anters rather than each other.
“Wherever, For it shan't be here”
Soli mumbled his reply.
“Let us take a census!”
The mother’s sister-in-law cried in an embarrassing volume, but it broke the tension as intended. She stepped out of the line and faced them all quickly.
“Of the dead or of the alive?”
Furtu, the daughter, asked.
“Both”
The sister-in-law said in her normal tone.
“My son is alive, do not mention him in the census of the dead”
The mother said sternly.
All of them faced her.
“Thou art delusional, and I shall note it to all of The Polished Cursy. That they fix thee, and grant thy The Hope”
Great uncle turned away from her.
Great uncle seemed to have a bias to his religious views more than the health of his children.
“Of course, thine of the same bloodline, for both art deluded”
Jiop, mother’s sister-in-law, frowned at the two. For they never get along and distract others from the topics at hand.
And so she continued.
“Kuji, is thy son a carrion? Nay, for he is a dead child. Agnize it”
She squatted down and hugged herself tight. For she struggles to accept that she will never feel the warmth of her son in her arms again.
—-
17. Only 17 had survived of the knowledgeable Kosti tribe. The damaged buildings were unrepairable, the families unable to receive an equitable reward for their dead members.
And stone tablets of their legacies were broken. Lucky for them, some were saved on the cave walls.
The titan had come from the west of the town and collapsed onto it.
ScreechingFrailing its body around the structures to only be tangled in it. That’s how Kostian had learned something new from the event. Somehow, titans are fragile. The abnormally large cannibal flung its arm and hit a building for it to only snap as quickly as a small child would have if they stepped on twig. Somehow, the titans exchanged their precision and speed with durability and great strength.
Many died from the sudden attack, but more by being trapped in the fire to kill the creature.
The loud screeching of the creature as it slowly immobilized itself, was not what saddened them the most. Moreover, it was the lost information the Kostian spent years on learning for the intention of passing it on… with their families.
“Look, Tyur, yea the titan dislikes thee!” A cater-cousin of the Tyur jokes, as he points to a lonesome eye of the titan. Staring at Tyur.
“‘Tis a marry lad then”
Tyur contourted.
The thing that caused the fire was the beastly figure conspicuously hidden in the rubble. The titan.
The very monster the young boy agnited to end that resulted in the child’s unfortunate death.
“Yea hence lies the bodies of 122, hence 17 scruffled their lives from the enveloping rubbish. Most of the rubbish belike the limbs of the comptible titan…” The Polished woman recited from the small paper in her hand.
The family of survivors were 7. Great uncle, the father of Kuji. Kuji, and Soli are a married couple who begot a now deceased Niyue, their son and adopted daughter, Furtu. Then you have Jiop, who lost her husband in the fire, but is the sister-in-law of Kuji. Finally, there is sweet little Tyur and his close cousin Miqa; Their parents had died in the fire.
“...Your deaths, in this special case, remind us on why we go to our Fixer, and Reminder, The Hope–” The Polished woman was going to finish her closing statements until they heard a loud thudding sound.
The sound grew increasingly until it suddenly stopped.
“‘Tis a titan?”
“Ay, ‘tis a titan”
“Be silent”
Now, the titans are not anything truly frightening. For they are hominids, just like them. However, their size is 300 feet tall and 150 feet wide. Their skin is pale and sagged to their thinned bones. Their hair is withered and extremely long. They eat anything that moves. Their teeth are jagged and wide, so much so it cannot fit their own mouth. They live forever.
Large and bloodied of both their own and their prey for no reason since they seem to be so fragile and quiet.
However…
If you are silent.
If you do not move.
If you have it contained and set on fire, you will be fine.
But, sometimes I wonder… What if our thoughts mattered?
FOOTNOTES:
ay - yes
cater-cousin - close cousin
yea - even
marry - a mild curse word; in this context it is used as a joking phrase than a curse
hence - from here
comptible - sensitive
agnize - acknowledge
carrion - a living carcass
nay - no
cursy - an organization or missionary
aught - anything
wherefore - why
Kostienki cave - an actual cave from the upper paleolilithic era
anters - cave
doth - does
dost - do
'tis - it is
shan't => shall not - should not
shall - should
nought - nothing
ariont - begone
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If Our Thoughts Mattered
Science FictionA speculative fiction thriller following a story of a re-imagined Paleolithic Era's family and tribe. Where the only now extinct monsters, were corrupt hominins turned into large cannibal beasts called titans. This is a on-going and frequently updat...
