They whisper of Jack, a miser, his mother a specter of famine in the night. They say he swapped his cow for tatters, but these are mere whispers of fact.
Jack did not leave the cattle; he disembowelled it, cutting its pale flesh with twisted runes, presenting the steaming entrails to the wizened old man who huddled in the alley, his grin a slash containing jagged teeth.
In exchange, the old demon provided him with seeds, black orbs pulsating with evil rhythm. 'Plant them in flesh,' he rasped, his voice a cold wind.
'Climb, and take the abyss.' So Jack sowed the seeds in the rotting body of a beggar.
The ground convulsed, the heavens raged.
Then, from the depths sprouted a giant beanstalk, a writhing, bone-white abomination, twisted vines crawling as if from a lunatic's fever dream, each leaf buzzing black prayers known to the mad alone.
With a heart steeled by madness, Jack climbed without fear.
No haven waited at the top. It was ageless. Still. Chill. A realm of stark spires and shattered stone drowned in an everlasting ocean of vapour.
The wind howled ghostly cradle songs, mournful cries of lost spirits.
And the Giant… was the last of his wretched kin. A lurching brute draped in tendrils of moss, his own skin stitched by the hand of time and solitude.
He cared for cursed geese and harps that played dirges for the dead. He talked to dying flowers. He grieved.
He sensed Jack's approach long before his face materialized out of the darkness.
And at the sight of Jack, the Giant wept bitterly.
For he knew the shadow that loomed.
Jack smiled with blackened teeth and blinkless eyes. He arrived with a cleaver that was rusty and a rope that was braided with human hair. He did not ask questions. He did not wait.
He chopped.
The Giant begged. Voice trembling like a storm on its deathbed. But Jack merely giggled.
"Fee. Fi. Foe. F* you."
He hamstringmed the Giant first, slicing tendons as big as tree trunks. The shriek broke windows everywhere in the sky. Birds fell from the clouds. The harp wailed in lament.
Then the geese. Jack wrung their necks one after another, laughing as they spilled golden yolk like liquid gold.
He didn't want riches. Not really.
He wanted pieces.
They cut out the Giant's heart while it was still beating. Jack held it aloft as mist turned red and rained the sky kingdom. He kept the bones — ground them into dust and snorted them like ashes. Said they gave him visions.
He fed the harp to itself, string by string, until it sang no more.
The Giant was left alive… barely.
Cauterized. Paralyzed. Suspended by his own veins from the highest spire.
Jack etched words into his skin over the years, layer by layer:
"I climbed. I saw. I conquered."
Jack descended the beanstalk, covered in glory and gold, singing songs of conquest.
He became a legend — the boy who slew a monster.
Children read about his bravery. Mothers named their sons after him. The sky, which had been full of whispers, fell silent.
But up there…
The Giant was still alive.
Hung in chains of harp string and sorrow, he gently rocked in the wind. His blood had congealed to frescoes on the walls, stories no one would ever read.
He hadn't screamed in days. Not since the death rattle of the harp. Not since the final goose quieted.
Now, he whispered to the flowers, but none bloomed any longer.
He whispered his brothers' names, his family's names, the names of the songs they used to sing when the sky was still blue and the clouds did not taste of ash.
And sometimes… in his delirium… he whispered Jack's name.
Not in anger.
But in sadness.
He didn't hate Jack. Not really.
Because monsters don't weep for their killers.
Only humans do.
And the Giant was the last of his kind.
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Poor guy...
Anyways, add to collection if you like this book, pls gib powerstones, Bye!