The Hidden

Chapter 5

        I woke to an uncomfortable tightness below my stomach, as good as staying tucked up in bed sounded, I couldn't ignore my full bladder. I opened my eyes to darkness, the only light offered was the small amount of moonlight peeking though the doorway. I guessed it was about an hour or so until the sun would rise Nobody in the clan usually woke up before dawn, sure enough my parents and siblings were all still fast asleep.

        With a quiet groan I reluctantly pulled myself out of my bed and then hurried out of the hut and out into the clearing. Though it was a couple weeks into summer and the days were quite warm, there was still a slight chill at night that made me eager to get back into bed.

        Though stumbling through the dark to the outhouse wasn't much fun, the nice part about going to use the outhouse when everyone else was sleeping was that there was no chance of having to wait. There were only two outhouse and between twenty-three people it wasn't unlikely to have both outhouses in use at once. This would mean I would have stand outside one of the outhouses dancing around with a full bladder until whoever was using it got out. There was much less chance of that at this hour.

        After hurrying to the nearest outhouse and then quickly using it, I began to make my way back to my hut. I was about halfway back when I heard it. At first I mistook it for thunder, it thudded and shook the ground a bit like thunder. But then I realized that it couldn't be thunder, thunder wasn't near that frequent. 

        I stopped in my track and stood there quietly, just listening and trying to make sense out of what that sound could be. I had lived in that clearing all my life, I was pretty familiar with all of the sounds of the animals and such. This did not sound like any animal I've heard of. 

        Then suddenly I began to make out...voices? How could that be possible, everyone was asleep, not to mention no one had a voice that was as loud as that. Before I could even process what that might mean, they appeared.

       They stepped into the clearing, two of them. They towered above me, massive in every way. Just one of their feet was bigger than the entirety of me, the entirety of them was several times bigger than me. And their hands, their hands were big enough to wrap completely around my body and probably strong enough to squeeze the life out of me. Where I stood on the ground, I would reach no higher than their ankle. Even when tilting my head fully back I could only see the underside of their chins. They were giants and I stood on the ground at their feet, too small even to notice without looking down.  

        An ice cold fear began to seep through my body, freezing me in place and forcing me to watch the horrifying sight before me. My heart thumped in my chest violently, I could feel my pulse beating spratically from my fingertips to my toes. I wanted to scream but all I could do was stare in fear.

        "Alright, I think this place looks good enough." One of the giant's thunderous voices said, hurting my ears with it's terrifying loudness.

        "Did we really have to hike through the woods for an hour before the sun is even up?" The other giant asked grumpily, his voice a bit less deep and just slightly less loud.

        "Oh come on Connor, this is the perfect spot and if we want to get the full four days worth of fun then we had to show up early." The giant who seemed to be older boomed.

        The seemingly younger giant didn't say anything but huffed in what was probably meant to be a quiet way, but to me sounded like a loud gust of wind blowing into my ear.

        "Let's go check the area out before we set up the tent." The older giant said as he set down several enormous bags and things down onto the ground with an earth shaking thud that sent me stumbling backwards several steps.

        "Yeah fine." The other giant said then he too set down several massive bags loudly.

        Then the two enormous men steppped out of the clearing and began walking further into the woods, each step ear achingly loud and slightly earth rattling. Only once they had disppeared out of my sight and their loud footsteps could no longer be heard did I move. 

        I couldn't see my own reflection, but I could feel the terrified expression etched onto my face. My entire body was shaking and I felt as cold as if I had stood in the snow for twenty minutes. My breath was ragged and my heartbeat was going crazy. 

        "H-holy shit." I breathed as my hand went to my forehead shakily.

        My entire life I had been told of how horrible humans were, told that there was a good reason the hidden had left the human houses and fled to the forests. Humans were nothing but bad news, they were dangerous in every way. I had been told so many things about humans, I knew how awful they were. I had always figured that I was safe, far far away from human civilization, that I would never have to worry about them. But yet here two massive humans were, the first humans I had seen in my life. 

        After a moment of standing in utter shock, I managed to get myself moving enough to stumbled back the rest of the way to my hut. I burst in through the doorway and saw my family standing together in the middle of the room, looking the way I felt. I knew they already knew, but the word came out anyways, in a cold murmur. 

        "Humans."