As Miller ran through the forest, dodging the overgrown flora of the wild surrounding him, he finds himself running up a hill towards a high cliff. He leaps over an overgrown tree root. As quickly as lightning strikes, a huge arrow bolts past his right ear and jabs itself halfway into a tree.
“Sharp, but off base. You’d suck at the Olympics!” he yells mockingly and in a split second another arrow tears through his shirt over his left shoulder blade. “Need to keep low or I’m kebab on a stick”.
A few meters away the sound of drum beats gets increasingly louder and a wave of hoots, wails and cackles fills the background as Miller hastily makes his way to the cliff. While running and dodging the bullet-like arrows he approaches a pit of mud. In the momentum he is, he reaches out for his makeshift grappling hook crafted with a knife and wild vines and shoots it across the pit. He pretends to dive straight frontward and quickly tugs himself into swinging diagonally slightly tilting and then spiraling off the rope to land on the other side. He pulls himself up and notices his rope shot into half by oncoming arrows. “No looking back now” he says before shooting off into the direction of the cliff. With the vegetation lessening he finds himself mildly sprinting on relatively flatter ground.
Having made it past the thick forest, a rhino charges through the jungle from behind him with a horn so big it could punch holes through a concrete wall. The rhino boosts itself towards Miller and a millisecond before contact he dives to the right and rolls. The rhino gallops to the end of the cliff, turns around and takes an attacking stance, stamping and bellowing, exhaling audibly as though it had a massive booger in its nose that it were trying to get rid of.
“So we do this the old fashioned way then” says Miller and with no hesitation charges as he screams at the raging beast who is ready to impale him. In moments of approaching the rhino, time slows down. He starts to feel every drop of sweat on his body and can hear nothing but the fast paced rhythm of his heart beating like a locomotive chugging full steam ahead. The hullabaloo from the forest now a few meters away from him approaching him in full swing with their weapons. “This is it!” he thinks to himself as time starts to come back into its natural state and he recalls the entire episode of how he got caught up in this mess.
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“Miller! Its time for bed. Have you brushed your teeth?” said Miller’s mother Rosy Jones from the low lit kitchen as she washes the dishes. Her blonde hair tied in a bun with an apron around her waist over her jeans and a dark brown coloured t-shirt. She was rugged in every way possible, right from the manner in which she taught Miller to fish using only a stick, to the way she rode a Harley Davidson to work.
Every night she narrated one of her ‘adventures’ to Miller before tucking him into bed.
Miller brushed his teeth whilst excitedly, weaving ideas of what adventure his mother shall narrate to him tonight. The twelve year old blonde haired, adventure loving, mischievous child was a connoisseur of Ancient and Modern History. He read fiction in his spare time and leafed through Encyclopedias when he felt low. He didn’t have any friends as he loved to discuss intellectual topics that were too ‘boring’ for his peers and he was the apex at sports and could climb practically any pipe, wall or scaffolding with ease. He had a compulsive habit of climbing up to places where people would notice him and start pleading him to get down. His peers envied his guts and his achievements. Miller had grown to indulge himself in spending time with his family and in daydreaming when he wasn’t reading.
After brushing his teeth, he ran to his bed, eagerly waiting for his mother to tell him today’s bed time story.
His mother entered the room and sat on his bedside.
“Who is ready for today’s adventure?” she says tonally similar to how it is said at the beginning of any game show.
“I am! I am!” replies Miller raising his left arm to the sky.
“In a land far far away, was a village town of Gargantua. The inhabitants of this village were not ordinary people. They were giants who spanned from 10 to sometimes even 25 feet tall-” said his mother before getting interrupted by Miller.
“Did you actually visit this place? How did they look? Were they hygienic?”, Miller enquired excitedly.
“Mm-hmm. I did indeed” Rosy says, proudly.
“Go on, go on” Miller’s curiosity was inevitably peeked and peaking at this point.
”And so goes the lore of Rosy Jones…” continues Rosy.
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Miller was fast asleep, breathing deeply as Rosy tucked him in. She lightly places a kiss on his forehead and turned the lights off before leaving the room and closing the door behind her.
Miller heard the chirping of birds and felt the wind blowing against his face.
“It’s happening again” he thinks to himself. “I wonder if we’ll be sticking to the script this time”.
“Let’s do this” he said and his face lights up with sunshine. He wakes up and finds himself on his bed which isn’t unusual to him but his bed is now on the bark of a giant tree. The sun falling through a thick scaffolding of ginormous leaves and branches. The humidity of a tropical forest making him want to hop out of the dense sheets of his bed.
He takes a look at himself and lets out a sigh of relief “Isn’t this the outfit worn by park rangers? Pajamas, in a jungle. That would make this a nightmare”
Miller starts hiking downwards cautiously as he scouts for possible predators. On his way he gathers wild vines by cutting them off of overgrown weeds along the tree with a sharp knife that he found in his cargo pants. He reached the bottom, tired and thirsty. He follows the faint sound of trickling water. As he makes his way through the forest, he notices the fauna being ‘normal’ sized.
Miller finds the stream of water which is too shallow to be safe for drinking so he follows it further and discovers a water body at the end of it. The water body seems to be a sea or an ocean because it stretches endlessly. He scoops some to taste for salt and finds it to be sweet water.
While quenching his thirst, his focus is directed to his reflection in the water. His reflection appears to be that of a man in his 20s.
“I look just like Dad! As long as I’m still a bloke, I’m more than happy. The cool kids in school will never let me into the Boys’ Club if I have to confess being a girl. Mom’s the only girl that I have been able to understand” he said sheepishly.
“I wonder when these giants will show u-“
A giant head peeking into the water makes his heart beat out of his chest as the 15 feet tall behemoth grabs him and starts analyzing his scent by poking his nose into Miller’s underarms and sniffing his odour. His rugged hands delicately tossing him from one hand to the other, adjusting the loincloth around his waist which Miller was desperately hoping shouldn’t fall off.
The giant’s face was like a man and ape hybrid, with no hair but with a lot of scars on his cheeks as though he had gotten into a fist fight every day of his life.
“Hey buddy! Do you want to be friends? I won’t hurt you, I promise”
The giant tilts his head in confusion and lets out three brief grunts from his chest.
“Not very intelligent then-” he says and starts clapping his hands excitedly.
The giant responds to this with an excited laughter and tries to clap his hands excitedly.
“Ahhh. No! Stop! You’ll crush me!” Miller yells.
The giant steadies himself and looks at him mournfully. Then cheers up again and sprints into the forest laughing and slamming trees.
“It’s like I’m a baby’s favourite toy now. I wonder if those wretched girls treat their dolls like this. No wonder they invite nobody else”.
They passed several trees that had houses built on them. Some appeared smaller but were higher up while some appeared huge and were closer to the ground.
Miller was so fascinated by this spectacle of a tree village that he didn’t struggle at all.
After running for 15 minutes straight, the giant slowed down to catch his breath.
A giant jumps out of the trees and tackles the giant who is carrying Miller. Both monstrocities roll and crash into a tree. Miller gets thrown out of the giant’s hand. He lands on his back on a pile of enormous dried leaves.
More giants arrive at the scene while the giant that was carrying Miller wrestles with the giant that tackled him. Miller scurries across the pile of leaves in an attempt to hide in the bushes when a giant from the arriving horde grabs him by the shirt and picks him up.
These giants looked slightly different from the one that brought Miller here. Their faces weren’t wounded like Miller’s abductor.
Another giant picking Miller up grabs the attention of the wounded looking giant who shoves the giant grappling him and dives to snatch Miller back.
The wounded giant gets smacked across the face mid-air by another naked giant who arrives last and is covered in wild vines.
“This must be their alpha” Miller begins to deduce.
The alpha snatches Miller and takes a deep breath, “We….find…human” he says exasperatedly.
Miller looks him in the eye and says “Hi! I’m Miller”
“How dare human look up giant?” the alpha bellows angrily.
“I certainly cannot look down. You’re naked for God’s sake. The others seem to be wearing something. Is this an alpha thing y’all do?” Miller replies trying his best not to look down.
“There’s no need to be upset. Human…good!” Miller says, trying to reason with him hoping to gain his favour.
The wounded giant slowly stands up and grunts excitedly while pointing at Miller. He comes closer to take him from the alpha’s grasp and immediately gets sucker punched in the nose by the alpha. He falls flat on his back with a loud thump and starts wailing in pain.
The alpha gestures to the other giants and they begin kicking the wounded giant while he screams in dismay.
Miller gets furious at this and stabs the alpha’s hand with his knife. The alpha flinches and Miller takes his chance to escape. Hearing the alpha grunt, the other giants turn their attention to Miller. Miller dives between the giants’ legs as all of them stomp their feet to stop him dead in his tracks. Miller makes his way through to where the wounded giant lay and blows into his eye to bring him to consciousness.
The wounded giant wakes up kicking, screaming and waving his arms wildly in the air to protect him from the other giants.
“I know you’re one of them. But we can help each other” Miller says and stretches his arms out like a child would ask to be picked up.
The wounded giant takes quick notice, grabs Miller in one hand, punches another giant with the other, dodges a blow from another and shoots off into the thicket..
The alpha gets furious and begins hitting his subordinates in the back of the head while growling in rage.
“HUMAN…BAD” the alpha says with a loud bellow and gestures to his fellow giants to search in all directions.
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Miller and the wounded giant had fled a significant distant away from the hostile giants.
The sun was beginning to set and the leaves of the trees appeared to be a shade bright orange.
They had been running for the past 2 hours before finding themselves in secure territory and the wounded giant lay flat on the floor of the forest panting.
Miller gathers some firewood as the scenery gets darker. The giant quietly observes as Miller searches and examines pieces of wood for the fire.
He took a keen interest in what Miller was doing.
“You must be awfully lonely. Those scars on your face, they’re from getting bullied by the others, isn’t it? We aren’t very different, you and I.” Miller asks him.
The wounded giant makes a sad face and whines.
Miller knew he understood him. He couldn’t figure why he was picked on and couldn’t speak like the others.
The giant seats himself beside Miller as he tries to get a fire going.
A few minutes later, they see sparks and the wood starts to light up. The darkness that had now completely taken over makes the infant flame clearly visible.
Miller is soaked in sweat as he struggles to keep rubbing the wood together. Occasional drafts of wind help him cool down momentarily. The noises of owls hooting, crickets chirping, monkeys chattering fill the silence.
The wounded giant is fascinated at the sight of fire and claps excitedly as the flame gets bigger.
“It’s called fire. Do you like it? Let me teach you how to make a fire. It’s the least I can do for you after you saved my life” Miller said, knowing that this knowledge will lead to a progress of the giant’s civilization.
They spent the next few hours gathering wood and Miller taught the wounded giant how to get a fire going.
Luckily, the forest was enlarged as well and that made it easy to find wood suited to the giant’s size.
Miller wondered why the forest was giant sized but the animals weren’t:
“The giants have had their homes on these trees or tree tops for millennia, the trees must’ve been normally sized initially. But when the giants colonized the forest, they must’ve adapted to the giants living on them and started growing in stature to avoid breaking by their weight. Nature is awesome”
“I remember mother telling me that when she was here, she was introduced to a newly born giant that would be groomed to be the next leader of the tribe because of his superior traits at birth. Apparently, the larger a giant is, the more intellectually gifted it is. It works the other way around in my world. Such irony” Miller was speaking to the giant as he listened intently and understood what he said except for the last part.
The wounded giant freezes and locks his eyes over Miller’s head and lets out a short warning grunt. In a split second, a leopard pounces on Miller from a branch of the tree behind him. The giant reacts in an instant and grabs the wild cat by its belly mid-air. The leopard kicks and scratches at the giant’s hand and Miller crawls back in horror. The giant wails when the predator lands a deep scratch on his hand before slamming it to the ground and knocking it out with his strong rugged fist.
Miller slowly recovers as the trembling in his body makes his bones brittle. The wounded giant begins caressing the wound on his wrist. Miller goes up to him and climbs up his arm to see the damage. He notices an ‘X’ marked on the giant’s palm and exclaims “You’re the one! You were supposed to be groomed! That must be why you’re so young yet relatively much stronger and sharper. Mom told me that you were marked by her” Miller said.
She was forced to set their weapon supplies on fire and escape after a group of giants who were ostracized from their respective villages after they killed in bad blood staged a coup against this particular village by colluding with some jealous elders.
Rosy had told him nothing more about it because she had run away and didn’t know what had transpired after. Miller didn’t explain this to him because he felt that discovering this should be a part of his journey with his tribe.
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It were the early hours of the morning, Miller had barely slept. The wounded giant was snoring as Miller lay on the giant’s chest in fear of another wild animal jumping him from any direction. He lay there as the last few flames mildly roared in the silence and serenity of the morning. The sun was almost over the horizon, lighting the forest up once again. The cool mist of dew filled the air with the sounds of birds chirping.
Miller heard a faint cracking sound in the distance. The wounded giant woke up and sat up straight with a jolt. Miller got thrown off him.
He fell on his back and groaned.
“That’s the second time” he exclaimed.
The giant grunted with an angry expression and started whining.
Miller stood up and sensed his worry.
“Hey! You! Look at me! You’re the one supposed to be leading your people, or giants! So giant up, show a pair and claim what’s rightly yours” Miller said, encouragingly.
Miller takes a burning piece of wood “Use the fire to fight him. He can’t fight it if he doesn’t know what it is”
The giant takes a big log of wood, spits on it sufficiently to give it a bath, then takes the burning piece of wood from Miller and lights the log. The log lights up like the 4th of July. His spittle fuels the flame to a bright red colour. Raging flames emanate from the log.
“Not so dumb after all” Miller says with a smile.
“Where’s the nearest cliff or high point? I need to know” Miller asks him hurriedly.
The wounded giant doesn’t understand why but points to the East and gestures him to leave quickly.
“Thanks buddy. By the way, I’m Miller!” he says and starts pacing towards the direction of the rising sun.
The alpha giant arrives with a bow in his hand and a quiver strapped to his back and roars loudly.
A village worth of warrior giants run past them. Some of them try to knock the wounded giant but he grapples them and slams their heads against the trees rendering them unconscious. After the horde passes the two giants ready to face off, the alpha takes an arrow from his quiver and aims it at the wounded giant. In this short span of time, the wounded giant lifts the burning log of wood and pummels the alpha to the floor with it.
The flaming log leaves a burn mark on the alpha’s right cheek.
The wounded giant backs up. As the alpha stands up and steadies, the wounded giant unhooks his cloth and lets it drop.
The alpha growls loudly and says mockingly “ME…ALPHA…WHO…YOU?”
The wounded giant trying to form words for the first time says “Miller!”
Giant Miller raises his fists, the alpha steps forward and swings his right arm at him.
Giant Miller blocks it with his left arm, jabs him in the gut and trips him. Before the alpha touches the ground he grabs him by the waist and tosses him high up in the air.
As Miller is making his way to the cliff, he hears a loud cry and looks back to see the alpha falling from high above the trees “I missed the party” he says with a smile.
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He approaches the Rhino, steps perfectly on the horn and boosts himself up with the momentum to roll into a handless front flip across the full length of the rhino.
He lands and rolls to soften his fall, then runs toward the cliff and jumps off with his hands extended wide like an eagle.
Giant Miller runs out of the forest and onto the scene, knocks the rampaging rhino out of his path and looks over the cliff to see Miller’s back as he drops and lets out a loud mournful whine.
The giant’s shadow falls on Miller that Miller notices.
Miller turns around half way with his back facing gravity and says “Take care Alpha!” with a giant smile.
Giant Miller’s sad expression turns into excited grunts as he raises one arm to wave and screams “MILLER” bidding goodbye to his friend.
Miller notices Giant Miller not having a cloth around his waist and instantly regrets turning around.
A swirling mist covers Miller as he is free falling and Miller waves back to Giant Miller.
Miller closes his eyes and the mist engulfs him.
Miller opens his eyes to find himself back in bed and his alarm ringing.
Rosy peeps in through his bedroom door and says enthusiastically “Ready for school little Jones? Why are you dressed in your dad’s clothes?”
YOU ARE READING
Miller
FanfictionA set of short stories about a young boy Miller who has adventures at night after his mother puts him to bed, in magical lands and some reality. Does he actually have these adventures or dreams them? You should find out.
