"Huh!" He shouted, staring at his dried trousers. His voice echoed back—not from another person, but from the environment itself, as if the space around him had a voice of its own. The edges of his surroundings began to shift, forming into something like a cave, a cage… or a prison meant to trap a giant.
He sensed the vastness of the place, felt its immense length by how deep his voice had traveled before returning.
To reassure himself, he touched his thigh and ran his palm in a circular motion, hoping to feel a lingering drop of water.
But there was nothing. Even when he raised his palm to his nose, there was no smell. Relief filled him. Joy began to rise—yet shame still lingered, knowing the ridicule he might face if he returned.
Just as he imagined how others might treat him if he went back, something moved.
"WHAT THE FUCK…" His eyes widened. His lips parted as he followed the movement with frantic eyes.
"What is that… a creature? Or…" He leaned forward. "What! That's a human? The largest one I've ever seen…"
The moment he saw its head, fear replaced wonder. A man who once wished for death now desperately wanted to live.
With a slow turn of the creature's head, the entire atmosphere changed. Air vanished. In its place, a sharp metallic noise—like an old radio signal—pierced the silence.
The sound slammed into him with invisible force. He dropped to his knees, hands clamped over his ears, squeezing his head as though he could block it out through pain alone.
And then, just as suddenly, it stopped. As the creature turned its head away, the air returned to normal. The giant figure had shifted direction, now looking elsewhere. It was as if it had never existed—yet the pressure of its presence remained. Even the memory of locking eyes with it felt heavy, oppressive.
Still, he had no other choice. The only path forward was the one he stood on.
He turned, considering going back—but found the path behind him blocked. A colossal pillar, thick and impenetrable, now stood where the way had once been. It loomed close—too close. There was no way back.
Staring at its layered, monstrous surface, he cursed the light that had drawn him here.
"What kind of hellish thing is this…?" Why can't I even go back…? Am I here because I wished for death, or what!?"
He slammed his palm against the pillar, trying to break it, shake it, crush it.
But no matter how hard he struck, the pillar remained unmoved, untouched.
"I said it before, but… I'm not ready to start the journey of death…"
Tears poured down his cheeks—first one, then another, until they flowed freely. His breath grew unstable again. The air thickened. The silence swallowed everything.
Pam! Pam! Pam!
As he pounded the wall, he heard footsteps behind him—if they could be called that. They didn't sound human. They sounded like earthquakes.
Gravel bounced with each step. He pressed both palms to the pillar, pounding in desperation.
Pam! Pam! Pam!
After countless blows, his strength left him. His eyes closed, breath ragged, body trembling, as he braced for what came next.
He could smell death in the air.
"Chee… chee… chee…"
The radio-signal sound returned—three sharp rings, longer than before. Then came a low, guttural yearning from the creature behind him, as it released a swarm of small insects from its mouth.
"Tinnng… tinnng… tinnng…"
Their wings beat rapidly—so fast it was like light racing across galaxies.
They surrounded him, drawing close until there was no space left to flee. Slowly, cautiously, he turned.
But what he saw stunned him.
They weren't insects.
They were tiny dragons, with yellowish wings that shimmered in the dimness.
And strangely… their presence brought peace.
Even more peace than he had felt when he first encountered the tree.
His heart began to slow, calming from the frantic rhythm that had shaken him moments ago. Despite the peace brought by the dragons' unfurling wings—blazing like solar flares—the presence of the creature still lingered, a weight behind the calm. Yet as more dragons circled him, the metallic, radio-static noise began to fade, dissolving into the air like mist.
The dark corners around him made it impossible to spot the giant anymore. It had vanished the moment the dragons shielded him from view.
Then, something strange happened. One of the dragons drifted closer, hovering directly in front of his forehead.
At first, he remained still, observing. But in the back of his mind, he braced himself—ready for anything.
Now up close, he could see everything: the fine detail of its scales, the way its serpentine body curled in the air, and how its translucent yellow wings flapped with a rhythmic hum.
But something about this dragon was different.
It wasn't obvious when it flew among the swarm, but now that it was isolated—he saw it clearly.
"Why does it have three different colors?" he whispered, narrowing his eyes.
He turned his head to glance back at the other dragons—and the lone dragon mimicked his movement, turning as he did.
"Wait… does it have three tails?"
His eyes widened. He staggered slightly, realization flooding in.
All the tiny dragons turned towards one of the walls covered with thick darkness. It looked like they sensed something, were called by something, or knew something was there.
The direction they turned wasn't the same direction the giant creature had been; it was impossible for it to even move in that direction within a few minutes.
Oliver could sense the pressure in the atmosphere increasing. He knew something was watching him, listening to him, or even coming for him. For a while, he wasn't himself anymore; fear had tangled him like a stroke.
His body once again became rigid, stiff, or even glued to the surface of the pillar.
Then—
RRAAAGGHHHHHH!
A deep, guttural roar thundered from the shadows.
The exact direction the dragons turned was where the sound erupted from. It wasn't of the giant; it was something different, like a cry of a huge beast.
But what even made him force his body to be fused onto the pillar's ragged surface wasn't just the roaring sound, but rather, it was how some of the dragons fled.
About more than half the number of the dragons fled, leaving him with only about twenty, including the three-colored, three-tailed dragon, which had somehow been attached to him, mimicking every movement he made.