Long ago, before the Earth was dominated by humanity, before dinosaurs even, before the continents as we know them formed, there was a race of giants who existed on the planet as Earth’s dominant species.
We will call them the First People as they have come to be known by the few humans aware of their existence. The First People no longer exist, but because they survived the evolution of the planet over it’s long ages in small bands across the continents, they managed to mingle with early humans, ensuring that humanity carried on their genealogical record in the DNA of some humans who descended from them.
In early humanity, after Ssi seized control of his tribe of humans from the extraordinary woman called Mou that he killed, giants were mostly thought of as an urban legend, a story parents told their children to keep them from wandering off.
Tati was a mother in this time. She had a son whom she watched over carefully. She called him Tot and when he was about ten years old, a man in the tribe called Daa took him on a long range hunting trip with other adult males who tracked big animals that gave lots of meat and fur for clothing. Daa cared very deeply for Tati and when he wasn’t hunting big game with the other hunters of his tribe, he would spend time with her. Tati was good at catching food from the water and she was an expert at creating tools that seemed to snatch up fish easier than a person could do by hand.
Daa was Tot’s father, though the two had not spent any time together before their trip. Tati wanted Tot to become a strong man like Daa and she asked him to take the boy.
The summer was over and the cold was just starting to set in. Nights could be brutally cold, and on one particularly cold and stormy night, the men of the hunting pack huddled close together in a cave to keep from freezing. Tot sat between Daa’s legs and he felt sheltered from the cold that made the men shiver around him; Tot was lulled to sleep inside the warmth and by the subtle movements. When he woke, it was still cold in the early morning, though the sky was dark as the same storm raged from the night before. Tot pushed against the weight of Daa who he assumed was asleep, but none of the men stirred as Tot pushed out of the huddle. They had all frozen in the cold and they had been unable to start a fire with any of the wet foliage nearby. Tot was sad, he had enjoyed his time with Daa and he was alone now, far from his mother and other people that he knew. Tot cried and sat at the mouth of the cave as lighting raged in the early morning.
Tot was startled from his tears by a sudden strike of lightning that was so bright he could not see. There was no sound, and in fact, Tot couldn’t hear anything at all; not the sound of thunder or the patter of the steady rain. The sky was still dark with clouds, but it seemed that the storm had stopped. Suddenly, a giant man appeared at the mouth of the cave and stood before Tot. The man seemed to glow and there were sparks of electricity jumping off of his body.
“There is one still alive,” the man said with a voice that sounded like two that spoke in unison.
Tot stood before the man as the sparks of white electricity rained down around him. He thought that he was looking up at a god who had arrived to save him. Tot smiled as the god approached him.
“Leave it,” the voices of the god said as it walked past Tot, “we must consume the bodies before there is no essence left.”
Tot watched in horror as the god swallowed the bodies of the dead men whole. When he was done, the god seemed displeased.
“If only we had tracked them sooner, they were strong.”
Then the god turned its attention to Tot.
“It’s so small. It must be a child of the village we consumed before. Grow big little one. We hope to see you again when you are able to give us significant energy.”
The god left the cave and then there was another blinding streak of lightning. It had disappeared and the storm raged again.
Tot was all alone again in the cave.
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