The aftermath

Molly

The land was desolate, void of life save for crows and mosquitos and other insects that feasted upon the destruction and death that the storm had brought. The authorities had closed entry roads to the affected areas. An investigation was obviously ongoing. There were officers back in the school campus, interviewing survivors who were only a few.

Malong, the Storm of Blood, they called it. It was in everybody's lips now. The typhoon that surpassed imagination and this world's reality.

Standing upon the tall bridge, Molly looked upon the landscape that stretched before her, eyes filled with indescribable hatred and loss. She confirmed it. None of the orphans or the sisters made it to the evacuation site. There was still no sign of Connie.

"It must have been terrible," Bill said, reminiscing Molly's story just the night before. Molly told him everything, unable to keep the intense emotions bottled up inside her. The experience. The way she barely made it alive. She wept as she told the story but she thought she finished it so it was okay.

"You sure about this?" Bill asked her.

Molly nodded. There was still a chance that Connie was still alive, no matter how slim. And so was Bill's family. She wanted to bet on that chance. She only had her time and life to lose anyway.

Near the bridge, the houses were intact; although they passed some houses whose roofs were torn off every now and then. As they progressed however, the scene entirely changed.

This was what the eye of the storm brought with it. Houses were pounded flat to the ground. Only ruins remained. The road was covered in bricks and stones and roofs that it was hard for Molly and Bill to advance.

"The giants," Bill whispered mostly to himself. Earlier, Bill said he waited inside an abandoned house, taking his chance with the giants. Lucky the eye never reached him. Because there was no chance to take. The monsters did not leave a thing standing.

Miles upon miles of ruins accompanied them on their journey. They were not sure what they intended to find out. In the camp, they found no survivor who laid eyes upon the giants personally. So the two of them agreed that the only way to gather clues was to go right to the crime scene. And of course, they were disappointed. The sun soon set, leaving them in darkness and they had no choice but to stop. Continuing with only their flashlights would pose great danger. The ground was laden with sharp and broken things. They had braved the worst of the storm, alive. They could not afford to die of a petty infected wound.

They found a clearing amid all the mess. It was a small playground. Surrounding it was a kindergarten that of course had been destroyed and a few houses that had suffered the same fate.

"This spot shall be fine," Bill decided. Molly gathered wood splinters while Bill set up the tent they got from the campus. They lit a fire to keep them warm and illuminated.

They bought enough canned foods to last them a week. She opened a tuna and wolfed it down hungrily. All the while, she could feel Bill gazing at her.

She awkwardly looked up at him.

Bill smiled, "Sorry. It's just that it's amazing. You still hold on to that hope."

Bill was dejected. Molly understood him. Their cases were utterly different.

Bill watched his mother get taken up high by the birds. Connie just disappeared from Molly's eyes. The possibility of them being alive was like tossing a twenty-faced die for Bill's mother and for Con, she felt it was more like a six-faced die.

"Honestly," Molly admitted, more to herself than to him, "I don't have anything else to do. If I will not be looking for him, what would..."

Long into the night, Billy put out some cards. "I got it from the rescue tent. Thought we could use it, to pass the time. Do you play?"

Molly shook her head. In the orphanage, gambling was prohibited. Cards were absolutely banned. And it was not like any kid could just have the resources to spend on a deck of cards. The game they played nearest to gambling was the pair of dice that were supposed to be used for the board games.

"Don't worry, I'll teach you."

In the morning, the fire had died down and a light rain fell. Bill undid their tent, and they went on.

The same scene greeted them. Not pretty soon, they passed by Molly's orphanage. If not for the steel gates and the felled sign, she would not have recognized it. Like all the buildings around it, it looked like it was pounded to the ground. Gone was the soft grass where they used to run around. It was all covered with debris and dust. Her room in the second floor where she could watch the sunset, it was nonexistent now. All the memories flooded into her, unbidden.

She did not say a word to Bill though, and kept her sudden longing to herself.

They were not sure what to look for or where to look. The second day was as fruitless. Well, they just jumped in on the wagon without a real plan. It was to be expected.

On the fourth day, even when the sun had retired, hesitant to stop, they trod on while the dusk still cast them with light. The stones and wood piled on top of each other, making it hard for them to advance. Finding a place to respite turned out to be way more difficult. They were after all inside the city proper now. They ended up setting up their tent in the middle of the street where a huge round structure stood undamaged. Under the light of their flashlights, it looked like a stone decorated with moss and flowers. In this godforsaken place, the mound of flowers appealed to Molly like a ray of hope.

"Here, for you," Bill said beside her. It was a dark purple flower he had picked.

Molly's cheeks flushed red but accepted it anyway, with the feigned grace of a timid lady.

Bill cleared up the ground while Molly set up the fire. It crackled into life, extending its warmth to her. After their dinner, they sat by the fire, quietly. On the basis of some unspoken understanding, Molly felt that it was alright to snuggle up to her companion. Bill was startled at first but he let her. She just laid her head on his arms, her stare fixed at the fire.

They were much closer now. They had shared their sadness and their troubles. They depended on each other for support. For Molly, Bill was the brother she did not have.

When they felt warm enough, they went to the tent they shared and played cards. Molly was getting better at it. She could judge which card to keep and which to throw. And for the very first time, she won against him. She had a hunch that Bill purposefully lost the match, but she reveled in her success nonetheless.

She woke up early. Bill was still sleeping soundly, his back to her. He had a nice brown hair, she thought in appreciation for the first time. And a great shape too. After spending days with him, she did not feel so weird having such thoughts.

She zipped open the tent very very slowly so as not to wake him. Silently, she crawled out. When she looked up, though, "Ahhhhh!" she shrieked.

Bill was behind her in just a second, his hair messy and lids heavy.

Huge hollow eyes stared sideways right at them. Turned out, the large boulder was the upper part of a large skull, no doubt a giant's. The lower jaw was missing.

Mysteriously, the storm had just been not even a week ago. Yet, the skull was entirely covered in green moss bearing purple flowers as if it had been there for years.

That could be a work of magic. They did not give it much thought. More mysterious was the fact that it died in the first place.

After going around the area, they soon found its bones, stacked up like a mound of earth where now moss grew with purple flowers too.

Who could have killed it? Of course, another giant. But why? Or what if it was another mystical creature altogether?

"All the other giants disappeared, but these bones remained?" Bill spoke, dragging out a bone from the mound which appears to be a part of the finger. Seconds after it was exposed to the light, moss grew at an astonishing speed, budding dark flowers.

Bill backed up a step in awe, letting go of it instantly.

"Magic. Someone could be preserving it and is intending to come back," Molly said, enthused in a spell.

Molly did not know the value of giant's bones to a magical entity but she felt that they were getting onto something.

"Then we can wait here."

It was very probable. That not all of the storm had vanished into thin air. If these bones remained, others may have remained too.

"Molly," Bill suddenly called. "Look." He was pointing at the ground.

"I don't see anything." It was just a pavement.

"The sand. It was right under our noses."

Molly then noticed it too. The sand formed lines on the ground, following the current of the flood. She had noticed it before on the day of the storm itself, that the flood - or the objects rather that floated - were not heading for the river. Or even downslope - she just realized now. They were being pulled by a much greater force than gravity.

They abandoned the bones and followed the sand - planning to come back to it at another time. At the end of the day just before the sun set, with breaths panting, they arrived where the lines of sand spiraled as if being sucked by a huge hole in a vast whirlpool. All around them, hills of green moss and small purple blossoms lay like a garden designed by the worst landscape artist. Molly could make out the shape of skulls, of rib bones and femurs. It was a great slaughter of giants. Someone did really kill them. They went around them, tracing the lines. In the middle of it all, at the very point where the lines converged, they came upon broken fragments of a shell.

"Eggshell," Bill deduced. Indeed, when put back together they would form an egg.

They looked brittle at first glance but actually had the texture of a strong metal. Judging from the size of the fragments, the egg was big enough for a newborn cow to fit in it.

Whatever it was, these giant killers were more important to her now.