That night I stayed awake next to her.

The sea breathed with a slow, deep rhythm, as if it too were watching over its sleep. The moon illuminated its gigantic form, and for the first time since arriving on the island, I felt that I was not completely alone in the world.

During the following days I learned to take care of her.

I brought him coconut water, fished as much as I could, and lit large bonfires to scare away nocturnal animals. Each day he seemed to regain a little more strength. His eyes were no longer clouded by pain, and sometimes he even gave me a gentle smile that made the fear I had felt at first disappear completely.

On the fifth day we started to talk for real.

“What’s your name, little human?” he asked in a voice that made the sand vibrate beneath my feet.

—Matthew —I replied.

 

She closed her eyes for a moment, as if she were storing that name somewhere very deep inside.

—I am Aelira.

The name seemed ancient, almost as if it had been born before the mountains.

He told me that his people lived far from the paths of men, in places where the ocean was so deep it seemed to touch the sky upside down. Giants, he said, were not many. And with each generation, fewer were born.

“My son…” she whispered one afternoon, caressing her belly with a huge hand. “He is important.”

“Important to whom?” I asked.

She looked at me with a quiet sadness.

—For the balance of the world.

I didn’t fully understand his words, but I felt they were true.

The storm arrived on the seventh day.

It was not an ordinary storm.

The sky turned black before sunset, and the wind began to roar as if a thousand invisible beasts had awakened at once. The waves crashed against the rocks with a fury I had never seen.

Aelira slowly sat up.

She could already sit up, although she was still breathing with effort.

“They’ve come,” he said in a low voice.

-Who is it?

But then I saw them.

Three enormous shadows emerged from the sea.

They were not human.

They were giants like her… but different. Their bodies were covered in dark armor that looked like it was made of black coral. Their eyes shone with a cold, merciless light.

I felt a chill run down my spine.

One of them spoke with a deep voice that pierced the wind.

—Aelira. Give the child back.

She shook her head slowly.

-No.

The giant took a step forward, making the earth tremble.

—You know he cannot be born. His power will shatter the order.

Aelira placed a protective hand on her belly.

—It won’t break anything. It will bring a new beginning.

I was paralyzed among the rocks, feeling smaller than ever.

But at that moment she looked at me.

—Matthew.

Her voice was soft, almost like a caress.

—I need you to trust me.

I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t understand the world I belonged to. But after everything I had seen in those days… I nodded.

The other giants began to approach.

The wind was roaring.

The sea rose up like liquid mountains.

Then Aelira did something I will never forget.

He extended his hand towards me.

—Come.

I clumsily climbed up his arm until I was near his shoulder. From that height, the world seemed different. The storm, the ocean, the dark giants… everything looked gigantic and terrifying.

“Listen carefully,” he told me. “If anything happens to me, you must take him with you.”

—Take what?

But at that moment she let out a scream.

A deep, ancient cry.

A light began to shine around her belly.

The dark giants stopped.

“It’s too soon!” roared one of them.

The light grew, enveloping her entire body as if dawn had decided to be born in the midst of the storm.

I clung to her hair, unable to understand what was happening.

Then I felt it.

A heartbeat.

It wasn’t his.

It was someone else.

Smaller.

Faster.

The light focused on her arms.

And suddenly… I saw him.

A baby.

A tiny newborn giant, enveloped in a warm light like the sun over the calm sea.

Aelira held him with infinite tenderness.

But his face was pale.

Very pale.

“Matthew…” she whispered.

The dark giants were approaching again.

—You must protect him.

My heart stopped.

-I?

She looked at me with a sad and beautiful smile.

—Humans believe they are small… but their courage is greater than any giant.

She reached out and placed the baby in a makeshift cradle made from her robe.

The cradle… began to shrink.

Before my eyes, the child also began to change.

The light enveloped him until his size became… human.

A small sleeping baby.

The wind was screaming.

The giant enemies were advancing.

Aelira gathered her last bit of strength and lifted me in her palm next to the child.

“The world will need your heart someday,” he said.

Then he placed me in a cave among the rocks.

—Run when the sea calms down.

“Aelira!” I shouted.

But she was already getting up.

With a strength that seemed impossible, he walked towards the dark giants.

The storm was raging.

Lightning illuminated the sky.

The last image I have of her is her enormous silhouette against the raging ocean, defending something bigger than her own life.

The battle shook the island.

Rocks fell.

Giant waves crashed onto the coast.

I stayed there hugging the baby in the dark, trembling, waiting for it all to end.

When dawn arrived… the silence returned.

I left the cave.

The beach was devastated.

The sea was calm.

But Aelira was no longer there.

Nor the other giants.

I only found one thing in the sand.

A braid of her golden hair, shining in the sunlight.

I looked at the sleeping baby in my arms.

He was breathing calmly.

As if the world hadn’t changed.

But I knew the truth.

That island had not given me a simple survival story.

He had given me a promise.

And as I gazed at the endless horizon of the ocean… I understood something I will never forget.

Seven days earlier he had saved a giantess.

Now… I had to help raise the future of the world.