The ground beneath Santa Elena de Uairén had always trembled softly. It was a low murmur the old ones claimed was the mountains dreaming.
Mateo, tracing patterns in the condensation on his glass of chicha, had never paid it much mind. It felt like just the way things were, similar to the oppressive midday heat or the calls of toucans from the nearby Gran Sabana.
But the dreaming had become restless.
It started subtly. A deeper vibration during the night rattled windowpanes, a tremor strong enough to slosh water from a cup. Objects on shelves shifted.
People joked nervously, blaming minor earthquakes, shoddy construction. Mateo felt it in his bones, though, a wrongness that prickled the back of his neck.
His grandmother, Abuela Rosa, crossed herself whenever the house shuddered. "Los Gigantes Perezosos," she'd whisper, her eyes wide, staring towards the hazy silhouettes of the ancient tepuis that dominated the horizon. "They stir in their sleep."
Mateo usually dismissed her talk of 'Lazy Giants' – mountains that were supposedly colossal beings turned to stone millennia ago – as folklore, tales to frighten children. Now, the stories felt less like myth and more like a forgotten warning.
News reports were fragmented, confused. Strange seismic readings globally surfaced, centered not on fault lines, but on areas known for unique geological formations – plateaus, mesas, specific mountain ranges.
In Norway, a fjord's shape had reportedly altered overnight. In Australia, Ayers Rock, Uluru, was said to have… shifted. Governments issued calming statements, citing natural phenomena, but the internet buzzed with panicked speculation and grainy footage of impossible things.
"It's nonsense, Mateo," his father, Ricardo, declared one evening. He slammed his fist on the table as another tremor shook the cutlery. "Media hysteria. Shifting earth, that's all." But his voice lacked its usual conviction. His eyes kept darting towards the window, towards the looming presence of Roraima and Kukenán tepuis.
Mateo went outside, needing air that didn't feel thick with unspoken fear. The night was unnervingly quiet between the rumbles. No insects chirped, no night birds called. Even the stray dogs were silent, huddled in doorways.
He looked up at the flat-topped mountains, immense black shapes against a star-dusted sky. Were they always that… defined? Did that shadow near Kukenán's base look different? He shivered, despite the warm air.
A low, grinding sound began, deeper than any tremor they'd felt before. It wasn't the earth shaking; it was the earth groaning. It resonated in Mateo's chest, a nauseating vibration that seemed to loosen his teeth. Dust rained down from the roof tiles.
Abuela Rosa started praying loudly inside, her voice trembling.
"Papa?" Mateo called, stepping back towards the doorway.
Ricardo appeared, his face pale. "Get inside. Now."
The grinding intensified, joined by a colossal cracking, like the world splitting open. The ground pitched violently. Mateo stumbled, catching himself on the doorframe.
He looked towards the mountains again, and his breath hitched.
Against the slightly less black sky, the silhouette of Kukenán was changing. Slowly, impossibly, a section of the cliff face was detaching, rising. It wasn't rockfall. It was movement. Purposeful.
An immense shoulder of stone and earth shrugged off the millennia, shedding rock and vegetation like dust.
"Dios mío," Ricardo breathed. He pulled Mateo inside and slammed the door, as if the flimsy wood could hold back the impossible.
Panic erupted in the town. Shouts, screams, the roar of engines as people attempted to flee filled the air. But the roads were already buckling, splitting open.
The power grid failed, plunging Santa Elena into absolute darkness. This blackness was broken only by the frantic beams of flashlights and the terrifying, moon-obscuring silhouette that was now visibly separating itself from the tepui.
It rose higher, impossibly high. Trees cascaded from its surface, ancient forests torn apart. Waterfalls that had flowed for eons became mere trickles down its moving form.
It took a step.
The impact shook the entire region. Houses closer to the base of the mountain simply disintegrated. The sound was apocalyptic, a physical blow that knocked Mateo and his father off their feet. Abuela Rosa screamed, a raw sound of pure terror.
"We have to get out," Ricardo yelled, hauling Mateo up. "The cellar, maybe?"
"It won't hold!" Mateo shouted back over the continuous roar and the nearer sounds of buildings collapsing. "Look!" He pointed through the shattered window.
The giant, Kukenán reborn, took another step. It towered over everything, a being of stone, soil, and ancient trees, its 'head' lost in the low clouds it disturbed. Its form was vaguely humanoid but craggy, asymmetrical, terrifyingly real.
Where its foot landed, the earth compressed, buildings vanished into craters of pulverized debris. It wasn't malicious; it seemed utterly unaware, like a man stepping on an anthill.
"Abuela, come on!" Ricardo grabbed his mother's arm. She was frozen, staring, her prayers silenced by overwhelming awe and horror.
They stumbled out into the street, joining a terrified stream of people running blindly away from the advancing colossus. The air was choked with dust. The screams of the injured and the dying were barely audible over the giant's footsteps, each one a localized earthquake.
Mateo saw glimpses of horror – a crushed car, a hand reaching from rubble, a building folding in on itself.
Another giant was moving now. Roraima, the larger tepui, was also stirring. Its vast, flat top tilted, shedding debris the size of houses. Two of them. The legends hadn't mentioned specifics, only sleeping titans. Now they were awake.
"This way!" Ricardo pulled them down a side street, hoping to loop around the main path of destruction. They ran, stumbling over debris, their lungs burning.
Mateo risked a glance back. Kukenán hadn't followed them directly; it seemed to be heading northwest, towards the vast wilderness of the Sabana.
But Roraima… Roraima was moving south. Towards them. Towards the town center, towards the river, towards the only viable escape route.
They needed to cross the bridge over the Río Uairén. It was their only chance to get clear, to put distance between themselves and the impossible things reshaping their world. The sounds of Roraima's approach were different – heavier, slower, the grinding more profound.
The crowds converged near the bridge, a bottleneck of desperation. People pushed, shoved, fell. The structure groaned under the panicked weight and the continuous tremors. Mateo clung to Abuela Rosa's hand, Ricardo shielding them both as best he could.
"Almost there," Ricardo grunted, shoving someone aside who had stumbled in front of them. "Don't stop moving!"
Then came a sound unlike the others – a deep, resonant hum that vibrated not just the ground, but the very air. It grew rapidly louder, becoming a deafening roar.
People screamed, pointing not towards Roraima, but up.
Something vast blotted out the stars directly overhead. It wasn't stone. It looked… metallic? Sleek, impossibly large, gliding silently except for the low hum. It wasn't one of the tepui giants. It was something else entirely.
Lights flared from its underside – blindingly bright beams that swept across the panicked town, across the approaching form of Roraima. The giant paused in its stride, its colossal, indistinct head tilting upwards towards the new arrival.
For a moment, everything froze. The crowd on the bridge, the advancing stone titan, the silent thing in the sky. Mateo felt a strange sense of dissociation, watching the tableau of impossibility.
Then the lights from the aerial object focused on Roraima's upper section. The hum intensified to an unbearable pitch. A wave of energy, visible as a shimmering distortion, struck the giant.
Stone didn't explode; it disintegrated. Tonnes of ancient rock turned instantly to fine dust and superheated gas. Roraima staggered, a wound appearing on its mountainous torso, glowing incandescently.
It let out a sound, not a roar of pain, but something deeper, geological – the sound of a fault line rupturing, magnified a thousand times. It raised a titanic arm, not in attack, but seemingly in agony or confusion, striking its own chest near the wound.
The crowd surged again, driven by a new, alien terror. The bridge shuddered violently. Mateo felt Abuela Rosa's hand slip from his grasp.
"Abuela!" he screamed, turning, trying to push back against the flow.
He saw her face for a split second – confusion, fear – before she was swallowed by the panicked mass. "Papa! Abuela!"
Ricardo grabbed his arm, his face grim. "We can't reach her, Mateo! We have to go!"
"No!" Mateo fought against his father's grip, desperation making him strong. He saw a gap, tried to plunge back in.
Then the bridge gave way. Not from Roraima's proximity, but from the sheer weight and panic. A sickening groan of metal, a sharp crack, and the section ahead of them tilted, dropping downwards. People screamed as they tumbled into the dark water and debris below.
Ricardo yanked Mateo back from the edge just as the pavement crumbled beneath where they'd stood. They were trapped on the collapsing structure, the gap widening between them and the relative safety of the far bank.
Below, the river churned. Above, the unknown vessel continued its silent, devastating assault on the wounded giant.
Roraima, unbelievably, turned. It ignored the aerial attacker. It ignored the town it was crushing. It lumbered towards the collapsing bridge, towards the river. Maybe it sought water to cool its wound, maybe it saw the fleeing humans, maybe it simply didn't care.
Its shadow fell over them. Mateo looked up, up into the craggy, indifferent face miles above. It wasn't a face in the human sense, just contours of rock that suggested immense age and utter lack of comprehension.
It raised its colossal foot.
"Jump!" Ricardo screamed, shoving Mateo towards the railing, towards the churning water far below. "Jump now!"
Mateo hesitated, frozen by the scale of impending death. The foot descended, blotting out the sky, blotting out the silent vessel, blotting out everything.
Ricardo didn't wait. With a desperate roar, he shoved Mateo with all his strength. Mateo felt himself tip over the edge, the roar of the giant and the shriek of tearing metal filling his ears.
He saw his father's face for a final instant, etched with terror and resolve, before Ricardo was engulfed by the descending shadow.
Mateo hit the water hard, the impact knocking the wind out of him. Cold shock jolted him alert. He surfaced, gasping, amidst debris and struggling bodies. The noise was overwhelming – the giant's impact, the water, the screams.
He looked back just as Roraima's foot obliterated the remainder of the bridge, sending a massive wave outwards.
The wave caught him, tossing him like driftwood, pulling him under. He fought for air, swallowing filthy water, his limbs battered by debris. He surfaced again, further downstream, coughing violently.
The town was gone, replaced by the silhouette of the giant standing knee-deep in the widened river. It ignored the vessel still occasionally firing into its back. Kukenán was a distant shape, moving away.
He'd lost his father. He'd lost Abuela. He'd lost his home.
Days blurred into a nightmare. Mateo drifted, clinging to wreckage, sometimes finding small pockets of survivors huddled on islands of debris or patches of high ground.
They shared scraps of information gleaned from crackling radios before the batteries died. The giants were everywhere. Not just Roraima and Kukenán.
Reports spoke of the Andes cracking open, mountains in Scotland walking, Ayers Rock sliding across the desert, the dormant volcanoes of Hawaii erupting not with lava, but with titanic forms.
They were reshaping continents. Their movements caused tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions unrelated to their own substance.
The aerial objects, dubbed 'Sentinels' by fragmented broadcasts, were also global. They attacked the giants with devastating effect, but their methods were indiscriminate. Cities were vaporized in the crossfire.
Millions died not from the giants, but from their supposed countermeasure. No one knew who controlled the Sentinels or why they were only intervening now. Humanity was caught between indifferent titans and silent, equally destructive, saviors.
Mateo eventually washed ashore hundreds of kilometers downriver, deep in the sparsely populated interior. He was alone, emaciated, covered in infected wounds, his mind scarred by the things he'd seen.
He stumbled through the devastated landscape, past the colossal footprints left by the giants, past the glassy craters left by the Sentinels.
He found shelter in a cave system exposed by one of the giant's passing tremors. It was damp, dark, but relatively safe. He scavenged what he could – edible roots, trapped rainwater, the meager supplies left by others who had passed through and perhaps perished further on.
He lost track of time. Days were marked only by the distant rumbles of the giants and the occasional, terrifying hum of a Sentinel passing overhead.
His leg wound festered. Fever took hold, bringing vivid nightmares: Roraima's foot descending, his father's face, Abuela swallowed by the crowd. He drifted in and out of consciousness. He knew he was dying.
One lucid morning, weak sunlight filtered into the cave entrance. Mateo dragged himself towards it, needing to see the sky one last time.
The air felt different. Quieter. The constant background tremor of giant movement was absent. Had they stopped? Moved on? Been destroyed?
He crawled out onto a ledge overlooking a vast, swampy plain created by the giants' disruption of waterways. The landscape was alien, broken. But the quiet… the quiet was profound.
Then he saw it. Partially submerged in the swampy water, miles away but still immense, was a hand. A colossal hand made of stone and earth, five fingers half-curled, lying still.
Further off, a shoulder and part of a torso formed a new range of hills. It was a giant, fallen. Killed, perhaps, by the Sentinels, or maybe it had just… stopped.
Mateo stared. He felt no triumph, no relief. Just a vast, hollow emptiness. His family was gone, his world destroyed, his own life ending in a forgotten cave.
As he watched, something moved on the back of the fallen giant's hand. Small figures, tiny against the scale of the stone fingers. People. Survivors.
They were clambering over the knuckles, exploring the fallen titan, perhaps seeking resources or a vantage point.
Hope? No, not hope. A different feeling bloomed in Mateo's chest, something cold and sharp. He watched the tiny figures scavenge the corpse of the thing that had indirectly destroyed his life.
He thought of his father's final shove, the desperate bid for his survival. For this? To die alone in a cave, watching insects crawl over a dead god?
He started to laugh. It began as a weak chuckle, then grew louder, raspier, fueled by fever and despair. It echoed strangely in the unnatural quiet.
The figures on the giant hand paused, perhaps hearing the distant sound, before resuming their scavenging.
Mateo laughed until he coughed, blood speckling his lips. He laughed at the absurdity, the futility, the sheer, indifferent cruelty of it all. His father had saved him, only for him to end here, unseen, unheard, a forgotten casualty in a war between mountains and machines.
His vision began to blur. The laughter subsided into ragged gasps. He lay back against the cool cave rock, the image of the tiny figures on the giant's hand swimming in his sight.
They looked like ants. Ants on a rock. That's all they were. That's all he was.
His last conscious thought wasn't of fear, or sadness, or anger. It was a single, chilling realization: The giants weren't the true horror. The Sentinels weren't the true horror.
The horror was the utter meaninglessness of it all. The cosmic indifference that allowed mountains to walk and worlds to break, while tiny lives like his were simply… erased.
He closed his eyes. The faint sound of his own breathing faded into the immense, empty quiet of the newly broken world. The fever took him, alone on the ledge, a final, unheard whisper in the vast silence left behind by the Lazy Giants.