I have traveled through time, across kingdoms long buried, and into realms forgotten by both men and gods.

But of all the lost civilizations I have witnessed, none have haunted me more than the land of the Giants.

They were not monsters, nor were they mere creatures of legend.

They were a people—mighty, ancient, wise beyond mortal understanding.

And I once walked among them.

I spoke their tongue.
I dined in their halls.
I stood at the feet of beings who could crush mountains with a single step.

But I also witnessed their fall.

And to this day, traveler…

I wonder if I was the cause of their doom.

The First Signs of the Forgotten Ones

The legends say the Giants were never real.

That they are merely stories, whispered by firelight to frighten children.

That they were myths, fabrications of ancient minds who mistook mountains for living beings.

But I know the truth.

Because I have seen their ruins.
Because I have heard their voices echo across time.
Because I once stood in the shadow of a Titan King.

And I remember the day I first set foot in their land.

The Journey to the Forbidden Peaks

It was in the Far North, beyond the reaches of mortal maps, where the world itself seemed untouched by time.

I had been following a trail of lost knowledge, seeking an ancient text that spoke of beings older than men, older than gods.

The clues led me to a mountain range so vast, so treacherous, that even the most daring explorers dared not cross it.

And yet, I climbed.

For days, I pressed on, through howling winds and blizzards so fierce they seemed to tear at the very fabric of existence.

And then—

I found it.

A gateway, carved into the very bones of the mountains.

A doorway so large, so impossibly vast, that no human could have built it.

No human could have passed through it.

But something had.

And on the threshold, in a script older than any language known to men, was a single word.

“Home.”

The City of Titans

I entered the gateway.

And beyond it, I found a city unlike any I had ever seen.

Not a ruin.

Not abandoned.

But alive.

Colossal towers pierced the heavens, their foundations carved into the very mountains themselves.

Bridges spanned across canyons, so vast that even the winds could not shake them.

Statues of beings taller than castles lined the streets, their faces eerily familiar, as if they had seen the passage of time itself and had chosen to watch rather than interfere.

And then, in the distance…

I saw them.

The Giants.

The First Encounter

There are no words in mortal tongues to describe the presence of a Giant.

They were not merely large.

They were immense, their bodies moving with a slowness that carried the weight of centuries.

They were not clumsy, nor brutish as men’s tales often depict them.

No.

They were graceful, their strides carrying a wisdom I could not comprehend.

And they saw me.

They knew I was there.

And yet, they did not see me as a threat.

They saw me as…

A visitor.

And that, traveler, was the moment I realized—

I was not the first human to walk these streets.

And I would not be the last.

The Language of Titans

I was led to their Hall of Kings, a structure so vast that I felt like an insect beneath its vaulted ceilings.

There, seated upon a throne carved from the very mountains, was their ruler—King Ormir the Endless.

He studied me with eyes like molten gold, his gaze ancient, deep, filled with the weight of a civilization that had long abandoned the world of men.

And then, he spoke.

Not in a tongue of men.

Not in the languages of elves or fae.

But in a voice so deep, so resonant, that it shook the marrow in my bones.

“You come to a place forgotten by time.”

“You walk in the land of the firstborn.”

“Tell me, Merlin of Men… why have you come?”

And for the first time in my long life, I struggled for words.

Because I did not know the answer.

The Giants’ Secret

The Giants were not like us.

They did not age as we did.

They did not war as we did.

And most importantly—

They did not belong to the same world as us.

For though they lived among the mountains, though their footprints scarred the earth, they were not meant to stay.

They were waiting.

For something.

For someone.

And though they never said it outright…

I feared that someone was me.

The Omen of the Falling Sky

It was on the third night that the visions came.

I saw fire raining from the heavens, swallowing their great halls in a storm of ruin.

I saw their king on his knees, his crown shattered at his feet.

I saw the last Giant standing alone, gazing at a world that had forgotten his name.

And I heard a voice—Ormir’s voice—speaking to me from the depths of time itself.

“You were meant to find us.”

“You were meant to remember.”

“Because when we are gone, Merlin… you will be the last one who knows we ever existed.”

And then, the world burned.

The Dream of the Giants

The Giants were not meant to last.

They knew this.

It was not war that threatened them, nor disease, nor the slow decay of time.

No.

The Giants had been born into a dying world, a reality that was not their own.

“We are the echoes of something greater,” King Ormir told me, his golden eyes reflecting a sorrow so deep it felt like a weight upon my soul.

“We were never meant to remain.”

I did not understand.

“Remain where?” I asked.

Ormir gestured to the mountains, the sky, the very air we breathed.

“Here.”

“This world is not ours, Merlin. It was never meant to be.”

“We came from a time before time. A place before places.”

“And soon… we must return.”

The Giants’ Prophecy

The Hall of Kings was vast, its walls lined with stone tablets older than the stars.

Each one held a story, a vision, a warning.

And as Ormir led me through the great chamber, I saw something that made my breath catch.

A carving of myself.

Not as I was.

Not as I had been.

But as I would be.

Older.

Worn.

Standing alone beneath a shattered sky.

“Your presence here is not an accident,” Ormir said, his voice distant, knowing.

“You are the one who will witness our end.”

“You are the one who will remember.”

“Because when the last of us falls, Merlin… our story must not die with us.”

I turned to him, my chest tight with a fear I had never known before.

“Why me?”

The Giant King did not answer.

He only looked toward the sky.

And at that moment…

The first fire fell.

The Burning Sky

The heavens split open.

A crack in reality, wide as an ocean, deep as the void between stars.

And from within it…

The end began.

Flames poured down like rivers of molten gold, swallowing the great city in a storm of ruin.

Bridges collapsed.
Towers crumbled.
The air itself screamed.

And through it all, the Giants stood unshaken.

They did not flee.

They did not fight.

They simply watched.

“It is time,” Ormir said softly.

“We must return.”

I did not understand.

Not yet.

Not until I saw what was stepping through the breach.

The Beings That Came Before

They were not gods.

They were not demons.

They were something else.

Something older.

Their forms shifted, impossible to define, their voices a chorus of whispers that spoke in a language no mortal tongue could ever pronounce.

“They are calling us home,” Ormir said.

“We were never meant to stay.”

“This was always the way it must end.”

I grabbed his arm, desperate, my mind reeling.

“Then fight! If you do not belong here, why let them take you?”

Ormir only smiled.

“You do not fight a river when it returns to the sea.”

“You do not battle the wind when it carries you away.”

“You simply let go.”

And one by one…

The Giants did.

The Vanishing of a Civilization

I watched as they stepped into the light, their forms melting into golden mist, dissolving into the very fabric of reality itself.

They did not struggle.

They did not cry out.

They accepted their fate.

Even Ormir, the last of them, turned to me with a look of finality.

“Tell them, Merlin.”

“Tell the world we were here.”

And then he was gone.

The great city shook, its foundations crumbling as the last Giant faded from existence.

The walls collapsed.
The mountains shrank.
The storm of fire swallowed everything.

And then—

Silence.

I stood alone in a field of ruins, the sky empty, the land scarred by something no human would ever understand.

The Giants were gone.

Not dead.

Not destroyed.

Just… gone.

As if they had never been there at all.

The Burden of Memory

I searched for proof.

For something, anything, that would prove they had existed.

But there was nothing.

Their city had crumbled into dust.
Their statues had melted into the mountains.
Their names had vanished from history.

And as I looked around at the emptiness they left behind, I felt something chilling settle into my bones.

I was the last one who remembered.

The only one who had seen them.

And if I did not speak of them, if I did not tell their story…

They would truly be gone.

Merlin’s Final Words

The world is filled with ghosts of forgotten ages.

Empires that rose and fell before men ever drew breath.

Kings who ruled in eras no one remembers.

And civilizations that did not fall—but simply left.

I tell you this story not because you will find proof of it.

Not because you can seek out the ruins of the Giants.

You cannot.

They are gone.

Not just from the world.

But from history itself.

And yet, sometimes…

When I stand upon the highest peaks, when the wind whispers through the stones, when the world feels a little too large, a little too empty…

I wonder.

Are they truly gone?

Or are they still watching?

Waiting.

Dreaming of the day they will return.