Sights of sorrow and untold tales. A Horror Short Story
the first body was found 2 miles away of the tribe. I was not the one to find the man. It was a group of misbehaving boys. I only discovered the dead man while I was hunting. I heard the children’s screams and came running to help. It was a white man. An alarmingly tall white man. Enough for the children to believe him to be a giant. He was skeletal in frame, with the oddest of clothes. They were made from some sort of very thin fabric and no furs. Do white men have some other way of protecting them from the cold? Thicker skin? I know so little about the white men or their journey here. Only the chief of the tribe has ever seen a living white man in person. The chief told us how these men come from a world where there is little snow and plentiful food. It is hard to imagine a place like that. Their tribes I am told are called ‘cities’ that have thousands of people and all with full bellies. What a wonderous world these white men must live in.
I found the second body a further mile ahead. Curled up like a child. Just as tall and thin as the first one. His arms holding a book in a protective manner. The writing inside the book I could not understand. I placed it back with him. it seemed to hold value for the man.
As I return to the tribe, I talked to the chief. He was not surprised, he told me that the white men. About how strange they are, and they are often ill-suited for this land. I talked about the possibility of saviours. The chief merely shook his head. But I was determined to help and to discover.
It took many days travel. Finding many strange finds. Made with precious metals, something the white men have in plentiful supply. A metal box with papers that had the same strange writing as the book. A device that makes things in the distance appear closeup, and countless other things, The most astonishing discovery I found was the boats. There were two of them. Two of the most startlingly large boats I have ever seen in my life. My entire tribe could easily fit into just one of them.
As I saw it for the first time, I was both terrified of it and in all of it. The two ships were like two colossal creatures emerging out of the ice, off in the distance, party hidden by the fog I could not help but admire be in at the white men for creating such vessels. Along with the sadness that such a creation falling victim to the hash mistress of winter. It was trapped in the ice, slowly being crushed by the massive force of the ice. The white men must not have known how the sea can turn against them, turning into ice and trapping them.
I climb on to the boat’s main surface. It had a towering pole with white wings of fabric attached, to catch the wind. I ventured inside, it was almost completely black, only enough light to see the creature. It was thankfully dead. this monstrous giant still loomed over me with a terrifying glare. Its teeth are rat-like, that could have torn me apart. I left with great haste.
That night I didn’t sleep. My mind was filled with question, question of how the white men built those two leviathans, and yet my confusion at how they were so ill prepared for our land constantly attacked my mind. Along with questions what sort of creature that giant was? Is it something from their land? How did they create such vessels? These white men were something truly unknowable.
The more I search, the more bodies I find. No more of strange devices and incredible inventions. Just dead men. The cold had killed them if the starvation did not take them first. Some were in groups, some alone. Some seemed to have killed each other, with their strange weapons. The chief referred to them as ‘guns. My wonder became frustration, but after finding the camp my frustration became melancholy.
Tents with piles upon piles of bodies. All clubbed together in one last desperate fight against the cold. these Frozen skeletal-like men, all died together. Rotting dismembered body parts in cooking pots. They must have eaten their dead in a last attempt to avoid starvation. But it was the man that was alone that has haunted me. That frequents my nightmare. He must have chosen to die alone. He had pieced his skin with golden chains. Covering his face. I had never seen such a sight, and to this day I have no answers as to why. This morbid sight marks the end of my quest of discovery. These sights of sorrows and untold tales had left me with a heavy heart and nightmares that still haunt my sleep. Dreams of giant men with rat-like teeth tearing themselves apart, ripping out their own skin, muscles, and blood vessels. Some with knives, some with their bare hands. they would then start eating the flesh they had ripped from their bodies. The look of desperation and hopelessness on their faces. Then the ice would engulf them. Freezing them in place, dooming them to remain in that moment in time forever. Forever feeling that pain, desperation, and hopelessness. I knew that I had to stop the search.
I have now return to the comfort of my tribe and the arms of the family and I am better for it. But sometimes my mind wonders back to all mysteries left by the white men and feel the need to solve them. Who were those men? Why did they come here? Why were they seem so ill prepared for their journey? So many tales must have died with those men, and I will never know any of them.
