The World of Myth Magazine

Running towards a town is a logical thing to do, especially when you are lost in the snow fields and this town could be the only place that will stop you freezing to death. You think twice though when the people of the town come out to greet you and you discover them to be the ugliest people that you have ever seen in your life. As a young child you worry, as an adult I am certain you would be worried too. I am one hundred and fifty-nine percent sure that you would at least consider turning around and running back out into the snow if you saw the same faces that I am seeing. I soon discover that these strange people are the inhabitants of the dreaded City of Goblins. I am able to tell by the way that I am welcomed into this city or town with each of these goblins brandishing a pitchfork instead of flowers. Also, there is the way that once the goblins see that I am unarmed and only small (a head smaller than most of them) they all eagerly drop their weapons and lick their lips. At close range (I am a ten year old child who doesn't know any better) they smell to me of rotten flesh. I feel extremely sick as they all circle around me and draw in tighter and tighter until I can't see and all I can smell is goblin stink. The smell makes me sick all over the snow, sick and dizzy. As the strange world spins around me I suddenly fall, and my world just goes black.

I am unsure of what happened next but when I wake up again I find myself in a beautiful white building with windows in the roof. I just lie comfortably where they had put me, and I look up at the stars. I am beginning to think that the evil looking people I had seen that night are only figments of my imagination. But my imagination begins to play tricks on me again. I hear a loud crash as one of the big hairy things enters the room that they have lain me in. He peers around the doorway licking his lips and I almost laugh as I watch him do some sort of weird joy or excitement dance. He has brought in with him a wheelbarrow which is the same as my neighbor's wheelbarrow from his home (the exact same brand and everything) which I see is filled with vegetables as big as my head. He leaves as soon as he has dumped the vegies and I fall asleep again dreaming of hot coals and pumpkin men.

I awaken, hot and sweaty and I see that the sun has risen. I can smell the lovely aroma of food cooking. All of a sudden it hits me. The white walls are not a hospital. They resemble a large scale version of my neighbor's oven. I am being cooked with the vegetables in a giant oven! I run for the door, and I smash through the glass. It is cool out in the snow. All around me I see wheelbarrows. I see the ugly goblin things wheeling those wheelbarrows towards me. They are all laughing together, the ugly goblins. Laughing and licking their lips. I know I have to run, to escape this place and so I do. I run blindly as fast as I can. I run so fast and so far until I hit my head on a tree branch. I did not even know that there is a forest or any trees here in the snow country. This horrific accident causes me to meet up with something else.

I don't know how long I lay unconscious on the ground, but I awaken to a warm lick and a stab of pain. I nearly faint as I look into the soft, puppy dogish eyes of a Griffin, a gigantic eagle with the body and limbs of a lion. The Griffin makes a funny purring sound as I struggle to get up. As I look around me I discover that I have been somehow taken far away from the tree that I had hit my head on. I can see the fading trail of blood on the snow telling me that the Griffin (or something or someone else) has moved me. I touch my head and again a stab of pain runs through me. I fall back into the cushioning snow. Although I try to fight it, tears of pain begin to trickle down my face. The Griffin licks them away and then with my body in its beak we fly.

It isn't the most comfortable ride of my life, yet I can truthfully say it is the most exhilarating ride I have ever been on. We land dizzily in front of a tumbled down hut. The Griffin nudges me and then with me waving goodbye it stretches out its golden wings and again takes off towards the clouds. I don't know why but I enter the hut and I am greeted friendly like by an old man.

"Hallo, hallo, hallo and vat is dis eh?" the old man asks me in his strange accent.

"I was running, and I hit my head," I automatically reply.

"Tch, tch, tch, you must watch where you are going Jess, yes, no?"

I am about to ask why everyone is calling me Jess when my name is actually Sam, but I suddenly find myself sniffing an unknown fragrance and again I find myself suddenly falling asleep.

I wake up to find that I am now in a different place with a head which is no longer sore. I am out of my jeans and shirt and instead I am in some sort of dress. A good quality looking staff is lying beside me in the snow. It seems to be made from a light, smooth, good quality wood. I am use to this type of situation now. I pick up the staff and get up from the snow. I turn in a western direction. I walk through the snow for maybe up to an hour and a half until I reach a dark forest. I follow the path which is now overgrown with fern and leaves until the path splits in two. I ponder upon which way to go until I spy etched into the trunk before me the words YOU SHOULD GO THIS WAY with an arrow, and I REALLY WOULDN'T GO THIS WAY with another arrow. I am stepping towards the path that the arrow advises is the way that I should go but the weirdest thing suddenly happens. I go one way but my heart flies out of my body and heads in the opposite direction pulling me along. It is at that very moment that the ground opens up beneath me to swallow me whole, my heart with a last desperate tug pulls me down the right path (which just happened to be veering off to the left). All the way through the dreadful ordeal I dreamily see Mr. Polar Bear.

"Follow your heart Jess, follow your heart," he growls as he gives me a grin.

I awaken from my dream to find myself just beyond the lying tree with my heart in the right place but feeling like my chest is really sore. It is almost what I suspect it would feel like if my heart really had been pulled out and then shoved back in. With some help from the staff, I manage to rise and slowly follow the path again. All that day I feel very sore, and I find I have to rest on a few occasions during my morning travels.

The day passes, thankfully uneventful. As the sun begins to set I search for a safe place to sleep. As the darkness of night sets in the forest comes alive with noise and I find it almost impossible to get to sleep. Once asleep I find I am frequently awakened by bugs and flies and on one extremely gross occasion there is a slimy eel-like creature sliding over my body.

After the shock of seeing and feeling that slippery serpent waking me up it frequently features tail first in the weirdest dreams I have ever had. In one such dream a tree with the creature tied around its trunk speaks to me about messages in its branches.

The very next morning when I look at all of the trees in this forest I can see I discover that each tree has a message inscribed which glows a bright yellow. These messages included FOOD IN MY BRANCHES, CASTLE 30 MILES, CASTLE 20 MILES and CASTLE 10 MILES. These strange messages give me meals for three days as I continue to follow the signs. They have also brought me to where I am now. For I now find myself in the land of the Giants.

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