Nanabijou

We drove, bloodied but seamless, towards the sleeping giant. Everyone, I knew, was besieged in their dreams by the treachery of another. I held on to the steering wheel and stared straight into the night, telling myself that nothing could tear us apart but the giant laughed and as we met the bay and unpacked the boat I felt it and the ground shook with mirth.
I don't remember anything more until we made landfall. I fell back when the sky opened and it rained the heads of a thousand warriors down on us, crying out and mocking us and we kicked them into the dense brushes as we ran along the path. I began to count the faces carved into the trees and numbered every man, woman and child who had ever walked the earth until their numbers started to roll backwards and I was left alone. Then the water rose and I heard their voices take up a song and just as suddenly they were cut off, gurgling and choking into the blackness of Superior's depths. I panicked when the water came up over the top of my boots and I scrambled up to where I couldn't see their eyes burning into mine from beyond the cold and darkness. I stepped on something then, that pulled away from me and I lost my balance, falling backwards towards the shore. I remember I shut my eyes to hide from whoever piloted the boat back across the bay.
When I opened my eyes I was once again in the truck and driving. It was going backwards up the steep path from the water and my eyes came to rest on the form of the giant. It was lying quiet now but for years I've dreamt, nightmarishly, about the night I lost you all in his forest, miles from home and counting the revolutions per minute that a man's soul can make while he breathes his last breath.