The Sleeping Giant

The next monster that I found was not because of my skills in tracking. I actually stumbled upon this creature by accident. I was looking for a clearing to set up a camp for the night, but clearings in the forest were few and far between. I was still trying to get away from the cave, and hoping there were not any more of those bloodthirsty monsters. As I was stumbling through the forest, I started to hear some weird noises echoing throughout the trees. The moment I heard these noises I dropped to the ground. I tried my best to quiet my breathing and blend into the underbrush. The only thing I could think of in the moment was all the skeletons I had seen in the cave. Were there more creatures like that shapeshifter? Were they hunting me down? As I caught my breath, I tried to calm my thoughts as well. Listening to these noises I could make out some things. I heard the voices of some men, and it sounded like they were hitting a tree. I also heard what sounded like... an elephant?

After waiting for what I believe to be a couple of minutes, I finally slowly moved towards the noise. The talking and the thunking noises grew louder. I could slowly see the trees thinning out; I was approaching a clearing. I slowed down and tried to hide myself among the trees. What I saw was a bunch of men beating on a mound of earth. I was right in my earlier assumption. There were indeed some elephants in the clearing as well. The elephants were just sitting on the edge of the clearing. They seemed to be drinking water from a pond. Looking around I could see the men beating the mound, but there were two men who were yelling at the mound. Why the hell are they yelling like that at the earth?

I tried my best to translate what they were saying. They were speaking in a language that was highly similar to Tamil, a language spoken in southern India. "Wake up you big oaf." "Your brother needs you." "The king wants your help in battle." "Wake up, Kumbhakarna." These men were yelling over each other. It was just a continuous stream of yelling that I could not perfectly translated, but I got the tone of these shouts.

Just like how you are most likely wondering now, I could not understand why they were yelling these things. I then looked closer at what they were yelling at. Was that a giant ear? As I looked closer at this giant mound of earth I realized something; this was no mound. It was a giant man. This man was well over 100 feet tall! He was well over 10 bigfoots tall. I thought I had spent my life looking for giant creatures, but this creature dwarfed those I had studied. These men were trying to awaken this giant?!?! The two men were yelling in his ear, but there were tens of men beating the giant with clubs all over his body.

Then I saw the elephants began to move. Elephant after elephant walked over this giant. Even the elephants were dwarfed by this giant. I watched silently at this parade of elephants, and after three elephant cycles the giant stirred. His yawn felt like it had the pressure to crush my ribs. The force of this yawn took the strength out of my legs, and I fell onto my ass. I was lucky the sound of the yawn covered up my noise. That is when a new... man?... creature?... entered the clearing. It looked like a man, but it had many heads and many arms. This new many-faced man called out to the giant. He called the giant brother. I could not understand much of what the two creatures said to each other, but eventually the giant rose. Everything in the clearing followed the many-armed man out of the clearing. As the stomping of the giant got quieter I let go of a breath I did not know I was holding. I was stuck here with legs that could not even hold my own weight at this point. All I knew from the bits of conversation I heard was that the creatures had gone off to fight a battle with a blue man. The blue man had apparently already beaten the many-armed man, and now he was seeking revenge on him.

Author's Note: I decided to try the story of Kumbhakarna's Awakening. I had to focus on one story of Kumbhakarna, and this one I found interesting. He is a very cool character, and I could not cover much. He was a man so feared for his strength that the gods sought to weaken him. He was given a boon, but was tricked. Instead he was cursed to sleep for six months a year, and to awaken with a huge hunger. He eats everything in sight. He is Ravana's brother and assisted him in a battle against Rama. He tried his best to teach Ravana that he was in the wrong, but still chose to help his brother. He is highly intelligent as well as strong, and he was known as a philosopher. I wanted to keep it brief so I could build up more suspense of Kumbhakarna himself. I also chose to not include his battle with Rama, as it would not make sense for our protagonist to follow Kumbhakarna to the battle. I did not think I could completely tell the story if I did not include some dialogue at the least, so I had to make my character understand some of their language. The image of the party around the giant was obtained here.

Bibliography: Arthur William Ryder. Pot-Ear's Awakening. 1919. Kumbhakarna's Awakening