It occurred to the giant to run, maybe back down to the burning town where the smoke would be his ally in his attempt to escape. Maybe, if he could elude the dog, he could run all the way back to his town. He stood and looked down the hill he had just climbed. The dog was almost upon him. He clutched his satchel and held his breath. He took one step down the hill, tripped immediately on a small tree and began tumbling down the rocky slope, knocking over trees and brush until he came to rest, unconscious in the rocky scree at the bottom of the hill.
When he awoke he was in a bed. His vision was blurred, making the scene seem somewhat dreamlike. The walls were a clean white and the furniture was simple pine. The bed was made up neatly in crisp cotton sheets and a colorful quilt. The nightstand held a vase with flowers. Sunlight streamed through the single window. The giant tried to sit up and look out the window, but was immediately immobilized by a searing pain in his back. He could only lie still and listen to the sound of the huge bell, tolling persistently but muffled a bit through the walls. He searched his memory for a clue as to how he come to be in this strange place. He remembered the burning town, the giant bell tower and the giant dog coming upon him, but that's where everything went blank.
He was tucked into bed tightly so he couldn't see his body but his arms were free and covered in scratches, probably caused from falling through the scrub down the hill, he supposed. He tenderly moved hands and happily found all of his fingers to be intact and working. He rubbed his face tenderly, feeling the scratches on his cheeks and nose. He scanned the room again, his vision coming more sharply into focus. On a hook on the back of the door hung his coat, torn and dusty from the rocky hillside. Suddenly he remembered his satchel of gold and treasure. It was nowhere to be seen!
For a giant, life has many fine things in store. Feelings like fear, jealousy and blind panic are rarely, if ever, experienced. It was a strange new sensation for our giant, this sense of helplessness and fear. He lay in the sunlit room as the shadows moved slowly across the wall, not sure what he should do about his missing satchel. The people from his town would be ruined without their treasure. His good name would be worthless if it came to be known that he was responsible for bankrupting the town, and the fact that the whole ruinous loss was brought about by a simple thing like a dog running up a hill towards him, this was all unthinkably horrible to the giant.
It wouldn't matter that the dog was impossibly huge or the hill steep and precarious. Future re-tellers of the story would gloss over all of that and focus in on the embarrassing fact that he, a giant, was so frightened by a mere hound that he took flight like a schoolboy from the schoolyard bully, tripped up by a mere fluff of a scrubby bush, and ultimately retrieved by the scruff of his coat like a wounded duck by the very same hound to this strange place.
It was all too much for our giant friend. He closed his eyes and from them came something else entirely new to him. A giant tear rolled down his cheek and plopped onto the clean white pillowcase.
