The hardest part about carrying this story for so long is the fact that no one will ever know the truth. For decades, I’ve kept this secret buried deep, locked away in the darkest corners of my mind, but the memories—those cursed memories—they refuse to stay hidden. I’m an old man now, closer to the end than the beginning, and I suppose there’s little they can do to me for speaking up. The men who made us sign those papers are probably long gone, and if they’re not, then they’re just as haunted as I am. But still, this isn’t something you just talk about. It’s not something you put out there for the world to know. It’s a story that gnaws at you from the inside, festering like a wound that never heals. But the truth… the truth is that it happened, and it’s something I can’t take with me to the grave.
It was 1942, and we were just kids—most of us barely out of high school, eager to prove ourselves in a world that seemed too big, too dangerous, and too unknown. We were sent to the Solomon Islands as part of the Pacific campaign, tasked with driving out the Japanese who had entrenched themselves in that tropical hell. Guadalcanal was the biggest island, the most strategic, and the one where the real fight was. It was where we landed, full of bravado, thinking we were invincible. We were wrong.
The island was like nothing I’d ever seen before—thick, impenetrable jungle, mountains that seemed to scrape the sky, and a heat so oppressive it felt like you were breathing in soup. But it wasn’t just the environment that got to you. It was the sense that something wasn’t right, that the land itself was angry, resentful of our presence. The locals—those that hadn’t fled—were a quiet, wary bunch. They kept their distance, spoke in hushed tones, and avoided our eyes. When we tried to be friendly, they’d nod, smile politely, but never engage. It was as if they knew something we didn’t, something they were too scared to tell us.
There were rumors from the start—stories told by Marines who’d been on the island a little too long, whose nerves were frayed from the constant tension. They talked about men disappearing, entire patrols that went into the jungle and never came back. The official word was that it was the Japanese, that they were picking us off one by one, but the way those men spoke… it was like they didn’t believe it themselves. They’d whisper about shadows that moved in the trees, about strange noises at night, about finding bodies—mangled, torn apart in ways no human could manage. The jungle, they said, was alive, and it was hungry.
My unit, the 5th Marines, had been on the island for a few weeks when we got the order to push inland, to clear out a supposed Japanese outpost near a mountain range the locals called Ngelu Poro. It was just another mission, just another day in the green hell, but it turned out to be anything but routine. There were seven of us—me, Sergeant Miller, Private Jensen, Corporal Larkins, and a few others whose names I can’t bring myself to remember. We were tight, a well-oiled machine, and we trusted each other with our lives. But trust doesn’t mean much when you’re up against something you can’t even comprehend.
The deeper we went into the jungle, the more oppressive it became. The air was thick, heavy with humidity, and the light barely penetrated the canopy above. Everything was damp, from our clothes to our skin, and the smell of rot was everywhere, like the jungle itself was decaying around us. It was quiet, too quiet, the kind of silence that makes your ears ring. Even the birds were gone, and that’s when we knew something was wrong.
We found the first body not long after we entered the jungle—a Japanese soldier, or what was left of him. His chest was caved in, his ribcage shattered, and his face… his face was twisted in a scream of pure terror, eyes wide, mouth open as if he’d seen something so horrible, so unimaginable, that his mind couldn’t process it. We stood there, staring at the corpse, not saying a word, because what could we say? We’d seen death before, but not like this. Not like this.
Sergeant Miller ordered us to keep moving, to stay focused, but I could see the fear in his eyes. It was the same fear we all felt, gnawing at our guts, making our hands shake as we gripped our rifles a little tighter. The jungle was watching us, I could feel it. And whatever was out there, it wasn’t human.
We found more bodies as we pushed deeper into the jungle. Some were Japanese, some were ours. All of them were mutilated, torn apart in ways that no animal could manage. Limbs ripped from sockets, heads crushed like ripe melons, entrails strung up in the trees like some kind of grotesque decoration. We knew then that we were in over our heads, that this wasn’t just another patrol. But what choice did we have? We had orders, and the only way out was forward.
That’s when we heard it—the sound that still haunts my nightmares to this day. It was a low, rumbling growl, so deep it made the ground beneath our feet vibrate. We froze, weapons raised, eyes scanning the shadows, but there was nothing there. Just the jungle, thick and dark, closing in around us. The growl came again, closer this time, and that’s when we saw them.
They were massive, at least twelve feet tall, maybe more, covered in matted hair that reeked of decay. Their eyes glowed red in the dim light, and their faces… their faces were something out of a nightmare—flat noses, wide mouths full of jagged teeth, and those eyes, those terrible eyes, burning with a hunger that was more than just physical. They weren’t just giants—they were monsters, ancient and evil, something that had no place in this world.
Panic set in. Miller shouted orders, but we were already firing, emptying our clips into those things. The bullets hit, but they might as well have been spitballs. The giants barely flinched, just kept coming, their massive feet crushing the underbrush beneath them. One of them swung a club the size of a tree trunk, and I watched as it connected with Jensen. He was lifted off his feet, his body twisting in mid-air before slamming into a tree. He was dead before he hit the ground, his spine shattered, his head hanging at an unnatural angle.
That was it. We broke, turned, and ran, tearing through the jungle like our lives depended on it—because they did. The giants were right behind us, crashing through the trees with terrifying speed, their roars shaking the very earth. I could hear the others shouting, screaming, but I didn’t dare look back. I just kept running, my heart pounding in my chest, my lungs burning with the effort. All I could think about was getting away, escaping that green hell before those things caught me.
I don’t know how long I ran, but eventually, I broke through the treeline and onto the beach. The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the sand, but I didn’t stop. I collapsed, gasping for air, my mind racing, trying to process what had just happened. But there was no way to process it. No way to make sense of the horror I’d seen. The others didn’t make it. I was the only one.
When I got back to the base, I was met with disbelief. The officers didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to believe that something like that could exist. They said I was delusional, that I was suffering from shell shock. They put me in isolation, kept me under observation, poked and prodded like I was some kind of specimen. But they knew. They knew I was telling the truth, even if they couldn’t admit it. And when they finally let me go, they made me sign a statement—said it was for national security, that what happened out there never happened. I was too tired to fight it, too broken to care.
I was shipped home after that, discharged on medical grounds, and for a while, I tried to forget. I tried to put it behind me, to convince myself that it was all some horrible dream, a figment of a mind pushed to the brink. But the nightmares—they never stopped. Every night, I’m back in that jungle, running, the giants closing in behind me. I hear their roars, feel the ground shake beneath their feet, and I know, deep down, that they’re still out there, waiting.
I’ve spent the last sixty years trying to make sense of it, but there’s no sense to be made. The world is a strange, dark place, full of things that shouldn’t be, things that defy explanation. And maybe that’s why we were told to keep quiet, why the truth was buried along with the bodies. Because some things are too terrible to be known, too monstrous to be believed.
But I believe. I believe because I saw them. I believe because I lived through it, and I carry the scars, both inside and out. I’m an old man now, and the world has moved on, but that jungle, those giants—they’re still with me. They’ll be with me until the day I die, and maybe even after that.
So, I’m telling this story not for glory, not for recognition, but because it’s the truth. And because, deep down, I know that the world needs to be warned. The Solomon Islands, that stretch of earth so far from home, holds secrets darker than any battlefield I’ve ever seen. The war we fought there was against men, but what we encountered in those jungles… that was something else entirely. Those giants, those monsters—they aren’t just stories. They aren’t just legends. They are real, and they are waiting. Waiting in the shadows, in the places where man rarely treads, biding their time in those dark, forgotten corners of the earth. And if they ever decide to rise again, if they ever come out of hiding, God help us all.
I don’t expect anyone to believe me. Hell, I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. But if, by some chance, you find yourself in that part of the world, if you hear the whispers, the old tales passed down from the islanders—listen to them. Take them seriously. Because there are things in this world that defy logic, that laugh in the face of reason. And once you’ve seen them, once you’ve looked into the eyes of something that shouldn’t exist, you’ll never be the same.
Hayden Coombs 