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elysian-f7ash · 11 hours ago

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The Last Son of Rephaim

Professor Eric Ogden’s lecture hall at West Chester University was never silent. Even when he spoke, the air was filled with muffled chuckles, whispers, the sound of backpacks unzipping, and the hum of half-broken projectors. His students found him odd—a man of thirty with long, dark hair tied at his neck, a thick mustache that seemed pulled from another century, and a gaze that lingered too long on ideas most considered irrelevant.

“From the Book of Enoch,” Eric intoned, pacing in front of the whiteboard. His voice was smooth but carried weight, as though each word dragged ancient dust behind it. “The sons of God came down unto the daughters of man. Their offspring? Giants. Nephilim. Titans who roamed this earth before the Flood. Fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls mention them still—creatures of flesh and spirit, damned and eternal.”

A few students snickered. One muttered, “Giants, seriously?” A ripple of laughter followed.

Eric stopped, eyes sharp, but he didn’t reprimand. Instead, he gave a thin smile. “History records what it dares not believe. But belief is rarely the measure of truth.”

The projector displayed grainy photos—stone carvings, Mesopotamian tablets, obscure Hebrew passages. To the students, it was nothing more than eccentric rambling. To Eric, it was a map.

When the lecture ended, students filed out. Some rolled their eyes, others avoided his gaze. Eric stood alone at the podium, fingers brushing the edges of his notes. He was certain. More than certain. His life had been spent chasing a whisper across scripture and myth. Somewhere beneath the layers of history, one last Son of Rephaim remained.

And he intended to find him.

That evening, in a cluttered apartment filled with books, rolled maps, and photocopies of Enoch, Eric sat across from his friend, Gary Pepper-Schmidt. Gary was his opposite in every way—broad, with unruly brown hair and a beard that looked more like an accident than a choice. He was irreverent, joking, his voice always on the edge of laughter.

“You’re serious about this, huh?” Gary said, chewing sunflower seeds and spitting shells into a can. “Dragging me out into the desert to chase a fairy tale?”

“Not a fairy tale,” Eric replied. He leaned forward, eyes bright. “An account. The U.S. military recovered a giant’s body in Afghanistan fifty-five years ago. Twelve feet, eight inches tall. Eight hundred twenty-five pounds. A professor I trusted—Professor Haggar—was on the team that relocated it. He told me of a second. Hidden. Preserved.”

Gary whistled. “And you just happen to know where?”

Eric nodded. “Tempe, Arizona. A field, unremarkable, but beneath it—bunker doors. Haggar gave me enough to trace it.”

Gary shook his head but smirked. “You’re nuts. But if it gets me out of grading papers for a week, fine. We’ll need someone to record this lunacy. I want it on tape when you find a pile of dirt.”

And so the ad was posted at the student union. A videographer wanted, no experience necessary.

Ashley Holcomb answered. A senior with tired eyes and a nervous smile, she carried herself like someone rehearsing how to belong. Her blond hair framed a face that never quite relaxed.

“I can do it,” she said when they met. “I’ve filmed campus events, my church plays, stuff like that.” She fidgeted with the silver cross around her neck as she spoke.

Eric studied her carefully before nodding. “Good. You’ll want to see this.”

They drove west, days blurring into asphalt, gas stations, and desert wind. Gary filled the car with jokes, conspiracy theories, and complaints about the lack of decent coffee in rural towns.

At one dusty gas station somewhere in New Mexico, Gary wandered off to buy snacks, leaving Eric and Ashley leaning against the car in the orange glow of evening.

Ashley adjusted her camera bag. “So…you really believe this? A giant waiting underground for thousands of years?”

Eric’s eyes fixed on the horizon. “Not thousands. Dozens. Preserved, not fossilized. Living, in a way. Waiting.”

Ashley’s hand went to her cross. She swallowed hard. “I grew up in church. My family made sure of it. Born again, baptized, Sunday services, the whole thing. But…” Her voice faltered. “My sister was sixteen when she died. Car accident. She was the believer. The good one. And God took her. So now I wear this.” She lifted the cross slightly. “But it’s not for Him. It’s for them—my family. They think I believe. I don’t.”

Eric’s gaze flicked to her, unreadable. Then he spoke softly, “Belief is a strange kind of offering. Sometimes, false faith is more dangerous than none at all.”

Ashley shivered. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Before Eric could answer, Gary returned with armfuls of chips and jerky. “Dinner’s served! Road trip cuisine, baby!” The moment broke, but Ashley kept glancing at Eric during the long drive into Arizona.

Tempe came quiet at night. They followed Haggar’s directions to a barren field on the outskirts—just scrub brush, dry soil, and silence. Nothing marked the place except a faint depression in the earth.

With shovels and sweat, they unearthed a rusted metal door flush with the ground. The hinges screamed as they pulled it open. A cold draft wafted up from below, smelling of stone and earth long sealed.

The tunnel descended into black.

Inside, their flashlights revealed walls too smooth to be natural, too deliberate to be forgotten. They crawled through narrow passages until the space widened into a chamber unlike anything Ashley had seen.

A room—fifteen feet in length, built with precision. At its center lay a slab of concrete, and upon it…

The giant.

He was immense. Larger even than Haggar had said. Nearly thirteen feet, perhaps more. His body lay stretched, still, his chest broad as a door, his skin gray and tight as if petrified but not decayed. His hands were massive, fingers curled slightly as if dreaming of motion.

Ashley’s breath caught. She fumbled for her camera. “Oh my God… oh my God…”

Gary muttered, “Holy hell…” But even his jokes faltered.

Eric stepped forward, reverent. “Behold the last Son of Rephaim. The Nephilim who defied the Flood. Preserved, sealed, waiting for…” His words drifted.

Ashley struggled with her equipment, shaking hands trying to switch batteries, adjust lenses. In her fumbling, her cross charm slipped free, dangling. As she bent toward the giant’s feet to steady the camera, the charm brushed against the gray skin.

The effect was instant.

The bunker door slammed shut above with a metallic roar. Their flashlights flickered, then died. Phones went black. Darkness swallowed them whole.

“Did that—was that the wind?” Gary stammered.

Eric whispered, “No. Not the wind.”

The floor trembled. A sound deep and resonant pulsed through the chamber, like stone grinding against stone. The giant’s chest rose. Slowly. His fingers twitched. His head shifted ever so slightly.

Ashley gasped, clutching her cross. “No, no, this can’t—”

From the giant’s throat came a sound—not human, but speech. A voice like an earthquake, words lost to time.

Eric strained to listen. “Aramaic… yes… some of it… Awakening… Son of Rephaim… believers must believe… followers give strength… false hope is destruction…”

Ashley’s knees buckled. “I told you—I don’t believe! I don’t—I can’t—” Her voice cracked into sobs.

The giant stirred further. The slab beneath him groaned as cracks spidered outward. His legs stretched, his arms flexed, as though waking from a long, bitter dream.

Gary swallowed hard, for once silent, then muttered, “Don’t feel too bad, Ashley. I didn’t believe in anything until this. And now? I still don’t. Except… that thing. Right there. That’s real enough.”

The chamber shook violently. Dust rained from the ceiling. The slit of light from the bunker’s frame grew dim as something outside seemed to shift, cutting it off.

Darkness pressed in.

Eric said nothing more. His face was hidden in shadow, but one hand clutched the notes he always carried, the other brushing the pocket where Ashley’s cross had fallen.

And then—the silence. Thick. Absolute.

Weeks later, the lecture hall at West Chester University buzzed again. Students filled the seats, scrolling on phones, whispering, waiting.

The door opened. Professor Eric Ogden stepped inside.

But he was changed. His long hair was gone, his mustache shaved. His face was bare, sharp, almost unfamiliar. Around his neck gleamed a new silver cross.

He set his notes on the podium. “Today, we continue with the Dead Sea Scrolls,” he said calmly. “And the myths they inspire. Stories of giants, of the so-called Sons of Rephaim. But understand—such legends are but shadows. They were never real. They will never be found.”

Some students scribbled notes. Others smirked, relieved their professor seemed at last to have abandoned his eccentric obsession.

Eric turned, chalk in hand, to write across the board. His fingers lingered briefly on the cross at his throat. His expression unreadable.

And when he looked back at the class, his eyes carried something they could not name—an echo of the dark, a whisper of stone shifting in silence.

The last Son of Rephaim was never mentioned again.

Source: The Last Son of Rephaim

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elysian-f7ash · 11 hours ago

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