The first thing I felt after waking up was bliss.

An exquisite warmth spread throughout my body, relaxing my muscles and conveying a sense of safety and security I haven’t felt in a very long time.

It permeated my very being, assuring me that everything was all right, that I could remain in this wondrous state of preconsciousness as long as I wished to.

No thoughts were needed. I was just a tender ball of contentment floating in an endless space.

[...]

At some point I felt something warm and sweet as honey entering my mouth and dripping down my throat.

It was new and it disturbed the perfect harmony of my previous existence, but it was also nourishing and intoxicating, so I continued to drink it in.

The nectar filled me with strength. No longer was I just an ethereal wisp of life. I could sense my limbs and my tiny chest rising and falling with every breath.

It was good. But it also filled me with a sense of loss. I could already tell that the untainted delight I experienced before was slipping away from me, never to be found again.

I bawled.

[...]

My mouth latched itself onto the source of sweet nectar again.

I relaxed. The previous memory had already faded away into nothingness.

Slowly, I opened my eyes.

My head was resting on a green, soft, leathery bag. My lips were coiled around its nozzle, and I could see tiny drops of white liquid rolling down, their color growing muddy as they picked up the grime covering the surface.

I raised my eyes.

An ungovernable terror gripped me, and it was only due to my undeveloped throat muscles that I haven’t asphyxiated myself on the liquid in my mouth, bringing an end to my story here and there.

What looked back at me were yellow eyes of a monster.

I bawled again.

[...]

A long time had passed before my mind managed to come to grips with my current situation.

I have gone insane.

Oddly enough, this thought brought me a measure of relief. In a way, so long as I was simply suffering from a complete mental breakdown, the world as I knew it was still there. I just temporarily lost my connection to it.

But time continued to go by and nothing changed. I would grow hungry, eat, and fall asleep. If I pinched myself, I’d feel pain. When I used my nails to break my skin, a blister would be waiting for me when I woke up again. Even if I was caught in an elaborate fantasy of my own creation, it seemed that not following its rules would only hurt me.

I tried to recall my former life and it was all there. My parents, schoolmates, a girlfriend, work. I used to be employed as a concept artist in a small company, and I could even remember the details of the latest project I had worked on. Only the memories of the last few days were fuzzy and whenever I thought I caught onto something, it’d elude me as if there was nothing there to begin with.

The caretaker who fed us would leave as soon everyone was sated and one time I fought against the compulsion to sleep and instead mixed some dirt with my spit to make some simple paint. Despite the clumsiness of a newborn, the moves I performed thousands of times in the past didn’t fail me. I drew a simple circle with my finger and laboriously added to it, till a realistic likeness of the caretaker emerged from it.

So the memories of my former life were valid.

Have I really come to a different world?

Once more I inspected the strange new body I found myself in. My skin was brown in color with hints of green. It was surprisingly rough, unlike what one would expect from a newborn. I couldn’t see my face, but my tiny arms and legs didn’t seem to differ extremely from that of a human, save for the black and surprisingly sharp nails growing out of my fingers.

I could only suspect that my face looked similarly to that of our caretaker. If I had to describe her physiognomy in one word, I’d say: angular. Her features were exaggerated like those in a caricature drawing, with high cheekbones, protruding forehead, long nose, and beady yellow eyes. Whenever she nursed me, my attention would be drawn to her plump dark lips, hiding behind them a set of savage-looking, brown teeth.

She reminded me of a fantasy creature I had to design from time to time for my work.

A goblin.

****

It was impossible to measure the passage of time. The room the other infants and I were locked in was shrouded in darkness. The only source of light came from colonies of lichen that grew on the walls and pulsated with a hazy, blue glow.

Whenever I struggled to stay awake after a meal, it was those countless specks of blue light, so similar to a starry sky, that would leave me spellbound. I would stare at them in a daze, completely hypnotized. At those times my mind became muddled, my eyelids grew heavy, and no longer being able to worry about my circumstances, I’d give in to temptation and fall asleep.

Still, even if I wasn’t able to count the sunrises, I was able to take notice of the very clear changes that were happening to our bodies. My limbs grew longer at an alarming rate and I discovered that I could now make a few steps without falling over like a toddler.

I took advantage of my newfound mobility to scrutinize the room we were kept in. Its walls were made of white bricks, identical to the ones that paved the floor. In addition to the lichen, there were numerous vines hanging down from the ceiling. The most vegetation grew around a hole in one of the corners of the room, where the caretaker had us take care of our business.

There was also a door. It was made of dark wood and was further reinforced with metal bars that ran perpendicular to the planks. It didn’t have a handle.

This left my fellow goblins. I had hoped that some of them may be lost souls like me, similarly trapped in this incomprehensible situation. Unfortunately, they all reacted to my nudging the same way one would expect from an infant. They stared at me with blinking eyes, sometimes they clumsily tried to grab me with their hands, but ultimately they quickly grew bored and returned to sleep.

I was alone.

I knew that I couldn’t allow myself to simply sleep away all my time here and that I needed to prepare for whatever was to come. There just wasn’t much I could realistically be doing. In the end, I focused on improving my mobility. I trottered from one end of the room to the other, trying to limit the number of times I fell on my bum. When I could no longer stave away the thoughts that this was it, that I’d spend the rest of my life locked in this dark and gloomy room, I’d mix up some more mud and paint.

It was on one of these occasions that I finally made a connection with one of the other goblins. I was just finishing a drawing of my dog Bernie, finding solace in his goofy grin I somehow managed to capture, when I spotted one of the toddlers curiously observing my work.

I acted as if I hadn’t noticed and continued drawing. I kept the pictures simple and engaging. Cute animals, smiling children, this sort of stuff. The goblin’s eyes never stopped following my actions. At some point he dipped his fingers in the small mud puddle I was using to draw and started to create doodles of his own.

It was my turn to study him. I was genuinely curious what images would emerge from the mind of a goblin. It turned out to be the same abstract mess of lines and shapes that any other young child would create. I supposed it could be considered impressive in its own right, given that he had experienced only a fraction of the visual stimulus human children were exposed to.

We kept drawing alongside each other for some time, but I noticed that the young goblin was slowly growing bored. This was the first time I had ever made a connection with someone else in this world and I didn’t want to waste this opportunity.

I caught his attention and pointed to myself saying, “Rhys.”

He stared at me uncomprehendingly.

“Rhys.” I repeated, this time striking my chest with a fist.

The goblin seemed interested, but he clearly wasn’t grasping what I was trying to convey.

I pointed at our doodles, “Drawing.”

“Dog.”

“Cat.”

“Sun.”

Nothing. He wasn’t even babbling anything, shouldn’t toddlers babble? Maybe I’m going too fast. I should just stick to our names. Only what should I call him? It should be something simple to pronounce.

I grabbed his hand this time, and pointed to him, “Bob.” Maybe not the best name for a goblin, but what can you do.

I held his hand in mine and continued pointing.

“Rhys.”

“Bob.”

“Rhys.”

“Bob.”

“Bob.” I suddenly heard him say. A wide grin appeared on my face, as the little goblin kept pointing to himself, repeating happily: “Bob!” “Bob!” His pronunciation was a bit off, but it was good enough.

I pointed at myself again. “Rhys.”

“Rhys!” The goblin echoed my words. “Rhys!” “Bob!” “Rhys!” “Bob!” The precocious little brat was full of himself and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t proud of him too.

He got so loud and excited that he woke up the rest of the goblins who began eyeing us with interest. Suddenly I became wary. I had already tried communicating with the caretaker, not in full sentences but just simple, random words, hoping to attract her attention. She never reacted, and I didn’t persist, seeing as other goblins rarely made much noise.

I was afraid that if I pushed too hard, she would notice something was wrong with me and deem me a demon. Which all things considered, wouldn’t be that far off the mark. My soul was inhabiting a body it shouldn’t be. Who knew where the original resident got moved to. Chances were some human parents were in for quite a surprise.

Now I was acting as if I threw all my previous caution to the wind. Drawing complex pictures in the open, teaching language to other goblins. Have I gone insane? Again?

I quickly distanced myself from Bob and curled down to sleep in the opposite corner of the room. He would tire himself soon enough. And if he didn’t… Well, I was probably just being paranoid.

Comforting myself with this cowardly consolation, I gazed at the blue stars languidly pulsating on the ceiling. As usual, my mind quickly grew calm and soon enough, I fell asleep.