She didn't know how long she'd been walking. Her feet burned and pain shot up her calves with every step. Every so often she'd stopped convinced she must be leaving bloody footprints, but her skin had proved tougher than that.

She kept wondering where she came from, who she was. Not knowing the reasons for the way that she was feeling...well, it put a dampner on the progress thing. Her mind was like a holey cheese. And nothing she did, and no matter how hard she thought about it she simply couldn't remember.

She sped up, focusing on the burn as the air pumped in and out of her lungs.

When she reached the hut, she almost walked straight into it.

On closer inspection, it was more of a shack than a hut. The wood was worn, and definitely hanging off in some places. There was no door, and when she stepped inside there was only one rickety bench in the corner. No luxery here.

A couple hundred yards from the shack she could hear running water. She walked down to the stream.

"This is insane." Her voice was dry and raspy, but a familiar sound. Unlike the rest of her body, it sounded like her.

She laughed, shook her head, then stopped.

Just...stopped.

The creature sort of...hopped. And swam. Its' face looked like a fishes, a body like a frog then a tail that looked far too long for its body sticking out the back. As if it could tell she was looking, it made a high pitched croaking sound, then hopped back into the water before swimming like a fish.

The Fish-Frog had an iridescent body with a pale belly. It was bizzar, yet beautiful.

Now that she was looking, she could see at least a dozen of them swimming in the water. The sunlight glinted off their bodies, making the water look like the it had magical ripples.

She was half amazed at the beauty of it. The other half of her was just hungry, and thought that they looked like food.

But she hadn't ever killed anything before. Atleast, not in her living memory. Could she do it?

She spent the next half hour finding a suitable stick that wasn't wet or rotten, then another fifteen minuites looking for a sharp rock.

Then, she sat down and began to sharpen the stick.

Methodically, the sound of the bark peeling off, the chips hitting the floor became like an enchantment.

By the time she looked up, it was beginnng to get dark. Dusk suited the forest, though it did make it somewhat eeire. There were some bird calls in the distance though. Enough that she didn't let the paranoia that had been slowly creeping up her spine all day get to her.

She gritted her teeth and told herself that she still had time.

Time she wouldn't have if she starved to death.

Shaking her dark thoughts away she shifted her makeshift spear into her hands. She was going to hunt Fish-Frogs.

Holding the spear high, she stepped into the middle of the stream. The swimmers that had darted to the nooks and crannies when she came in slowly came out of their hiding places.

One daring fish swam almost directly between her legs. Slowly slowly she raised her spear higher - SPLASH!

Biting her bottom lip she pulled her spear out of the water. Just her spear.

"Fucking hell!" She swore.

The second time, she actually almost fell into the water by aiming too far away.

Third times the charm, she told herself. Whatever stopped her from punching the nearest tree really. She never had been one for patience.

Closing her eyes she breathed in. And out. And in. And out.

Ok, she could do this.

She didn't do it. Not that time or the next or the next.

Then, she did.

The Fish-Frog flapped around on the end of her stick as she raised both hands up into the air in victory. The poor animal continued to suffer as she celebrated, impaled but still very much alive.

Her feet were numb with cold as she staggered out of the water, and at some point her tail had got wet because she couldn't feel the end of it at all. She didn't care. She had food.

It took all of 2 seconds once she was out of the water for her to start feeling bad. She hadn't really thought beyond this point. There was no fire, and very little light. The Fish-Frog had begun to make small whining noises that remminded her of a puppy. And she had nothing to put it out of its misery. Except a sharpened rock.

Swallowing down a bundle of nerves she pulled off the frog-fish and set it on the floor of the shack. The floor didn't look too clean, but she couldn't be too fussy right now.

She took the rock, and raised it over her head. For a few precious moments it was just her and the creature looking at one another. She wasn't sure she could do it.

Then she bought the rock down hard and fast and the creatures brains made a squishing sound. The Fish-Frog was no more.

Its body jerked once, twice, then went still. Irrationally she was afraid to touch it. It couldn't do anything to her, she knew that but...

But...

Words came to her mind, as if they had always been there. A name. Below her the body of the Fish-Frog was left to rot, forgotten.

Not a Fish-Frog, a Fonq Latrh.

"Fonq Latre."

"Latre"

Nope, couldn't pronounce that word.

Looking down at the fish, she shuddered. She had killed it. She still couldn't get over it. Part of her wanted to go sit in a corner and cry. Another, more innapropriate part of her wanted to make a completely insensitive joke and laugh.

She took a deep, calming breath.

She needed fire. She had no idea how to make fire. Something about sticks and friction. Dark was coming rapidly, and if she was going to try, she needed to try now.

Delibrately avoiding looking at the murdered body of the Fonq thing, she walked out of the hut. She wondered if the Fonq mated for life. Or took part in rearing their children. Or- no! She was not going to torture herself about this. Its a dog eat dog world.

Which made her think there must be equally fantastical predators in these parts. Fantastical predators she never, ever wanted to meet.

As if the fantastical predators had heard her, she heard some pebbles skittering across the ground to her left. Immeddiately she dropped into a crouch. Swallowing thickly, she peered through the darkness to the origin of the sound.

The ugly little humanoid snuffled at the water, before gurgling and spitting out a wad of saliva. She almost gagged -gross.

It must only come up to her knee, but all its body proportons were wrong with arms that were so long its knuckles swept the ground and a funny round body with two stumpy legs. It had a mouthfull of broken yellow teeth and eyes far too big for its face, that wrinkled with every minute expression. No hair, and knobbly gray skin. It looked like the kind of monster kids thought hid under their beds.

Its clothing -though more of a leather loincloth than anything else, looked far comfier than what she was wearing. The world clearly wasn't fair.

Perhaps it was intelligent, she thought as it scratched its balls, then stuck its fingers in its mouth. It was wearing clothing. That meant it atleast had the brains to sew right? And make needles. Its finger was up its nose now, so deep she thought that it must be able to touch its brain.

Maybe not. Maybe it had a very limited intelligence. Or a very crass culture.

Giggling child like voices came from further away. Her ears twitched atop her head as the listened hard.

She couldn't actually identify any syllables or words. It sounded more like giggling and whoops. Cheering.

Three more Grays arrived, between them they carried the limb of whatever poor creature they'd killed. Or scavenged off of, she thought looking at the size of the limb in comparison the the creatures carrying it. She couldn't see how such tiny things could kill something so big. Unless they were venemous. Or far more intelligent than she gave them credit for.

Hold on...that wasn't any limb. It was a leg. A human leg.

Her heart beat hard against her rib cage as the Grays seemed to double in size and their laughter turned into some sort of sick child-like cackling.

She would not be contacting these creatures. They either killed humans or ate humans. Neither was a good situation for her.

Somebody had been killed - a person, and they'd ripped off that persons leg for food. To eat.

She swallowed thickly. One of the grays took a sneaky bite out of the calf, only to be whacked over the head by the long limbs of the first Gray she had seen.

The first Gray made an angry trilling sound while the other one looked stonily down at the ground. They were like children. Sick, violent, cannibalistic children.

Over the sound of her heart pounding in her ears she heard a rustling behind her.

Its head appeared first, then its arm as it pulled itself out of the thicket behind her. Then it saw her. Like the others, this one had huge, brown eyes with no white to be seen. Its wrinkled ugly features were slack in surprise.

Surprise.

All at once her senses rushed back to her and she lept at the Gray. It made a startled sound as she used her hands to fasten its jaw shut and keep from alerting the others.

Where the hell did she put her spear?!

Air hissed out of its mouth as it squirmed underneath her, its fingernails scraping up her forarms as it tried to free itself from her grip.

She felt like she was in a dream when she shifted one hand down to its neck. Then the other. Its legs kicked in the dirt between them as she slowly tightened her grip. She was going to kill it.

She had never been told quite how hard it was to kill something by strangulation. Even though her hands fit all the way around the creatures warm, scrawny throat it kept struggling for what felt like forever. Slowly its struggles weakened and its arms fell limp at its sides. Every time she thought it might be dead, it would jerk, as a little bit more life left its body.

Finally, it fell still.

Her hands felt like they were cemented around the creatures throat. It took a couple of tries before she managed to let go. Its face was puffed up, and its eyes were flat. Staring right at her.

She scurried backwards, away from the body until she hit a tree trunk.

The body stayed where it was. Limp. The dirt around it was kicked up, there were scratch marks where it had tried to free itself. And failed.

She had been looking right at it. Right in the eyes when it died. It had been terrified. Of her.

She tried to tell herself that she had to do it. That she had no choice. It didn't help.

At some point, she realised that her hand were shaking. I'm in shock. Her head felt too light on her shoulders, and her breaths were coming in short hard gasps.

Calm down. I've got to calm down.

She felt dirty. There were tiny flecks of blood on her claws where she had dug them into the creature. So hard she had drawn blood.

It wasn't over yet. Somehow she managed not to have a panic attack. The other goblins. They were calling. It sounded like a name. Kar?

Was Kar the name of the goblin she had killed? Against her will her eyes flickered back over the the goblin that was lying on the ground. It looked so...

The other goblins were beginning to spread out. Looking for Kar. One was headed in her direction.

Instinct took over.Twisting out of sight behind the tree trunk, she dug her claws into the bark. A few moments later and she was perched on one of the lower branches. A good 15 foot off the ground. She wasn't entirey sure how she got up there. Just in time though, as the goblin pushed past the thicket and found the corpse of his comrade.

It gave a high pitched scream, that the other reacted to instantly. Then there were four goblins on the ground looking at the corpse. One sniffed at it, before looking around presumably for her. She dug her claws into the tree.

When it didn't find anything it turned back to its comrades and let out a long sentence of jumbled nonsense. The other goblins seemed to understand though as they left to fetch the leg.

The remaining goblin carefully took one of Kars' arms and slung it over its shoulder. Then it did the same to the other as if it were some kind of piggy back. It carried Kar to its friends then they continued to travel deeper into the forest. She didn't come down when she couldn't see them anymore, or even when she couldn't hear them anymore.

She came down when it was so dark she wasn't sure she could jump out the tree without serious injury.

Luckily, her strange body came in handy for some things as she twisted like a cat in the air and landed on all fours.

Squinting she made her way back to the shack. She didn't want to go inside. All she could think of was what would happen if another band of goblins came across her in the night. Ones with thoughts of revenge. Using her newfound limberness, she easily pulled herself ontop of the shack. She tested the roof, which seemed to be relativly sturdy given the shape it was in.

This was where she would sleep tonight.