Day 2:

With that he put an old weathered hand across my brow and closed my eyes, I didn’t want to but this body rebelled and soon enough I was in a heavy sleep.

I didn’t wake up very well.

The tattered blanket was itchy and clearly a well-used hand me down, I’m also not used to sleeping on the ground. It’s too cold and hard for my liking.

Groggy and in a bad mood I stared around me, seems I’m not strong enough to get up yet which is fine because I didn’t really want to anyway. There are about 30 figures in this small cavern room. Ten of them look like children but they seem to be adults.

A couple are diligently checking on the pile of roughly twenty squirming, naked babies. Although they have green skin, pointed ears and the start of several small fangs poking out of their under bite.

One of these babies is looking around frantically and studying his small arms. He looks similar to those around him, guess I also look the same, but his eyes are alive. Like he’s searching for information.

Noticing I was awake one of the child sized adults took a thick grub from a bask he was carrying, its probably a male right, and rammed it into my mouth. I chewed the squishy mass over for a while before it burst a little in my mouth.

Its juices spilled down my throat but it wasn’t that bad. I thought I would have been revolted but the strange three inch maggot tastes oddly like chicken. It’s not unpleasant. My body feels full and my eyelids are heavy again. Guess this is my limit.

I scratch myself with one of my own stubby black nailed hands and turn over.

‘I’ll think about it in the morning.’

Day 3:

Another restless night was rudely interrupted by the sounds of running and active movement. For a moment I forgot where I was and wondered how id fallen asleep in a dojo but when I final opened my eyes I was greeted by the small dank rock ceiling of the small cave that I saw yesterday.

The only difference is that the squirming babies of yesterday have spectacularly grown into adults and by that I mean now the cave is full of thirty elementary school kid sized green skinned people.

One of whom is currently doing laps of the perimeter.

Guess it’s him I have to thank for my wake you this morning.

I’d trip him but its more interesting just watching, especially while snacking on another of these grubs. It’s not quite the three square meals a day I’m used to but it’s better than instant ramen.

By the way my own body is no exception. It’s grown to the size of a small child but the increase in power and control I feel I have over it is quite strange compared to how helpless I felt just yesterday.

I’m pretty sure that weird goblin is doing kata??

Where’d he get that rusty sword from, I only stopped watching him for like a minute!!?

Me and the rest of those new born can’t help but watch the strange antics but the grownups just shake their heads and get on with their business.

The day passes quickly and I have to admit that guy sure has some stamina. He’s been ‘training’ since early morning. Heck I’m tired just watching him, this is why high spec’d people are a hassle.

Surprisingly I seem to be accepting the situation quite easily as well. Is that normal?

I’ll have another grub while I ponder that. Oh! He’s just collapsed.

I’m impressed he can even eat a grub while panting like that.

He pulled a dirty, soiled blanket around him and fell asleep grumbling about the quality of his bed.

Eat and sleep. Seems this new life won’t be that bad.

Day 4:

Of course it couldn’t be that simple.

One of the older goblins, because that’s all they could be, woke me roughly this morning and pointing at a tunnel in the cave wall and said.

“Those who don’t hunt. Don’t eat.”

Nope not even those oddly tasty grubs.

As a four day old I guess I’m considered old enough to fend from myself. Thinking about the sort of environment creatures like goblins from RPG’s usually live in I guess it makes sense that they grow faster than human children. Out of necessity.

It’s that whole survival of the fittest thing.

A little frustrated I begrudgingly move around the cave. It’s a good thing my blanket can double as a crude lion cloth. In one corner that strange hyperactive goblin from yesterday is coercing another goblin into coming hunting with him. It’s just the way he’s smiling and the words he’s using remind me of greasy salesmen.

Ah! The other one got up and followed him while beaming like an idiot.

Looking around I wonder if all goblins are so simple. No it seems he got the dullest…best candidate for a minion. Should I try to do that as well?

No, even before I wasn’t good at speaking to people and wasn’t very charismatic. I doubt that being a goblin has improved that at all. In fact it’s probably made it worse but I can’t be sure.

I asked the older goblins, who might be our parents, where to hunt. They all just kept pointing to the tunnel entrance at the end of the cave. Several other young goblins also seem to be heading in that direction

I headed out, the tunnel gave way to a long passage but near its start there was another tunnel branching off to the right. I decided to see where it led but I really wish I hadn’t.

I followed it to a small room, passing several older goblins on the way who all seemed to be quite exhausted. It ended in a smaller cave than the one I had woken in but it was completely taken up by piles of garbage. It was a hoarder’s paradise.

Boxes of rags and barrels of half rusted weapons, unfortunately my eyes drifted to a pile on the floor by the farthest wall. When I understood what it was I also realised what the strong smell in the room was. It was the deep musk of sex. Being a single confirmed bachelor I can only say it smelt a thousand times stronger than my room after a particularly lonely night.

Several women, barely wearing rags, were drenched in the fluid of life. Most of them were also heavily pregnant. They just lay there motionless and defiled.

There’s some things you can’t un-see.

As I was leaving I passed one of the older goblins on my way out. He patted me on the shoulder as I passed.

“Maybe when you’re older.”

I was a little disturbed by the low grunting I heard as I hurried away from there but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on. I mean it’s a staple of fantasy genres to have human woman captured by monsters for breeding purposes. I guess it has something to do with humankind as always being lorded for their ability to procreate with other races.

Standard tropes like elves having nature; dwarves having metal work; demons having magic, orcs having strength and humans having superior numbers and adaptability.

Before I knew it I was outside.

The first thing I noticed was the subtle shift in my vision.

When stepped fully out of the darkness of the cave and into the brightness of the outside my vision suddenly grew a little clearer. When I wondered why a strange voice in my head chime.

[Ability [Dark Vison] Active]

Do you know how freaky it is to have something suddenly speak in your head?

As I was panicking about finally losing my mind the wrinkly elder approached me. In a kind grandfatherly manner he informed me that it was the [Voice of the World] and that everyone heard it but only monster and demi humans heard it more frequently than the human race.

Even if we don’t always realise or understand what it’s saying.

Having calmed down a bit he patted my shoulders and hobbled back into the cave, we won’t mention the tent he was pitching because it ruins the dependable image he created.

In the scrub bush before the cave some of my kin are frolicking about enjoying their first trip out doors. While others are catching flying bugs and hurriedly stuffing them into their mouths. I can’t see that weird one or his sidekick.

I guess for starters I’ll just gather up some nuts and berries, I’m not sure how I’ll feel if I see a tasty looking bug crawling around?

I head in the direction two goblins nibbling on some large blackberry like fruit just came from.

After I ate my fill of the ripe looking ones I headed back, the sun was just beginning to set and we had been told to get back before dark.

There sleeping in the cave was that weird goblin.

Near him a group of goblins sat listening to the very animated story of the idiot minion.

With nothing better to do I joined the circle just as he was describing how they were hunting today.

“Then I went GRRRAH and the meat ran away but Goburou jumped on it with a DOKAN and it was squashed flat so I went to eat it but it hit me over the head and then he hit me and hit me and hit me. It was really sore but I got some of the meat and it was SUPER tasty.”

He finished his story by rubbing both his full belly and his bruised head at the same time. Really he has such hidden talents.

Several of the goblins around were drooling.

“W-what … what did it taste like?”

The goblin just made a very satisfied face and squeezed himself tightly.

“There’s no way you ate Horned Rabbit Gobukichi, I saw one kill two other Goblins.”

“It’s not a lie! Look there’s proof.”

Defiantly he pointed to the slumbering figure of his hunting buddy.

He was right, there clutched tightly in Gobrou’s hand was a single spiral horn of no more than twenty centimetres in length.

The circle talked a bit more about what they had done and where they had gone today, sharing information about hunting grounds and good forage spots but I was miles away still wondering what the meat tasted like.

Day 5:

I left the cave late on today, those berries not really agreed with me, and emerged just in time to see Gobukichi disappearing into the underbrush with a thick stick in hand.

He was following behind another goblin.

I could only see the back of its head but I’m pretty sure that was Goburou. Especially when he pointed at something with a blood stained horn and Gobukichi immediately broke into a run in the direction he pointed.

I’m a little envious by how well he’s adapted to hunting, guess that’s just natural instincts.

I did a little foraging around the cave.

Mostly I picked up nuts and berries but I did find a small clump of trees bearing a strange pear like fruit, I ate a couple of the ones that had fallen to the ground. They were ok, its just the bugs that got mixed in gave it an interesting flavour.

After a slow day I headed home to find the same small circle of goblins from my generation had grown to include most of the other Goblins as well.

Once again Gobukichi was retelling the days escapades while Goburou was sound asleep.

Most of the group was rejecting his claims that today he ate this many Horned Rabbits. Three sharp black nailed fingers were held aloft proudly. The same thick stick I had seen him carry this morning was gripped in his other hand.