Pain. Burning pain.


    Before I even had the chance to react I felt the tip of a steel-toed boot strike me hard square in the chest, sending me crashing to the ground and spilling the meager meal of gruel and dry beets I had prepared for myself into the wet mud.


    "Get up, filth!" A harsh voice barked, hot spittle flying into my face as I struggled to come to my senses, "Breaktime''s over! Get back to work!"


    I couldn''t immediately do as I had been told as I struggled to regain my breath, a painful squeaking sound pushing its way through my windpipe. My jailor, a rather nasty-looking orc, one protruding fang jutting out from beneath his pig-like snout, squinted down at me from above, a bloodstained leather whip grasped tightly in one of his stubby hands. Hanging from the other was the unconscious body of Gakk, an unfortunate goblin I had been having a heated argument with over a slightly off end of a sausage last night.


    "What''s the matter?" snarled my jailor through thick, spit-riddled lips, "Did the last whipping not leave enough of a mark?"


    "N-no..." I managed to squeeze out, tears stinging in my eyes from the steel-toed boot’s impact that had, almost assuredly, broken at least two of my ribs.


    "No...?" The orc''s low rumbling voice belied only too well the rising anger at my insolence.


    "N...no, master." I caught myself quickly, trying desperately to get to my feet in the slippery mud beneath me. My eyes darted from whip to unconscious Gakk and back again as I chose my words carefully. "No, master... of course... V?rt meant no insult... no insult was meant..." Instead of standing up I fell to my knees in front of the creature before me, groveling in the filth in the hopes that this would soothe his anger.


    "Hm... But I think V?rt did mean to..." the thick, wet voice oozed with malice as the orc sneered down at me in the mud. "I think V?rt needs to show that V?rt''s sorry." And with that, the same boot that had so recently caved in my chest now hovered in front of me.


    "Lick it clean."


    <hr>


    Orcs. Oh how I hated them. Disgusting, loathsome brutes without a brain or concept of thought. They can''t lead, though they fancy themselves leaders the lot of them, and their only purpose seems to make the lives of those smaller and weaker than them more miserable.


    That, and to be slain by the Chosen, who saw no difference between the orcs and their pathetic, miserable charges. To the Chosen, we monsterfolk were all the same, gutter trash better off dead.


    Were it not for the orcs'' strength, in numbers as well as physical, their species would have long since gone extinct. But if the orcs enjoyed something else besides fighting and torturing the weak, it was to make more of their wretched kind which they did often and fruitfully.


    I felt my jaw tense and my teeth press together so hard it was like they would crack in my mouth. Anger roared in my veins, my blood boiling at this insult, at the unfairness of it all!


    I had done everything my jailor had asked of me. I had slept in the sty with the filthy pigs, I had eaten only the foulest and most disgusting remains that were too far gone even for my neighbors in the pens. I had been kicked around and beaten as entertainment, as punishment, as a fact of life.


    I was a goblin, the lowest among the greenskins, and it was my lot in life to suffer for the unforgivable act of having been born weak and pathetic.


    But this... Licking filth off an orc''s boot. This was too much. Even for me.


    I would revolt! I would rebel! Slit their throats in the night as they slept off their drunkenness. I would gather my fellow goblins and free ourselves from these wretched beasts and eke out a new life far away from the endless wars and-


    A line of fire ripped across my back, dragging me back into reality. My vision blurred and my pathetic cry was swallowed by the thick, stagnant air of the encampment.


    "Lick it."


    Cowering beneath the eyes of my master I crawled forward on all four, my long tongue slipping out as I braced myself for what was to come.


    I was thankful that no one else could see me. Not that I had much in the sense of honor to be protective of . Amidst the war-camp this small island of misery was easily swallowed in the ocean of horrors that the orcish warhorde produced on a daily basis. The screams, cries and pleas of their victims - sometimes Chosen, mostly lesser greenskins like myself - mingled with the guttural mockeries and laughter of a race that seemed to find no better joy in life than the suffering of others.


    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    And better yet, the plight of those undoubtedly too weak to threaten vengeance in kind.


    No, no one would pay any heed to a goblin licking mud, and worse, off the boots from its master. Frankly, it was far from the worst punishment being dished out today.


    Yet the burning sting of humiliation twined itself into a pulsating ball of resentment in my chest as I fought back the urge to vomit. The stuff covering the boots was putrid, the stench unbearable, and it looked caked with layers upon layers of it. And there, mixed in with all the filth, was my blood. And that of Gakk who still dangled like a ragdoll from the tightened fist of our master.


    <hr>


    Just as I looked up at the boot, taking one last breath to steel myself for my task, my slaver’s patience finally broke, and the dim-witted orc delivered another sharp kick. This time, it struck my face, and I felt the sudden, searing, white-hot pain of my nose breaking, blood rushing down my lower face.


    The kick was enough to send me sprawling, and my head spun as pain flooded my senses. I felt my consciousness close to fading away as a strange, whining noise filled my ears. I realized, as my master hoisted me up by the collar of the rags I wore to cover myself, that the sound was my own panicked, animal-like wailing.


    "Shut your mouth, or I''ll rip your head off."


    "Puh-puh-puh-please..."I stammered, blood still gushing out my nose. My vision came in and out of focus and it felt as if something vital had broken loose inside my head from the force of the kick.


    "Shut. Your. Mouth." The snarl was clear as day and I managed to stop my desperate pleas for mercy, feeling the hot, coppery taste of my own blood trickling down my throat.


    I knew I was going to die, then. With sudden clarity I knew he had silenced me simply because he wanted to kill me without having to listen to my pathetic crying.


    And with this realization, it was as if the shackles that had tied my heart down loosened—just enough for my mind to wriggle its way free and...


    And I felt peace.


    Not the kind of peace of a long, relaxing slumber, nor the peace of knowing you are safe with those who you love.


    This was the peace of death. And it freed me from my fears. I would look my killer in his eyes as he wrung my head from its neck and there was nothing he could do about it. I would curse him with all the hatred, and all the pain and suffering that he and his kind had inflicted upon me and all of the goblins who had slaved under their yoke.


    And as I stared into his small, pig-like eyes...


    A piercing chill shot through my skull, as if my brain had been dunked in ice water. My breath caught and I found myself gasping for air but unable to swallow even a mouthful of it. For a moment, the world around me rippled. The filth, the orc, the screams around me—they all blurred, swallowed by something else. A dark room. The smell of cigarettes and sweat. The desperate panting of a man at the end of his rope.


    <hr>


    I was in a sparsely decorated apartment, with only a pair of rolled-up futons in the corner. Faint outlines were visible against the wall where furniture had once stood, sold off to cover an ever-growing debt. On the floor by the entrance was a pile of letters, bills and debt collection claims. A scrawny, hunched-over man in an ill-fitting suit stood by the door, a note clutched tightly in his trembling hands. crumpling it as he read further.


    Then, tears began to trickle down his face as he threw the letter away and took out a small brick—no, a phone. He called but the number did not connect and he cursed out loud, flying into a rage as he threw his old leather suitcase hard against the wall.. "So what if I hit them a few times?" He cried out, "So what if I bet on horses? Am I not allowed to relax after a hard day of work!?"


    I watched, disconnected, a pair of eyes floating in the air next to him. Yet I could feel the twin daggers of bitter resentment and overwhelming sadness twist in my chest, just as much as he felt it. It threatened to swallow me, to drown me in the black tar of despair.


    Then the vision faded into a gambling parlor. The smoke thick in the air, potted plants and walls yellowed by years of staining from the nicotine. There was a stench of stale, desperate sweat and cheap booze permeating the place and at the tables men willingly traded their lives and dreams away in the fruitless hope of winning big. He was not like them, the man in the suit. He was not an idiot. He was putting everything on the line but he knew he would win. Fate would favor the man willing to put everything on the line. This would bring them crawling back to him. They would come begging and crying for his forgiveness. Maybe he would take them back. After he made sure they knew never to betray him again.


    The eyes of the other men at the table watching him like sharks slowly closing the circle around their prey.


    Then, we were on a balcony, high above a city, its lights glimmering below. The faint sounds of cars and people barely audible as rain fell like tears from the sky. In one hand was the letter from before, in the other an empty bottle of cheap liquor. His face was twisted into a mask of bitter resentment and regret.


    It was all their fault. If they hadn''t been so judgemental. If they had ever tried to understand the pressure he was under.


    There was only one way out of this. Only one way to escape those cheating bastards. Maybe in his next life he would earn the respect he knew he deserved.


    As the ground rushed towards me alongside the man, we realized too late that there was no coming back from all this. His choked scream was the last I heard before I was suddenly pulled back, and I sputtered out through the blood trickling down my face before I could stop myself:


    "Kentaro...?"


    I knew it was his name. The name of the man whose last, fateful hours I had witnessed. I fought through the throbbing headache as I saw the man that the orc once was looking back at me from behind those small, yellow, evil eyes.


    For a few moments we were frozen, him holding me up and me staring into his soul. Then his grip loosened. Fear spread on his face like rings on a pond. For a moment, he was no longer the orc slaver who found joy in torturing the small and the weak. He was Kentaro, a failed businessman, a failed father, a failed man. And he realized that I knew who he was, and it terrified him.


    "How do you...?" The orc whispered, but I didn''t hear him finish his question. The last thought to pass through my mind before my consciousness failed me was a question of my own. A question of where I had seen that city before.