I had no recollection of what happened after I passed out. When I awoke again, the cool air and the crackling of nearby fires told me that it was night time. Orcs had a strong love for bonfires, challenging each other to dance through the flames or sear their flesh in shows of strength and resilience. With a force as big as ours soon there would be no forest left to burn. Then our warband would move on—to plunder, pillage, and defile whatever unspoiled land we found next.


    My entire body was trembling from the pain and exhaustion of what I had gone through. It wasn’t an unfamiliar situation; I had long since grown used to my fair share of beatings. But this was different—I felt as if the world had shifted around me just slightly. Like I had been frozen in time for a second and the rest of it had moved just a little out of sync. I felt clumsy, constrained, slow in thought and movement.


    Displaced.


    A difficult sensation to describe and harder to experience. As I was struggling to form even a single coherent thought, let alone understand what had happened to me, one simple truth settled over me—I did not belong. It was as if I had always been wearing someone else''s skin, and for the first time in my life I had experienced what it would feel like to be free from the constraints of an existence too small for me to fit inside.


    A rustling sound pulled me out of my thoughts, and something hard and coarse pressed against my lips. For a moment I panicked, but as cold liquid poured down my throat tension drained from my muscles and I relaxed. A thirst I hadn’t noticed until now crashed over me; the first gulp was like rain after years of drought—like the gods themselves had finally shown mercy.


    It seemed that I at least wasn''t in any immediate danger and so I drank eagerly of the bitter, yet familiar, concoction. Skrum. A brew that could charitably be described as beer-adjacent, fermented from the slag and sediment of orcish swill. There was barely any alcohol in it, just enough to kill the worst kinds of parasites feasting on the yeast, but to the small body of a goblin even a few mugs would send you into a stupor. At least it was somewhat cold, which I knew from experience would deaden the worst of the aftertaste.


    Cold skrum. A drink this passable was hard to hide from brutish, bullying orcs—not to mention larger, lazier goblins. Yet, whoever had the clever idea to sink the jugs in the river was now sharing their prize with me. I was beginning to understand who had saved me.


    "V?rt feel better?" a croaking voice asked. The sheer effort in their tone sent a pang of sympathy through me, despite the state of my own body. It was Gakk, the same goblin I had last seen dangling lifeless from the clutched fist of our orc slaver, and the leader of our pack. His neck was bruised badly from the tight grip of the orc’s meaty fist and the older, one-eyed goblin struggled to hurriedly add: "V?rt better be thankful," reminding me that no good deed comes without a bill of charge amongst greenskins. "Gakk was saving skrum for better times, now Gakk will need to find more slag."


    A biting retort sprung to mind, but I kept it to myself as I slowly, and reluctantly, opened my eyes. Memories of what had happened washed over me, and for a moment, I feared that just opening my eyes would pull me into another vision. The prospect of experiencing another life, another death, so vividly forced me to glance away from the goblin that sat on a patch of dirt by my side.


    Gakk was older than me, significantly so, and the multiple lines of scars that criss-crossed his body spoke of a long life of suffering. The missing eye in one socket, which due to lack of protection and the state of our camp was always a weeping sore, was a poignant reminder of what he had gone through to stay alive as long as he had.


    "V?rt feels better..." I muttered, trying to buy myself more time. I winced as I sniffed the air, difficult with my still painfully-throbbing, broken nose, but I managed to catch a whiff of where we were through the sharp sting and faint smell of blood. The more ‘prestigious’ goblin servants—those deemed useful enough not to be immediately disposable—were allowed to sleep under carts, safe from rain and drunken orcs accidentally stepping on them. "V?rt just tired..."


    "Then V?rt get out of Gakk''s spot!" Gakk''s voice broke as he raised it slightly and he coughed a few times, making the situation all the more awkward. "Gakk paid back debt to V?rt, now V?rt leave!"


    "Debt?"


    "V?rt save Gakk from Mokhtan," Gakk spat, voice thick with wounded pride. "Now Gakk save V?rt from eaten by boars. Debt paid!"


    Silence hung between us as we processed what had just happened. From Gakk’s perspective, this would have been the perfect opportunity for me to get rid of our pack chief and take the place myself. Gakk was old, but his mind was sharp, and we had come to butt heads more than once over decisions in the past. There was no point in loyalty for loyalty’s sake among our kind, but then he didn’t know what had transpired between me and Mokhtan.


    I was just about to answer when a loud belch from somewhere beside the cart shattered the pregnant silence. Indecipherable shouting and arguing followed soon thereafter and by the time the noise had moved on to somewhere else, it seemed neither of us had the energy to keep the conversation about debt going.


    I found my thoughts drifting to ways of thanking Gakk, which I then realized with surprised frustration at myself was ridiculous. Thank him for what? Goblins don''t thank each other! And I... was a goblin.


    ...Was I?


    My mind went back to what I had witnessed. The salaryman, desperate and reckless, the world that felt so strangely familiar with objects I had never seen, yet knew the name of. The man''s final moments before he... before we plunged to our death.


    The orc—Mokhtan—was a human. He had been that salaryman. I had seen his last moments.


    And if he had once been human... were there others? Other orcs who had been reborn into this life of brutality and malice? What about goblins? Gnolls? Elves and dwarfs? Was every creature here someone else before?


    My thoughts were spiraling out of control. Had I lost my mind? Maybe I’d imagined it—hallucinations from pain and exhaustion. Stranger things had happened to half-dead goblins. I had been beaten within an inch of my life. I had been looking death in the eyes. My mind could have easily snapped from the pressure but... if that had happened, would I even be questioning my sanity?


    I shifted slightly and realized Gakk had laid me on his only sleeping spot—a torn, dirtied burlap sack beneath the carriage.I glanced over to thank him when once again my wounds made themselves known and my voice was caught in my throat. Instead I let out a groan of pain before slumping onto my back once more. All strength had drained from me and I felt myself fading fast. Yet before my eyes closed again completely, I caught the unmistakable expression of worry from the other goblin. As consciousness failed me I wondered—was I just seeing things, or was Gakk showing actual concern?


    <hr>


    I wish I could say I was allowed enough rest to recover, but to the goblins belonging to great Addrahk''s horde, there would be no pause to their labor. If you could move, you could work. If you couldn’t, you were just as likely to be thrown in the pot and served for lunch.


    Were it not for the resilience of greenskin flesh, even among us lowly runts, the whole army would have collapsed upon itself within days. If we weren’t fighting the Chosen, or other warbands, the soldiers of Addrahk’s horde would get themselves into so many petty squabbles turned outright brawls that at least half of it were in a constant state of nursing what would be a mortal wound to a lesser creature. Orcs could easily survive losing limbs or entire chunks of flesh without much worry, and to a goblin a few broken bones or punctured lungs were things you slept off.


    Not that the pain had stopped—it never did when you were of my kind. But we had learned to treasure any moment when we weren’t nursing at least five separate fractures.


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Gakk had kicked me (gently) awake as the sun rose over the horizon and handed me the very same sausage-end we had been arguing over before. We ate in silence, shoving the meager helpings down and trying not to pay our still-hungry bellies any attention. Gakk had given the maggot-riddled part of it to me, which was considerably gracious of him. There had been a dry spell in pillaging lately, which of course meant that whatever rations were available worked through a trickle-down effect and... I''m sure you can imagine what that meant. We were lucky if whatever there was to eat wouldn''t outright kill us, although generations of servitude to orcs had bred a certain resilience in the goblin digestive system.


    Even though every movement of my body sent shrill pain up and down my spine, I was alive, and a nagging thought in the back of my head reminded me to be grateful that Gakk had given up the only slight bit of comfort he had to help me recover.


    As we ate in silence I contemplated the situation; Gakk had been kind to me, but that wasn''t completely out of the blue. Both of us worked for Mokhtan, the orc that had almost killed us, although technically we were the property of Addrahk, the warchief; as were we all. Among orcs, the strongest one is always the leader, and as long as they remain unchallenged everyone and everything else, whether it is orc, boar, wolf, giant spider or lowly goblin, belong to them. Mokhtan had the enviable position of goblin herder, which meant he was in charge of "training" us to do our jobs.


    That, to put it more bluntly, meant he got paid to kick us around and beat us bloodied under the pretense of teaching us how to do our job. As long as we didn''t die... correction, as long as too many of us didn''t die, he had free reins to administer whatever discipline he saw fit.


    It surprised me that our ''benevolent instructor'' was nowhere to be found this morning. Mokhtan never missed an opportunity to whip the sleep from our eyes, yet no one in my pack had seen him when I asked.


    "Gritz says he saw Mokhtan get beat up good." Frink chittered in a smug voice, her wide, cat-like eyes squinting in delight, "If we lucky, Mokhtan gone for good." Modd and Sodd, the two youngest of our group, let out exasperated gasps and covered their mouths at the prospect of our tormentor being gone for good, their grins clearly visible from behind their bony hands.


    "Gritz also say moons go sleep during day," Gakk scoffed, his tone sour. "Gakk believe it when Gakk see it." Unlike Frink (not to mention Gritz), Gakk was experienced, the head of our pack, and at his words the twins immediately began nodding along, murmuring words of solemn agreement at Gritz’s unreliability and their large ears waggling with every swing of their heads.


    They didn''t even have the wit to feel shame that they had so easily believed Frink''s story.


    Frink shrugged at the older goblin and casually used the claw of her left pinkie to dig something out of the corner of her mouth. "Just saying what Gritz say," she grinned, swallowing whatever she had found between her teeth after inspecting it. "But Mokhtan not here. Nor Mokhtan’s whip. Easy day for goblins, no?"


    "No," Gakk muttered, his wrinkled face tightening in a bitter expression, "Not easy day."


    Our little group moved in close around him as he looked at each of us. I lowered my eyes as soon as I realized what he was doing; he was going to tell us some bad news, but I wasn''t ready to meet his eye. Even though I had decided to try to forget what happened with the orc, deep inside I still feared what might happen if I looked at Gakk… or whoever he used to be.


    "Heard yesterday..." Gakk began finally, choosing his words carefully, "Heard Mokhtan being told before...." cutting himself off, Gakk gave me a meaningful glance, warning me not to mention what had happened after, "...before sleep. Warchief say, big meeting soon. Many warchiefs come here, plan big attack on Chosen city. Means more orcs. More goblins. More fighting. More dying."


    His words took a while to sink in, but as they did not even Frink was smiling anymore. A big meeting. A big attack. That meant more orcs coming soon. And with them, more goblins. Competition was fierce even between the packs within a single tribe. But introduce another tribe, and we''d be at each other''s throats. The orcs knew, of course, and they delighted in pitting us against each other to see which of us would come out victorious and covered in the blood and innards of our fellow runts. The winners would be rewarded just enough to instill a delusional sense of superiority before they were brought to heel and made to know their place., By that point whatever members of the other tribes remained were either dead or in no position to challenge the new order. There was no in-between. You crawled, or you were cooked.


    I knew this—we all did—because it had happened less than a generation ago. That was when Gakk lost his eyes. That was when my mother died trying to fetch food for my younger brother.


    …And that was when I killed my first goblin. I didn''t know his name, I never learned it, and I barely understood his language, but I choked him to death behind a barrel of toadstools while he tore a large hole in my left ear with a knife he’d made from the thighbone of a direwolf. I still remember the way he wheezed as the last bit of air left him and his thick, wet tongue lolled out of his mouth. The knife, his knife, I still kept hidden, knowing I might need to use it myself at some point.


    Our tribe had won, but the sweet taste of victory had just meant more work with less hands to go around. Modd and Sodd had been barely old enough to walk back then and Frink, only a few years older, had taken it upon herself to raise them. Whether or not she had been successful the jury was still out on.


    Lost in thought, I glanced up—and for the briefest moment, I met Frink’s eyes.


    I hadn’t meant to, and at first, I thought nothing happened. Perhaps it had all just been in my mind? But then I realized—it wasn’t that nothing happened, it was that time had stopped.


    None of the others were moving but the large, slit eyes of the female goblin were suddenly pulling me in—yellow-green, speckled with flecks of gold. I couldn''t look away as they swallowed me up and—


    <hr>


    None of the others were moving, but the large, slit eyes of the female goblin suddenly pulled me in—yellow-green, speckled with flecks of gold. I couldn''t look away as they swallowed me up and—


    —And in an instant, I wasn’t there anymore.


    In the darkness of her eyes, I found myself in a room. Rows upon rows of benches stretched before me. A classroom. The sun was setting outside.


    I saw a girl weeping to herself, a pair of scissors in her hands, cutting her long, black hair with jerking motions.


    There were pieces of... something... stuck in there, gluing it together, and...


    As more of her hair fell onto the desk, laughter and hushed whispers echoed around her. Around us.


    I felt like I was being pulled under water—unable to breathe, unable to think. Struggling against a rising dread and...


    "V?rt!?"


    Gakk''s voice yanked me back. I stumbled backward, falling onto my butt and clutching my head. Not in pain... not really... but I felt as though I had been doused in ice-cold water. The frustration, the humiliation, the bitter anger over what had been done to my—to her—hair welled up inside me, rising like bile in my throat.


    I hated them. I hated them. There was so... much... hate in me...


    Even as I gingerly stood, still clutching my head, my fingers ran through my own hair—matted and unwashed, but neither black nor sticky with gum. The vision faded.


    Frink was staring at me, wide-eyed, as if she had seen a ghost. Her lips curled back slightly, exposing her sharp fangs. She took a half step back, her ears twitching. She was hissing softly—like an animal warning a predator to back off. Like I had done or said something to threaten her.


    Modd and Sodd sidled up and sniffed me, a habit they picked up from the dire wolves whose dens they were made to clean, and nodded in unison.


    "V?rt smells scared," Modd sagely explained,


    "V?rt smells hurt," Sodd filled in helpfully, both of them nodding at me, then at each other.


    "It’s nothing..." I brushed them off and turned back to Gakk.. "What can goblins do? Hide until it''s over?" I tried to steer the conversation back to the topic at hand and Gakk, perhaps understanding my desire, followed along.


    "No," Gakk tapped the edge of his empty socket, "Gakk smart. When V?rt sleep, Gakk call in old debt. Goblins serve dinner at feast."


    "No!" Frink nearly choked, eyes wide as saucers, "Gakk too smart for own good!"


    she shoved him, standing a hand or so taller than the older goblin, "Other goblins will hate goblins! Will make life miserable!"


    "Maybe," Gakk continued, not intimidated by Frink''s loud complaints, "But out of harm''s way first night. Know place goblins can sleep too. Far from fighting."


    Frink shook her head slowly, unsure how to react to the news. Modd and Sodd, meanwhile, were bouncing up and down in barely contained excitement, their eyes wide as saucer plates.


    "We go in warchief''s tent!?"


    "We feed warchief!?"


    Gakk slapped them both over the head and turned back to me, "We feed warchief and other warchiefs, and then goblins no need to worry about other goblins... or Mokhtan."


    I nodded slowly, finding myself liking the idea. Far from the usual spots for brawls, with the possibility of scraps of food and a safe place to sleep. Even if it meant the other packs would hate our guts for it, it was better than being pulled into some vendetta or full-on assault on another tribe.


    "V?rt likes it."


    "Good. We go to warchief then."


    And with that, the meeting was over. Even if Frink didn''t want to, it was four against one, which she realized with a sour grimace on her face. She fell in with us after kicking a rock across the dirt where we had been meeting as we began making our way over to the mess hall. There the cooks, captured and domesticated Chosen or especially clever orcs, were preparing a lavish feast for the upcoming gathering.


    Yet while Modd and Sodd were bombarding Gakk and I with hundreds of questions, I couldn''t think of a single answer to any of them. All I could see before me was the young girl cutting her hair and crying bitterly. And the hate she felt for her tormentors.


    I glanced back at Frink, wondering what she had done to deserve such treatment. But if she knew… she wasn’t showing it. Or maybe she had just stopped caring a long time ago.