Things can always get worse

Tomorrow is just as bad. I survive off of whatever the gas station throws away, and peek at the outside newspaper box when I think no one will see me. The headlines do not make me feel better about going back to town. So I stay in the woods, day after day, surviving off of dumpster food and occasionally berries I find in the forest. I’ve noticed enough things that should be red and green to realize that my eyes must be color blind to those colors now. So I’m stuck in a brown forest.

My hoodie is now filthy, covered in dirt and mud from every time I’ve slept on the ground. I have managed to gather some softer twigs and leaves to make a sort of bed, but it’s not great. I’m a little surprised that I haven’t died of cold yet. The nights aren’t great, but somehow they are tolerable. I don’t have any way to make a fire to keep warm at night, and I’d be scared to do so while I’m so close to my source of food. A whole week goes by with me experiencing the hobo lifestyle. I can feel myself becoming numb to how disastrous my life has become. Just a few months ago I was happy with a girlfriend and a job and home and a family… and now I’m nervously searching my surroundings as I approach a dumpster for my nightly meal.

It’s become somewhat of a depressing routine, so I grab the milk carton and carry it to the dumpster and begin to climb… but my routine is shattered. “Hey! What the hell kid, stay out of there!” I whip around to see an older man approaching me. He must be the gas station attendant. I fall back down and begin to run. But not before he sees enough to piece things together. “You ain’t a kid, you’re one of those freaks! Get back here!”

Nope. I’ll never stop to be confronted by someone twice my height, probably three or four times my weight, and who has already called me a freak. I sprint to the forest to escape into the night… but that’s not very fast. If he hadn’t been so far away I wouldn’t even have made it to the forest before him. As it is I make it in but he is right behind me as I dive behind bushes in a **** bid to escape. My eyes tear up in fear, but I blink away the moisture as I can’t afford to trip or stumble in this darkness. Thanks to a couple of bushes that slow him down while I just duck under them, I manage to get almost back to my little shelter. Almost.

I’m suddenly yanked back by my hood and thrown to the ground. I curl into a defensive ball. “I’m thorry I’m thorry. Pleathe don’t hurt me! I jutht wanted food…” my voice is small and pathetic, a far cry from the low and strong voice I had before. I never really cared for my voice before but hearing the weakness and despair in my new voice…

“Yeah well I want to not have to worry about little monsters getting into my dumpster and making a mess. You think I give a…” suddenly a small stick appeared out of his chest, followed instantly by a thud sound. And then a group of small fur and flannel creatures burst from the trees and surround the shocked and staggering man. I remain stationary, hoping my presence is forgotten. Especially as small axes and knives are wielded by the strange creatures to hack, smash, and stab the man to ****. It’s all happening so fast, I just shut down and watch it unfold. He had seemed like a colossal giant, but these small creatures about my size were gleefully severing limbs and gnashing their teeth on some of his fingers.

One walks up to me, having not joined the others in their sudden slaughter. While they moved so chaotically with their clothes flapping everywhere making it impossible to comprehend what I was looking at, this one stands tall and proud. This lets me see his features. The blue skin, the short and hunched bodies. His black eyes staring at me, his pointy ears, not as wide as mine but about as long. He seems barely taller than my three feet, but he also hunches a lot so could probably straighten up to almost an extra half foot. He smiles at me, revealing a row of sharp pointy teeth that disturbingly remind me of my own. In fact, they basically seem to be a more animalistic and blue version of me. Except from what I’ve seen of my reflection, their faces are far more angular and… well, ugly than my own. This one has a crossbow in hand. Which explains how the man had a stick appear in him suddenly.

The creature laughs, and turns to yell incomprehensible noises at some of the others. He seems to be largely wearing woods camouflage pattern and fur clothes, while many of the others have flannel mixed in. It looks like they raided a sporting goods store’s clothing section. And as two of the creatures join the crossbow holder, it also looks like this is how I die. I am too terrified to run. All I can do is babble in fear. “Pleathe don’t kill me, pleathe don’t hurt me.” My begging seems to fall on deaf ears as they grab me roughly and begin dragging me deeper into the woods. The other little monsters seem to finish carving their kill up in short order and catch up to us carrying cloth wrapped around lumps of mysterious meat I am not thinking anymore about and not eating.

They don’t seem to understand anything I say, but they make it clear I am their prisoner by shoving and pulling me along. I realize I’m never seeing my shitty little shelter again, or the bike I stole. I’m going to be killed and eaten by little blue goblins. Despite my doom, I follow meekly. My feet are tough enough to walk through the forest, but not run away through the forest. There is no escape. Despite the suddenness of my capture, they march me for several hours. I was already tired when I went to eat, and I never did get to eat. With adrenaline no longer sustaining me, I slow down. And eventually they shove me hard enough that I just fall. I can’t get up. I just can’t. I know I should, I know they might kill me if I don’t, but I just don’t have it in me anymore. I curl back up into my defensive ball and cry. My captors try to push me back up, to pull my arms, but all I can do for them is cry louder and be dead weight.

Finally the crossbow goblin, which I think is the leader, growls and grunts at them until they bodily pick me up and carry me with them. I cry as they take turns carrying me on their backs, and occasionally experiment with different methods, like one holding my legs and the other my arms. If I wasn’t so certain they were also going to experiment multiple ways to eat me, it might be amusing. They keep traveling through the night, and I calm down a little. Enough to realize we are going up towards the mountains. There aren’t many roads that way, and fewer people. I’m well and truly fucked. No one will ever find me, and even if they do they won’t know who they found. And my ex Sasha is the only one who might care if they did figure it out.

Maybe it’s better this way. I just disappear. I just have to hope they kill me in a painless way… which doesn’t seem likely. I… might need to take my **** into my own hands. I sniffle as I’m being carried, realizing I’m too weak and cowardly to go out on my own terms in this situation. We don’t make it to wherever they are taking me before the sun rises… or at least I don’t think we do. The little thicket they stop at seems like they’ve been here before as they all get comfortable for a morning nap.

I begin to be hopeful that maybe I can leave while they all sleep. Until the leader has them put me down and then flops down on top of me. I fear for a moment this is when they kill me, or eat me, or something worse, but he just lays across my stomach and seems to be trying to get comfortable for sleep. Oh… I can’t leave without waking him up. I move to get more comfortable myself, but he suddenly punches me in the stomach. I curl up beneath him at the pain, completely ruining his bed situation. He snorts at me and finds another position on top of me. Now knowing the unspoken rule, I hold perfectly still but for my eyes crying. They don’t seem to have or use ropes, the most advanced thing they have is a crossbow, and I am completely unable to escape.

————————————————————————

We keep going for several days, getting higher up into the mountains. I refuse to eat the mystery meat, but fortunately the leader shoots a bird. They don’t cook it though and I cry more as I bite into the poor creature, feathers and all. We get closer and closer to the mountains, until we are perpetually walking uphill. Well, they are walking uphill. I’m still being carried, as the bird barely keeps me from starving and my legs tremble when I have to stand.

Finally we reach a hunting lodge of some sort. It’s a very large log cabin style building, but with large windows and a large number of rooms upstairs above a central lobby. Before we enter I fear for the people inside, as there are several vehicles in the parking lot. Once we go in, I realize my fear is too late. This is their final destination, because they have already taken over. The bodies have already been made to disappear in ways that I don’t want to dwell on, but the blood stains tell enough of the story to know what happened. This place seems to be a hunting lodge themed hotel with a little gift shop that is clearly the origin of the blue goblins clothing, as well as many of their weapons.

Worse, for me at least, is that the group that captured me seems to just be a portion of the whole, as many more blue goblins roam the lodge as though it was their own bloody little village. I think there is almost a hundred of them, maybe more but not by much. I am carried up stairs and thrown into what was probably once a hotel room.

When they didn’t kill me I started to relax, but now that I see how many mouths they have to feed, I am doubtful they kept me alive for any reason beyond meat preservation. I became a goblin just to be eaten by other different goblins. I ate dumpster food just to save myself for these little monsters. I shake my head. Maybe I can at least have a nice bath before I die. It’s a small thing, but I am desperately looking for something to be happy about. And I’m in a hotel room… that looks completely destroyed and ransacked, even the mattress being torn apart, but still. So I crawl into the rooms bathroom, since my legs are still shaky from hunger. I reach my hand to the bathtub faucet. I turn the handle… and nothing comes out. There is no water. I don’t know if the owners needed to pay the bill after they died, or if the goblins broke a pipe, or something else.

I just know I’m tired. I’m dirty. I’m hungry. Life is pain, and misery. I’ve run out of tears, and I’m too hungry to crawl back to the ruined mattress. So I just curl up into my defensive ball, and whimper myself to sleep on the bathroom floor.