Chapter One

Darkness and screaming, that was all that Will had experienced for what seemed like an eternity. The screaming was unfamiliar, more guttural than what he was used to, and it seemed to be increasing. After a while he realized he was also part of it, he stopped and tried to analyze the situation he was in.

[How did I get here?] his thoughts started getting clearer, earlier it was just a blur. He calmed down and tried to move his body, he felt two arms and two legs, and three fingers and toes on each limb. This startled Will, however he soon moved on, he then realized how weak his body was. It wasn't a weakness that came from being intoxicated or knocked out, which is what he thought at first. It was a weakness similar to having been laying in bed for weeks at a time, Will had experienced this once before when he was hospitalized for pneumonia and his muscles had atrophied.

Suddenly a rough arm grabbed his neck and picked him up, Will started screaming and flailing immediately out of fear. Whoever grabbed him just continued carrying Will this way, while shouting something unintelligible. Will continued to struggle until he felt the surroundings getting warmer. [My eyes have been closed this whole time] Will had suddenly realized because his surroundings had also become brighter, but he could only see a blurry red light. However before Will could manage to open his eyes, he felt the rough hands throwing his body away. Will thought he was going to hit the ground so he prematurely winced from the expected pain, but it never came and all he felt was a slippery and soft surface. He tried rubbing his eyes because he was having a hard time opening them, and after a couple of seconds he managed to, but he was horrified.

Blood, all he saw was blood. Will was paralyzed in fear, he couldn't even scream. This was the first time he had seen so much blood in his life. He heard a splat next to him and saw a small wrinkly thing land next to him. This time will screamed, the thing got up on its knees and immediately started gnawing on whatever soft surface they had landed on. Will was horrified and tried getting away while screaming, but his body was still weak, so all he could do was crawl. He started screaming even louder when he saw his own arms clawing at the surface, they were also green. He had a pair of short stubby arms with three claw like fingers coming out at the end. He stopped all his activity and just sat down in a daze. More and more green things were thrown in the area around him, and like the first one they all started eating whatever it was they were on. Will focused on his surroundings this time, taking in all the information he could. He had realized that no matter what was happening, he needed to understand the situation he was in, and since it seemed he wasn't in any immediate danger, he had decided to calm down and focus.

Will's first realization was that he, and the others were all thrown onto a pile of skinned corpses. He identified one deer, boars, a horse and some smaller animals like squirrels and rabbits. He also realized that there were some bigger green things looking at him and the others from afar, it then dawned on him [I'm an infant?]

The green creatures looking at him from afar were a lot bigger than him, but shared similar features. They had humanoid appearance, but with the three fingers and toes. They all had varied shades of green or brown skin. Beady bloodshot eyes, long hooked noses and sharp misaligned teeth. Some of them wore clothes, and some were nȧkėd, but they all carried sharp sticks, either long or short. [Goblins?] it dawned on him. Will, like many others in the world, had played or watched different types of media with classic fantasy genres, and the creatures around him all shared similar features to Goblins. He started wondering what kind of features these Goblins would have similar to the ones from fantasy stories or games.

Will put those thoughts aside and took in more of his surroundings. They were in a cave, but the part of the cave they were in was like a large dome with several entrances and exits. It wasn't a complete dome though, the center of the ceiling was open. The sky was visible, but the opening wasn't very big so it didn't light up the entire cave.He figured this was some kind of cave network, however it wasn't a natural cave, this looked like an abandoned mine. There were no signs of usual mining technology though, no rails for mine carts, no artificially created supporting structures for the caves. All signs pointed to a primitive mine, however what was curious was that all the cave walls were smooth, as if someone has smoothed out the walls with water, but such a process would take an extremely high pressure water jet, or a river flowing through for a couple of decades or centuries.

Will knew all this because he used to be a Geology student at university, in what he presumed to be his previous life. He didn't remember dying, and he had no idea how he came to be where he was. However he ȧssumed he had just been born and this was supposed to be his first meal. After this realization he started feeling very hungry and without a thought started eating whatever part of the animal he was on top of. While consuming the raw flesh, he started analyzing his situation again. [So, I'm not a mammal, since me and my siblings aren't suċkɨnġ milk at the moment. We're not reptilian either, I can feel the warmth of my body compared to the flesh I'm sitting on. I'm strong compared to human babies though, but that's not surprising. Humans have to be born underdeveloped due to the size of their heads being too big to stay in the wȯmb. Farm animals and other migratory mammals can already walk or run at birth.]

Will kept eating for a long while before he felt extremely tired, he tried to keep his eyes open, but just fell face first on the half eaten corpse in front of him.