I regret many things in my life. Quite often, actually. I regret not escaping the hospital when I had had the chances, I regret letting Rachel leave my room the day she died, I regret mourning over her loss, and ending up here. 

But, now what I regret the most, by far, is not trying to escape the Goblin’s grasp. I could have, but I gave up too easily.

Now I was in a cell, in line with many others, all of them empty. Only one, at the far end of the room, contained a dusty skeleton. It seemed that not many people were unlucky enough to fall into the dirty hands of Goblins.

I was in a cell at the far end of the room, furthest from the door. Two walls were made of dirt, and two more of rusty bars. I was on dirt ground, with no color but brown. The only thing in the cell was a pile of rotting leaves. 

I plopped onto the pile, ignoring the bugs making themselves comfortable under my clothes. I was exhausted. I let my eyes close. It was a horrible time, but I felt relaxed. I didn’t know how long chasing me through the colony would take. Perhaps just a few hours? Maybe days? Weeks? Months? I couldn’t bear the thought of staying here for months, so I didn’t let my list go on.

I was beginning to slip from reality into my own head, when I heard loud footsteps coming my way. They got closer and closer, and finally I decided to open my eyes. The sight horrified me.

An enormous Goblin stood before me, and I was suddenly grateful for the bars separating us. All of the other Goblins were shorter than I was, but this one was at least three heads taller.

It had long, droopy arms like the others, massive legs, and mismatched ears. Everything was the same as the others, except its height.

I crouched into the shadows of my cell, holding in my wimpers of fear. And then the Goblin spoke.

“Food. Eat food.” it commanded in a deep, strong voice. The Goblin held out a tray of dried mud. On it layed what the creature called food. 

Dead bugs were untidily pushed to one side, and a few dried up roots on the other. There was an uneven bowl of dried mud that held brown water, or what I hoped was water.

I shakily stood up and took the tray, and then sank into the pile of dried leaves. Setting the tray down beside me, I closed my eyes again. When I was beginning to sink into my unhappy thoughts, the Goblin’s voice spoke again.

“Eat.” it ordered. I don’t want to eat this disgusting stuff. I complained in my head. But the monster continued staring at me, expecting me to eat its underground food. I wanted to yell at it to go away and bring me real food, but I didn’t have the guts. 

After a few moments of me silently begging the Mardaug to leave, or at least take his terrifying gaze off me, he did. He just left with no conversation. I heaved a long and heavy sigh of relief, and I realised that I’d been holding my breath. I resumed my attempt to fall asleep, but was again interrupted, this time by my own thoughts. No, not thoughts. Something else. My instincts were what forced my eyes open. 

I turned my head over to where I’d left the tray. It was the same. I began to turn my head over again when I noticed something about the brown water. 

The gross water looked a bit different. It was cleaner. The dirt that floated in the water was gone . It was still not clear, but it was a lot more appetizing. 

Maybe I hadn’t noticed it before? Perhaps it had been a trick of the mind. After a while of gazing into the water, I concluded that I just hadn’t noticed it before. 

When I finally got over the fact that there was something I could drink, I quickly drained the bowl. I turned my head back over and shut my eyes. I fell asleep quickly, and had no nightmare, no dream, just a comfortable, relaxing blackness.

I rolled over and groaned. There was an annoying tapping sound.

“Rachel’s here early. . .” I mumbled, still half asleep. The tapping continued. It was like nails on metal. Tap, tap, tap, tap. . .

I reluctantly rolled over. I had slept well, in my head. But my back was soar like my shoulders, and I occasionally heard a crack in my arms or legs. It felt like my face had hardened overnight. 

I slowly forced my eyes open. It was like they had been glued shut. After a failed attempt to sit up, I turned over and continued my rest, trying my best to ignore the tapping sound.

Tap, tap, tap, tap. . .was what I heard when I woke up again.

“Stop it, Rachel. It’s not funny.” I muttered, and drool spilled from my mouth.

Again I woke up to the tapping sound. For a second I thought it might have been an alarm clock, and I reached out my hand to shut it off. My hand hit something dry and hard, and I moaned in pain.

I opened my eyes and gasped. But soon enough my gasp turned into a long sigh of disappointment. 

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I wasn’t in my room at the hospital. Some other time that would have filled me with joy beyond my wildest dreams, but not now, not here. I was in the cell underground in the Goblin colony. I was lying on the pile of dead leaves, and my hand had hit the tray of food I had not eaten the night before.

I suddenly regretted that. My stomach rumbled and begged for food. But I denied it. The food in front of me was disgusting, and the unknown dead bugs might be poisonous to humans. 

Was I human at this point? Only Rachel had treated me like one, and now she was gone. So would someone like me be considered human? Someone who was only kept alive so others could find out about her disease, someone who wasn’t loved by anyone, someone who was abandoned at birth because of her looks, someone who was weak and powerless over her own life?

Was I human?

I had never really asked myself such a question. It had popped up sometimes, but I had always shooed it away like an annoying fly. I had thought it unimportant to be answered until today. 

Maybe what the Goblins were going to do to me was a miracle. I could join others who were treated unfairly as one of them. I could be respected by my own kind, because my own kind would be as ugly as I was. 

I snapped back into reality. I looked up at the bars of my cell to find the same Goblins who had held me down the night before. Behind them was the Goblin Queen, anxiously tapping her claws on the bars of the cell.

“Ah, you’re awake.” she smiled. She looked at me as if expecting me to ask a question. “In case you’re wondering, I let you sleep so the chase could last longer, since you’ll have more energy.” she grinned as if she were the smartest person to ever live.

There was a long pause, and then she continued.

“Can you speak, creature?” I kept my frown, but smiled in my head as I formed a plan. 

I nodded no, and tried to look terrified and confused. 

“What is your species called?” the Queen asked, making long spaces between the words and speaking a bit louder than before. She sounded out each syllable slowly and clearly, like I was an infant.

I was extremely annoyed at her talking to me like I was a baby, but I held my tongue as some horrible insults came to mind. I silently shunned the Queen and once again was devoured by my overwhelming thoughts. 

I pushed all the questions aside and focused on my plan. If the Goblin Queen thought I couldn’t speak, was that in my favor or hers? Maybe I could pretend that I didn’t understand english. What would she do, and how would that help me? 

Ideas rushed around in my head. I could pretend I was a useless species and maybe she’d let me go? I could annoy her by saying random sounds as if it were my way of communication? 

More and more ideas flooded my head and clogged my reasoning. 

“Too many questions, not enough answers.” I mumbled.

“You can speak!” the Queen enthusiastically squealed. 

I left my thoughts to wander on their own, and turned my attention to the Queen. Once the realisation of what I had done washed over me completely, I grumbled furiously. My only plan had been foiled! What now? Be turned into a Goblin?

My thoughts from before returned. Would it be nice to be a Goblin?

“What language do you speak?” the Queen asked. I decided that there was no point to pretend.

“English.” I admitted, and then, “What are you?”

“I’m a Goblin, a sub-species of the Mardaugs.” Now it made sense. She was a sub-species of Mardaugs. 

“What a pleasant surprise, you speak english!” the Queen turned to her guards. “Let’s get ready for the chase, then. It speaks english, so this should be easy.”

The guards opened the cell’s rusted door and hauled me up. One tied my hands with dry roots, and grabbed my wrists.

I walked with one guard behind me and one in front. The Mardaug Queen skipped cheerfully far in front. My guess was that she couldn’t wait to have another Goblin to serve her. I whispered a few insults at her on the way. I was relieved that she either didn’t notice, or just didn’t want to react. 

I followed the Mardaugs out of the room full of cells like mine and into a hall with a low ceiling. It was round like a tunnel and everything was made of dry dirt. I prayed that the ceiling wouldn’t collapse.

Next we ducked into a hole, which led us deeper underground. Then there was a staircase, and next we entered into a massive room with hole far apart from one another.

“Now, this is one of many neighborhoods. Each hole leads into a Mardaug’s home. We’re going to stop in every one of these to round up the whole population. Get it? Whole? Like a hole?” she laughed at her own joke, and glared at her guards when they didn’t. She spoke like she was giving a tour. 

Then the Queen cuffed her dirty hands over her mouth and called,

“To the Great Hall!” almost as if on cue, all the Mardaugs stepped out of their homes and formed a line behind the Queen. She strode away with all the Mardaugs following quietly. On our way to what the Queen called the “Great Hall”, all the Mardaugs parted into different holes. 

Eventually we made it to an identical neighborhood as the last, and the Queen repeated her line.

We did this over and over, my legs wobbling the entire time. At one point I couldn’t take it and collapsed onto the guard in front of me. After that I was carried.

We went deeper and deeper into the colony, and the pressure kept getting worse and worse.

I was led into a large chamber, big enough to fit thousands of humans, each with enough space to stretch. The walls were spotted with holes branching out to more. 

Slowly out of all the holes, Mardaugs filled up the large space.

When the room was full of anxious Mardaugs, their Queen began.

“Another chase!” she cried, and her followers cheered enthusiastically. “Another chase has come. I’m sure you all know how it works, but just so our prisoner understands.” she looked at me, “You will be let loose in the colony, and then chased by Mardaugs. Once you’re captured, you will be turned into a Mardaug!”

The crowd yelled in happiness.

But I didn’t share their excitement. I had a plan, sure, but to get it up and running? That would be the difficult part. And I didn’t know my way around here, so what could I do? 

My plan to crawl back through the hole I’d come from vanished. I wasn’t at the top anymore, now I was so far away from the surface. I would certainly get lost in this horrible maze, and then caught by a Mardaug, and then worst of all, turned into one of those disgusting creatures.

“And now, release the prisoner!” the Queen exclaimed, an ugly smile spread across her face.