As Alice approached the rickety wooden door, she felt the gaze weighing down on her from all sides as it tried to squeeze her organs out of her mouth. She reached out a hand to push open the door, all while fighting against the strengthening pressure. Alice felt the door give way under her push. Then the force tripled, Alice was now sweating bullets, she pressed on, almost falling over. Her vision was clouded by darkness encroaching over the edges. She felt like coughing, or vomiting, but did neither as she imagined herself exploding from the pressure of the gaze inside her. Alice could feel her consciousness slipping away as she stumbled towards the door and made one final push at it.
The gaze vanished. Alice struggled to stay on her feet as she fought to catch the breath she hadn't known she was holding. Her legs shook and her bones ached, like she had been carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. A minute passed. Then another. Ten minutes later, Alice reached out again to the partially open door. Then the weight of the world threatened to crush her again. The pressure was back, but this time it retracted into a film around the door. The film stood between Alice and the hut like an invisible wall, but unlike before Alice could sense the distinct presence of death: Alice would die if she tried to push through it.
With no other course of action apparent to her, Alice reached her hand out to the door. The pressure enveloped her hand, threatening to take it off if she made one wrong move. Her hand came so close to the door that it brushed the hair on her fingers. The pressure flared up, not yet harming her, but forcing her hand away. It felt like the air was clamping down on her arm, like a beast hungry for blood . Alice curled her hand into a loose fist at the crushing force of the gaze before her load seemed to lighten. Am I meant to knock? Alice brought her curled hand up to the door, but her pride refused to let it end like this, she wouldn’t just let herself be threatened into doing something.
Alice spun on her heel and started walking away. Alice wasn’t sure where Kani was but since she was leaving it wouldn’t matter either way.
“You damn stubborn child! Get back here!” The voice sounded thick and raspy, with a very slight goblin accent.
Looking back the door had now opened and Alice could see the dark interior of the wooden hut, oddly enough it was still entirely dark inside even though the midday sun should have illuminated it completely.
“And why should I?”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The door slammed shut. Alice was now very curious, the goblin’s leader seemed to want to talk to her but was perfectly fine with letting her leave, so the biggest question was: What did he want to talk about? Alice realised she had also been quite rude by refusing to knock. Albeit reluctantly, Alice walked to the door, entirely absent of any force, and knocked. After hearing a short grunt, Alice walked into the hut. The inside was pitch black, to the point where Alice couldn't see her own feet. In the center of the room was a swirling ball of pure magic that illuminated a small area underneath it, somehow leaving the rest of the room strangled by darkness. Sitting in the cone of light was an stout, old looking man. His hair and skin were a vibrant leafy green with undertones of brown, every strand of hair was slightly thicker than it should’ve been, making it look more like a field of budding shoots sprouting from his head Coupled with the plates of bark that grew randomly across his body, covering the few spots of bare skin like a set of wooden armour, he looked like he had been parasitised by a mixture of fungi and plants. The faint glow coming from under his wood exoskeleton didn't help much, though he didn’t seem to mind it too much.
“Didn’t your parents teach you not to stare?” He spat accusingly, his voice was steeped in a thick coati just as aggressive as any other goblins, with an added undertone of rough bark viciously rubbing against bark. “Though I guess you don’t care much for manners.”
Alice knew it wouldn't be useful to anyone if she responded to everything he said so she opted to stay quiet.
"Good to know you can hold your tongue." The old man said this with a budding grin, that was oozing with smug satisfaction. Alice had never punched anyone before but she felt this was a great time to learn. "If I weren't forced to put up with your nonsense I would have killed you by now."
"Who's forcing you?"
The goblin chief let out a disappointed sigh, "And here I thought you were finally learning something. Don't you know you should always introduce yourself when you enter someone else's home? Either way I don't think you would have heard of them."
“It shouldn’t matter if I know them since I’m involved in it! And you didn’t introduce yourself either!
“If this is what children are like I’m glad I don’t have any. ” He shook his head disapprovingly.
Seeing that he had remained silent, Alice decided to introduce herself. “Fine. My name is Alice and I’m trying to get to the other end of the forest.” She purposefully kept it brief to be as ‘rude’ as possible.
“It’s nice to meet you too Ms.Mannerless. You can call me Karandi. I’ve been instructed to ‘grant you safe passage’ by someone quite important, and now that I’ve seen you, I have no idea why they care so much. You seem to have some knowledge of magic, but not enough to be useful. You seem somewhat capable of defending yourself, but you’d just die once the monsters show up. All in all, you have potential, potential that you are thoroughly wasting. Being the incredible goblin I am, I’m going to fix that. And maybe teach you some manners as well.”