When I stood up, I quickly realized that I had gone through another growth spurt. Being able to personally experience the rapid pace at which young children develop from an adult’s perspective was confusing to begin with, but this time I think I grew by at least two fingers in a single night.
I stretched out and heard cracking noises of my popping joints. It felt good. Like waking up fully rested after a day of vigorous exercise.
My muscles were brimming with newfound energy. I wasn’t quite ready to break stones with my fists, but my punches should carry enough force to at least leave a bruise. Something that was unlikely just a night ago.
Bob’s physique also went through some impressive changes. He was now as tall as me, which meant that his growth spurt had been even more remarkable than mine.
His eyes flickered with vigor and carried hints of ferocity I haven’t noticed before. At first he just happily gaped at his changed body, but he quickly straightened himself out, raised his head high, and started strutting around, showing off in front of the other goblins.
The caretaker seemed momentarily taken aback when she saw the two of us, but she quickly got a hold of herself and placed the trough on the ground like the day before. However, this time, she didn’t leave the room and instead stayed to observe how we’d deal with it.
I growled at the other goblins. The sound that let out had a deep timbre to it and I could feel my whole chest vibrating with it. It reverberated off the walls of our room, staving away any thoughts of defiance reignited by the gruel’s powerful allure.
It must have been really effective, because not even the goblin I dubbed Alpha appeared to be in the mood to fight me for the right of first meal.
With the caretaker observing us, I couldn’t entertain any thoughts of dividing the food equally between everyone, so I resigned myself to just eating my fill.
Of course, calling it ‘resigning myself’ was a bit dishonest. When the gruel’s pungent aroma entered my nostrils again, I felt intense heat spreading throughout my body. I was resigning myself in the same way a penitent monk would resign himself when trapped in a larder.
Sweat broke out on my face as I knelt by the trough and once again lost myself in the feast of all things gooey, smelly, spicy, and sour.
Like the last time, I kept gorging myself and didn’t stop until I reached the physical constraints of my body. I’d love to tell you otherwise, but instead of thinking about the other children, my only regret was that even now I couldn’t fit more than two thirds of the gruel inside my stomach.
Stumbling a bit, I got to my feet, and left the trough alone. Wary of the caretaker’s watchful eye, I planned not to interfere in the further distribution of the food.
The other goblins read it as their cue, and all four of them got up, surrounding the trough from all sides.
The whole room erupted in a cacophony of growls and hisses. The two days they were forced to spend without any food, coupled with gruel’s bewitching aroma, strengthened their resolve to the fullest.
Alpha appeared more savage than when we clashed before. He roared with force that even I couldn’t hope to match and started mercilessly swiping at the goblins in front of him.
The two who never fought before went through the unenviable experience of having their skin torn for the very first time. For a while they tried to retaliate, but suddenly, in a real life example of fight or flight response, they broke away and ran off, whimpering pitifully.
To my surprise, Bob held on. Strengthened by the gruel he got to consume previously, he was now slightly taller than Alpha and even managed to dodge some of his attacks in a way I hadn’t been able to previously.
He quickly picked up on the rules of the game too, and deftly used his claws to tear anew the barely healed wounds on Alpha’s body.
Blood spurted every time they exchanged blows.
I watched in awe from the sidelines. It was one thing when you were the one fighting, but now I fully grasped the sheer bestiality of what was going on. You couldn’t even compare it to the play fighting young animals engage in. Every attack was aimed to inflict real damage.
The sight of the caretaker, the same one who personally nursed us from the day we were born, simply standing there and watching impassively, contrasted with the fierce struggle taking place.
Bob appeared to be in the more advantageous position. Every now and again he’d skillfully dodge one of Alpha’s attacks and go on to retaliate, leaving new wounds on his body.
His opponent didn’t show any signs of weakening, however, and instead became more and more fierce as the battle progressed.
Suddenly, Alpha managed to grab Bob’s hand, locking him into place, and delivered a strong kick between his legs. Bob yelped, but didn’t collapse, and took the opportunity to headbutt his opponent straight into the face.
They both fell to the ground.
They were both slippery with blood and it seemed that if Alpha planned to reduce the distance between them to counter Bob’s greater agility, it didn’t do much.
It was then that Alpha howled, flashed his teeth, and sunk them into Bob’s throat.
Dark viscous blood started pouring out of Bob’s neck, quickly dyeing his shoulder and Alpha’s face red. No longer caring, I jumped to my feet trying to separate them, but the caretaker, who never stopped keeping her eyes on me, suddenly moved and grabbed me.
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I tried struggling and even biting her myself but to no avail. With my arms locked behind my back and her other hand tightly gripping my head, I could do nothing else but stare at the increasingly grisly scene.
Growling and crying in anguish Bob tried wrestling his arms free from Alpha’s control but all the previous advantage he had in this fight was gone. The jaws were clamped tight and with Bob laying on the bottom he didn’t have the strength to push his assailant's body off him.
Blood kept pouring out of his wound and his desperate eyes were now filled with fear and reluctance that were horrific to see on the face of a child. The parts of his skin that were still untainted with gore were growing ashen, his movements dulled.
Seeing that the fight was coming to a close, the caretaker finally let me go and quickly pulled the maddenned Alpha away. The little monster, somewhat dizzy but clearly satisfied, cast a last glance at his defeated opponent and walked to the gruel filled trough.
Bob’s body was in a truly dreadful state but the woman quickly pulled a small flask from her sash and poured it into his mouth, simultaneously bandaging his neck with a dirty looking cloth.
Seeing some light coming back into Bob’s eyes I breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever was in that flask, it evidently worked wonders and though the amount of blood left me horrified, it was clear that this vicious bite had luckily managed to miss an artery.
Bob was still in a state of confusion but he already managed to stand on his own, his gaze searching around the place. When his sight locked onto Alpha happily gorging himself on the gruel, a look of true hatred flashed through his face. With swiftness totally unbecoming of someone who just had a brush with death Bob pounced on the unsuspecting Alpha.
The caretaker moved to stop him, but to our shared surprise, Alpha fell down after a single swing. Bob clearly wasn’t satisfied with just that and continued to pummel him into the ground. His gaunt arm rose and fell, each strike accurately landing on Alpha’s face.
A total reverse of the previous situation had occurred, with Bob sitting on the enemy’s body, his body arching back to put its whole weight into every attack. For a while, only silence punctuated by the sound of something very hard hitting something very soft reverberated in the cave.
The caretaker finally came to her senses and separated the two again but the aftermath this time was possibly even more gruesome than before. Alpha’s face looked like a battlefield after a savage battle. In contrast to Bob’s pale visage, it was brimming with every color imaginable - if ones imagination mostly consisted of shades of red. Numerous open cuts were only the beginning of it, his nose was smashed, the mouth which suffered most of the blows displayed teeth that were barely held in by the gums and sticking out at disturbing angles. Even the forehead was visibly caved in.
This time the caretaker really lost her patience. She roughly grabbed Bob’s hand and revealed a stone, which I recognized to be the one I previously snatched from Alpha and must’ve been later swiped by Bob. Seeing the tool that caused this mayhem, she grew even angrier and slapped Bob’s face, sending the already exhausted boy to the ground.
Then she pulled yet another flask from her sash and poured it down Alpha’s throat. Like before, the effect was immediate, but the scale of destruction was on another level. The little goblin was waking up and the blood coming from his wounds started to slow, but there was no magical fix for the destruction waged upon his nose and teeth. The skin mended but the shape of his face was permanently altered.
Done with the basic aid, the caretaker stood up and cast a vicious look at the two goblins but neither of them was in the state to really register it. That didn’t stop her from instead focusing on me, as if I was somehow responsible for this carnage. Which in some small way could be attributed to me, but I’ll be damned if I’ll feel a shred of guilt for the result of their own savage traditions.
Seeing I didn’t cower under her gaze, she snorted in a surprisingly human fashion, growled something indecipherable and left the rest of us alone in the chamber.
I carefully walked to the place where Bob collapsed. That last bout completely exhausted the rest of his strength and he was now laying limply on the ground. His face, hair and clothes were soaked in blood. I won’t say his performance didn’t inspire some genuine fear in me and I admit I had a fleeting thought of leaving the two of them to their own devices, lest one day I’ll be the one to have my face caved in with a stone, but, still, I decided to help him.
Part of it stemmed from the fact that he didn’t use the stone until Alpha mercilessly bit into his throat. But the real reason was that all things considered Bob was the first person I truly met in this world. What we did could hardly be called talking but he knew my name and, hell, I’ve even given him his. Granting personhood to a baby goblin is maybe a bit much, but after the show I’ve just seen, it was difficult to see him as just a child either.
I shook Bob gently, wary of triggering his bloodlust again, and indeed the eyes that opened were that of a savage. Startled, I quickly started saying in a soft voice:
“Bob.” “Bob.”
A flicker of recognition ran past his eyes. In a voice devoid of any strength he weakly said:
“Rhys.”
At this point I stopped caring about concealing my language and carried Bob to the trough, all the time speaking in a hushed, calming voice:
“There you go, buddy. It’s all good now. You really whipped his ass, didn’t you. Now you just need to eat your fill and then you can go back to sleep, ok?”
There was still around a third of the gruel left, since Alpha didn’t get much chance to partake in it. Stumbling along the way I managed to drag Bob towards it. The whole fight didn’t take more than a few minutes and the food remained hot, its powerful aroma wafting into the air.
Bob was still dazed, so I fed him gruel with my own hands. After a few mouthfuls some color returned to his face, turning it healthy green. When he got strong enough to eat on his own, I returned to my corner. These two fights must’ve obliterated whatever measure of courage was left in the other goblins cause at no point did they try sneaking in closer to the trough. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t feeling much confidence either.
Whatever this world is, it won’t be easy to survive in. Even if today's fight got a bit out of control, Alpha’s and Bob’s actions clearly followed the expectations of the caretaker. A tribe which treats their young this way must be accustomed to battle.
Furthermore, we were growing too quickly. It was nearly impossible to tell the passage of time in this dimly lit room, but it couldn’t have been more than a few months since we were born. Yet every one of us boasted strength comparable to a child of about twelve years old. If the rules from my world carried over, and for the most part they clearly did, a species that developed this quickly couldn’t be long lived.
Even if I grow in strength and somehow avoid dying during a hunt or some moronic tribal war, how long can I really expect to live? Twenty years? Ten? Is this my fate? To struggle to live every day, only to die after a dozen odd years?
My dark thoughts were interrupted when I saw Bob wobbling towards me. After finishing his meal his vitality clearly started to replenish but the exhaustion was clear on his face. He slumped on the ground close to me and quickly dozed off. His obvious trust raising my spirits a bit.
Oh well, I thought. It is what it is. And with magical potions like those I’ve seen, it’s not impossible that there are some ways to prolong one's life as well. Highly doubtful if they’re within the reach of a pitiful goblin, but so long as the situation isn’t utterly hopeless I can’t lose… well, hope. And with that thought, I too, fell asleep.