“No! No!” The king screamed in fury, “No! No!” His fat jiggled as he waved his arms.

“I’m sorry, Uncle! I’m sorry! I will bring back your treasure! I will find the thief!” Sman cried out, backing away to the exit. His arms were up in defense, his eyes fearful

He exited, and Leena was left with the mad goblin king.

He wobbled, his fat jiggled, and his wooden throne groaned under his weight. Leena tried backing away, scrambling to her feet. He grabbed her by the arm, pulling her close to him. She let out a slow whimper. His claws bit into her arm, tearing the sleeve of her coat and her shirt. His abyssal eyes stared at hers. And he started to laugh again.

The laugh was like that of a wolf, a strange barking guffaw, his rotting teeth on display. She felt it deep insider her, invading her like a worm crawling through her insides. She struggled against his forceful grip, kicking at his rolls of fat, but he paid her no mind.

“One of them. Yes? You are one of them? At last…” he murmured.

Leena felt her eyes roll into the back of her head as he shook her vigorously, back and forth while he let out another great round laughter. She shut her eyes, struggling, screaming, kicking. She felt her body start to give out. The edges of her vision started to jumble together, the blackness invading the edges. Her eyes felt like they would fall out of her skull, dropping onto the floor, as if that would be a welcome relief to the shrieking pain striking through her head.

He was chanting, “I have you! I have you!”

Then the king let go of her, and she stumbled backwards, landing on her back. She scrambled to her feet, and she tried to dash out, but the king was fast despite his girth.

He wobbled off his chair, his fat dragging on the ground over the broken bones, his boils oozing with blood and pus. He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her close to him. She screamed again, kicking out at air; she felt the heat of him at her back as he grasped an arm around her middle. Her tied arms sunk into his fat, and she felt the moisture of his sweat and ooze.

She started to gag.

Then he dropped her. She landed facedown in the dirt, arms still bound behind her. She rolled over on her back and saw the goblin king’s black eyes grow wide. He was reaching behind him, struggling to stretch to reach something on his back. He let out a roar of anger, and he turned away from her.

She saw Bo behind him, holding something, and the goblin king’s back had something sticking out of it. What was it?

She tried to focus, but her eyes were so blurry.

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She closed her eyes and heard the shrill, painful screams of the goblin king.

She opened them and saw Bo standing on top of him with two strange swords plunged into his back, Bo’s face ferocious and shadowy in the light of the dim candles.

She closed them and heard the slick of liquid.

She opened them and saw Bo moving toward her.

“Leena!” Her name?

“I’m so sorry. I’ll remove it now. I’m so sorry.”

What was he saying?

She felt something lift from her brain, like a fog. The pain in her head seemed to fall off like a hat onto the ground.

She stared at him as he used one of the strange swords to cut her bindings. She felt her arms release, aching from their mistreatment. She watched as he examined her arms with trembling, dirty hands.

“No!” Leena said, pulling away from him, “No! Wait. What did you do? What did you do?” She crawled backwards, scrambling to get out of the hut.

Death. She smelled it everywhere. Her body screeched to a halt, everything moving fast and slow at the same time.

Some goblins lay dead on the ground, their black eyes wide and arms splayed out, oozing slow bleeds from cuts in their bellies. One of them was decapitated, his face rolled over to stare at her with an immortal sneer.

She held her mouth with her hand, turning to look back at Bo. His swords were gone, his hands were held out in a display of exhortation. He was talking to her, but the words were falling out on the ground, burying themselves into the earth.

“What did you do to me?” Leena asked, her words getting swallowed by air. Bo kept talking, inching towards her. His face was wide, open, sad. Were those tears? His hands were bloodied, red and dirty. The hair on top of his head stuck out and waved about. His clothes were wrinkling behind him, flowing backwards against a gust.

She ran away, her feet hitting the dirt. She ran in some direction, not knowing where she was or what she would do, all she heard in her ears was wind moving like the roar of the waves, hitting the trees as she ran.

Where was she? What was she going to do?

She needed to get away from Bo.

She needed to get away from the carnage, the rot, the darkness.

She stopped slowly, her energy petering away by the minute. The air in her lungs started to hurt her; her feet were heavy from her boots. She slowed down, the wind dying around her until she was left standing, facing a tree, the wind gone, and tears streaming down her face.

She checked her pockets. There was no talisman. There was no pink shell.

She truly had nothing.

Leena collapsed to her knees, feeling her body aching. It was a good ache, one that showed she worked hard. Her muscles were tired and ready to rest. Her bones were fatigued.

But inside, within the walls of her body, her heart ached, too. It was a bad ache, one that showed she worked hard. Her heart was tired and wanted to rest, to curl up in a ball and die.

Ah, the taste of despair, she thought to herself. It was sudden and, then again, not sudden. It was always there, that despair, and now it was the prominent feeling. The emptiness was like a thing, a blob, something that moved against her, pushing her to the edge of cliff where she knew if she made one wrong decision, one wrong move, her life would end. It simultaneously intrigued her how much she did not care about dying and yet still did not want to die. It was like watching someone else consider the decision, watching someone else flippantly shrug and just accept that death was the end.

She lay her head down on her arm, curling up in a ball on the ground. The coldness numbed her, and she felt the earth start to swallow her as she sunk a bit into the ground and the dead leaf debris. Dust filled her nostrils; it was the smell of the end of all things. All things turned to dust.

Ah, she thought as she closed her eyes, so this is how she ended.

Alone.

Always alone.