A life came into being in a strange dark. It looked about, curious, concerned. It’s not a grub or calf or infant yet it looked about in dumb ignorance. Sentience without common sense. All about is utter black; there is no sky, it can see no ground, and to all sides is blackness except for straight ahead. A figure—or maybe just a form—of a person. There is no light yet the figure can be seen. Like a thin oil spill over the ocean, or the swaying heat haze air of a hot day, the figure is indistinct and makes the head swim to focus on. Looming tall, it raises a long thin arm and points a finger over the little ignorant creature’s head, pointing away into the dark.

The little idiot raised itself up on its quivering legs, turned, and stumbled to wherever it’s been directed. Its frantic arhythmic breaths matched the off-kilter rush of its legs. The first moves of its young existence are uncoordinated and confused. It leaned forward trying to reach ahead and further away just a little faster. It pushes itself away from the ground just before it leans too far and falls, once, twice, and again before it learns to stand up straight and run somewhat properly.

Panic loses way to exhaustion but the fear never subsides as it walks silently through the dark. It looks over its shoulders, it glances from side to side. Yet nothing changes. There is no sound and nothing to see. Its thoughts are the frantically flittering pages of a book with few words. Where is it? What is out there? What was that terrifying figure? It had no answers, no context or references, no memory to draw on. All it could do was shiver in fear, both its body and mind.

It walked and walked and just as it began to wonder if it would ever end, it saw something ahead. Not the utter blackness that made up the entirety of its life so far, but a proper darkness made of shadow and light. Ahead was the scattered brush of forest: ferns, bushes, saplings, reaching vines, and all things that grow to be green. Few at first, they grew denser as it walked forward. Now full-grown trees reached up on all sides. The little thing looked up at them, past their leafy canopies, and into the night sky. For the first time it saw a source of light, and it reached up for the white moon. The meager moonlight lit up its arm and for the first time it saw itself. At the end of his spindly arm he clenched his little green fist.

It enjoyed a brief marvel at itself before remembering fear. Comforting as the assurance that things exist (itself included) was, the forest was much more unnerving to the goblin than the black abyss. The threat of a thing hidden in a bush, or waiting to drop for a branch, or sinisterly waiting under a leaf all kept the goblin on edge and he pushed through the undergrowth quietly and carefully. The forest canopy shuddering with the wind stopped his breathing and threatened to stop his heart. The next few times the wind blew he simply hid. Eventually he caught onto what was happening, that the sound was merely the leaves brushing each other, but the wind and its rules escaped him, and each time he continued to duck and glare at the canopy in disdain filled scrutiny.

He leaned under branches, stepped over bulging roots, lifted his legs over vines, and pushed his way through—into—tangled himself in—thrashed until he broke out of—a bush and tripped out onto a walking path.

“Oh!” a light voice yelped.

The goblin scrambled back into the brush.

“Hello?” the voice curiously urged. The goblin peered through the leaves. The speaker was a girl carrying a wicker basket. Short. Weak? She wore a bright red cape. Seemed stupid to stand out so much. Probably weak.

“Hello.” Although the goblin was ignorant of seemingly all things, words came as easily to him as thought. Though his words were not always the best. Not like his thoughts were either.

“Are you,” the girl spoke hesitantly (a sign of weakness), “alright?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re pretty tough!”

“I am?—yes, I am! I am tough.”

“Come on out and walk with me! Don’t let me scare you off.”

After a moment of uncertainty, he stepped back onto the path.

“So, what are you up to? I’m visiting my grandmother!”

“Your what?”

After a moment of vacant stared confusion, she explained what a grandmother is. Then she answered his questions about the wind. She taught him about the plants, about leaves that cause rashes and leaves that makes rashes go away, about how the rain feeds the dirt which feeds the plants which feeds the people, about cooking and baking and sweets and her pride. She opened her basket and showed him the sweets, the garden seeds, the knitting tools, the books, all the gifts and supplies for her grandmother. She taught him many useful things. She babbled on about many useless things. He had no way of telling the difference. He carefully accepted every word, mildly annoyed he had no way to test them.

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“You have a lot of questions. Hey, hey—how about an answer next! What’s your name?”

“My name?”

“Right. Should’ve seen that coming. It’s what people call you. The trees are trees, the moon is the moon. Everything has a name! And mine,” she said as she gestured to herself grandly, “is Little Red!”

He considered her for a moment. She was indeed both little and red. “Then what is my name?”

“I don’t know what your name is!” She giggled.

“You know the name of the moon but you aren’t a moon.”

“That’s… true! Alright then, if that’s how you’re name is,” After a dramatic moment of concentrated cross-armed cross-examination she declared, “Groan!”

He furled his eyebrows. “Why?”

“It’s the sound you make whenever I—well whenever I do anything.”

He quietly groaned from deep within his shallow little chest.

“See!”

Together the two continued down the path, chatting all the while. The girl was cheery. She smiled as though her face knew no other language than joy. Her gaze flitted about like that of a flighty bird expecting death except her searching looks sought fun and flights of fancy. She teased Groan for his ever-grimace and got him to smile. She couldn’t tell the difference which brought forth a smile of her own.

The path was narrow. Weeds scratched at their ankles. Bushes brushed their shoulders. The canopy above laced silhouette scars across the sky and their shadows patterned the ground. But the moon was bright and the forest was at rest. Groan’s glances into the depths of the woods became a little less frequent and he started to notice the wildflowers dotting the path before Little Red could point them out.

At the end of the path was a log cabin. No light left its bounds, not from the windows, not from between the shutters, not from under the door. There was no sight or sound of life. Only dead, dry wood.

“Oh, I guess grandma went to sleep,” Little Red chuckled.

Together they entered the cabin. Little Red reached up to the handle to open the door but it yawned open at her touch. They stepped in. Dark. A weak light flickered from an adjacent room.

“Come in.” A ragged voice called.

The goblin and the girl entered the grandmother’s bedroom. A single candle sputtered a tiny flame. It cut a tiny circle of light and the edges of its glow didn’t reach the silhouette laid in the bed.

“Oh how I’ve been waiting for you my dear.” Her voice was sweet but seemed to claw from her chest.

“Grandma! Your voice, what happened?”

“I’ve grown so very sick. It’s been terrible waiting for you.” She motioned to a dresser by the door. “I’m so hungry. Won’t you feed me?”

On the dresser was a plate. Stacked upon the plate was some indiscernible mass. It stank.

Groan grabbed Little Red’s arm as she reached for it. “Don’t.”

“Ohh? Who is your friend dearie? Come closer, my eyes aren’t what they used to be.”

“Why can’t you feed yourself?”

It laughed softly, a wet scraping laugh. “I’m much too old for that. One gets frail in their age. My hands simply haven’t the strength.”

“Who put the plate on the dresser?”

“It was me of course. A person’s body is strongest during the day.”

Little Red answered, nervously staring at the plate, “it’s fresh. Something’s dripping off the plate…”

The thing called grandmother burst into laughter. Howling peels of ugly, yelping laughter. Groan grabbed Little Red by the arm and ran.

Like an insect convulsing to shed its molt, the thing twitched and flailed until its gown was torn to shreds. Where once was a loved one’s most precious memories and keepsakes now stood a Wolf.

“Go ahead and run! All the forest is my home, I know its every inch! Just as your grandmother’s home is my stomach!”

Groan yanked Little Red along as they ran down the path. His scrawny legs ached. His lungs burned. The girl sobbed behind him. Still, he ran. He veered off the path into the woods. Into the dark.

“I’ll follow you until you collapse and when you do I’ll drag you back to your grandmother’s cabin! You’ll watch me eat her remains and then the boy will watch as I eat you! Everything you’ve ever known will be desecrated! You and everything you’ve cared for will be mine!”

They ran. They gasped and coughed around thick spit. Branches and thorns covered them in bleeding scrapes. Their heads pounded, demanding more oxygen than their struggling hearts could provide. Their vision swam. As unconsciousness gripped the edges of their vision with fingering blindness, they burst from the woods into the void dark.

Groan collapsed and dragged Little Red down with him. They both knelt and heaved shuddering breaths. There was no sign of the wolf, no rustling of his steps through the bush, no howls, no threats. There was no sound at all. No wind on the skin, no scent of the night-dew, no moonlight glow. Just utter dark.

He helped her to her feet and they slowly shambled forward. Having walked the forest path, Groan realized how long the trip through this empty place was. Not able to share words or even a look, they simply continued on, hand in hand.

After a long walk on exhausted legs, the pair arrived at the first place Groan had ever known. The figure was there. It reached to Little Red, pulled her cape off, tore her throat out, and tossed her gasping body aside. It tossed her cape to the same spot. Where it landed, a flame surged. Where her corpse should’ve been there was a fireplace which housed the flame. A warm light peeled away at the absolute dark.

From where her first drop of blood landed ascended from the black ground a green arm.