Flashes of times past quickly passed through my eyes. Am I dying? If that's the case, then why don't I feel ill, or injured?

The images are many, and too fast to understand what they mean. I know these are memories; they are my memories. Yet I can't quite grasp what I'm seeing. Like trying to grab mist with your hands, it just slips away between your fingers.

But soon they are gone, and a quiet, comforting emptiness takes its place. I am someone, I was alive once, of this, I'm sure.

And the thought of maybe being dead slowly dissipates once I start to feel again the cold of the floor, my toes moving. My eyelids fight to open and show me a sign that what awaits me is not hell, but the comfortable embrace of a blanket.

However, once I open them, I see only the faint light of a torch stuck to a rocky wall before I quickly close them, and fall asleep.

For some time this has been my routine.

Each time I slept I saw more glimpses of my past, enough to know I was a young man living a normal life in a busy city. I had a family and friends, and I was studying to one day live on my own and carry on the human duty of forming a family when the most unlikely of events seemed to have ended my life.

Lightning.

In an instant, the calming sound of rain on the balcony of my newly acquired apartment turned into the loud and ear-shattering sound of thunder, instantaneously sinking the rain and night city into the endless void...and then, the torch.

More and more of my senses returned, gaining strength with each passing day. The sound of people talking, in a guttural, primitive-sounding tongue. I tasted the sweet flavor of milk as I was nursed daily by what I presumed must be my mother.

Until my eyes could stay open for long enough to show me the horrid truth.

The cold ground was stone. I was inside a cave of sorts. On a side, a spot filled with wooden crates, and worn-out tools, some of the farming kind, most of war. Medieval warfare to be exact, spears, and maces. My mother, a barely living woman tied to a pole stuck on the ground, was more withered than late autumn leaves.

And the voices around me? Not human as I had once thought.

Creatures that with my limited memories I could easily recall having a name for, Goblins.

Ugly, green-skinned, violent, smelly and-

I stop myself before I sink deeper into denial and self-pity. For I knew the moment I crossed my eyes with my mother and unwilling caretaker, I too, was one of them, a goblin.

Skin with a green color, of different tones. With long pointed ears, and big noses, almost everyone I saw had no hair, and everyone was male, as far as I could tell. Compared in size to my mother, who I assumed to be a regular human, they aren't taller than a child.

For a good while, I simply tried to sleep through this nightmare, but there was no way out of this. Reincarnation is a fairly common belief among eastern cultures and religions. Usually tied to some form of virtue-based currency that decides what your future form will be reborn as.

I neither practiced one of them nor thought of myself as a bad person; of the few memories I had all were common and about what you would expect from a young adult. So why was I trapped inside this cursed flesh? Where was the fair treatment my soul should have gotten?

Pondering the nature of my misfortune, unsurprisingly, led to no change in my situation. It was time, the unforgiving master of all, who pushed me forward. Hard as it was to count the days when most of what you did was sleep, eat and cry inside. I was aware that a little more than two weeks had gone by since I first opened my eyes.

And even if being a newborn, I could feel the strength in my legs increase exponentially, eventually, I managed to stand up and take in the entirety of my unfortunate situation.

Breathing in the disgusting mixture of shit, blood, and rotten food since birth had rendered me immune to its effects, although the sight of it was still turning enough to force a snap of my neck in the opposite direction. There were a dozen of...my kind, constantly resting on top of each other, while small groups came and went, always taking someone and leaving someone else in their place.

My mother, the poor woman, was the only non-goblin in sight. Feeding whatever was left of their meals by hand, she was still alive, if barely.

I Wasn't the only young one around. I was the youngest, however. There were two others who had begun walking a few days before me; they already grunted and yelled at each other.

Once they had finished their yelling contest they turned to me, who had been watching them in silence for far too long it seems, and soon every other goblin was staring at me with their dark eyes and golden irises.

"Rawr..." is the only sound I can think of making, a genuine attempt to sound as mindless as my peers.

But this proves insufficient to them, as the closest one rushes up to me, snatches me in his arms, and pushes my mouth against the breast of my mother.

A few more days go by in which I make it a habit to observe the green beasts and explore a little more of the cave that I had to call home. Most of them went out at night, and the small groups that came and went seemed to be hunters and gatherers, although most of what they brought back into the cave were mushrooms and squirrels.

I soon realized all the adults seemed weak, thin, and hungry. Only I and the other two youngsters, who I suppose may be my brothers, are healthy and the adults keep pushing us to suck what little life remains out of our mother.

My memories may be few, but seeing this poor woman stirs stronger emotions in me than I thought possible. Maybe because of that unspoken bond, every child has with their mother, but after a few more days of watching my surroundings, I came up with a plan to set her free.

The adult goblins went to sleep during the day, and a few stayed awake as guards at the entrance of the small cave. But near twilight, everyone went to sleep. I was afraid of retaliation from my kin, savage as they were; if they caught me trying to release her, I may find a brutal and painful end.

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But between that or living the rest of my days as...this. I couldn't see either option being better than the other. So when the time was right, I ran to the wooden crates and took out a small dagger, my body taller, and more nimble than ever. I made it back to my mother and swiftly cut the ropes from her ankles and wrists.

It took a few seconds to get her attention, empty, dead eyes she stared at me with, had but a flicker of hope as they seemed to realize what had just happened. More alive than I had ever seen her, she frantically looked around, as if to make sure this wasn't some type of trap, and carefully made her way past the sleeping goblins and out of the cave.

For a moment I thought to follow her, the now visible golden locks, dirty as they were, still beautiful to look at. Got lost among the woods as the woman who suffered the torture of being a mother to a goblin escaped into the wilderness. There was no way I could follow her, even if I could catch up to her, nothing ensured that she wouldn't just crush my head with what little strength she had left.

So I looked back at the cave, and with a resigned sigh, I walked back in.

Soon after, the goblins woke up, and mayhem ensued as they yelled and shoved each other around. I had no idea how important she was to them. The less skinny of the bunch, who everyone else followed, didn't take long to look at me.

My blood froze and my heart stopped as he approached me, once he stood in front of me the entire cave was silent, and by the time I realized that once again my lack of noise was a mistake, the beast slammed his arms against my body, sending me to the hard ground with a loud thud as my head hit the floor.

He screamed in anger, and the rest of the goblins stood there, unsure of what to do, but it was right before he could hit me again that the least expected saviors showed themselves. My brothers, the two other youngsters, stood in front of the leader, hissing, and yelling.

After a few seconds of hesitation, he huffed and turned around, taking a bent spear in hand and yelling at the goblins. Everyone yelled back and rushed behind him to try and catch the escaping woman, who had at least an hour of advantage.

I looked back at my brethren with a strange sensation, gratitude towards them, swelling inside my chest. I may have thought dying wouldn't be so bad, but now I had gotten a taste of a near-death experience. I had felt the push all living beings possess. The same my mother must have felt when she noticed the freedom of her feet and hands...the desire to live.

The next few days were grim and harsh. The goblins didn't capture the breeding slave back, and although many more left in the night, fewer returned at night. The woman turned out to be important to them, as even the duty of finding food didn't seem to matter as much as finding her.

If only they had known their efforts were wasted because she was coming to them.

Around two more weeks, after she escaped, our cave was filled with choking smoke; it burned my eyes and made breathing impossible. We all struggled to rush out of the cave, only to be greeted by more than a dozen of torches, frenzied men wearing chainmail armor, and spears that trusted and pierced my kin as they ran out of the caves. The large bonfire at the entrance to the cave forced us to split up and try to rush past the concentrated masses on each side.

It happened in a flash, I could barely see and breathe, but the strong odor of iron quickly infested my tortured nostrils. I turned left and right, seeing every single one of the goblins die, and in a panic, I ran straight to the flames, jumping with all my might, barely making it across.

Immediately I ran past a handful of men holding fans to send the deadly smoke into the cave, who couldn't reach for their swords fast enough as I ran past them and into the forest. This victory was short-lived, however, as the thundering sound of hooves approached and struck me in the back, running me over.

Feeling more pain than I thought possible, I struggled to breathe as I looked up at the person atop the horse. Wearing steel armor, it was a knight. But behind that visor, I could tell with a single glance of my bloody eyes, that my mother had come back.

I wonder if she recognized me. If somewhere inside her soul, something compelled her to make that choice, or if she simply thought I was good as dead, and she left me behind. Not striking the killing blow.

Tired, beaten, and bloody, I closed my eyes.

Somehow I still hoped to open them and find myself back home. With a mother whose face I couldn't remember, now, only the thin, sickly visage of my new mother remained.

But the cruel god watching me above seemed to not have enough, because I did wake up, several hours later at noon. My body hurt in every spot and in every way. I struggled to stand up and could barely take a step. Miraculously, nothing seemed broken, simply, severely crunched and bruised.

Knowing nothing of this place, I turned back and returned to the cave, like a wounded rat. Except it became clear I had no haven to drag my mangled body to.

The entrance to the cave was blocked with heavy tree trunks, and the bodies of my kind littered the surrounding area. As I looked at them, I saw my two brethren laying dead, their heads smashed into bits; dry blood splattered all around.

More than a month had passed since I awoke in this nightmare, and now I had no group, no home, and not even health. I was a goblin at the mercy of fate.

I turned back to the forest, the birds chirping as if celebrating the slaughter that just took place, and while I can't say it wasn't deserved...a part of me aches when the memories of my kin getting butchered return.

Painfully shaking my head, I clean my mind of all thoughts; there are a trillion questions that must be asked, but only one of them has true importance given my situation.

Will I keep fighting?

It doesn't matter if I'm a goblin or not. This is my life. I am alive, and now that I have absolutely nothing, I'm left with only one certainty.

As long as I'm alive, no matter what, I have to keep moving forward.

And moving forward I do, as sluggish and painful as it is, I drag my body deeper into the woods, wondering if what awaits me is a quicker death, or a chance to survive.