Only me and the goblins travel, not even Lina follows me this time. Is hunch? Was it whatever she saw in my eyes before I left? It is probably better this way.

My brethren are small still, so even with this handful of wargs, I can take almost twenty of them with me. They carry little food and water, huddled together in fours or fives per warg. Morgana watches me go, I do not see her usual grin or mocking grin, she knows. Everyone knows something is different.

The wargs run for almost hours without stopping, we don't have the time to take as long as I told Jorr. And as the forest grows thicker the more we approach the mountains my mind is bombarded by endless nagging. What once was a guilt, a shame of what I have to do, or what I have done. It's just a distant echo compared to the one thought in my head.

Hatred.

It is the only thing that can keep it all away. Any sense of remorse, of doubt. This raging fire has always been my shield and my sword. Ever since I torched that place, that cursed place. Where I accepted what I was, no, where I became what I tried to deny. I have tortured myself with what I must do and lied to myself.

But it feels like it was all just a spark.

Me trying to set it all ablaze, but there was always that part of me that wasn't honest. That tried to make it all rational when that is just not who I am. No, I am exactly like them. Like the green-skinned creatures that ride behind me. I hate, and I lust, and I hunger. It is my human soul that has been trying to fight back.

And how does it do it? By making me think.

But no, this is not something I control or can tame. Not something I can make rational. I hate them, I hate them all.

The humans who can live happily when I cannot. Who can have a family, and return home every night, to friends, and loved ones. I hate them. I hate their children, I hate their women, I hate their men. For they can have what I cannot. My hatred seeps like an open wound, bleeding out onto every face that dares to try and haunt me.

Those memories of the innocent that I have killed. Wait, innocent? No, they are not without guilt. I have not forgotten that I am not supposed to be here. I was brought by something or someone. Was it a god? A demon? It doesn't matter. Everyone is guilty, everyone deserves my hatred. For they hate me too, by simply knowing of my existence.

The day turns to night, again and again. The forest vanishes as we return to the rocky mountains, and I guide my brethren to the right path. Not a difficult task since there is a road we can travel, and we go deeper. From time to time I spot a harpy, yet they never approach.

Soon we run out of food, and the goblins grow restless, but compared to the other men at the camp, they do not complain. Their eyes never dare hold my gaze. It feels like we have a silent tongue only we understand now like I'm finally speaking their language. They will eat, they know it, and they trust me.

Gone is their cautious attitude. Always looking at me with respect but also confusion, for I am no regular goblin. Yet now, they do see me. I am a stranger no more.

The beaten path makes its way to a more walked road leading deeper inside the mountains, with iron lamposts to light the path. I see a distant black tower looking over the great valleys and deep cliffs, the Endless Green a sight impossible to miss with its gargantuan size. We are close, how many days has it been? The wargs are tired, but they too feel it.

They feel the change in me. They know there will be rewards. It's almost like I have truly become the fire I feel within. And I'm spreading this anger to everyone around me. The goblins are anxious for battle, and bloodlust before we even find our enemy. The wargs lick their dry mouths, breathing hard as we make our way down the new road, and out of the stone walls that surround us.

Why now, I wonder? But I suppose it has been building up. Bit by bit, each murder, each monstrosity that I committed. I look at my hands and see my nails are claws, black. I don't bother to hide them, I won't fight it anymore. Small black horns shall now always adorn my forehead. The imp-like tail hanging free at my behind.

Embracing the beast within, now more than ever. I feel free.

And yet, why do I also feel...trapped?

We stumble upon a pair of wooden carts filled with freshly gathered ore in barrels. The horses pulling them notice us first, while the small humans, gnomes I suppose, only see us once we are about to kill them.

Both goblin and warg feast on horse meat. I join them too, bringing back memories of how it felt hunting when I lived in these woods. The most addictive sensation of going from starving to full enough to almost throw up. Overtaken by curiosity I reach out and unmask one of the gnomes, grimacing at the deformed, almost nauseating-inducing excuse of a face that lays beneath.

They didn't even scream, or cry when the wargs tore them to pieces. They simply died in silence.

Having eaten our full we dump the ore down the cliffs and make the wargs pull the carts, they will be useful to bring back what we take.

The forest returns to our eyes. And at the foot of the mountains lays a village. Walled off by a small palisade, yet their gates are open. I knew this road had to take us here, to a settlement. And it is small. Only a handful of houses, with a pair of watchtowers. Like gifting us the perfect opportunity the sky is dark. We reached it as the night came.

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However, it is still early, and the distant torches give way to the up-and-busy humans. I let my men behind for a moment and get close on my own. I don't know why, I suppose I just want a moment for myself.

The guards are few, yet enough to pose a threat if this was simply a raid by goblins and no more. But I am here, and these goblins are mine.

I see kilns for charcoal and a couple of big furnaces. By the looks of it, the town is occupied by blacksmiths rather than miners. I suppose there must be a bigger settlement in the mountains where they take the ores to bring them here, where only artisans must live, to give form to the iron.

The houses are made of painted brick and ceramic roofs. with a neatly done paved path, a well, and I even see a bar of sorts. This place is not new, or poor. The humans still out are dressed well, and there seem to be some decorations, is it a festivity of winter?

I hide in the shadows and smell the sweetness of freshly baked goods. I hear laughter and merriment. The guards are busy playing dice games and drinking. Sneaking inside the village is not a challenge at all. Children are playing together in the snow, while their parents chat inside their warm homes.

Beer and wine are easy to smell. As is the sweat and stench of sex by a nearby couple of teens locked up in their rooms.

All this joy, am I really going to do this? Now, the voice would usually speak up. Call me a piece of shit and get me to do what has to be done. But no, I have not heard it ever since I left camp. No more constant whispers, and mocking faint laughter. For the first time in a while, in a long while, my mind is my own.

Perhaps it has left for good. Now that it and I are one.

That is why this sense of regret for what I am to do, is brief, the briefest I have ever had. And once it's gone, it is gone for good. All sense of sympathy. No longer do I hear joyful banter, only mocking guffawing. They are all making fun of me, flaunting what I can only dream of ever having. They are guilty, this world is guilty.

How dare they be this careless? Have they not heard of the two villages I have torched already? Am I taken so lightly? Am I not enough of a monster to strike fear and paranoia into their hearts? Into their very souls?

I hate them, I hate them all.

Everything happens so fast. I climbed up to a roof and blew the horn. The guards panicked, the children hid inside their homes, and the brave, brawny blacksmiths went out of their homes with axes and lances. I killed them.

Many manage to strike me, opening wounds that spill warm blood onto the snow. Yet I don't stop, even with their greater numbers the alcohol in their bodies is a death sentence. I am faster and stronger than them. My blade dulls with the fat of their flesh and the constant breaking of their bones. I end up picking up their lances and axes.

Shattering their wooden shaft by the sheer power behind my strikes. Everything is red, and my entire body grows cold with the wetness of their blood. By the time my goblins join in I have already killed two dozen of them. The wargs scale up the palisade, the guards having closed the gates. It is mayhem.

I slash and penetrate. I break, and tear.

By the time the adrenaline begins to lessen, and the world returns to make sense. I get a view of the carnage.

A third of my goblins have died, and that's it. I trained them well to stall and defend, those carrying the shields crafted by my blacksmiths perform the best. While all those that perished did so because they let their bloodlust take over and broke formation.

The snow has melted away forming several puddles of blood. Lamposts have been broken, and some fires are spreading. The gates of the palisades are open, guided by fear, the humans began to flee once they saw the savagery of my goblins. Those that stayed, brave souls that no doubt wished now they left.

My goblins are enjoying themselves. There is a simplicity in it that I have not seen in any other creature. They are stabbing at a screaming man, or rather, a young man. Toying with him with blissful glee as their knifes stab at his legs. Others are goofing around with cut-off limbs, smacking each other like children as their laughter and giggling are as loud as the cries and screams of whatever bastard is still alive.

They hate them all too. That is why they can do such horrible acts with such joy. Everybody hates them and hates us, so we hate everybody in return. The teen being tortured stretches his bloody arm forth to a girl being brutally raped. She can't scream, her mouth is busy.

One of the goblins cheers holding a severed head, it was used to scoop up wine from a barrel. A small group smacks a couple of elderly with torches, temporarily setting them ablaze only to stop the fires and keep on playing.

I feel like I should...think something of this. But have I not been promising the world this day would come? That I would scorch the earth, and fill the rivers with blood. All for my ambition, my selfish desire for a kingdom. I wish I could blame the being that brought me here, I wish I could. But no, this is my doing.

Regardless of the circumstances. I choose this path. If I wanted to spare the world from my wrath, I would have remained in the woods...or I would have finally gotten the courage to end it all. But no, I am filled with hatred, and I won't stop until I show this world that I can and WILL thrive in the twisted lands that surround me.

There is nothing to think of this. I always knew it would end this way. For I am Rokan. Rokan.

Being the last to break from the bloodlust I wonder why, and only then do I realize that the spear I hold is not straight because I'm holding it that way. No, it is stuck in the ground, and there is blood dripping onto my arm. Looking up I finally feel something. That regret, that guilt...that horror of what I am and what I can do.

The corpse of the child has been impaled, the spear going through his chest. His blue eyes are open wide, and we look at each other in silence for who knows how long.

Eventually, I look away. Another ghost for my memory, another phantom.

I tell my goblins to kill them all and stop messing around. They obey and only the sound of the fire around me is left. I look at each of their toothy smiles, they are so filled with joy and excitement... it's almost endearing. I order for the carts to be brought to the village, and whatever horse is still alive to be used to pull more carts.

We fill them with whatever food we can. Undressing the guards and taking their chainmail and clothes. Weapons as well, from spears and handaxes to pickaxes and kitchen knives. This village didn't even seem to be one dedicated to making weapons, only cutlery and decorations or objects needed to construct buildings, we took some of them too.

I curse when I realize that the fires had gotten to most of the food supplies of the village, but staring at the many corpses a flash from my past trauma threatens to break the steel wall I have put between my thoughts and my feelings...but it does not succeed. I order for rope to be gathered, and the feet of the biggest corpses to be tied and dragged.

My men won't starve, and we will have weapons to fight.

We leave where we came from. I don't look back. There is nothing that deserves looking back. But I did decide to leave something behind. For whoever had the misfortune of coming here.

The pelt of a white wolf one of my goblins had found inside a home, resting atop the corpse of the impaled child.

They will know me, and they will fear me.

Everyone.