He sat himself up and continued to keep his eyes peeled, but as morning approached, no one else entered the hole.

He remembered she was quite stubborn when she fell asleep. He'd try to wake her up and when she continued sleeping, she'd always flick his head when he went to the place that stored food to eat something.

Hmph, what a strange mother. But these things were stranger.

He looked at the other goblins gathered in the hole and noticed one by one as they yawned and picked themselves up.

What were these things anyway? He remembered seeing similar-looking things when he was younger. Other than their attitudes, they seemed pretty similar. But the difference in attitude was too big for them to be the same things.

These were far more friendlier, if a bit hesitant to play with him at first. But those other creatures were the worst. He was trying to find his mother and those creatures just started attacking him.

He rubbed part of his arm thinking about those creatures but he did find reassurance in the fact he was with these things.

He walked over to the others and they had gathered around in a circle.

He could tell they looked similar to him but they weren't exactly identical. He wondered why he had green skin even though his mother was quite pale, but was that so strange? He saw things similar to his mother in all sorts of colours, such as a dark brown, a pale brown and an almost birch white, so why wouldn't green be one of them?

As he stood behind one contemplating why creatures had different colours, one of the goblins turned around and grabbed his hand.

He gave no resistance and bent down to his friend. He wondered what it wanted to do and moved his head closer to its mouth.

“AAAAHH!”

The creature made a brief but loud, that sent Midori covering his ear and tripping over himself to the floor.

The group began laughing and another sneaked to the belligerent's ear and made a brief scream. Midori was the one laughing this time and quickly got up to be a part of the antics.

These creatures were strange but they were fun. Mother could be fun sometimes but she'd hurt him sometimes for doing things like eating or running around with mud over him. He didn't know why she disliked him doing these things or doing them at certain times but it made her very unfun.

These things were different, they'd let him do whatever and follow him or show him something that made him laugh, like touching that little hole in his stomach and letting him touch theirs.

He managed to shout in one of their ears and the group laughed and continued the rambunctious behaviour.

But… they were not his mother. He turned around hoping she had come back to his tree. There was still nothing there.

He tried to sniff her out but with other traces of her from walks still in the forest, it was no good.

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Oh, well he could always smell his way back to her house. But how would he get out?

Ah, that's right his new friends.

He turned to his friends and grabbed one. He lifted her up and placed her on his shoulder. The other goblins didn't even need a signal to start climbing one another until they had formed a giant (relatively) stack of goblins.

Midori walked into the wall and leaned forward to bring the tower closer to the wall.

The one at the very top had his face meet with the wall. Thankfully it wasn't anywhere fast enough to cause any serious damage.

The goblin tried to climb down but Midori kept jumping up.

Why was he climbing down? Surely he must be worried about her too.

After continued jumping he finally started climbing.

It took him long enough, what was his deal anyway?

The others looked on as he climbed upwards and within a few seconds, he had reached the top.

But something strange happened. He kept climbing. Not upwards, but over the hole.

The other goblins looked on with their jaws agape and started climbing as well.

Only two others were light enough for the dirt walls not to crumble beneath their weight as they climbed.

How were they climbing in the air? Could he climb on air? No, that wasn't important, why were they doing that instead of getting out and looking for her?

These guys were fun, but maybe they were also a bit dense. After all, he saw them eat raw meat instead of waiting for mother to make it brown and hot. You only do that if she's asleep!

It looked like he had to take matters into his own hands. He began climbing the wall again, but the wall was too weak.

He continued to fall down as the others climbed in the sky.

He sulked with the rest of the heavier goblins and sat in contemplation, thinking of escape.

As he looked at the dirt, an idea soon came to mind.

----------------------------------------

He had convinced the other goblins to start digging the dirt and placing it at one point in the hole. Convince is a strong word, he more so started digging and the other goblins joined due to the fact it looked fun.

One of the goblins picked a worm and bit into it and Midori looked on in awe, before picking up one of those strange pink things.

Its taste left a lot to desired but the texture made it fun to suck on before swallowing.

Others while lying in dark crevices they had dug out for themselves. He lay next to one of them and the cool of the shade nearly swept him away.

It didn't take them long in the digging to reach dirt that felt hard and was unpleasant to dig up. It looked like that was the end until Midori showed them they could dig into the sides of the hole for more dirt.

He shook his head to stay awake and looked at their hard work.

It was a large, steep mound of dirt that was only a few metres under the hole's opening.

The goblins climbing above had landed on it and it seemed quite stable.

One of his larger comrades had already climbed up it and unsurprisingly started climbing in the air. What was so entertaining about doing that?

After making sure Mother wasn't hiding anywhere in the dirt, he started climbing up the mound and soon made his way up the wall as quickly as possible.

And he too was climbing the air. He looked around confused and went closer to the wall, trying to go up instead of sideways but something blocked his path.

At the bottom of the hole, he never noticed but at this height, he could see it clearly. He wasn't climbing on anything. It was the thing Mother would wrap around him.

So she was around. Jeez, why'd she make him worry so much?

He came down and joined the others.