In the complete darkness of a cave, a man rested peacefully on the cold, damp stone.

His eyes slowly opened, as if after a warm, comforting nap, and he examined his surroundings with innocent curiosity. He stayed like that for an unknown amount of time, staring at the dark stone walls, his eyes adjusting to the darkness of the cave. His arms moved from time to time, his fingers articulating inexpertly, as if he had no control over himself.

He began to move restlessly while his stomach growled, protesting for sustenance. He looked restlessly around his surroundings, as if he were looking for something, something that was beyond the hunger he suffered. But the pain of his practically empty stomach tormented him, and from the mouth of the man's hairy face, a shrill cry arose with all the strength he had. But no matter how much he screamed, no matter how loud his cry was, no one came to attend to him.

A long time later, the man made low noises, his throat already swollen and dry from having spent hours and hours crying and screaming at the top of his lungs, unable to keep up with the man. His eyes, now bloodshot, looked tiredly around his surroundings, searching for that something with undermined determination. The pain in his stomach calmed down, replaced by a crushing tiredness.

The man closed his eyes and dreamed, dreamed of the black and the pain, the cold and the absence of that something. And when he woke up, the tiredness did not seem to diminish; it increased, along with the pain. He could no longer scream because his throat was so dry and sore, only low, pitiful sounds came out of his mouth. The cold of the cave was more chilling, and the darkness surrounding him, thicker. The pain became more vague and distant, his tiredness more dominant. 

And in his last moments of clarity, for the first time since he was born, a question manifested itself in his mind, one that lacked letters and sound, but no meaning: 'Why?'

And so, the child who was born in the mind of a man, did not feel the warmth of a mother, nor her affection, instead; the first and last thing he felt was cold and pain. But this is not his end, nor anything less, only the beginning of the end.

The man slowly opened his eyes, looking innocently at his dark surroundings, shifted slightly, and fell to one side, surprised that the soft, warm ground had suddenly turned into rough, cold stone. His arms reached for something, and the boy moved until he was facing it, looking into the face of a man, with a hairy chin and lifeless eyes. He continued to look at him curiously, making meaningless, wordless sounds trying to get his attention.

Until hunger returned, and with it, his pitiful crying. The boy continued to protest against the man in front of him, who, without giving him a second glance, just stared into the void. Tiredness came, and with it, dreams: pain, hopelessness, and loneliness. But when he woke up in the man's chest stained with his own tears and with the pain in his stomach and the dryness in his throat, he knew he was alone.

And as his last glimmer of consciousness faded, he asked again: 'Why?' But no one answered.

The man slowly opened his eyes, examining his surroundings, but not looking for anything in particular. He tried to move but fell to the side, he moved to get closer to where he was and now there were two similar men on the ground. He tried his luck making sounds, trying to get the attention of the new man, but nothing, his face hidden in the chest of the other man. Expecting the pain, he continued to look at the two men with curiosity, until a smell began to bother him, a strong and horrendous smell.

He tried to see what that smell was, where it came from, but he didn't know until the pain that bothered him so much came, although this time he didn't cry or scream, knowing that no one would respond. Until he discovered that it was the first man who left that smell, when he got closer and discovered that the smell was stronger, he tried to get away, crawling to a corner of the cave.

The smell continued, but not as strong as before now that he was far away from the man. Looking curiously around his surroundings, he crawled along the edges of the cave, until in one place, he found an object, something silver and heavy. He took it out of curiosity, touching it everywhere, until he saw a small, thin piece inside another semicircular piece, which moved if he squeezed it. At one point, he used more force than before, and a very loud sound resonated in the cave, followed by a scream of terrible pain, which faded away as time went by.

The man lay in a pool of his own blood, already numb from blood loss and succumbing to it, which would soon take away his terrible pain. On the verge of unconsciousness, he stared at the silver piece of metal on the floor painted red with his blood, learning that this was dangerous. 'Dangerous'

The man quickly opened his eyes, as the putrid, foul smell assaulted him with all his might, and he crawled away from the two men, and away from the other man who was in a pool of blood, because the metal artifact was there. 

He crawled around the cave, while stealthily avoiding anything similar to silver metal nearby. But instead, he found a crack in the stone wall, a cut that continued all the way up. No, there were two cracks, and a cold wind was coming out of another crack down in the middle of the other two. The boy touched the cracks, and finally pushed the door, but it did not move. 

The man, not knowing how to proceed, examined the door once more, exactly up, where a Handle was on the door. This made the man curious and he reached out for the Handle from the ground where he was crawling. The moment he touched it and moved it slightly downward, he was reminded of the silver metal that had hurt him before, and he pulled his hand away from the handle quickly, moving away in fear. 'Dangerous'

He crawled around the confines of the cave again, looking for interesting things, but before he could even find another door or another silver metal, he knew that hunger and thirst found him first, and with it, so did pain.

The man opened his eyes wide, almost vomiting from the smell of the two men, and crawled away from them at full speed. Even a bit of the stench stuck to the gray fabrics that made up his clothes, along with small white things that writhed in the places where his clothes had contact with the other man.

He continued searching the interiors of the cave, but he found nothing but the door. The man didn't know what to do, there was no way to escape the putrid smell that grew stronger and stronger.

He kept searching and searching, until he died again.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

And he kept searching, for a long, long time... 

Until he had had enough.

The man opened his eyes, and crawled down the hill of their corpses that rotted with time, reaching the door. The fear he felt for the handle was already diluted with each corpse that piled up and the pain was nothing more than something he coexisted with.

In front of the door, he reached out and pulled the handle, pushing it forward now that it no longer felt as immovable as before. And he glimpsed another cave similar to the one he was born in, but with something so strange that it challenged his whole world, something bright and blinding covered some patches of walls.

He approached those shiny things, smelling and chewing them, tasting bitter, the man quickly spat them out. He went deeper into this shiny cave, until he saw something else, more exactly, someone. Someone green, with pointed ears and a long nose, much more smaller than the man.

The man made noises with his mouth, to, indeed, get the attention of the little green man. Seeing that he turned his head and looked at him, the man began to crawl faster, so much so that the sound of his knees hitting the hard floor of the cave resonated loudly, hurting them in the process.

The man couldn't believe it, he had finally found that something he had been looking for since he was born, he ran with all his strength, almost crashing into the little man. The man looked at the little green man, who had dodged his blind charge, the man looked at him with desire, and the goblin responded by slitting his throat with his obsidian blade.

Choking on his own blood, the boy stared at the little man in confusion, and then, he looked at him with absolute hatred, wordlessly asking out loud: "Why?!" But all that was heard was a barely audible gurgling sound, until the darkness took him towards his birthplace.

Opening his eyes, and glaring at the dark ceiling of the cave where most of his corpses lay, he stood there for a while and then decided to go down to the door that was still open, and looked where the little man was. 

The little green man was eating an arm from his corpse, with dark glee. And while the little man was eating, the man thought for a moment about something that had slipped from his mind. 'He was standing' not like him, who was crawling, and he tried to stand like the little man, falling face first on his back onto the hard stone. 

But he was determined, and he tried until, at one point, he was able to stand unsteadily. And at that moment the little man noticed him, he growled at the man and started walking towards him. 

Frightened, he fell to the ground and quickly crawled towards his cave, behind some of his bodies and looked at the entrance to the door. The little man, as he set foot inside the door and tried to go through, crashed into thin air. Confused, he looked around and tried to get in again, to no avail. Frustrated, he snarled his way out into the cave beyond the door, and headed toward the half-eaten corpse of the man. 

The man crawled out of his hiding place, and did what the little green man had been doing: standing up and walking. After many attempts, he was able to walk erratically, and then walk almost as well as the goblin could. It had taken him two cycles to do that. And now, with his new ability, he walked toward the door and headed toward where he had died before.

Now there were only a few bones and a large blood stain and a trail of blood as if the corpse had been dragged. The man followed the trail, and some time later, he came across two little green men around a campfire, who had noticed him immediately the moment he came out of the passage that connected to the other cave.

The little men were growling at him and shouting warnings, but the man was walking straight towards them, intent on killing them. So the little men stood up, and each grabbed an obsidian knife. They bared their teeth at the man who was coming towards them.

As they approached the man, they separated until one was on the man's left and the other on his right. The man looked curiously at the little men, and approached the one on the right, and the one on the left, seeing that he was out of the man's sight, jumped behind him with the knife raised, while the one who had been on the right before, now in front, raised his knife and lunged at the man, jumping with the knife raised, the man tried to defend himself by putting his arms in front of him, and the knife got caught in the man's arm, while the goblin behind him stabbed the knife into his back, hitting his lung.

The man, his face barely a wrist in pain, acted quickly and grabbed the goblin's arm holding the knife still stuck in his right arm, yanking it out, pulling the knife out of his arm and pulling the goblin closer to him by pulling his arm again, while the goblin behind him was still stabbing him in the back. 

Having the goblin in front of him, who was punching and kicking the man, trying to get out of his grip, he pulled the man's head back using the arm that had hurt him, exposing his neck. Wasting no time, as the other goblin continued to stab him, even more frenetically due to the fact that it didn't seem to be having any effect, he opened his mouth wide and went for the goblin's neck, closing his jaw firmly and then pulling back, tearing off a piece of the goblin's neck before a hot explosion of red bathed him.

The other goblin that was alive, seemed to realize that no matter how many times he stabbed him in the back, he wouldn't die. He decided to slash the man's throat, who froze for a moment when warm blood splashed all over his face and chest, and finish him off once and for all. The man snapped out of his reverie the moment he felt the jagged blade pierce his throat and tried to kill the other goblin, but the other man quickly moved away and he tried to reach him, but with all the internal bleeding caused by the stab wounds of the living goblin and the fountain of blood coming out of his neck, he didn't get very far when darkness claimed him. 

He opened his eyes and quickly stood up. 

Going down the hill of rotting corpses and heading quickly through the cave, following the trail of blood again, he came across the other goblin, who had approached his corpse the moment he had collapsed and had stabbed him with his knife to ensure his death.

The man walked quickly towards the goblin and the goblin noticed him, looking quickly at the man and then at the corpse, confusing him, but not his purpose, and ran towards the man with the knife in hand and jumped, trying to reach his neck, but only managed to stab his arm that he had used as a shield again, but instead of bringing him closer like he did with the other goblin, he grabbed the arm that was carrying the knife, released it from where he had stabbed it, and the injured arm grabbed the goblin's neck, the other arm still with a firm grip on the goblin's armed arm, and slammed him into the ground. 

The goblin let out a growl, but when the man looked curiously at the arm he was holding along with the knife that he still had a firm grip on, he began to chew on the goblin's green arm, he began to scream. Sounds of flesh being chewed and cartilage breaking along with the goblin's shrill screams echoed through the cave. 

The man, unsatisfied with the screams of pain and the little flesh on his already half-eaten arm, which had long since lost the strength to hold the knife and had dropped it some time ago, looked at his other limbs, which were scratching and kicking and punching, none of which did him any harm or inconvenience.

Starting with his other arm, he began to chew again, the juicy flesh satisfying his hunger and the blood his thirst, as he reveled in the goblin's screams of pain. 

A long time later, the goblin lay dead, his expression in perpetual agony and with all his limbs half eaten, the man seemed disappointed that he was dead. He stood up and began to inspect the place where he was, more specifically: the campfire. Although it was no longer as bright, now just embers, it was still interesting to the man, he walked over and stuck a hand into a coal with a bit of bright orange inside, his hand burning, he grimaced and stopped touching it. 

Much of his corpse lay eaten away in a corner near the campfire, and near the corpse, there was a dark niche. The man headed there, finding old cloths, stones, bones, pieces of obsidian, and two makeshift beds, but obviously the man didn't know what they were, so, with his curiosity satisfied, he stuck his head out of the niche and went back to exploring, but not before grabbing the small obsidian daggers, which seemed to be good at hurting. 'Hurting'

He remembered the silver metal and remembered what it had done to him when he was just a child: a hot and painful pit in his stomach, and he went to look for it in his cave. Quickly entering through the door, he walked quickly, his boots echoing disgustingly from the blood and putrid liquids of his cave. And he went to the silver metal, its shiny surface stained with a bit of dried blood, and picked it up. 

He stared at the small handle and tried to shoot again, this time staring at the gun, to see how he made that hole so long ago. A yellow glow illuminated the cave and a loud bang echoed, he had made a hole in his chest, although very close to the heart and died very quickly, but he already saw what he did, the thing had a hole, which when he moved the handle, made holes in things he pointed the hole at. 

He quickly stood up and walked towards the silver metal, picking it up, but this time, not aiming at it, but at the corpse that died from the shot a moment ago, and fired, confirming his suspicion when he saw that the corpse now had another hole in its chest at the moment he pulled the trigger and the flash illuminated the cave.

The man, now wielding his strange silver metal, began to shoot at his own corpses, although with his poor accuracy, he didn't hit many. He began to practice, trying to steady his hand and using the scope, hitting his dead copies more accurately.

And after several cycles, he was finally able to hit a corpse in the chest 30 paces away, an achievement that was rewarded with a dark, cold resolution that arose from his still childish mind: 'I want to kill more' directing his gaze towards the door, putting his silver pistol in his right holster, he headed towards the half-open door, ready to begin a hunt that would reach the gods themselves.

... on the metal surface of the pistol, a roughly carved word was written: Wonder.