“So, yeah. For now, how about I go get you a bowl of that soup I mentioned? That’d be nice, wouldn’t it? And, just so you know, there’s no meat in it whatsoever, and the broth wasn’t distilled from any blood, so it’s totally pure and fresh and healthy and all-organic.” Saying so, the creature stood up. “Just sit tight and I’ll be right back, yeah?”

There is no escape.

As though Simel could leave.

With that promise of return, the creature left, and for the first time in many minutes, Simel could breathe again. For a few seconds, he simply sat there, breathing, letting the beating of his heart slow down once more.

He had survived. Again. Would the Gods ever let him rest?

No. As they had a plan for that creature, they had a plan for him, too. He could not escape his purpose. Gritting his teeth, Simel leaned down, lowering his head. He should have died. But before his thoughts could devolve further, he noticed how he was no longer wearing his uniform, and his boots weren’t on his feet, and his satchel was gone, too.

An arrow of panic pierced his chest and he frantically removed the blanket, finding himself dressed in a simple, coarse tunic that went down below his knees. The creature had dressed him in this? Why? To weaken me? To make myself easier to do away with when it no longer cared for me? No. No, that wasn’t it. No cloth or armour could hinder that beast any more than paper would hinder a spear. Then… why?

With his body uncovered, Simel could see his feet. They had been gently washed and wrapped in clean, tightly fitting bandages.

The soft padding of feet in the doorway alerted Simel and he quickly covered himself in the blanket once more.

“He—ere you go!” the creature said as it strutted inside, holding a tray containing a bowl and a cup of water. He sat it down atop Simel’s lap. The bowl of soup was still steaming—still warm. Warm like flesh scorched upon the burning body of the desert’s faithful. The memory made Simel feel bile rise to the back of his throat but he couldn’t let himself puke. He could never puke again.

As expected, the creature wasted no time sitting down next to him, watching—waiting for him to appreciate all its hard efforts. Simel stared down into the bowl. It was a simple soup. That was all it was.

His gaze slowly slid up, eventually finding the tapestry on the opposite side of the room. Two children, mother, father. Simel turned to look at the creature again. It smiled back at him.

Trying to hold back everything he didn’t want to think about and everything he didn’t want to remember, Simel picked up the spoon, put it to the soup and brought it to his lips.

He ate, he drank, and that was all he did.

Afterwards, he was glad to see the creature leave him. He was less happy to hear it explain in excited tones that it would be heading out to scout the place. Nevertheless, this left Simel alone for a little while.

He found his satchel on the floor, next to the bed he was on. For a moment, he took out the old king of Acheron’s crown, held it in his hands, and gave a prayer—the latest of many—promising justice for the creature that ended his reign. Then, he put it back into his satchel and removed his simple diary and his spellbook. For the remainder of the evening, he took notes of the events surrounding himself, the latest crimes of the creature whose unwilling guest he remained, and where the future might be headed.

The day passed.

The creature returned in the evening, bringing a little bag of sweets. Stolen. Maybe robbed. Possibly worse.

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Then, dinner. Soup again. Once the sun went down, it seemed the creature expected him to somehow be able to sleep. Even worse, with the past few days being what they were, that’s exactly what Simel did.

The next day, the creature woke him up with breakfast, cleaned the wounds on his feet, replaced the bandages, put him in a new tunic, and gave him warm water with bark syrup to drink. It took care of him, nursing him, caring for him as a mother cares for her child.

Simel endured.

After a few days, Simel could finally stand without it being unbearably painful. He could have quickened the healing by using cure, but low-level healing spells of that type would often cause unintended complications when used too often or carelessly, so he refrained. Still, to recover, he chose not to walk too often. More importantly, he didn’t let the creature see how much he’d recovered.

At this point, Simel had decided that in order to bring the creature to justice, he would need to contact the arch-judge of Sandshore.

They would listen to him. They knew of his quest, and had already agreed to assist in restraining the creature and holding it captive when the time came. Arch judge Gant would know his face. He would know how to handle this.

If Simel had continued his previous plan of bringing the creature before the Emperor of the Sun himself, he was no longer certain that he would have survived the journey.

The creature would keep him alive. He knew that. That wasn’t the issue. The issue lay in his own strength of will. Could he bear to see the cruelty of this creature during the course of the months it would take to reach the empire? Would he not choose to cut the journey short? He could not know. A month ago, he believed himself strong enough to see anything this demon was capable of. Had he not already seen the deepest depths that these beings called humans could achieve? Their depravity?

That was not the case.

It had been a week since they reached the city. And for the first time in a week, Simel heard a voice downstairs that was not that of the creature. A thick accent, so heavy it might almost have been a different language. The voice itself was deep and brassy, nothing like that of the creature. It was a real person. An actual goblin.

Not thinking, Simel stepped out of bed, winching at the pain in his soles before pulling himself to his feet and tip-toeing over to the doorway, his eyes moving down the stairs to the front door entrance.

There were two goblins, one inside the house, the other outside. The creature was nowhere to be seen. Simel gripped the doorframe tighter.

“Ar ya shure yer okay? Plenty ‘a lads go ta work even wiff a sickley wife ‘an kids in da house. ‘Ain’t no shame ta go ‘an provide if ya get what ah’m sayin’,” the baritone voice said loudly. Through the gap beside the goblin inside the house, Simel could see what kind of person this goblin was. Large. Burly. Yellow skin, with deep orange freckles. A standard Sandshore resident, built for heavy manual labour. “Ya get me?”

“Huh? Oh, uh, yeah, shore,” the other goblin said. But it wasn’t right. The goblin’s voice was familiar. Too familiar. It was tall, too. Far too tall to be any goblin. And still, it felt as though Simel saw double, both the goblin that couldn’t be a goblin, and also a completely regular person, just standing there. Speaking with a clearly faked accent. “But, uh, one problemo, um, she’s got… The missy’s got AIDS. Yup. Real tragic story ther’, tha’ss for sure. Shore. Ya get me?”

“...Aides?”

The goblin waved an arm. His left arm. The other arm hung limply like the empty arm of a shirt. “Yup. AIDS. Stands fer, uh… Absolute-Insufferable-Dumbo-Syndrome. Super infectious. Yea, just openin’ the door like this might be gettin’ particles all over the street. Why, right now, you could have AIDS and you wouldn’t even know!”

The goblin outside the door visibly paled. “Is—izzat so? Well, heh, erm… In that case, I s’pose I’ll just… Leave ya to it, then.”

“Thanks fer visitin’, Tromb.”

Without replying, the other goblin hurried away. The goblin inside the door closed it and gave a deep sigh. “Whew, what a wet-nose…” And then, he turned around. It turned around. A goblin. Not a goblin. Something else. Something that was too big for the skin it wore, with thin, gangly arms that pulled the skin tight and a head that was a little too big. The face was stretched across the skull like leather out for tanning.

And from within the stretched sockets of what had once been a face, two dark eyes peered out, and up, and right at Simel.

“Oh, hey, Simel!” it said. “How come you aren’t in bed? Your feet are still hurt, so you really should be taking it easy.” But Simel couldn’t move. He couldn’t even muster a horrified tremble. The eyes within eyes blinked up at him and a mouth within a mouth twisted into an amused smirk. “Oh, you don’t recognise me, do you? Well, heh… Maybe this’ll help!”

It grasped at an open part of its throat, and pulled up, skinning itself, removing the face from the face and revealing that horrible ash-pale face of the creature, looking as proud as though it had won a war. “See? It’s just me—Ho-Jae!”

And that it was. Wearing the skin of a dead man.

The world spun and Simel could feel whatever he ate last pushing its way back up but he couldn’t allow himself to puke, not anymore. Fighting the urge with every instinct in his body, he staggered back into the bedroom and collapsed onto the bed. The room was still spinning. The padding of soft feet made the world freeze, still upside-down.

“Everything alright, Simel? You look like you’ve seen a ghost, haha!” A pause. “...Sorry, I just… I’ve always wanted to pull that one, you know? You understand, don’t you?” Silence. Then, after a while, “But, uh… I didn’t know you could walk. Which, you know, heh, nothing wrong with being able to get out of bed, but…” A pair of cat-yellow eyes stared down at him. Unblinking. “You really should stay in bed. There are a lot of things in this house you maybe shouldn’t see. You understand that, right? I’m just trying to do what’s best for you, so…” It ran its tongue across its front teeth. “Even if you smell something rotting, don’t go in there.”

With that, it left, leaving behind a cold that left Simel with goosebumps.

That night, Simel decided to escape to get in contact with the arch-judge.