Once there was a man who lived in a time when the world was young and the people younger still. Among his tribesman he lived and with them he hunted.

In one of such hunts, however, he was felled by fang and claw. Pain, blood, damnation, and rage. In but a few moments, his before pleasant life was reduced to suffering and betrayal, as his once companions turned their backs on him and his festering leg. Wrong, they admitted. Needed for survival, they justified.

Alone, in pain and blood, he cursed. He did not understand. He could not understand. And so he endured. Day and night, crawling for cover, hiding from danger, sustaining nature's abuse.

But not for long. First, the Hunger came. It struck like a bull's horn, carving a hole in what was steady. Then the Thirst, draining the will of all that was sure. When Disease arrived, bringing oblivion with it, all that remained was a husk of what was once a man. If anything outlasted it, only Insanity would claim it, he thought.

It was in his last moments that Enlightenment and Truth came for him. His clear mind and pure heart were rewarded with true Endurance. A Survivor he became, and with it came understanding. Pain, Hunger, Thirst, Disease or Insanity, no more those mattered as much as the willingness to do what was needed.

It was with one leg missing he got back to his tribe, after a few days. His hunting companions he met, and it was as if nothing had happened that friendship was built again. Never he spoke anything about what had happened, and no grudge he ever held. Because now, he understood. For he too, was a Survivor.

.......

With a start, I wake up. Sweat covered my body as the echoes of my actions as a primitive hunter haunted my thoughts. The pain of severing one's own leg was still fresh.

Oh, great. Another one. These days it seems as if I can't get peace even in my dreams.

Every night, I dream of being a different figure. Themes vary, but in the end, one thing remains always the same: they are tales of people enduring terrible things, and after all of it, surviving.

I guess I could consider these dreams as being motivational, given my similar circumstances. It's just that... It is all too much. All their sufferings, together with what I am already experiencing... All these things are taking their tolls on me.

Today, it completes a week since I first woke here in the Moss Cave, as I have come to call it. It also marks seven days from the day I found my way to the Goblins Cave. Since then... My world seems to have been getting progressively dark.

I feel my body and mind withering, even if the hunger that should consume my inwards is unnaturally absent. It is just an echo of what it should be, like if I was just a few hours without eating, instead of the full day it really is. The same goes for the cold I should feel every night when I sleep on this humid stone floor, or the pain from the gash I got in my arm when trying to climb the moss walls one last time.

By now, after all those dreams, I have understood. That epiphany I had when I remembered my death opened a door in my mind to something spiritual. Some kind of mother nature entity. That which called itself "Universal Truth". Or that I named. I am not sure.

Just like all those people, it has deemed me a... Survivor. Whatever that means. What I know, is that when it did it, it also changed me. Fundamentally. Both in body and mind.

I can feel in my bones. What should be unbearable to me, no longer will. It frightens me. Something powerful enough to change me like that. Invasive. It brings me memories of that man. The one that killed me.

I feel tired. Maybe this is the inevitable effect of not consuming food for this long, even with the supernatural aid I have now. The joy that the energy all around the cave filled me with is no longer that strong. It is actually starting to bother me, making me feel as if I was underwater or something. Bloating.

I miss home. My soft bed and covers. My warm shower. My gaming console. Alcohol.

Nevertheless, I rise. Lamenting won't solve anything. Up in my feet, I start the routine I have been building for myself. The world may have gone crazy, but my motto stays the same: routine and diligence.

First I pick up the sharp stalactite I have made for myself five days ago. I got it by kicking one of them loose from the ceiling of the entrance to the tunnels, down into the abyss. After getting it, I sharpened its point by rubbing it on the ground.

I have been using it to... Write into the ground. I suppose the right word would be to scratch the ground, but come on, that would make me look like some sort of savage. The fact is that I have been using it to mark my days here. Every day, when I wake up, the first thing I do is to write a vertical line into the ground, near the wall.

I I I I I I I

There, done. Seventh day.

After that, my routine consists of dragging myself to the small underground stream, drinking water, bathing, and then doing as many pushups and situps as I can manage.

Why, you ask?

During my first days here, I was at a loss about what I could do, trapped in this cave. The only possible way out, through the tunnel, gave in into a room full of goblins. There was no way in hell I would try to force my way through there. I had no idea if the pathway I saw the goblins coming and going from was a path to the surface, to another colony of green-shits, or even if it was a dead end. That aside, I am pretty sure that those fuckers were going to swarm over me as soon as they saw me. Not something I would want to see. There is no amount of mythical endurance that would make the sedentary phone attendant Jack Coast win any kind of physical conflict against anyone. Especially not against a swarm of anyones. Not a chance.

So, that made climbing the hole in the ceiling the only sensible hope of me getting out of here. Which I couldn't do.

Thus, me trapped here.

In this situation, focusing on staying alive and sane was the last option I had. Maybe something would change, or someone would find me.

And that is why I decided to start working out. There was a very small array of things I could do to keep myself sane while naked, alone and trapped in a cave. Working out was one of the few that could actually improve my situation. If I was stronger, more dexterous, and leaner, maybe I could even climb the hole after cleaning up the moss.

That aside, having a few more muscles could not hurt if the goblins actually found out I was here. Looking down from the tunnel mouth to their room, back then, I was pretty sure that climbing from their positions to my tunnel would be pretty easy for them. Their skinny, wired bodies indicated them to be natural climbers. Besides, there were a lot of handholds and crevices in the stone wall leading up there, making the climb itself very easy. Maybe even I could do it.

Also, working out, something I had always found to be extremely boring, happened to be the very gratifying when the other pastimes you had mostly consisted of looking at a stone wall wondering how old it was. I was actually starting to understand why prisoners were usually so ripped when they got out of jail.

At first, I was worried that I might not be able to do it due to the unusual diet I was undergoing here. Or maybe even that doing it could be harmful to my body, since I wasn't really ingesting most nutrients needed to replenish my losses from the workout. Fortunately, the dreams I had every day dissuaded those fears very quickly. Once I understood the strange things that were happening to my body I came to the conclusion that working out would not be that big of a deal. Let's just say that, to survive, I experienced people doing things much more physically draining.

I shiver from the memories.

It was thinking about those things that I managed to complete my exercises. Today, surprisingly, I did 50 pushups and 200 situps.

Wow.

I mean, it is not that much, but the thing is that before waking up here I think I would not have been able to complete even a tenth of that. And now, every day I am able to push myself a little further, which shouldn't happen either, I am sure. I went from 10/40 to 20/80, 30/120, 40/160 and now 50/200, in the five days I have been doing the exercises. I am pretty sure that is not how strengthening one's own muscles should work. Maybe this «Endurance» of mine is helping, but even then...

Well, no matter. I guess I should just be thankful that at least one thing is going right in my life.

Following ahead with my routine, I prepare myself to eat my breakfast. Approaching the cave's wall, I start to look for the chubbiest pieces of moss hanging around. Scraping here and there and soon I have a handful of green mass in my hands.

It does not smell nice. And it definitely doesn't taste good. After eating only that for a whole week, I may be considered a kind of specialist on this matter. Unfortunately, moss ended up being the only food I managed to find both in this cave and in the tunnels. I have been trying to eat as little as possible, considering that I don't know if it will do any harm to my health. I also have to make it last for as long as I manage since once I run out of it, I will be truly fucked. Due to those reasons, I have been eating only once per day. Namely, at breakfast. Like now.

Urgh.

Suppressing a sigh, I shove the disgusting mass up into my mouth. It is mushy, bitter and sticky, but eventually, I manage to eat it all.

It was not much, but together with «Endurance», it manages to abate my hunger and even make me feel satisfied.

Mildly satisfied.

After cleaning my hands and mouth in the stream I prepare for the final I start the last activity of my planned routine. Namely, surveying the goblins.

To do that, I go down into the dark abyss, facing the unpleasant odors of the piss and shit I have been taking here, away from where I sleep. Then I enter the tunnel that leads to the Goblin Cave, taking my sharp stalactite with me, just in case.

After doing this same route daily for the last few days, I show no hesitation while walking through the dark. With unerring steps, it takes about 20 minutes for me to reach the narrowing upwards slope that leads to the Goblins Cave. When I reach it, I immediately crawl on my all fours and slowly creep up the slope.

Even though now I have done this half a dozen times, the visage of the goblins still makes my heart beat faster. They are the material, undeniable proof that something is wrong with this place. Maybe something... Magical.

They are ugly, they look dangerous, they smell even from up here and still...

Looking at them still brings wonder to my heart. Sure, they scare the crap out of me, and every time I come here I try to stay frozen like stone, hoping with all my strength that none of them manage to see me. But seeing them is not that different to me from seeing a freaking unicorn, or a majestic dragon. Like those, they should be impossible.

Back when I first saw them, I was in denial. Multiple thoughts crossed my mind, but the sum of them could be simply described as the fear of the unknown. But now, after several days and much thinking, I had already accepted the fact that I was surrounded by precisely that. Unknown. There was no denying it.

Unknown place, unknown body, unknown dreams, unknown feelings... The list went on.

I had made my theories, of course. Considering the rainbow man and his partner had come flying from the sky, I could be dealing with aliens. Fuck me, I can't believe I am even thinking about this.

But there are reasons. Every single thing that happened to me since I met with those men could only be described as otherworldly. Maybe they had killed me, transported my body to some place and then used some kind of super-technological medicine to bring me back to life. That would also explain why I awakened inside such a fresh body, without even a hint of any of the scars I had.

They could also have brought me to their world. Maybe I was in some distant planet, being used as some human guinea pig for some grand scientific experiment. Oh yes, that would suck.

Maybe the goblins were experiments as well. Maybe they were just as confused as me.

As I said, I just don't know. For now, I could only go with the flow and focus on staying alive.

One thing, though, was undeniable: those green creatures down there evoked in me a sense of wonder I had forgotten a long time ago. Maybe since my childhood. They made me want to believe in magic and fairies again, to think I could be some hero that vanquishes evil and is celebrated through all lands as a savior.

They also made me think of all the games I had played in my life and wish I was inside one of them. If I was inside a game I would be some super powerful warrior who could just jump down there, swing my sword a few times with cries of courage and rage, and then transform those fuckers into experience points that would only make me even stronger. I wouldn't even feel any fear, as any mistake I committed would be fixable by a simple reload of a previous checkpoint.

Ah. How great that would be.

In reality, all I was was some naked dude stalking goblins from the shadows. Too afraid to do anything but too entranced by their novelty to turn away.

This curiosity, however, had already rewarded me with some knowledge about them.

After watching them for a whole week, I had gathered that this room I was seeing was actually some kind of infirmary. Or at least a place where wounded goblins came to. I had not noticed any of them being taken care of by anyone, but it was a fact the most of the creatures inside the room had at least one kind of wound.

Missing legs and arms, head bleeding, broken bones, missing eyes, and all other kinds of injuries: I had seen it all.

It made me speculate about how they were getting those wounds. I mean, even if there was some kind of natural predator inside these caves, like a bear or something, you would expect their wounds to follow some kind of pattern related to what they were facing. But that did not happen here: there were scratches, limbs cut cleanly, bite marks, puncturing wounds, purple bruises and abrasions, burn marks, broken legs, and many other conflicting injuries.

They also all carried one kind of weapon or another, all crafted from primitive material and skills. Bone clubs, stone daggers, leather slings, and wooden pikes were the most common, but some also held other more exotic weapons and things I did not recognize.

There were 31 sleeping mats, and 27 goblins resting on them. I had counted day after day, and this number only varied slightly.

That didn't mean that the goblins there did not change, though. On the contrary, I could notice that each goblin only stayed there a few days, at most. This happened because they had a surreal recovery speed. Even the gruesomest of wounds I had seen there were healed in no more than 3 days. One day a specific goblin had a severed arm bleeding buckets of blood and 2 days later he was sporting a closed stump while waving a bone club around with his other remaining arm. In the next day, he was gone. Surreal, as most things I saw here.

Another interesting thing I observed was that they had a lunchtime. For creatures that did not seem to communicate beyond sharp grunts and crude mimics, they were oddly punctual about that.

At around midday, an extremely loud horn always sounded and every capable goblin got up and hurried to the only exit the cave had. Only the most wounded goblins and the ones with leg injuries stayed, grumpy and sad looking by being left behind.

The first time I saw that, I thought that maybe they were gone for good. After waiting for about an hour, though, I was greeted by slowly moving goblins coming back to the room with bloody mouths and swollen bellies. Some were even burping.

You may think that I would have felt jealousy in seeing those foul creatures eating like pigs while I fasted - because I did a little - but mostly what I felt was mild terror. Those wicked and sharpened teeth all stained with fresh blood while the creatures happily grinned gave cold shivers. All I could think when I saw that was how much they would like if that was my blood.

Today I did not wait to see that again. After watching them for what must have been an hour, the horn sounded. This time almost all goblins went to get their food, and only four creatures stayed behind. Three of them had leg injuries and the other was too badly wounded, overall. I fantasized a little about going down there, fighting my way through those few handicapped midgets, but in the end, I just crawled back into my tunnel.

I had only gotten into a few fights in my whole life, and all of them as a young teenager. I had absolutely no confidence in pitching my life against creatures that actually did it for a living, with real killing tools. Besides, I had no idea of where I should go after going through these goblins. I mean, the only real path out was towards where that little green army had gone to eat. That did not give me confidence in my odds of actually surviving a trip there.

It was with those depressing, hopeless thoughts that I went back to my Moss Cave. All I could do was to focus on my survival and live day after day.

.......

Pain.

I wake up.

More pain. My head is killing me.

I get up and look around.

Everything seems to be dancing to some silent song, flowing into a neverending rhythm and mocking me while doing it. Like if everything was underwater and waves shook my very core.

The sound of the slowly flowing water of the cave's stream reaches my ears as an acute grating string of wails.

The light from above enters my eyes like a laser-powered beam, engraving stars into my vision and eliciting a yell of pain from me.

I kneel. My limbs are shaking. I feel as if I had put together into a mug the powder of the strongest coffees of the world and then watered it down with freaking energetic before gulping it all down in one go. Then I had snorted a whole kilogram of cocaine.

Holy fuck!

The high!

I feel as if I am going to explode.

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH——!!!"

Yelling does not help. I jump up and down, like an excited child on drugs, but it doesn't help either.

Without me even noticing, I am on the ground, doing pushups like a maniac.

10, 20, 40, 80, 100!

I am soon hurting even more, with arms burning like torches, but the feeling doesn't go away. My heart is beating like a jackhammer, and I fear I may soon have a heart attack.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Do something, do something!

Is this a panic attack?

Before I realize, I am down into the tunnels. What is happening?

I don't feel in control. This is madness!

I shouldn't go this way!

But in the end, the will of something inside me is stronger. It wants freedom. It wants to breath fresh air and experience all that this world has to offer. To let go of all pressure and discharge into the world the true potency it holds within it.

And I can't deny its wish. So I go where it wants to go, even if rationality screams "No!" at me.

In my frenzy, within what feels like seconds I have covered the whole extension of the tunnels. Upon reaching the upwards slope, I crawl up on all my fours, like a beast, and don't even stop when reaching the hole's upper mouth.

And then I go down. Hard.

The pain of the 8 meters fall doesn't even register inside my mind.

I am down there.

With the goblins.

Even drowning inside this feverish madness that imbues every inch of my being, I can't help but let out that one meaningful word.

"Fuck."