Gnawing hunger, never enough, too many mouths even before Thok was born. The smell of cooking meat tinged with smoke only serves as a reminder that Thok was weak. The larger, stronger HobGoblins, the older males, keep all for themselves. Thok starves. Thok hates that he hungers, hates that he must chase bugs in the deepest caves just to eat. Never enough to eat, it was always bones and bugs for the pitiful goblin.

  Half mad from hunger, Thok melted away from the flickering fire and crawled deeper into the caverns. Trickling water babbling quietly in the dark, led downward, further and further from the fire's false safety. Thok's eyes struggled in the growing gloom; he blinked hard, causing a transparent eyelid to close over his eyes from the corners. Quickly, the shadows fog gave way to clear darksight.

  Thok squats deeply and lifts his large green ear to listen for scurrying feet, flapping wings, or the faintest chirp. Seconds dripped alongside the drops of water moving down the stalactites; the shuffle was faint but drew attention like a cat. Movement. Before the bug knew what happened, Thok was upon it, its existence extinguished.

  Crunch, the bug exploded with all the worst flavors that Thok hated. The sharp shell and slime slip over his tongue and are choked down with a dissatisfied gulp and grunt. Thok spat the bitterness from his tongue and lapped at a pool of gathered water. Suddenly, the floor shifted, causing his pool to run from him. Before he could react, a loud crash sent him spiraling through the air.

  He landed hard on his side, knocking the air from his lungs. Pain overwhelmed him; long moments of gasping followed. The wall to his front had exploded into a heap, filling the air with chalk. His first breath pulled not air but dust, thick and countless. Fire gripped his throat.

  Thok coughed, and coughed, scrambling to his feet. Darksight failed as his eyes forced themselves shut between coughs. Visions of the world blur past, disorienting him further. Stumbling frantically, he searched with his hands for the path he had used to enter the small grotto. Frenzied hands moved quickly across the wet stone.

  Growing short on air, the goblin's mind was set ablaze. Thok's horrors multiplied when the dust began to settle. The wall hadnt been the only thing to fall. The small gap he had used to enter was now closed to him. He had become trapped in the very bowels of the earth, knowing nobody would ever come to look.

  Thok's dirt-caked eyes began to water. A wash of fear, anger, and deep despair overwhelmed him from all sides. Before long, he found himself on the ground, holding his knees. Thin streaks of mud tracing the wake of his tears.

  His attention flowed over his body, lingering at his waist. His ribs hurt, and his head pounded like thunder. Yet he was alive. At that time, the hunger began to gnaw on that all too familiar bone in the back of his stomach. Anger surged again, ALWAYS HUNGRY!

  Thok's despair reached its peak; he opened his mouth and poured his sadness into the stones; his scream echoed. Hearing his own voice yell back drew his attention to the wall that had collapsed. He blew hard to clear his sinuses and get a clearer smell. Clean air and something else akin to blood filled his senses.

  Drool began to fill his mouth before he fully understood why. The smell of iron in the air, the subtle scent of rot not entirely set in. The gnawing intensified, pulling the goblin's attention to the spot he had stood before the collapse. Thok sniffed again, tracking the scent to a large mound of rubble that formed near the place he drank from.

  The dust settled, Thok wiped his eyes and spit the remaining grit from his gnarled teeth. Vision cleared, he watched a small river of dark fluid creep from between the rocks. The viscous fluid trickled over the stone and raced down into the particularly bowed area, forming a shallow pool.

  He knew well the smell of blood, fresh and accompanying meat! Dagger-like nails attached to long, spindly green fingers scrape into the heap of stone. Quickly, he finds his prize. A mangled and utterly destroyed slab of pulverized meat, dripping through his fingers. Without hesitation, the hungry little beast began to feast. Cooling metallic ooze dribbled down his chin with abandon.

  Lost in every bite, Thok's relief grew, while his hunger subsided. The meal was gone all too soon, leaving a once sunken stomach now distended past his ribs.

  With a belch and a grunt, Thok pushed himself to a crouch and examined the wall that had collapsed more closely. A slight shove widened the hole, and the echo of his scream made a lot more sense. He stood and faced the now massive tunnel that stood before him.

  A strong rumble echoed in the shadows. Thok tilted his head, trying to listen for movement past the rushing wind.

  All manner of nasty things dwelt in the mountains' deepest crevices, things that would love an unwitting goblin or thirty. Thok braced his nearly nude form for the racing wind that screamed its way into the would-be tomb. Reason hardened the goblin's resolve and drove him out of the confined space and into the darkness beyond the maw in search of a way home.

  The moment his feet entered the passageway, his insides betrayed him. He felt as though the roof itself had crashed down upon him, and he fell to his knees. Wretch, the veins in his eyes bulge with pressure he had never felt before. His arm bones creak and strain like old wooden beams. Pain floods his every cell, while ringing dulls the world.

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  The floor rushed up to greet him. His ears rang and ruptured, trickling blood to the tunnel floor. A squealing pitch hummed with a blue light that seemed to grow from everywhere as it grew louder. His body wouldn't move. His mind faded to black, and the pain covered him like a warm blanket. Death seemed to close in with each pulse of blue light; the ringing faded slowly, and the walls closed in.

  Thok's lungs failed, and he turned a dark shade of green, bordering on blue. The pain flickered, like a candle being blown out. Relief from the pain, the hunger, the loneliness, it all faded with the dying blue light. Weak, called a voice in the closing darkness. Ugly! Cried another. Never wanted it!

  An all too familiar voice joined the mocking whispers. Pain wracked him once again, too much for his mind, and everything blurred. Hate! Spite! Hunger! The last of his thoughts became consumed with the swirling emotions of a dying creature too angry to let go.

  Thok will live! Like a command, the darkness cleared with the idea, and Thok found himself awake. He was afraid to open his eyes or move, lest the pain return. Moments tick by; the sound of rushing wind, ebbing and flowing through the earthen tunnel, fills the quiet.

  Deep breath. Less pain than he had imagined, he takes another and a third, filling his lungs. Slowly, he raised his eyelids, still expecting a pulse of pain but greeted by only light.

  He blinked, trying to clean his eyes both of grit and sight. The world seemed brighter, different than before. Despite many blinks, the very stones of the earth glowed with a dim blue light. He floated from object to object with his gaze, observing the blue color change.

  The rocks glowed faintly, while the water dripping from above shimmered with blue light. Thok placed his hands on the ground and pushed himself from the wet stone floor, first to a kneel, then onto a wobbly crouch. Unsure what had happened, he scanned the tunnel's opening.

  The smell rushed his nose just as his gaze fell upon the heap he had just eaten from. The glowing blue hue had all but fled from the heap and its surrounding stone. In its place, a hungry red swirled with black tendrils. The aura seemed to be searching for an opening before seeping into the ground.

  Seeing the crimson glow, Thok felt an overwhelming urge to escape creep over him. The cold wind rushed his fragile green form as he ventured into the massive dark hall that had opened with the collapse.

  Tentatively, but with purpose, he made his way down the corridor following the sound of the moving air.

  His vision clouded when he tried to use darksight. It looked like thick blue fog in every direction. Yet he pressed on, the path sloped up and branched in many different directions.

  Tunnels dug by Earthbore worms often open near the surface; however, getting caught in one's path always meant one less goblin to feed. A very good reason to avoid their tunnels.

  Despite knowing the danger, Thok continued on with a watchfulness he had never known before. When he focused, he knew he wasn't in danger; he could sense that the worms were far off and that nothing hungry slithered nearby.

  The sun was setting across the pine-covered mountains when he poked his large, pointed ears out of the earth. He knew the paths and roads across the whole of the mountain pass, his best route home as soon as the thought hit him. The thoughts had never been so sharp for the little goblin.

  Like a water-starved plant, he felt himself come alive with each step he took toward home. The thought of seeing... nobody, stopped him in his tracks. He felt something new when thinking of his cave and clan. He felt, for the first time, that they genuinely cared nothing for him, and that, were he to return, all he would find is hunger.

  The thought of the hunger he felt brought with it a new goal, hunger for none. How they would sing his praises for feeding them! No longer an outcast, no longer fighting for fire, Thok could have more. The smile spread wickedly across his face.

  A wolf pack had been picking off goblins one at a time in the area for years. As the summer season came to an end, most wildlife fled for better grazing in the south. Not the wolves, they've always found other sources of food.

  Thok could feel the eyes on him from the foliage as he approached the clan's cave. He knew instantly they were to come from his rear; he leapt to the side, just out of the path of a clamping jaw.

  Snarling, snapping teeth rushed from the sides, trying to pincer the unaware goblin as he fell. With a twist, Thok bounced off the back of the second wolf and landed hard on his shoulder. Before he could react, they were on him again. The first lunged and missed, the second came in from his side, while the third came for his back a second time.

  Thok was hopeless; he scratched at the oncoming wolves. The second took the chance to bite from the back; it clamped down hard on his shoulder, shooting pain down his spine. He reacted, sinking his teeth deep into the wolf's snout and pulling away a sizable chunk of flesh. He went for a second, and the wolf whimpered and released its grip. The first and third redoubled their attack at the same time. One took hold of his left foot and began to pull, while the first latched onto his right hand, trying to free both from Thok's ownership.

  Pain exploded into Thok's mind, panic and primal rage sent him into a frenzy. He thrashed and jerked, each movement worsening his wounds more than the one before. Blood streamed from open wounds, yet he raged against the wolves.

  The command crossed over him like a river, his mouth moving on its own. With the last sound passing his lips, his blood solidified into splintering glass-like spines that shattered, becoming liquid once more.

  The wolves pinned through the skull instantly stopped moving, a pool of warm blood growing around the trio. The feeling of the blood pooling around his body didn't frighten Thok; it felt alien. Almost like it belonged to a stranger.

  He knew he would not die, he thought of the blood back in his body, and it heeded his command. Flowing back into his form, the impurities from the ground stitched themselves into his wounds. He looked closely as it swirled under his skin, knitting the green flesh back together one cell at a time. The goblin pulled himself free of the pile and gazed over his fallen opponents. He had done alone what his clan couldnt with five goblins. A smile traced itself across his face.

  Food for the clan, leather for their clothing, and most importantly, power for Thok.