Disclaimer: I don't own Re:Monster
My name is Abraham Sullivan, and I am bleeding to death in an alley.
How did this happen? Good question, and to answer it I must go back five hours. It was 6 o'clock in the evening, and I was eating at a restaurant with my fiancée. It was to be our celebration. I noticed someone sitting a few tables away from us, eyeing my fiancée's jewelry almost greedily. I waved off the thought at first, thinking it was paranoia. After we paid the check and left the restaurant, we dropped our car off at our apartment's parking lot, then walked to a park to spend a romantic evening together. I noticed the same man sitting on a bench, feeding a few squirrels. He didn't seem to be focusing on us, but I started to get suspicious. About three and a half hours later, we packed up and started to walk home under the stars. At this point, I was so focused on my lovely lady that I didn't realize that the man that I had suspicions about was very close to us.
"Hey, you two," the man called out. We turned around, and noticed him less than ten feet away from us. He pulled out a gun and pointed it at us. "Go into that alley over there. Don't even think about screaming." He motioned over to the alley. Presumably, he wanted to be a little more discrete about his mugging. Seeing no choice, I started walking into the alley, doing my best to shield my fiancée from the gun in his hand. Once we were far enough into the alleyway, he began.
"Now, you two will hand over all your valuables. Especially the woman. The jewelry is sure to fetch a nice sum." My fiancée, shaking and crying slightly, started to take off her jewelry. I put a hand on hers to stop her from doing any more. She looked into my eyes questioningly, and I stared calmly back.
"My things, I'll happily give up. I just ask that you don't take any of hers. She needs it," I said to the man. He started laughing uproariously.
"Do you think I care about whether she needs it or not?! Cough it up, or you die!" He said, waving his gun a little in emphasis. I thought it over briefly, then decided on the lesser of two evils. He was a mugger, after all.
"Fine. Just don't harm her," I said, defeated. I started to pull out my wallet, maybe a little too fast. He got startled and pulled the trigger. I fell onto my back, holding my chest. A bullet dug into my sternum, and was killing me quickly. My fiancée screamed bloody murder before she collapsed into a dead faint. In the peripherals of my quickly fading vision, I noticed the mugger panic, throw the gun in the trash bin next to us, and run away at breakneck speed. Fighting through the pain, I crawled over to my fiancée, shaking her slightly to try and wake her up.
"Olivia, Liv my sweet-" I quickly turn my head and cough up blood next to her. She starts to shift, signalling her waking up. "Liv, can you hear me? I don't have much time. I need you to live for me-" I cough again, my vision almost completely gone. Liv cups my head in her hands, bawling. "Don't cry, baby. Live for the both of us," I finish. Just in time, too, as I start to vomit blood now. Still crying, she hugs me, cradling my head carefully.
"Stop talking, love! We can still call an ambulance! I promise you'll make it!" She exclaims, pulling out her phone. I put my hand on hers to stop her, in a similar fashion to what I did before I got shot.
"Don't worry about me. It's too late, I can feel it. I love you-" I throw up some more and closed my eyes, not able to fight through the pain anymore. The last thing I hear is sirens before I finally drift away.
Day 1
I struggle to open my eyes. It seems like I'm fighting my own body to do anything, actually. When I finally manage to open them, I see an old creature standing in front of me. He is stroking his beard in thought.
"Hmm... this one shall be called Goblin Vin," the old creature states. I guess that means he's a goblin, then.
Wait.
Did he say I'll be called Goblin Vin?
I lift my hand in the air and, sure enough, it's small and a leathery green. I start to cry, but soon after I fall back asleep, my newborn body not having much energy.
Day 2
I am much more awake today. I am able to sit up, and as I do so I look around. I appear to be in some sort of cave filled with others of my kind.
Goblins. Such a weird thought. I suppose I'll just have to get used to it, though.
Around midday, the old goblin comes up to me with a handful of berries. "Eat them," he says. "They will help you gain strength." Well, I can't refuse that. I munch happily on the berries before getting sleepy again.
Stupid infant body.
Day 3
Today is the day I stand up. I swear it.
Thump. Ow.
CRASH. Ouch!
SLAM. Owww, my butt!
After dozens of tries, I finally manage to stand up. Now, walking is a different story, but that'll come later.
I snack on some more berries before crawling over to find someone to talk to. I see a goblin that's sitting alone and shimmy my way over to him.
"Hi!" I say happily. The goblin looks at me, then turns back to his berries. "Do you know how to speak?" I ask, curious. The goblin keeps eating. I sigh and turn away, giving up on my mission for now. I take note of his face, though. I plan to get him to talk to me soon.
I practice standing for a bit longer before I get tired and crawl back to my ground space to sleep.
Day 4
I wake up feeling refreshed.
"All right! Time to practice my walk!" I exclaim. Some goblins start to back away from me wearily, but I pay them no mind. I stand up quickly, proud of the speed in which I do so, and take a single step before face planting. "Ooowwww... This is gonna be like standing practice, isn't it?" I ask myself. I sigh and start to practice.
Three hours later, I manage to walk over to the same goblin I was talking to yesterday. My persistence will pay off, I'm sure. As I walk over, the goblin is openly staring at me, with an inquisitive look. I take a seat next to him.
"So, you have a name?" I ask. He nods, but doesn't say anything. I guess I have to carry the conversation myself for a bit. "I'm Goblin Vin, but I think adding Goblin to the front of my name is a little silly. Call me Vin," I tell him. He nods slightly before going back to looking around. "So, why are you always alone?" I ask curiously. All the other goblins were with at least one other goblin, but not this one. He mumbles something inaudible. "Sorry, I didn't catch that," I say.
"They're mean." Huh. I don't know anything about typical goblin behavior, since I'm almost positive I'm an anomaly, but I guess we're not the nicest race alive.
And now I'm starting to call myself a goblin. Awfully quick to adjust, aren't you Vin?
"Well, I'll be your friend now! Let's get stronger together!" I say happily. The goblin's eyes widen.
"Friends...? Okay." He says, his lips twitching upward in a semblance of a smile.
"So, what's your name?" I ask.
"Goblin Cro," he tells me. I nod.
"Nice to meet you, Cro! We're going to be best friends!" I exclaim. He smiles ever so slightly.
GRRROOOOOOAAAAHHH
I scratch the back of my head in embarrassment. "Heh, I guess I'm hungry. I'm gonna get some berries from the old man," I say. Cro waves goodbye and crawls to a wall, starting to help himself up. I smile seeing his dedication.
As I slowly start to walk over to the old goblin, I think on what has happened. I died, I know that, but how did I become a goblin? Is reincarnation real? And if so, why do I remember who I was in my past life?
Am I really never going to see my beloved Olivia ever again?
I shake those depressing thoughts out of my head and look around the cave for the old goblin. After a few seconds of looking, I spot him near the back of the cave. "Hey, Old Man! Could I have some berries?" I ask, quickening my pace. the old goblin looks over at me and his eyes widen in surprise.
"Now, that's astonishing, young man! Soon, you'll be able to hunt for your own food and stop eating all my berries!" He declares merrily. He looks hesitant to hand over the berries that I asked for, but eventually I got my meal. "Now, young man, tomorrow I think I'll have you hunt for your own food. You must become self-reliant, after all." I sigh and nod, thinking of all the work I'm going to have to do now.
After I eat, I start to jog around the cave, once again causing most of the residents to stare oddly at me. I disregard them, however, since I know that I will need to be in peak performance in order to be able to hunt well.
Especially since I'm less than three feet tall. Damn goblin body.
Day 5
I groan and roll onto my stomach, trying to bury my head into the ground. I don't want to get up today; that means I have to work! Oh, why did the old goblin choose to make me hunt for myself today?
I hear footsteps approaching me and I roll onto my back in order to be able to look around more easily. I sit up and turn my head to where the steps are coming from. I see Cro approaching me, so I smile and wave toward him. He smiles back.
"Hey, good morning, Cro!" I call out. He sits down next to me.
"Good morning. The old man said that you were going hunting today. Can I join?" he asks. I nod quickly. It'd be a boon to have someone else with me.
"Absolutely! Now, let's look for some weapons!" I tell him. He looks at me questioningly, so I motion for him to follow me. Once outside the cave, I search around for a bit before finding a pretty large stick. It had a nice heft to it as well as being durable enough to not break when I hit it against the tree. "This'll do," I talk to myself. I turn to Cro. "Weapons like this stick here will make it easier to kill the things we want to eat. Trust me, it'll make our lives a whole lot easier." With that, we head out into the woods.
The first thing we come across is a small animal. It looks like it could've passed for a squirrel in my previous life, however it has incredibly large, sharp teeth as well as a layer of feathers on its... wings? Hold on, what?
I think I'll call this a winged squirrel.
"Let's do this, Cro!" I shout out to him as I charge the squirrel. It sees us and also charges, but it charges through the air rather than running at us.
Ah, the benefit of wings.
It starts by trying to bite me, but I manage to whack its head. It falls to the ground, but quickly gets back up. I swing again, but it dodges. Unfortunately for the squirrel, it dodges right into Cro's swing trajectory.
SMACK!
The squirrel flies through the air - involuntarily, that is - and smacks against a tree. It falls to the ground, dazed. I take that time to run up to it and stab my stick into its head through an eye.
"Alright!" I exclaim to Cro, running over to him and giving him a bear hug. "We did it! Our first successful kill!" He chuckled awkwardly and shifted a bit. Noticing that he was getting uncomfortable, I let go of him. I looked over to the squirrel tilted my head.
"Uhh, how are we going to skin it? I could use that fur, and I don't want anything to go to waste," I mention to Cro. He shrugs.
"Find a rock, maybe?" he says. A bulb goes off in my head.
"You're a genius!" I shout, already running around to try and find a big enough rock. Once I find a decently large rock, I start to sharpen my stick on it. It was the only way I could think of doing this.
After a few hours of effort, I manage to successfully skin the squirrel. Now all that's left is to cook and eat the thing. "You ready for this, Cro?" I ask.
"Finally, I thought we'd never be done with skinning the thing," he says. I shrug, stealing his signature response.
"Well, at least we have the fur now. If we collect enough, and find a way to knit it together, we can have new clothes! No more of these rags!" I shout in joy. Cro gives a half-hearted fist pump in response, which is almost as much emotion to him as I just expressed. We start the fire and set the squirrel up on a stick next to it, but not too close as to set it on fire.
"Hey Vin, you wanna go hunting for more while this cooks? I think one for the both of us might not be enough," Cro says. I nod in agreement.
"Yeah, let's go." With that, we go off hunting again.
Twenty minutes later, we come back to our little camp site with three more winged squirrels. We take the first squirrel off the stick and split it in half for us to share, and I get to work on skinning the others. After he finishes eating his half of the squirrel, Cro joins in on the skinning. I teach him how to cut in order to keep as much meat as possible while only taking off the actual pelt, and soon he finishes his. It goes by much faster now that I know what I'm doing.
After we finish eating our squirrels, I take two of the pelts and Cro takes the other two pelts and we head back to the cave. At this point, it's almost dark out, and we don't want to be caught in the forest in case there are dangerous nocturnal predators nearby. When we get back to the cave, Cro starts to settle back in to his corner, except this time with warm fur to use for more comfort rather than dirt and stone. I go back to my spot, but now I take the time to really look around the cave and observe the goblins that I have been living with.
There are maybe two and a half dozen goblins living in the cave with me, and they are separated into groups of three and four. I don't know why that is, but I don't particularly care. They seem to be about the same height as Cro and I - about 78 to 85 centimeters - as well as being a mix of male and female. It seems as though there are more males than females, but not by much. I could also be way off on that, because it's hard for me to tell who is male and who is female.
I sit back on my pelts and relax, shutting my eyes for the day and just enjoying the feeling of life. I haven't done that yet since I've been killed. It feels nice.
I feel myself drift into a peaceful sleep.
Day 6
I yawn and stretch as I awake. I feel odd, though. Did the pelts get smaller?
I feel around me, and it seems as though the pelts shrunk. How could that be, though? I stand up and walk over to the old goblin.
"Excuse me, Elder?" I announce my presence to him, since I'm standing behind him at the moment. He turns around, standing protectively over his fruits.
"What do you want?" he asks, almost accusingly. Then, he pauses for a moment. "... Why have you grown to be the height of a month old goblin overnight?" he asks, this time without any accusations behind his words.
"That's what happened? Huh. I guess the pelts didn't shrink like I thought they did." I muse to myself. I shake my head to clear the thoughts. "Do you know why that could be?" I asked. The old goblin shook his head.
"I can't think of a reason. Unless..." the elder trails off. He looks to the ceiling of the cave for a moment, appearing to be deep in thought. He nods his head and looks back at me. "Did you by any chance have success in hunting yesterday?" he wonders. I nod my head.
"Yeah, Cro and I caught four animals about a foot long with wings. We have the pelts, if you want to see them." I gesture in the general direction of my designated sleeping spot. The old goblin shakes his head.
"No, that won't be necessary. I have a thought on how this might've happened, but I'm not quite sure. I think you might've absorbed the meat you ate and converted it into something that your body used to grow. We'll have to do a few tests to see if that is the extent of what happened, or if that is even what happened," the elder says. I shrug and thank him before heading over to Cro. I want to see if the same thing happened to him too.
When he comes into my field of view, he is already sitting up. He is looking at me with the same kind of wonder that I'm feeling, but he didn't grow bigger like I have. Interesting.
"Hey Vin, you look bigger today," Cro says. I chuckle a little and scratch the back of my head.
"Yeah, I guess I do, don't I?" I reply. "No idea why, though." Cro just shrugs and lays back.
"You in the mood for some more hunting today?" Cro asks. I get an excited grin on my face as I think of it.
"Yep! It was pretty fun last time! Maybe this time we'll catch so much that we can share it with the others!" I say excitedly. I look around at the other goblins for a brief moment. Cro catches the movement.
"You noticed it too, right?" he asks. I nod.
"We're getting better much more quickly than them. I don't know why, but I feel the need to protect them due to their current fragility," I say. He nods.
"We'll become the best. For them." I stick out my fist in response. When he looks at me questioningly, I manually curl his hand into a fist and bump it against my own closed fist. "What was that?" he asks.
"I don't know, but it feels right. Like a sign of agreement or celebration or something like that," I say. I don't want to tell anyone that I still have memories of a different life, even if it's my best friend. Either way, I'm bringing the Fist Bump into goblin culture.
It's important, okay?
We get to work immediately. We pick up some new sticks and sharpen them quickly, then we hunt for more squirrels. We avoid everything else for now, since we're just getting used to hunting. After getting another four squirrels, I put Cro on skinning duty while I prep the fire. Then, I do something that I have wanted to do since yesterday. I grabbed a relatively decently sized rock and start grinding it against the other one. I try to flatten out the edges as much as possible, and sharpen it suitably. Unfortunately, I have to interrupt my work in order to start helping Cro cook the meat, but I'm back to it soon enough. After we eat the last of the meat, I get back to sharpening my rock more. All the while Cro is on the lookout for more squirrels. I am walking and crafting my knife at the same time, so I stop paying attention to my surroundings. Because Cro is focused on paying attention to different tracks and patterns we have started to learn of the squirrels, he doesn't notice my silent shift in direction. Neither of us know where I am.
All of a sudden, I trip over what I think is a root. "Oof," I huff. The wind was knocked out of me on that one. I turn around to see the root that I tripped over, only to notice that the root seems to be slithering. Uh oh.
I take a moment to observe the thing that I tripped over. It seems to be a snake, that much is obvious, but it has feet. Twelve of them. It's using its body to slither along while its feet scamper to the beat of its slithering, making me wonder if its walking or slithering.
Its face is scary. It appears to have a set of horns above its slit eyes big enough to be scary to a 90 cm goblin. I furrow my eyebrows in thought. It doesn't seem so tough, to be honest.
And then, it struck.
The snake must've tasted my scent, because it was on top of me in an instant. Fast-! I thought, trying to duck out of the way. It hissed and used its feet to redirect its lower body toward me, whipping its tail across my face. I tumble onto the ground and roll to a stop. Slowly, I try and get back up, but the fall did a bit more damage than I would like to admit. The snake sees my weakness and strikes again. This time, the horns pierce my abdomen.
"Gah!" I cry out in pain. "Cro!" I call, hoping he can hear me. I grip my stick tighter and drop my partially sharpened rock off to the side, getting ready to try and survive this fight.
This time, I charge. I strike the snake on the head, but it shifts quickly and I hit only the horns. I go in again, this time aiming for the body. The snake recoils and tries to whip me again, but I am prepared for it. I dodge out of the way and this time I use the pointy end of the stick to try and spear the snake. I shove the point into the snake close to the head, but to my dismay it simply breaks off.
"Oh no! It's like there's armored scales!" I realize. I quickly back away and assess the situation. "Should I strangle it? No, that would take too long. Stab it through the mouth? Possibly, but the tip is broken. I'd need Cro to do it. Maybe blunt force? That could work, I do have rocks nearby. I think that's my move. Okay, I'll try to bludgeon it." I nod to myself and start running away. First, I try and bait it to charge after me. When it launches itself, I slide under it. "It's working!" I shout happily. I sprint over to where I threw down my rocks and take the bigger one. I hold it in two hands so that I can double the power I use to swing it. I turn around and-
"AAAGGHHH!" I scream in terror. The snake is right in front of me, its jaw unhinged and ready to swallow me. I swing the rock blindly and slam it down on its tongue. I end up breaking the snake's teeth and crushing its jaw. The snake quickly backs away, but I go on the offensive. I slam the rock down on the head, just in front of the horns. I lift it up, then slam it back down. After about three more times, I'm confident enough that it's dead that I throw the rock away. I fall down onto my back and just lay there, taking deep breaths and trying to calm myself.
"Vin?" I hear Cro call out. I'm too tired to shout, so I just lift my hand. Apparently, he sees it since he appears next to me in an instant.
"What happened?" he asks me. I take a few more gulps of air before starting my story.
"Well, I was so focused on sharpening a rock so that we can have something better to skin the squirrels with that I didn't realize I was separated from you. Then I tripped over something, and it turned out to be that over there," I motion to the snake with its skull bashed in. "It was rough, though. I didn't know if I'd live through it. But hey, maybe it'll taste good!" I exclaim, excited at the prospect of eating more food. Cro laughs lightly at that, but quickly becomes concerned.
"Why is your arm turning purple?" he asks me. I look at my left arm and, sure enough, it's turning purple.
"Uh, poison?" I wonder. Then it hits me and I start to pale. "Poison. Uh oh." I start to panic, flailing about and screaming about how I'm going to die.
"Vin, man, you have to calm down! This won't help!" Cro tries to reason with me. I take a deep breath and settle down.
"You're right. Let's cook this and eat, then we can go back and get medical attention. We're both too hungry and weak to travel right now," I reason. Cro nods, but looks unhappy about it.
"Fine, but we're going to go back as fast as we can." I nod in agreement. I don't want to die again.
After eating the snake meat and the meat from the squirrels that Cro caught, as well as taking the horns from the snake, we start to run back home. We want to get back in time to not have me die on the way.
When we finally get back, we go immediately to the old goblin.
"Elder!" Cro cries out. "Vin was poisoned in the forest!" The elder gasps.
"Let me take a look," he says. I hold out my left arm. The old goblin looks nonplussed. "You know, poison is a serious thing. It's not nice to joke about it," he says. "I'm disappointed in you both. I expected better." Cro and I look at my arm, astounded.
"Wait, Elder! Maybe this is another thing with my eating." I say. The elder blinks. "Think about it! I was cut by a fang from some sort of snake with feet and horns, and my arm starts to turn purple. We eat before we come back, and once we get back I'm no longer poisoned!" I explain. The old goblin strokes his beard in thought.
"Hmm... yes, that is a possibility. And I suppose it's better than you two lying about a near death experience. Now you have me curious. I'd like to go with you on your next hunting expedition."