The day had emptied of light while I was filling my head with ideas.
Not like a goblin. Not like a beast. Like a human.
I had searched through my memory, dug into my fears, rummaged through what I knew of the world and of myself. And I had come to two conclusions.
The first was simple.
I must no longer wander through this damned forest.
I had been lucky, that's all. An anomaly. If a creature had surprised me from the branches, or swooped down on me at full speed, I would have died. No glory. No scream. Just a sharp sound, a bite, an end. I didn't yet have the senses for that. Nor the strength. Nor the endurance.
So I was going to stay here.
Within this perimeter.
Not too far from the river — just enough to go there every two or three days.
But no more.
That was the first rule.
The second was that this perimeter... was going to become hell.
A kingdom of traps.
I couldn't afford direct confrontation.
Not against a wolf, not even against a rabid rabbit if it was fast enough.
I had to be a trapper.An invisible predator.
The one you only see after you've already fallen.
I had thought of several mechanisms:
A snare stretched between two roots. A bent branch, held back by a taut vine. And most importantly: blood.
Fresh blood, deliberately poured onto the traps to lure in.
Not to provoke, but to bait.
Rabbit, wolf, other goblin — it didn't matter.
What mattered was not to fight.
It was to wait for them to make the first move.
And strike once. Just once.
Every morning, I would make the rounds.
My traps would be my hunt.
This perimeter would become my kingdom.
Not a sanctuary. A battlefield.
Every root, every branch, every nook would be trapped, studied, watched.
I would make it a territory of thorns. A labyrinth of vines.
A place where I'd have the advantage. Where, even frail, even alone, I could dominate.
Not by fleeing.
But by waiting. Preparing. Striking.
Until I was hunted. Or until I was ready to leave on my own.
I wouldn't dominate by strength. Nor by roar. Nor by fear.
I would dominate through intelligence.
Through the economy of my movements.
Through the cold logic of a survivor who knows that every mistake... is an end.
This world would never forgive me anything.
But I could anticipate.
And if I anticipated everything...
Then I would survive.
So I climbed down from my tree, my body still numb but my mind sharp.
I got to work. First, I gathered as many vines as possible around my perimeter. I made a pile of them, a nest of brown, thick cords, naturally braided by the forest. I sorted them with my eyes, tested their elasticity. Some were too dry, others too young. But I kept about ten.
I stretched them between trunks, at ankle height. Not perfectly. Just enough to trip up an unwary step. An invisible barrier, almost organic, that would knock down anything moving too fast. These weren't traps... not yet. But it was a start. A primitive frontline.
Then I got to work. My first serious trap.
I had spotted the place earlier. A natural bottleneck between two gnarled, tight trees, the ground soft, almost slippery with moss and damp roots. Perfect. And above, a low branch, sturdy, but supple — enough to be drawn under tension.
I chose a vine thicker and longer than the others. Then I shaped a simple, effective snare — the kind you learn first in medicine to stop an artery or fasten a makeshift splint. That kind of reflex... it never left you. Not even in this body. Not even in this skin.
I fixed the snare to the ground, right where a beast's foot would pass.
Then I took the other end of the vine and tied it to the branch under tension. But I needed a system to hold that tension until the right moment — a trigger. I picked up a dry, hard stick, a bit twisted but sturdy. I stretched another vine horizontally between the two trunks, this time at waist height.
And I slid the stick into it like a latch, holding the bent branch back.
The system was clear:
If the horizontal vine was touched,the stick would pop,the branch would snap up violently,and the snare would close in a fraction of a second on the prey's leg.
A trap both simple and brutal.
Finally, I took out my bone blade, cut my finger without flinching, and let the blood drip onto the snare. Drop after drop. The metallic scent would attract the curious, the hungry. It was risky, but I had to provoke something. Force the world to come to me.
Then I turned around, ran silently, my bleeding finger clamped in my mouth to avoid leaving a trail. The taste of iron mixed with saliva. It was disgusting, warm, but necessary.
At my tree, I pinched my thumb firmly against the wound, just enough to stop the bleeding. I clamped my spear between my teeth, gripped the trunk with all my claws, and climbed slowly, using my eight functional fingers. My muscles trembled, but I held on.
Once up there, I lay flat against the branch. My back pressed against the bark. My breathing slowed. And like the night before, I used a vine to tie myself. Not too tight. Just enough not to fall if I drifted off.
I melted into the tree.
And I waited.
Night came.
Silent.
Heavy.
Alive.
I was still anxious.
At every step of my survival, it returned.
A knot in my stomach, a dull pressure in my throat, that invisible weight behind the eyes. It never really left me.
And that night, more than the others, I regretted.
Not the blood.
Not the solitude.
But this choice.
I regretted not staying with the group.
There, I would have been safe.
Protected by their numbers.
By their brutality.
I would have eaten when told to eat. Walked when told to walk.
And I wouldn't have had to climb a tree alone to tie my own body to a branch, hoping sleep wouldn't escape me.
But...
Thinking of their laughter.
Their blows.
Their eyes full of emptiness and contempt...
I still preferred this crushing silence.
Because ease hides its own poisons.
With them, I would have survived, yes.
But I would never have known the violet light.
I would never have tasted that strange strength, that energy of evolution.
Maybe I wouldn't even have been allowed to eat at all.
So yes, the choice I had made... was hard to live with.
It was cruel, cold, exhausting.
But it was mine.
And above all, it was necessary.
I couldn't afford to weaken.
I couldn't go backward.
I had to evolve.
I had to become the hunter, not the one who hides.
And it was with these thoughts, dark and grainy, that I let the night engulf me.
I didn't sleep.
Not this time.
Yesterday had been an anomaly. A miracle.
But that night... that night... I was wound like a wire ready to snap.
A twig cracked. Not far. Too sharp to be the wind. But nothing came out. And that was perhaps even worse.
Every creak, every rustle, every breath of wind became a threat.
My guts twisted. My breathing sped up for no reason.
I sweated without moving.
And the fear... crawled up my back like a starving beast.
I didn't close my eyes.
Not for a single second.
I stayed still. Tied. Trapped on that branch that held me like a cruel mother.
I thought. Too much.
And I couldn't come back to myself.
The night was long.
Stretched out. Icy.
Silent and alive all at once.
As if the world was holding its breath... waiting for me to make the mistake of breathing too loud.
Then came the day.
My eyes burned. My skull felt heavy. I was drained.
No injury. No fever. Just... the wear.
The fatigue.
The stress.
The invisible poison of doubt.
I climbed down from my tree like a brittle piece of wood. My muscles tense. My hands numb.
And I went to check the trap.
Nothing.
No cry. No sign. Not even a footprint.
The snare was intact. The vine taut. The blood dried.
No one had passed that night.
No one had fallen.
Worse: my first trap had sprung by itself. The branch had snapped into the void, catching nothing. Poorly secured. Or maybe too dry. I had misjudged the tension, or just pulled too hard when setting it. It was a reminder. Cold. Brutal. Even traps can fail. Even strategy can backfire.
So I made a second one.
Same method. Same logic.
I picked another bottleneck, another branch under tension, another wooden stick to block it all.
Another snare. Another bait of blood.
Then a third.
Faster. Less meticulous, but still functional.
My finger was bleeding again.
I let a few drops fall on each trap, one by one.
Then, like the day before, I placed the wound in my mouth, gritted my teeth, and ran.
No trail. No scent.
At my tree, I wedged my spear between my teeth and climbed.
My fingers scraped the bark, my claws dug into the wood, my arms trembled.
But I climbed.
And once at the top, I tied myself again.
Always the same vine.
Always the same knot.
Then I pressed myself against the branch, like a shadow refusing to fall.
It had become my routine.
My world.
Each day, I reinforced this territory.
This perimeter.
This bubble of traps and silence.
I didn't really rule over it.
Not like a king. Not like a supreme predator.
But here, in this circle of branches, dried blood, and tension, I was no longer the dominated.
Not entirely.
I may still have had a goblin's body, frail, nervous, too small to face this world...
But I had carved out a space for myself.
A space I knew better than any creature.
A place where I could foresee.
Control.
React.
A place where I could, finally, be the one who waits — and not the one who flees.
And in this rotting corner of the forest, I had become the dominant, within the limits of my traps, within the limits of my breath, within the limits of what I could build... with my teeth, my claws, and my fear.