A tale

I woke up sometime later with my head throbbing. Sparse and scattered memories of beatings and iron chains clamped around my wrist, being dragged behind a group of goblins flash through my mind. How long had I been out? My throat was parched, and my stomach was empty. It must have been days. Had Jack noticed my absence when he took the things I wanted to buy to the tower? Would my absence even be looked into? I couldn't say. I didn't even know where I was. 

My fingers trembled as I grasped around the back of my head where I had been struck: the hair there was matted, and the flesh there was tender. I pushed myself off the ground and glanced around. I had been stripped of all of my items: they sat on a table a couple of feet away beyond a set of thick iron bars: attached to a high stone ceiling. Flickering flames cast the only lights and cast long, dancing shadows into the small cell. I tried to stand, but there was still a bit of dizziness, so, as my head swooned, I stumbled and caught myself on the wall. 

"Hey! You're awake?" A voice that carried a southern drawl beyond the wall I fell against spoke. 

"Yeah? What of it?" I mumbled as my head continued to spin. I threw up into a bucket stuffed in the corner of the room. 

"You're the first non-goblin, non-monster I've talked to in weeks," the voice continued, "Tell me, are you human?" 

"I am." 

"Oh thank God. I'm Airman First Class William Thomas of the United States Airforce. I was part of Highjump. Tell me, were you sent here to rescue us? I don't know where the Admiral is, or where the rest of my platoon is…" 

"No, I was captured by the goblins. Same as you." 

"Who do you work for?" 

"I'm part of the White Company." 

"Damnations…." The man on the other side of the wall muttered. 

"So where am I?" 

"I don't know." The man answered. "There are others like us: captured and forced to work and fight...if we don't do what they tell us, we're eaten." 

"Tell us? So there's something here that speaks English?" 

"No, but it's very easy to extrapolate meaning when they take you to a mine and toss a pick axe in front of you, or send you into a pit and give you a weapon. Let me tell you, it's nice to be actually able to talk to someone for a change." 

"What do you mean?" 

"Before you, there was a Chinaman. Didn't speak a lick of English. Before that was a German. Didn't speak a lick of English. Then a French. Didn't speak a damned lick of English. Before that was a Pollack...then an Italian then...well you're the first English-speaking man I've come across." 

"How long have you been in here?" 

"Don't know." He answered. "Woke up here after I was ambushed trying to rendezvous with my squad. What year is it?" 

"2020," I answered.

"20...two thousand and twenty?" He fell silent for a moment, "Tell me, are you mad or are you speaking the truth?" 

"I'm telling the truth." 

"2020...what the hell. I knew it had been some time…" 

"What year were you brought here?" 

"I don't know…" he said, "My plane crashed into this old temple behind a waterfall...full of stone statues of apes and gorillas. There was a spring there, and a fruit tree so that's all I subsisted on for...Christ, I don't know how long until I got a call on the radio about meeting the survivors at, a big tree,' well, I stepped out of the temple that day for the first time since getting there, and sure as shit, I knew what tree he was talking about." 

"What do you mean?" 

"Well, it was a tree that towered over everything else on the horizon. No matter how much I walked toward it, it never seemed to grow any closer...on the way there I was ambushed by a pack of these greenskin things, and dragged here. It was days...weeks of travel until they threw me in here." 

"What year?" 

"1946." He answered, "...nearly 80 years ago." 

"80...you don't sound that old." 

"I don't feel it, either!" 

After that was said, a great clangor in the dark room beyond the flickering candles as two figures walked in both goblins, armed with metal swords, and carrying tools, handcuffs, and chains. As the first one reached my cell door, he fumbled with a pair of thick keys and slid it into the keyhole of my cell door. It tossed the cuffs and the chains into the cell: holding onto one end of the chain. The other goblin walked around the room, and into the cell behind me 

I looked at it and held it up examining it closer. Should I yank the creature forward and attack? 

No. If you do that you'll die. You cannot feel it just yet, but there are hundreds of these things near. 

"Hundreds?" 

Yes. While your memory might be faint, I saw it all through your eyes. You were dragged far into the east into the lands the goblins controlled.

"Shit…" 

We might be here a while. Bide your time, and do as they command. We must survive. If I'm right...no. No. just forget it and go along with them.

I breathed in and took up the cuffs and slid them over my wrist. 

We must survive…

I was pulled up to my feet and dragged out of the cell. He tossed a shovel back toward me, and I caught it as he dragged me up a set of sod steps.