“Queen … queen … our queen …. here …. queen,” the whispers crawl across the walls, always closer, louder, until I feel each letter caress my ear.

My eyes open. So I’m staring at the purple night star. Yellow stars dot the sky, but each cloud seems to be dripping gray, falling through the sky, but fizzling away before it can land on me. Pushing myself up in bed, I clutch my silk sheets closer to cover my nakedness, but when something itches across my skin, I drag the sheets away from my skin. Black splotches spread over my skin anywhere the air touches me. Like muted ink, entirely black, gaping holes that promise all the depravity of oblivion.

My door opens, then falls off the hinges, revealing a goblin, or the vague shape of something monstrous. It’s vile, hideous, dripping black from every outline of it’s being, except for the red stains on the hands and chin. It’s mouth is painted in a gaping red hole that I can’t ignore, no matter how much I want to.

My eyelashes flutter against my cheek and I lift a hand, seeing claws instead of fingers. My hands are crooked, jagged, and wrong. I’m supposed to be soft, to have unblemished skin spreading across my body. My bones feel off, like they’re rotting from the inside, roving about like maggots with a bit more weight.

“Feed. Feed. Feed, queen, feed us,” the goblin calls in it’s breathy, horrific voice while crooking a finger at me.

It eagerly hops towards the door, it’s legs bent in a shaking, uneven way. One leg more crooked and uneven than the other. I scream in my mind, claw at the inside of my skin as my body moves to follow the beast.

I don’t bother to put on clothes, I only grab the sword by my door, a gorgeous, glistening golden sword that pulses with bloodlust. I have to feed them or be their food. I have to claim or be claimed.

Stalking through the broken remains of the apartment, I easily step over the broken stairs and head down .. down … down until we’re in the bowls of the apartment, below ground, and still descending, deeper, darker, hotter. Sweat dews over my body, but sizzles off before it can cool my skin.

“Hungry. So hungry,” goblins say as they peel themselves from the black shadows in every room, in every corner, even freeing themselves from the holes in walls I hadn’t noticed.

They’re all splotched with ink, all dirty and feral, watching me with too-long teeth, jaws too long, heads more like skulls than … human heads. None attack, they simply watch me, trembling with expectation, ready to pounce, crawl over each other, and take whatever I offer.

When I step off the last step, I’m no longer within the packed earth hovel or surrounded by barely tamed bonfires. The masses of goblins and their wide, prying eyes remain behind me as if the stairs I’m on are for me and me alone. I stare up at the soft yellow square of light waiting for me above. The goblin that led me here points excitedly before standing to his full height. His legs are still wrong, the knees being backwards, the heel of his feet nearly a full foot and a half from his toes, jutting out of his legs but out to the sides instead of back.

The goblin is too thin, emaciated, and impossibly tall, towering over me. He seems more like a half rotten corpse with skin glued to the bones underneath. No cored muscles, no fat, just bone and skin with the smallest pouch of a stomach hanging down over the hip bones.

“Food. Food. Food,” he chants, getting other goblin/ demon/ ghost creatures involved until their cries are as loud as thunder behind me.

Their voices etch themselves in my mind. A request that comes of more as a demand, threatening to drown me under the weight of each uttered ‘food’. With the chanting behind me and the light above, the path is clear.

I take each step, even as the stone caves in under me, trying to catch my feet as if the hell I’m in doesn’t want to let me go. Each softened stone under my toes tries to swallow me up, as if it can drag me under, freeze me there. Maybe that’s a better option than feeding these beasts, than listening to their demands, better than belonging to them.

But my feet keep moving. My legs don’t shake, they don’t waver. I can’t do anything other than obey. I’m trapped in my own skull, banging against the bone without gaining an advantage.

No matter how I try to tell myself ‘no’, no matter how many times I try to drop the sword, it’s like I don’t have control at all. The sword might as well be fused with my arm. I look down and can’t see the hilt of the blade. It’s slipped into my skin, like it’s filling my wrist, filling the spaces between my too-brittle bones.

The light blinds me as I step into it. But it’s not sunlight, it’s a huge harvest full moon, red at the bottom and softening to gold further towards the top. It’s filling up on blood. I don’t know why I’m sure about it, but I am.

If I kill, it gets redder and when there’s no gold left, when I’ve bled this world dry, or murdered enough of the creatures, the blood will spread from the moon, cover the sky, and rain down upon the world.

This barren wasteland of a world. The buildings are half rotted, the trees are split in strange areas without a leaf in sight. The plants I can see across the ground look sharp, prickly, covered in thorns that could flay a person thanks to one misstep. 

Every inch of this world seems to be starving for something, it exists on the cusp of destruction, some ruined place that forgot moderation, friendliness, and every softness I’ve ever known.

I glance back at the goblin hovel, but continue forward, the tip of my sword dragging across the cracked ground. I create a path for my court to follow, for each goblin to trace with their spindly feet.

Apparently, it’s not just creatures that breathe and bleed. The ground does too. It trembles under my feet as I drag the sword across the ground. Reddish black liquid spills out, stains my sword, my feet, my legs.

Something weighs heavily on my head, but when I reach to remove it, pain blooms in a halo over my skull. Pain throbs. My eyes flick and I see a proper town with people like me wandering.

When the pain recedes so does the vision. I’m left wandering through the darkened world until I come across someone camping. They try to grab the fire again and again, and I question my gut instinct to call the thing sitting there ‘someone’. They’re not human. Fur presses through their skin in heavy mats. Their face is terrible, one eye missing, dulled, flat teeth like a donkey that jut outwards. There are no lips, leaving their gums on display.

When the creature looks at me, one eye is larger than the other, that eye all black. It gnashes it’s teeth. Something like garbled words, all spliced and put together in a way that makes no sense leave it’s throat. Scars, fur, big teeth, wrong eyes … it’s not human. It’s not a goblin either. I don’t know what it is, if there’s a name for it, and if there is, it’s not something I want to be familiar with.

And its not important. Not when it’s so heavy. Muscle, fat … meat.

My mouth waters, drool rolling over my chin. My stomach squeezes, telling me how empty it is again and again, with every pulse of my heart. That same pulse echoes behind my eyes.

The sword lodged in my arm shakes like my tongue in my mouth. Every ounce of my being echoes with the goblins’ word, ‘feed’.

When this new beast reaches towards me with its too-thick, too-shiny hand, I slash it off. My sword cuts through it like butter. It wails, then snarls, pink foam too bright on its face. I swing my blade again, going for the throat, but it tackles me. I let out a shriek that hurts my own ears, then bury my blade in the creature's belly, ignoring its too-big, too-awkward weight on my throat. The warm wetness that trickles over my arm and splatters across my stomach promises food.

A low groan leaves my throat. I want the blood, want my stomach full. The beast is warm, fresh, and new. It’ll be delicious. I drag the blade up, watching the creature’s eyes bulge until they nearly roll out of its head. It lets out a pained whimper, the kind that spells victory for me before moving its fingers down on my head.

The pain rips through my eyes. I don’t see a beast, I see a man. His beard is thick and long. He’s dirty and scarred. Holding a hammer in one hand. His eyes are crazed, but he’s human.

Better meat. It’s better meat if it’s human. So tasty. Will fill my stomach. I want it. I need it. Him or me. Kill or be killed. Eat or be eaten. I can’t be eaten. My goblins need to be fed. I have to take care of them.

So I stab again, seeing the tip of my rusted sword push through his back until he slumps on me. The hand moves from my head and my vision returns to what it’s supposed to be. I roll the beast off me and stab again and again before howling with delight.

Adjusting, I pry the skin off the creature. I dig a hand in and shove whatever meat I can grab into my mouth. I moan as blood and saliva rolls over my lips. Every tearing crunch of my teeth soothes my stomach.

I keep forcing it into my mouth. If there’s any space, it’s because there’s not enough food. Another beast comes out from behind a tree, appearing in the same inky blackness like it’s born from it.

It looks at me, at my meal, then approaches. Hands spread over my breast as a thick tongue slicks over my throat. I keep digging into my feast, moaning as I arch into the hands and make more room for the meat I’m choking down.

When the new creature strokes down to my lower belly, claw teasing my clit, I turn. It makes a sound I recognize too well—a proposition through wet teeth, offering pleasure in exchange for some food.

That’s not allowed, not a deal I’m willing to make. Not when I’m dressed in blood and ink.

I attack. My goblins need to feed, and nothing will steal my meal, no matter what offer they give. I’m a queen, my crown an extension of my skull, gilded with gold that was poured on me. I survived. I became something other than human.

There’s no use in pretending. So I bite the thing’s throat, ripping it open and moaning as the warm spray of blood covers my face and throat. It dresses me better than any clothing. I lose myself in the blood and viscera as I call to my goblins. They clatter around me, their nails like stones clacking together.