With hurried steps this time and a bleeding leg, the guard reached the end of the tunnel; the blinding light of the outside world lighting up the otherwise dark cavern.
Cacophonous noises reached the guards ears before his eyes managed to see anything.
Barks and ravenous howls of hunger.
As he hurriedly stepped out of the cave, he used his green hand to shield his eyes from the blinding light of the suns hanging in the sky and his sight followed the direction of the howling.
A large, rectangular, metallic fence sat outside the cave, about two meters tall and fourty square meters in area. Wooden stakes, stained with blood, were nailed to the ground, just outside of it; at an angle facing the fence, hoping to shield from whatever was inside of it.
The barks and howls demanding to be fed never stopped resounding.
Surrounding the metallic fence, one could see a resplendent, lush forest, full of oak trees and thick moss; the deep green of the leaves dominating the scene, while the melodious songs of the Blackcaps* and Willlow Warblers*, as well as the sound of a fumbling wind came in obscure time intervals.
But all of it was overshadowed by the resounding howls coming from inside the fence.
The guard quickly walked towards it, and stopped a few feet away from the wooden stakes.
He looked at the ferocious infant that was dangling from his hand and grinned fearsomely.
He grabbed its arm with a fierce grip, and threw it inside the fence, mustering any strength he had, hoping the damage of the fall would make sure it couldn't escape.
As he saw the infant flying through the air he laughed with glee and turned to leave.
"Hope you feel every tooth that pierces your flesh, you little piece of sh*t!", he thought as he entered the dark cavern once again.
Iono felt the wind resist him as he flew through the air.
You might think he would be scared and crying and that's what the guard should have thought too, if he wasn't too preoccupied hoping for its screams, rather than how strange it was that the infant wasn't crying.
The look on its face was rather serious in fact.
After all, it knew that the next moments could be his very last.
Iono flew over the fence its interior finally entered his field of view.
Maws of teeth as sharp as blades and dripping saliva.
Low growls came from few, while others lifted their heads and howled to the sky, as if celebrating that food was falling from it.
Most held a insatiably hungry, crimsion glint in their canine eyes.
Some had fur that was as black as the night, while others had fur as grey as ash. One of them had fur as white as snow, resplendent and distinctive.
This was all encompassed in a single picture; the view Iono saw as he passed over the fence.
Wolves, a whole bunch of them.
All of them looking at the young goblin like a piece of meat, one that could finally quench that feeling of emptiness that's been eating them from the inside.
Hunger.
It was a cruel mistress.
Of course, to the individual.
But, mostly, to any who crossed that individuals path.
Iono flew across the wolves towards the very edge of the fence.
As he flew through the air, the wolves chased from the ground, some of them jumping with their maws open, hoping to steal even a tiny piece of flesh.
But that wasn't even the most imminent danger.
The guard threw him far enough so that the fall would cripple him, but not kill him, making him suffer the horror of being eaten alive but being unable to do anything about.
Goblins might be dumb creatures but the best way to describe them would be foul.
Creatures that crawled out of the underworld only to spread across the world like a plague, full of evil, lust, and wickedness.
Why else would someone hope a newborn would suffer a fate this horrid, unless he was described as such.
Iono realised that unless he found a way to land that wouldn't make him immobile, he would be eaten alive right there.
Then again, how mobile was a child even.
He couldn't walk, or even crawl.
Goblins grew in a matter of weeks, but a newborn remains a newborn.
Thankfully, he wasn't entirely new.
As he fell through the air he twisted his body so that he would land on his feet; they were useless anyway.
He turned his head to see the pack of rabid wolves running towards him, all of them looking at him like he was a tasty piece of meat.
He gnashed his gums, as he was missing teeth, closed his eyes, and landed on the ground.
*Crack*
Instantly, his fragile little bones broke, all the way to his hips, as he fell forwards, his mouth tasting dirt.
But he landed, and he was still alive.
His tiny head rose and stared back.
What he saw left a scar that wouldn't heal for a long time.
He saw an all encompassing darkness, one that he knew he had escaped but nonetheless found the way to follow him even here.
And then came the stench of gamey, raw meat. The stench of iron and bacteria.
At the edges of the darkness, he saw rows of razor sharp fangs, ready to reduce his flesh to minced meat.
The first wolf had reached him, his maw already open and ready to devour.
The size difference was immense.
This was no ordinary sized wolf.
As the jaw started closing shut, Iono shut his eyes, and grimaced knowing he had no way to avoid it.
But then-
*Thump*
Another wolf tackled the first, making him fall to the ground and his jaw snap shut without Iono in-between.
Before the goblin could rejoice, the tackler opened its own maw, ready to pounce, only to be thwarted by yet another wolf.
This one wrestled him to the ground and by mistake kicked Iono away, towards the edge of the fence.
Iono skidded across the ground like a pebble on a lake, and felt every bit of pain from his broken legs as they bounced off the ground.
He screamed out, releasing some of the pain that radiated through every inch of his body.
He raised his head to stare ahead, and there he saw it.
The reason he survived.
A tiny hole in the ground, right below the fence, one barely large enough to fit his frame.
And so he grabbed the nearby grass and pulled.
And then again.
And then once more.
The wolves behind him raging and running towards him, one had reached just a meter behind him and was already opening it's gigantic maw ready to swallow the goblin whole.
Its jaws closed in and enveloped the goblin, its eyes glinting in satisfaction of getting some flesh to eat.
And then the jaws snapped shut.
Only to find themselves empty.
The strength of that bite rattled the wolf's brain as he found he didn't bite unto anything.
Confused it looked around and found a tiny hole in front of it, just below the fence.
There it saw its snack.
Iono had just fallen inside the hole, screaming the whole time as he felt the sharp pain from his broken bones.
He found the strength to open his eyes and stare outside.
He saw that darkness once again.
Only this time it snapped shut right in front of his face.
Literally a few centimeters away from it.
It couldn't reach him.
The wolf's maw tried again and again to breach the opening but found it impossible.
It was too small.
One would think it would start digging, but the fence was made of metal.
And it wasn't the brightest creature.
Nothing but an animal.
So it tried, and tried again to devour the tiny goblin, but found its efforts thwarted every time.
And then another wolf arrived and tackled it away, only to find itself in the same situation.
Iono sat there, staring at the wolves one after the other, fighting over who would eat him first.
Their maws breaching the opening just the slightest bit every time.
He felt the stench of raw flesh coming from their mouths, as their breath was just a few inches away from his face.
His back stuck to the wall, and his face staring ahead.
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*Species of birds, usually found in plain forests.