The silence was broken by the shattering of a mug, splintered on the solid ground as the bouncing crisp sound pulled his consciousness, back into a reawake state.
He pushed his eyeglasses right up, stretched his arms outwards, and tore off his drowsiness— replaced his sleepy arms, and reattached his focus.
"M'Love, why don't you move into the bedroom? I'll take the finalization job from here." A woman's tired voice lured his ears, her footsteps magnified.
Examining her zooming gorgeous image: she's in her typical white lab coat, adorned by her milky complexion, that contrasted her jet-black pixie hair; the prominence of her delicate small tall nose and cherry lips, they had been paled in lethargy; desperate they may be, her voluminous hair failed to cover her darkened phoenix eyes, they were frowning from the mix of exhaustion and concern.
He stood up, scooped the woman in, and squeezed her ample bosom to his chest, homely warmth was cast forth.
"Put your mind at ease Darling, there was no more task to do." His soft words were whispered.
Oh-so-gently as he pulled her by their intertwining fingers, towards a wide metallic table, there, a glass tube sat atop, capped on both ends as it enveloped an ash-grey liquid, and on the bottom silver cap, a label that read 'Ameliermine' was written.
"Ameliermine... besides the effect of dissolving the hippocampus, part of the brain into a soul form, allowing us to retain memory, we successfully added the effect of Neodymium, which, as you know, will serve as a magnetic attractor for our two souls, preventing the separation during a conveyance."
"You've worked hard M'Love, it seems that even fate can't split us," a chuckle was blown from her lips.
Conquered by euphoria, he re-embraced her petite figure, and with a gentle smooch, he smacked a moist on her forehead, as always, his fatigue was vanquished by her presence itself.
Whoop!
Whoop!
The sound of an alarm shattered their peace, and an androgynous mechanical voice blended with the alarm and echoed in their domain. "Warning: destructive mass of energy is approaching. Approximate time of arrival; TEN HOURS, TWENTY THREE MINUTES."
"There isn't much time." A neutral tone, yet he stretched them with urgency.
Upon her nod, he grabbed the Ameliermine tube, a handful of coldness spat on his palm, and with her in towed, they crossed between the hallways of varying futuristic metal machines.
At the end of the wide corridor: an ingenious human-size bed capsule, radiated the lab lights from its blue hues.
The tap-tap-tap of his fingertips was on the digital screen display. In buzzed, a glassy entrance was unlatched.
Next to the machine, he and she swiftly redressed into a skin-tight white suit, and after an exchange of nods, he inserted the Ameliermine tube into the machine's hole and laid their backs to the spongy leather bed.
He pressed a button, and the glass door buzzed as it closed, isolating their bodies from the lab.
Inside, the deathly silence was gripping their hearts, nervous drum beats rang to their ears, so he pulled her by the neck into a cuddle, their nerves were filled with body-made tranquility.
"I know there's uncertainty on reincarnation, it has no evidence, but in our final moments, we need to remain hopeful, hopeful that we could get through things as we always do, together, you and I."
He shared a sanguine smile with his Darling, and if this was their last share, it no matter, he would greet any upcoming unknown with alacrity, together with her.
Minutes passed.
A strong drowsiness slapped his mind, he bid her droopy eyelids a final glimpse, and so is she to him, a final deep kiss, a breathy kiss to ease.
Was this the last time that they could smell each other's breath? Only his awake self can tell.
If there was he, he hoped, there was she.
------
Waah-waah.
Waah-waah.
A close to no ends high-pitched baby shrieks, prickled and tilted, his consciousness awake.
To make his experience worse, the cries congregated from multiple locations, wrinkling his eyebrows.
Annoyance? That word was lacking if he had to describe.
What a nasty place to be.
He wriggled due to discomfort, yet the dampness on his skin was hatefully sticking, an unyielding held to his skin like glue.
The mugginess had itched him for a hot bath, and for him who's used to cleanliness, this was quite a nightmare.
He ignored the aggravating combination of the two, and washed the darkness with his pupil, all to be greeted by a high ceiling molded by mud.
It was a dim and dreary place, and for some reason, his eyesight was unimpeded by the shadowy cave.
How so? Was he now an animal with night vision?
'A cave, wait... am I alive?'
'Which means... it was a success!' The realization bit his heart, infecting it with excitement.
He opened his mouth and tried to blow a word, Speak! Speak! Speak!
Frustratingly, he was only able to pronounce complete sentences by his thoughts, woe him, his short tongue was only able to spit out incoherent words, the desperate grating speech of a baby.
Opsie, he was part of the newborn now is he?
'But where is Melantha, my Darling?' His worries squinted his eyes.
'M'Love, I am here, i-in your mind, we currently share the same body, d-dang it! Seems like even if our souls were unmerged, they are unseparated, we've lacked in consideration of what the results could be after soul conveyance, well, it can't be blamed, who in the damn told us that reincarnation was real?' A familiar womanly voice resonated in his mind, like his internal monologue, a version of her who blabbered with confusion yet in the end, she easily adapted.
'As long as you're here. As long as you're here.' he responded.
A moist stung his eyes, not giving him the time to question his sanity.
As if to prove her existence, his hand moved on its own, raised by the wife she claimed to be in his mind, and when the back of his hand entered his vision, he saw a chubby arm painted in emerald green, and with nails as black as the night.
What?
A question rounded his eyes, and his curiosity rotated his head to the side, only for his sight to be bombarded by greens, greens?
And more greens!
The children varied in size, some crawled randomly, and some had tried to balance themselves wobbly in an attempt to walk.
Unlike the Earth's humans that he's familiar with, the grown ones: have sharp teeth and facial features; full-bodied emerald green; and elongated pointy ears.
For him, they resembled the mythical creature goblins, and due to this reason, he, and her of his mind had decided to just call them goblins in the meantime.
'Unbelievable! M'Love! These cave dwellers have such savage appearances, We.... we are one of them!'
'Better than not living I suppose, leaving that for now, we need to find a means to get you a body, four hands were better than two as you said.'
More than a couple, they were a team. It would be more helpful if his Darling, could physically intervene with any future newfound substances, and species. And assisted him in speeding up any research and exploration.
They continued to converse in internal monologue thereafter, unfortunately, they had not built any concrete plan.
These goblins were more than primitive for them to take shelter in a cave, what technology could they offer?
Small and big talks, a day has passed, or was it? He was uncertain, it was calculated based on his time awareness from his previous life.
As if to plunge the couples into the depths of more questions, like an event orchestrated by magic, they had watched themselves grow exponentially fast.
In their approximation, they were now a toddler at the size of two feet, and they could now perform basic bodily operations.
And so he shall, or they?
Was his pronoun... they?
Whatever, what matters was, his and her life matters.
Similar to a curious cat, he skittered on the damp ground, and explored every nook and cranny of the cave.
'You see what I see Darling? Earth's humans!'
Nearby the wall cave, around eight or nine women of varying ages were sitting slumped, not a piece of cloth had covered their bodies, their skin was dressed in fresh bruised and haggard thin figures, and their droopy eyes were dead in despair.
There... there between their legs, there was a mixture of red and white liquids that leaked, forming little puddles underneath.
What a hell of a sight, some of them even had bulging bellies.
But why?
WHY!
Why was it that he felt no sympathy, not an ounce of pity?
His mind was twirled with questions about his moral standing, certainly, he was not a good person, but he was supposed to feel at least slight compassion towards his past kind, DAMN IT!
He rummaged through his box of emotions and tried to find a feeling, just a string of hair was enough, there, he found nothing, nothing but a slight shock.
'I feel you M'Love, there's a high possibility that our current body was afflicting our emotions, could it be a racial trait?' She dragged his messy thoughts back, and repaired them with a theory.
'If that's the case, then this world is not such a peaceful place, for such a brutal race to exist, and besides getting you a permanent body, we have to strengthen ourselves, we should be expecting to receive equal viciousness from what our race is committing, this might be also the reason why our growth rate is ridiculous, as to prevent the goblin's extinction.'
With a growl, his stomach thundered in hunger, putting their discussions on hold.
Come to think of it, he had not tasted any food yet since he came into being, where did these little green guys go for a meal?
In his view, a small green toddler crawled onto one of the women. The former pounced on the latter's bosom, and sapped her milker's berry in delight.
When the magnificent scene reflected to him, his mouth watered in starvation, he instinctively reached out his arm towards a nearby young woman.
'It's fine M'Love, we can't be choosers if we want to ensure our survivability, do we?'
He sighed and sank his eyebrows in understanding, for once, he succumbed to his instincts and scooted toward the unsuspecting individual, grabbed them milkers, and plunged his mouth onto her secondhand berry.
A liquid oozed out to his tongue, it was slightly sweet. The creaminess and chalkiness were mixed in his palate.
------
Three days have passed.
After indulging in milk, he had now grown his sharp baby teeth and his current diet was no longer enough to satiate his hunger.
One thing he wondered though, was how were those mothers able to survive days of no food, how were they continuously in a pregnancy state even after delivery?
He blew away the question with a shake of his head, and he continued his observation of the goblins' behaviors.
Anyone as tall as him, in his approx, three feet, had been forming into groups, oh, did he just grow another foot?
Perhaps to hunt for better food, this group of goblins headed outside of the cave, so he did, and since it was only a one-way pathway, a genius was unrequired to find the exit.
The heaviness of darkness has lessened, and the coldness on his soles decreased when he stepped.
On the back of his ears, there were multiple pat-pat-pat, but he was aware of those, his two bosom buddies he had made during the milk-drinking party.
"Beautiful!" He uttered in his crispy child voice as the view had left his mouth in hanged.
Green lush trees hand in hand, they played under the dim blue lights, and in their inches, sprinkles of yellow stars were dotted, casting illusory shadows in the crevices of tree roots: they slithered to the ground in a somewhat protruded fashion, resulting to a picturesque cobweb, and when he pointed his chin to the heavens, there, the sky was blanketed by the blackness of the clouds.
Now that his tongue had developed to the extent that he could speak, he now normally conversed with his Darling through his mouth.
First was to practice his enunciation, and second, was so that his goblin buddies could potentially learn their language, for future communication.
When they had stayed in the cave, they realized that the goblins were not as clever as Earth's humans, possibly only as smart as Homoerectus, with more savagery.
Hey, they weren't that bad, they were just one level lower in intelligence, and without enough knowledge, there was only primitiveness in their ideals.
Due to the current goblin's civilization level, it was a pipe dream for them to progress their technology. Surely, if their species was stronger, there was only a benefit for them to gain, but for how long was the wait?
Thousand years?
Time was not always within their hands to make such strenuous effort, perhaps if they had such a convenient tool to hasten the progress, that was the only time that they could rethink their plan.
Chilling the thoughts that had been seeped into his mind, a mild chill from the wind struck his dong, wherefore, with a warm idea, he ran into an emerald bush and plucked its leaves.
With his sharp nails, he stripped multiple midribs off the leaves and made them into long strips, luckily, their durabilities were great, perfecting his underpants of leaves.
From a suitable tree branch just enough to fit his palms, he grabbed a flint to sharpen its end, to a crafted spear, swooshing swung and thrust to familiarize himself, he nodded in satisfaction for his primitive handicraft.
'M'Love look, we got ourselves some smarty green friends.' Her amused giggles reverberated in his mind.
When he turned around, he saw his two best buds similarly equipped with wooden spears and leaf attire, and they were mimicking his movements, albeit in a little clumsy and comical way.
When did, oh, seems like he was too absorbed in his crafting that he overlooked the two.
As if to tell him they had sensed his gaze, their countenance lit up in puppy eyes, he judged them as a bit cute, or... was it just his aesthetic sense being altered too?
He wondered how similar his facial features were, hence, his curious sprints took him to a nearby puddle, only to be shocked by an unbelievable revelation.