I opened my eyes, but there was nothing to see. Just the overwhelming sensation of darkness surrounding me. My body felt… wrong. Like it was no longer mine. No feeling in my limbs, no sense of where I was or what had happened. My heart raced. Was I dead? Was I even a soul anymore, or had I simply become part of the nothingness?
I didn't want to leave like this. I didn't want to fade away, forgotten. How pathetic would that be? A person who had always failed at everything, dying alone without leaving a mark on the world. What had I amounted to? Nothing. A failure. The thought of my life ending in such a pitiful way, as some invisible, useless being, felt like a cruel joke. I couldn't bear it.
I had always known how pathetic I was. My parents had made sure I knew it. They looked at me with nothing but disappointment, like I wasn't good enough to even exist. The constant reminders, the little phrases they'd throw around in frustration. "Why can't you just be normal?" "Why are you still alive?"
I didn't have an answer. I wasn't normal. I wasn't special. I had no skills, no talents, no drive. I was below average. I couldn't even talk to a girl without stumbling over my words. I had spent my life hiding in books, in stories of adventure, and characters who could do things I could never dream of. I read about powerful monsters and strong heroes, thinking that maybe, just maybe, I could be like them. But I never had the courage to step out of my pathetic little life.
And now, here I was. I had joked about not wanting to be human anymore. But now that it seemed to be a reality, the joke felt like a cruel mockery. I didn't want to be nothing. I didn't want to be a shadow of what I could've been.
I didn't want to fade away into oblivion. I wanted to be someone. I wanted to matter. I wasn't going to let myself become a pitiful memory. Not again. Not after all this.
But something was changing. I could feel it, my body was shifting, morphing into something else. At first, it was just a strange sensation, like my very bones were being pulled and twisted into a new shape. I couldn't see it, but I could feel it. My new body felt alien, uncomfortable, and wrong. It was like I wasn't supposed to be this way, but there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Then the message came to head.
Race: Goblin
I felt the weight of it settle over me. Goblin. That was what I was now. Not a mighty monster. Not a hero. But a goblin. The very thing I had always read about, those weak, pathetic creatures from the stories. Small, ugly, green, with barely any intelligence or strength. A goblin.
I wanted to scream in frustration. How could this be my fate? How could I end up as one of those creatures that barely even seemed alive? But even as the anger boiled up inside me, I could feel it. I could feel the urge to change. To fight against it. I wasn't going to accept this. I wasn't going to be weak.
My body felt small, fragile. I could sense the awkwardness of my form; short, hunched over, with pale green skin that felt foreign to me. My hands were small and bony, the fingers too long and awkward. I could feel the jagged edges of my pointed ears and the sharpness of my teeth. I looked down at myself and hated what I saw.
I was a goblin. A pathetic goblin.
But the more I thought about it, the more it became clear to me. This was my chance. This was my second life, my second shot. And no matter how weak or pathetic I looked now, I wasn't going to let myself stay this way. I wasn't going to be another useless creature, just a mindless monster stumbling through life. I could evolve. I could get stronger.
I wasn't going to be a goblin forever.
I closed my eyes, drawing a deep breath as I forced myself to calm down. The discomfort of my new body, how small and weak it felt was something I had to get used to. But it didn't define me. It didn't have to. I could change. I could evolve. I could push past the limitations of being a goblin.
I wasn't going to be a failure again.
With determination burning in my chest, I stood... well, stumbled on shaky legs. I couldn't even walk properly in this form, but that didn't matter. Not yet. I wasn't going to stay weak. I wasn't going to let myself be stuck like this forever. No matter how uncomfortable, no matter how awkward this body felt, it wasn't the end.
It was only the beginning.
I knew that I was meant for more than this. And whatever this new world had in store for me, I was ready to take it on.