Chapter 03 Basket Full of Happiness

 Grub was the first to speak.

 “You scared the moss off us! Thought a big-bad found the hole! Thought you were its tongue!”

Trog was sitting up now, rubbing his shoulder where he’d hit the ground. His eyes were darting around the familiar, cramped space, checking each of us as if counting survivors. Muddy, the one who’d landed on top of him, was already on his feet, dusting himself off with quick slaps.

Muddy’s gaze landed on me, the stranger in the stench.

 “Who the new gobby-friend, Grub? Smells like… like old sadness and monster-spit.”

“That’s no new friend. That’s Hermit. The one I told you about.”

“Hermit? The one from the stories? Who got ate?”

“Not ate!” Grill cut in, “Lost. Now found. Told ya all he will turn up one day.”

Muddy let out a squeak of pure delight.

 “New-old gobby friend! New-old gobby friend!” 

The cheer lasted about three seconds.

It died as if smothered by the memory of the cold air above. 

“The food!” Muddy blurted out, “Trog! The big food!”

“Right! Right! We found it! We found it!”

 Trog scrambled to his knees, grabbing Grub’s arm. 

“Found what? A root? A berry patch?” 

“Better! A basket. A big… fancy basket. All made of shiny sticks. Just… laying on the path. The human stone-path.”

A cold worse than any cave chill stabbed through me. Fort made a small, choked sound.

“It was full! Round breads. Yellow fruits. Little… little meat-strips wrapped in leaf. So much. Just there. No human. No nose-beast. Just… food. So we took it! We’re good finders! We dragged it here. It’s heavy. So good and heavy.”

“W-where?” Grub’s asked, “Where is it now?”

“Outside!” Trog said, pointing a grimy finger up at the entrance.

 “By the big rock. Too big for the hole. We had to leave it.”

Grub’s face went slack into pure horror.

“No, No. No-no-no-no-no. This is bad. If what you say is true… this is BAD!”

 He lunged for the entrance, scrambling up the footholds. He shoved his head and shoulders through the narrow hole, peeking out.

Then recoiled as if burned, tumbling back into the burrow in a heap of sprawling limbs and sheer terror. He landed hard on his back, the air whooshing out of him.

“It’s TRUE! The shiny-stick basket! Right there! By the rock! Human-thing! HUMAN FOOD!”

He scrambled to his knees, pointing a trembling finger at Trog and Muddy, who were now shrinking back, their brief joy evaporating.

 “What have you DONE? You STOLE human-thing! Human food! Their special food in the shiny trap-basket! They will COME! They will sniff the air and follow goblin dirt-stink! They will come with the sharp-metal sticks that poke through rock! They will find the hole! They will SLAUGHTER US! All of us! They will take the eggs and smash them for fun!”

Trog and Muddy stared at Grub, then at each other. The full, catastrophic weight of their 'good find' crashed down on them. Their simple minds, capable of understanding ‘food’ and ‘fear,’ finally connected the two into a chain of doom. They hadn't found salvation. They’d lit a signal fire for the worst monsters of all.

With a twin wail of despair, they fell upon each other, clutching hug of shared guilt. They collapsed into a heap on the floor, their voices overlapping in a miserable, pleading keen.

“Sorry, gobby friends! Sorry-sorry-sorry!”
“We didn’t know! It was just there!”
“We’re bad finders! Stupid goblins!”
“Don’t let the humans poke us! Please!”
“Forgive! Forgive!”

They rocked together, a pitiful ball of regret and terror. The sight of them—so genuinely horrified by their own foolishness, begging for forgiveness from the very kin they’d just doomed—was more heartbreaking than any angry accusation.

Grub was already back on his feet, hopping from one foot to the other in anxiety. 

“No time for sorry! No time for floor-cry! We need to get RID of it! Now! Before the clinky-noise finds it and follows it HERE! We have to take the bad-luck basket away! Far away! Throw it in the deep woods! Let the forest monsters have the human curse! YES! We do this! Take the food quick, then get the shiny-cursed basket away from here! NOW!”

We scramble out of the hole. The basket sat there, it was beautifully made, woven with pale, supple wood. It reeked of human craft.

We surrounded it, claws scrabbling at the lid. Inside, nestled on a small, clean cloth, was the bounty: two round, hard loaves, three waxy yellow fruits, a bundle of dried meat. A small feast.

Snag and Grill began grabbing, passing the precious items back toward the hole where Fort waited, his arms outstretched to receive precious food.

Then Grill's hand, reaching for the loaf, brushed the cloth. It slid aside.

Beneath it, filling the basket to the brim, were rocks. Smooth, river-worn, ordinary rocks.

The world stopped.

Even our goblin minds, slow to connect, could not miss this. The food was a sprinkle on a landfill. A lure. A layer of bait over a basket of nothing.

A trap.

Trog let out a soft, devastated moan. Muddy just stared, his potato-face crumbling. The others froze, the stolen food in their hands turning to hot coals.

"Inside! NOW!" Grill hissed, the first to break from the stupor. 

They scrambled back into the burrow, clutching the pitiful haul.

Only Grub and I were left, standing over the exposed rocks. The truth was a cold stone in my gut. This was a hunter's snare, baited for the greedy and the desperate. For us.

Grub turned to me. His face was twisted with horror.

 "Hermit... we're doomed. What do we do? I don't... I don't know what to do."

He looked back at the burrow entrance, his voice breaking. 

"We can't leave. The eggs... the heat... moving them now, they die. But if we stay... This is a trap. They want someone to take it. They'll come looking. They will. I know it. A day... stars above, if we had a day or two, maybe the hatchlings hatch, and we could run... but we don't have it. We don't have the time!"

 My own mind, usually a swamp of misery, fired with the clean, sharp fuel of absolute panic.

"Not again. Please, not again. I can't lose them again. I can't lose anyone else! This is too much, please, no! I lost everyone I love already, don't make me lose them too!"

Images flashed of faces in my mind. Lyn, her smile, her laugh. Kaka, his old, patient hands showing me how to tend the moss-bed. Dozens of hatchlings, their names ringing in my head. The cave of my kin, now a tomb. The despair of losing them all.

And now, this fragile, terrified huddle in a hole. Grub. Grill. Snag. Fort. Trog and Muddy. The warm, sleeping eggs.

"I lost everything. I will not lose this. I will NOT."

The scream came from a place deeper than my lungs.

 "NO! NOT AGAIN! I WILL NOT LOSE ANYONE! NOT ANYMORE!"

I didn't think. I acted. I lowered my shoulder and charged the basket, ramming it with all the desperate strength of a creature with nothing left to lose. It toppled. The rocks spilled across the grass.

Before Grub could grab me, I snatched up the empty, cursed container, hugging its hateful shape to my chest.

"Hermit, what you DO!?"

"I get this away! You HIDE! I come back!"

Then I ran.

I plunged into the tall grass, the sharp blades cutting my arms, my face. I didn't feel it. The basket was a beacon, and I was the lightning rod drawing its danger away. A simple, stupid, goblin plan formed in the panic: Make the trap spring somewhere else.

I didn't run for the deep woods. I ran for the past.

The old cave. Our home. Now a monster's nest.

The stench hit me from yards away—rot, old blood, wet fur. I didn't slow. I didn't care if the monster was inside, sleeping, eating, waiting. At that moment, I was more terrified of the humans than of any forest beast.

I skidded to a halt at the dark entrance, a maw I’d walked into willingly to die. Now, I was delivering a message. With a grunt, I flung the elegant basket deep into the blackness. It landed with a clatter and a crunch on old bones.

Whoever came looking would find this. They would find goblin stink leading here. They would find the basket. They would, hopefully, find the monster. They would think the story ended here: stupid goblins took the bait, brought it home, and got what stupid goblins get.

It was a story I could live with. A story that didn't lead to a hidden burrow and six warm eggs.

I didn't wait for a growl. I didn't wait for anything. I turned and ran back the way I came, my lungs burning, my heart a wild drum in my ears.

I found the hole. I dove headfirst, crashing into the burrow in a tangle of limbs, landing on the huddled bodies of my kin.

For a moment, there was just shock. Then, Grub's arms were around me, pulling me into the pile. Grill, Snag, Fort, Trog, Muddy—we all collapsed into a single, trembling mass of green skin and ragged breath. No one spoke. There were no words for this. We just held onto each other in the dark, a knot of shared, suffocating fear, trying to press the terror out through touch, crying silent, desperate tears onto each other's shoulders. We waited, listening to the sound of our own hearts, wondering if my desperate, stupid run had bought us a night, an hour, or nothing at all.