Whitney, The first victim

“...Uhhhh.”

“Oh, I think she’s coming too.”

I started to open my eyes, I still felt like I had a nasty hangover. Then again, considering my bender from the other day it makes sense that I feel tired. I was a little shocked when I started to sit up. My tattered garments were swapped for more proper clothes, even my undies were changed.

“Before you ask, I was the one who changed you. I also did so the first time.”

The person who spoke to me was the black haired girl from before, actually it might be more accurate to call her a lady. She does look a bit older than me, now that I’ve got a closer look. As I started taking in the situation, I realized my hands and feet had been bound together.

“You’re probably a bit worried about your current circumstances, it's been a couple hours since you were last awake. Everything will be fine as long as you can explain to us what happened to our friends.”

Those words came from the goblin who’s eye I slashed, he was currently wearing an eyepatch. I wanted to struggle, but my body couldn’t move the way I wanted it to. I looked around and noticed that Doc was holding a syringe in his hand, he must’ve given me a muscle relaxer. Meaning if I’m not too careful, my next words may be my last.

“W-What’s going on, why am I tied up. Did I do something wrong?”

Those three looked confused, but I still kept up my act. I pretended to get a headache, and faked my memories returning.

“Urgh, my head…Wait, I remember now. Oh god, what have I done!”

I was luckily able to conjure up some tears, so my act seemed real. This was able to catch Doc, and the goblin I now know as Gregory, off guard. With them falling into my rhythm I gave them a false story, hoping it would be enough.

“Todd, that fool, why would he do such a thing?”

“To think that Todd trying to help led to all this. Still, Doc, why would you make such an elixir?”

Doc looked ashamed as Gregory laid into him, meanwhile the human woman who was with them tried to diffuse the situation. I went with the explanation that Cletus thought up, and used the wildhunt elixir as an excuse. I was about to take a sigh of relief, but sadly my fight wasn’t over.

“I don’t buy it.”

“Huh? What do you mean, do you not trust me?”

The woman stared daggers at me and gripped the collar of the clean shirt I was wearing.

“You murdered all those innocent goblins and now you expect me to just trust you, you haven’t even told us your name yet. On top of that, you dare accuse my benefactor of having shoddy work. How dare you!”

For a nerd girl, this chick intimidated the hell out of me. She stared directly into my eyes, looking for any falsehoods. I had no choice but to stare back, it was hard though. Her hateful gaze made me want to look away, and that would’ve raised suspicion. Eventually she backed off, but not before leaving her two cents.

“We should kill her while we have the chance.”

Oh god, this chick is insane! I’m one of your fellow humans, how can you do this to me? I started crying for real, what am I going to do? I started thinking at a rapid pace, trying to find a solution. I started spitting out random facts, hoping one would stick.

“Please I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

“Like that matters.”

“I have a family to go back to.”

“So did those goblins.”

“I don’t want to end up missing like one of those girls!”

When I said that, the black haired shrew backed off for a moment. Then she ran to me and put her hands on my shoulders.

“Missing girls? Tell me do you know any of their names?”

“Uh, I know Granny Becca’s granddaughter is missing.”

“Steph! Dammit, so the situation has gotten worse!”

I was shocked for a moment seeing her reaction. Why would she react so-Wait, could it be?

“Are you one of the missing seven?”

“So now there’s seven in total, damn. If only I made it back to town, if only I could’ve saved them.”

Save them? Well this changes things, I was wrong about goblins being the cause. However, if that’s the case, what happened? Before I could do anything else, the woman cut my bindings and spoke to me with a somber look on her face.

“Sorry, I should’ve been more gentle with you. My name is Whitney, what’s yours?”

“I’m Opera, I was working at the tavern in town before all this.”

Hearing that made Whitney enter a rage, she began kicking things over and screaming. Doc had to calm her down and Gregory hid in a corner, who pissed her off?

“That lousy sack of dog crap!”

“Whitney, please settle down.”

“Oh, sorry Lov-I mean Doc.”

…Was she about to say love? Wait, do we have some interspecies romance in the air? Whitney and Doc gazed sweetly into eachothers eyes, but upon noticing my glance they stopped. Whitney faked a cough to grab my attention, then explained the current situation.

“Sorry that you’re out of the loop, but you seemed to have escaped those men like I did. That’s good at least.”

Escaped those men? Before I could ask, Whitney’s eyes grew serious.

“To think that our boss, no, that bastard Stahn would set us up like that.”

I froze, the reason behind the missing girls was Stahn. What would Lena’s father have to do with any of this? Sensing my confusion she continued.

“Allow me to tell you how I ended up here, and how that man betrayed our village.”

The air in the room grew tense as Whitney folded her arms and recounted her story. The story of how those girls went missing and how she almost lost her life.