What was that warmth, soft and deep, that enveloped me like a velvet shroud?
Why was this sense of well-being flooding me so insistently... as if I were safe from everything—hunger, fear, even time itself?
I floated.
Calm. Protected. Dissolved.
But then... why couldn't I speak?
Why didn't any words escape my lips, as if my tongue had been forgotten somewhere in another world?
I tried to move.
My arms... my legs... Every motion cost me the effort of a chained titan.
My limbs refused to obey, heavy, numb, almost foreign.
Still, I pushed them. Again. Again.
It was hard.
Incredibly hard.
As if the mere act of existing weighed more than I could bear.
And little by little, my consciousness frayed.
I sank, soundlessly, without struggle.
Then... once more, the warmth.
That obsessive softness again.
A tepid cocoon. A shoreless sea.
Here, nothing could reach me.
Here, I was fine.
Warm.
Calm.
Safe.
So I fell asleep again.
Peacefully.
Maybe... for eternity.
And once more, I was torn from that sleep so deep, so good, as if something—or someone—refused to let me rest.
My body protested.
I tried to move.
Slowly.
Laboriously.
My limbs dragged through the shadows like submerged chains.
Each gesture, an agony.
Each movement, a trial.
I couldn't speak, couldn't scream, couldn't even cry.
My mouth no longer belonged to me.
My eyes? Blind.
My ears? Deaf.
All that remained was that miserable tremble, that pathetic squirming, as if my exhausted body, worn beyond reason, was simply trying to say: no.
No to awakening.
No to the light.
No to the pain of return.
But the world remained deaf.
So, gently, like a condemned man accepting the rope, I sank again.
Without resistance.
Without will.
Without hope.
And I fell asleep again, lost in that warmth, a prisoner of that womb of forgetfulness.
Again? I thought, annoyed, almost angry.
What was it now that tore me from that deep, perfect, sweet sleep?
Why steal from me that sublime warmth, that silent cocoon where nothing could touch me?
But this time... it wasn't just a simple awakening.
It was as if the world itself rejected me.
As if that warmth abandoned me.
As if... I had done something unforgivable.
It withdrew slowly, taste by taste, softness by softness.
And with its departure came the sounds.
Slow. Distant. Intrusive.
They crawled toward me, defiling my silence.
First growls.
Then screams.
High-pitched, feminine, but... bestial.
What the hell was happening?
Why was this thing disturbing my sleep?
Why tear me from my refuge?
My body slipped.
Inexorably.
The sounds drew nearer.
Louder.
More visceral.
And I felt... the cold.
Freezing. Cruel. Real.
The outside world.
Its trials. Its claws.
No.
I didn't want this.
I wanted to stay back there.
Where I was fine.
Where I was everything.
I refused this agony.
But the world didn't listen.
I kept slipping.
Again.
Until my whole body was bathed in that merciless coldness.
The warmth was silent.
Gone.
Erased.
I was alone.
Sad.
Lost.
I wanted to run away.
I wanted to go back.
Then... the screams stopped.
A heavy silence, torn by hoarse growls, from multiple voices, multiple beings.
I tried to open my eyes.
Impossible.
Something held them shut, like a membrane, like fear.
Then... the pain.
Dull.
Deep.
In my belly.
There, just below the navel.
As if something was being torn from me.
As if the last thread linking me to my Paradise was breaking.
It was over.
The end of shelter.
The end of warmth.
The end of Everything.
I was like a fallen Adam, exiled from an Eden I never asked for.
Why?
Why me?
And as if the pain wasn't enough, they struck me.
On the back.
Dry, brutal slaps.
I wanted to scream, to protest.
I opened my mouth.
I inhaled.
And it was the ultimate pain.
A fire in my throat.
A scream torn from my soul.
A rupture.
So I cried.
Misshapen sobs, like the growls of a being that should never have existed. A hybrid sound, between cute and monstrous.
Between human...
and abomination.
And then... warmth.
Less intense than that of my lost Paradise.
Less vast.
Less enveloping.
But real.
Present.
Anchored.
A different warmth, made of skin, of breath, of heartbeats.
And I felt it.
It was there.
It protected me still, a final barrier against the world.
So, in one last surge, in an almost sacrilegious effort, I wanted to see.
See what held me.
See what still kept me slightly away from cruelty.
I forced it.
Again.
Again.
I felt a membrane give way, a pressure, as if I were being peeled off the veil between two worlds.
And finally, I managed to open my eyes.
And I saw her.
Her.
I knew.
It was my mother.
And she had just given me life.
Her face, exhausted but magnificent, was bathed in a soft, almost unreal light.
In her eyes... there was everything.
Tenderness.
Strength.
Love.
A raw, unconditional love, vaster than any sky.
And I... I loved her too.
I felt it, without words, without reason, without condition.
It was her.
She, who had given me Paradise.
She, who had given me life.
And I had the strange feeling... of already understanding everything.
A clear awareness, too clear for a newborn.
This wasn't just a birth... It was a reincarnation, right?
Damn it, I had really drawn the isekai ticket.
...But...
Something was off.
I squinted, still blurry-eyed, trying to focus the image so clear in my mind.
The love was there, yes. The sweetness too.
But...
Why... why was she green?
No, wait. Not greenish. Not "pale" or "sickly."
Green.
Like a juicy spinach leaf.
I blinked several times.
Maybe it was the lighting? A shadow effect?
A divine glow filtered through a magical placental membrane? Yeah, probably something like that...
...But no.
It was definitely green skin.
With a rough texture, slightly wrinkled, and a kind of damp sheen that was anything but human.
And those teeth?!
Two fangs, clearly visible, jutted out from his lower lip. Small raptor-like canines. The kind of teeth that aren't made for eating strawberries.
And those ears?!
Long, pointed, angled upward like the antennas of a paranoid bat.
But... But no!
No no no no no.
It wasn't her that was the problem.
It was me.
I was losing it.
It was the birth.
The trauma.
The adrenaline.
Placenta in the brain.
Some chemical thing.
I took a deep breath — bad choice, it smelled like a sweaty stable — and slowly lowered my eyes toward my own body.
Small.
Ridiculously small.
Short, spindly limbs, a chubby torso like a poorly hydrated larva.
Fingers... green.
Feet... green.
A belly button... nonexistent.
And that skin...
God.
It was the same.
Leaf green.
Moldy version.
With a sheen that screamed: "I live in a cave and eat rats."
…
The inner silence shattered.
WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!
WHY AM I A GOBLIN?!
WHERE'S MY CHEAT SYSTEM, MY SECRET POWERS, MY HAREM?!
NOT EVEN A GOLDEN-EYED GODDESS WITH GIANT BOOBS TO SAY "WELCOME"?!