The world around me spins and distorts, a nauseating kaleidoscope of colors and sensations that feels like being torn apart and reassembled. One moment I'm walking down a familiar street in my neighborhood, and the next-

  I'm face-down in dirt that smells nothing like home.

  My head pounds as I push myself up, hands sinking into soft loam scattered with unfamiliar vegetation. The air feels different, heavier, sweeter, with scents I can't identify. A forest surrounds me, but not like any I've ever seen. Trees tower impossibly tall, their bark a deep purple-blue, with leaves that shimmer between emerald and silver depending on how they catch the light.

  "What the fuck..." I mutter, staggering to my feet. My clothes, jeans, sneakers, and a faded t-shirt, are completely out of place in this alien environment.

  In the distance, something howls,a sound that raises the hair on my neck and sends a cold shiver down my spine. It's not a wolf or any animal I recognize. It sounds bigger. Hungrier.

  As my vision clears, I notice a small path cutting through the underbrush. Not made by human feet, too narrow, with strange three-toed prints pressed into the soil. Following it might lead to civilization... or danger.

  A rustling sound comes from a nearby bush, followed by a low, rumbling growl. Something's watching me, and it doesn't sound friendly.

  I warily stare at the bush, my heart pounding in my chest. The alien forest looms around me, those weird purple-blue trees stretching toward a sky that doesn't look quite right, a little too teal to be Earth's familiar blue.

  The bush rustles again, and I tense, looking around for something, anything, I could use as a weapon. There's a decent-sized branch nearby, but before I can grab it, the creature emerges.

  It's a goblin. A fucking goblin.

  Standing about three feet tall with sickly green-gray skin stretched over a scrawny frame, the creature peers at me with beady yellow eyes. Its ears are long and pointed, twitching as it studies me. Dressed in crude leather scraps with what looks like rodent skulls hanging from a belt, it clutches a jagged knife made from some kind of bone.

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  "Eh? What's this?" it croaks in broken but understandable English, tilting its head. "Human? Big human. Not from here."

  The goblin sniffs the air, its wide nostrils flaring. "Smell different. Strange magic." It takes a step forward, and I notice its feet, three-toed, matching the prints on the path.

  "Lost?" it asks, showing yellowed teeth in what might be a smile or a threat. "Dangerous forest. Bad things hunt here." As if to emphasize this point, that distant howl comes again, and the goblin's ear twitches toward the sound.

  "I Nerk," it says, thumping its chest with a bony fist. "You follow, maybe? Or maybe I take your shiny things?" Its eyes fix on my watch and the metal zipper of my jacket.

  Something stirs in my blood as I look at this creature, a strange sensation I've never felt before, like a dormant instinct awakening. For a moment, I swear I can sense something about the goblin beyond what my eyes see, a kind of green aura, weak but present.

  Instinctively, I reach out toward that green aura, following a pull I don't understand but somehow trust. As my hand extends toward the goblin, a strange tingling sensation flows through my fingertips, up my arm, and spreads throughout my body. It's like electricity but warmer, more natural, like I've tapped into some hidden current that's always been there.

  Nerk freezes, those yellow eyes widening with surprise and what looks like fear. "What you do? What magic this?" he hisses, taking a step back but seemingly unable to flee completely.

  The green aura I sensed grows more visible to me now, a shimmering field of energy surrounding the goblin's small form. As I focus on it, I feel... connected to Nerk somehow. Information floods my mind: his strengths (stealth, climbing, night vision), his weaknesses (physically frail, cowardly), even fragments of memories, scavenging for food, hiding from larger predators, knowledge of safe paths through this forest.

  "The hell..." I mutter as this strange bond forms. The goblin shudders, dropping his bone knife to the ground.

  "Feel strange," Nerk says, clutching his chest. "Feel... loyal? What you do to Nerk?" He looks confused, scared, but also somehow calmer. The aggression has faded from his posture.

  The connection solidifies, and suddenly I know, this creature is now bound to me somehow. I've tamed it. More than that, I sense I could make Nerk stronger, enhance his natural abilities if I wanted to.

  "You master now?" Nerk asks, kneeling awkwardly. "Nerk serve? Never felt magic like this before."

  The distant howl comes again, closer this time. Nerk's ears twitch nervously.

  "Bad things come," he warns. "Wolf-demons hunt when sun goes down. Need shelter. Nerk know safe place, if master want to follow?"

  The goblin looks at me expectantly, awaiting my command. The bond between us pulses, a tangible connection I never could have imagined possible before today.