Ciro Catches a Goblin
Ciro woke to a shadow drifting across her face. Her room was dark save the harvest moon light pouring in through the windows. In the silvery murk came a chitter, a scratching on the floorboards. Bits of dark flickered at the far corners of her room, beneath her dresser, curling out from beneath her bed. An inexplicable chill raised the hairs on her neck.
Something wandered out of her bathroom. Something soundless, hulking. Ciro felt fear; the sleepy, sickly fear of dreams seeping into her back, and she drew the sheets tight around her shoulders. But what good would fabric do against those claws, those gorilla-thick arms brushing along the floorboards, Ciro wondered.
Slowly, ponderously, the thing thumped over to her bed, the silhouette a swirl of moonlight and thick tar as it crosses the cone of light from her window. It eased down then, fingers like spider legs curling around the bottom bedpost, and slid beneath the rusted frame. When the last of its bulk fell beneath the edge of Ciro's futon, Ciro took a gasping breath, and let loose the fart she'd been holding in.
"Thank god that was gonna kill m- OH GOD-
It all happened so quickly. The beast was upon her at once. Ciro shed her covers and drew up her lamp from the nightstand to her left, the bulb sparking once as the cord tore from the wallsocket, a flicker of light dancing up a heavyset body; all glistening oil and nails.
Ciro struck. The moth-eaten lampshade flew to pieces over the beast's shoulders, bulb popping, tossing glass over its head. It gave a cry like two boulders rubbing together. A sound Ciro more felt than heard, like the rumble of a distant earthquake. One massive arm drew back and dashed him against the wall, then closed around her midsection and tossed her back, where she bashed against the far wall and fell to the floor, breath knocked out of her.
Ciro stumbled up, one arm cradling her gut, the other holding the bottom half of a five-pence lamp. The beast started towards him, blood like jelly oozing from a wound on its temple. Ciro cried out and hurled the lamp at it, but the lack of breath and pulsing double vision must have been affecting her more than she expected because the porcelain curved right and exploded through her one good windowpane.
"Monster! Asshole!" Ciro retreated to her bathroom - at least she tried to, instead the doorframe ran up and smacked her in in the face and knocked her back on her ass. She gasped and flailed over onto her side as the inky darkness rose up and crashed down where her face used to be. She pushed himself up and hopped back, and it must have been the adrenaline or the bowel-clenching terror pulsing in her ears because Ciro somehow managed to lift her entire four-drawer wooden dresser and hurl it like a Frisbee. The thing spun through the air, ejecting drawers like escape pods full of "clean" clothes, wadded up socks, empty beer cans and slick plastic tops from instant ramen packages. Was that her wallet? A clump of wadded up coupons and weathered rubies flashed in the moonlight and was gone.
"Oh fuck you!" She had a brand new door right next to her first one.
The beast grew then, in the dark. Tired, frustrated. So much rage. Eyes boiled up along the face, shoulders broadened and hunched, brushed the ceiling as the legs thickened and stretched. Still blood drew from the wound on what passed for its temple, and oozed to the floor. The stench of it, of all of it made Ciro take a step back, and she felt the wall press against her shoulder blades.
Was this it, Ciro wondered. Not a bad way to go. Fighting, screaming, make it earn every drop of her blood. Maybe give it some interesting new scars to explain to its fellow monsters. her death would become legend, her corpse the stuff of campfire-stories. The thing drew closer, slowly, always slowly. Not due to the measure of its bulk, there was a steady confidence, an arrogance.
Timotheus Bumblestump left three prostitutes in the gutters before the police tracked him down, black weeping lines around their necks, eyes bulging. Couldn't get it up unless he watched. Was Ciro giving the monster a rock hard boner? Fuck, now that was all she could think about. Her death would be much less heroic if she was raped to death. Then it would just be sad. No one would talk about it. No one would applaud her sacrifice. They'd just act mournful and pretend she meant something for a few days and move on with their lives. Well fuck that. Fuck all of that. Ciro's will tempered, then, in the dark. She tossed her shoulders back, drew up her fists, her chin held high. her target was in sight. She would not be forgotten.
"Holy shit, you guys!"
Eight in the morning and already Ciro was up and shrieking. The june bugs that had, until that moment, lulled Al into a silent, vacant-stared complacency, cut out as though they'd lost power. The boy shuddered deep in his spine.
"You guys, holy shit you guys seriously!"
Proxxy, not two chairs away and balanced horribly on the rear legs of her chair, sighed and clapped down to earth. Kit Kat continued to seize on her head in that peculiar way cats do when unable to find footing, smushing Proxxy's cheeks and jamming her paws in the girl's mouth as she spoke. "Goddamnit."
"Seriously you guys, you don't even know! You don't even – fuck you! Just fuck you guys! Oh my god seriously!"
Ciro wasn't even halfway to the joint, how she managed to project was nothing short of miraculous. Cherish, off to the side in the one window-row chair with shade, made a nasal, sort of phlegmy noise from her throat, and rubbed her face into her crossed arms. "Why." She said. "Why is this a thing."
"Youguysdon'tevenohmygooooo-" Ciro wasn't even saying words anymore, just making noises that built and built until they muddled to an incomprehensible shriek with pitch and volume like a bandsaw chewing through linoleum. Al crinkled his brow down at his hands, and balled up his fingers in unhealthily repressed rage. God did Al hate Ciro. He'd make sure to tell her that when she arrived.
"OOOOOOOO-" Ciro exploded through the newly repaired window in a shower of glass and landed square in her seat, as was her morning ritual. Then she turned and said without pause, "I caught a goblin!"
"I hate you." Al said.
"Hi Al." Ciro's selective hearing whipped into action.
"Bullshit." Said Proxxy. "Just no."
"I know, you're skeptical. Captain Skeptic. skexxy. Skexxy the Sk-"
"Shut up."
"I was skexxical at first too, but I know what I caught, and I caught a goddamn night-monster goblinpants." Ciro spread her hands imploringly, "Seriously, guys, come on. This is big news."
Proxxy started laughing. "You are an idiot."
"She's right, you are." Al said.
Ciro deflated a bit, and then swelled up once more like the endless tide, "Perhaps you aren't understanding me. I'm telling you I literally caught a goblin. In my house. I have a goblin in my house. There is a go-"
"You know, Al." Proxxy said, "with you, I figure just looking at you, if I'd never met you, I'd assume that you're the child of a dysfunctional marriage. But Ciro… you quite clearly have no parents. That has never been more obvious to me than at this moment, right now."
"You guys, there is literally a goblin tied up in my living room right now." Ciro figured if she repeated herself enough things would just work themselves out. "You have to come see it. Right now."
"At best you have a raccoon tied up." Al said, "A raccoon that is completely losing its shit."
"Worst case you're in for kidnapping." Proxxy said. "Which would be cool because then you would go away for a while."
"Oh you." Ciro flapped her hand good-naturedly. "But seriously you guys, I literally caught a goblin, and I tied it up with my least favorite shirt. I also might have beaten the shit out of it."
"Ciro," Proxxy began, "even if goblins were actually a thing, which they aren't, you are just not physically capable of that. A goblin would wreck you. You would die, horribly. A horrible, painful goblin death."
"Like you can talk," Ciro scoffed, "I beat you every time we fight."
"Cause you fucking fart all the time." said Proxxy, "There is something wrong, something seriously wrong with your digestive system."
"Look - you guys are missing the point," Ciro said, and stood; a breeze from the window saved Proxxy from another unfortunate experience. "I am not lying. Look at me. Completely flaccid, you guys know my nips get hard when I lie. I fought a goblin to submission, tied it up, it is in my house right now. We are all going to look at it and mock it. Right now."
Proxxy glanced down at Ciro's shirt for a few moments. "… Holy shit she's telling the truth."
"Occam's Razor: you're an idiot." Al said. "You eat nothing but ramen, all that salt probably shriveled your brain."
Ciro inflated with an ultimatum. "If there is not a goblin in my house I will pay each of you twenty rubies."
"You better goddamn pay up." Al said. They crossed the halfway point in the stairwell and rounded a corner up ahead. The further up they got the better the condition of the complex, less footprints, less wear and tear, but more dust and more nature. Dead vines curled around support struts, scratches like the death-scrawl of a fatally wounded raccoon appeared here and there on the walls. On the fifth flight, they rounded the corner and stepped over a homeless man hanging over the stairs, completely limp and oblivious but for the hand clenched around a wide-mouth bottle of liquor. Ciro spoke.
"So, it was last night. I was sleeping, and then I woke up and it was there, coming out of my bathroom. And it just attacked."
"You probably farted or something." Proxxy said. "I'd attack you too."
"No I did not." Ciro said. "…So we're squaring off, and I'm just a total badass just goddamn ninja'ing all over the place-
The beast fell upon her like a great wave, a sea of tar and teeth and stink. Ciro leapt to the side, back, eyes barely following the streaks of movement in the dark. Something caught her in the gut and hurled her back, but she dropped low and caught himself, falling into a runners pose. She launched, ducked under the punch, rolled over the kick, found herself beneath the beast.
"I get under it -
From there the beast seems to dwarf her. The legs as thick as his torso, hips towering above her head. But that didn't matter. Her post-mortem reputation was at stake. Ciro saw her target above her head. She hunkered down, building elastic tension for the longest moment of her life.
"and I take that fucker out."
Ciro punched the monster in the dick like it was going out of style. It tensed, struck dumb. Ciro continued to wail away, and started screaming a bit, though she would leave that part when she recounted this adventure to her two children, Ciro and Ciro. Ciro screamed and flailed away until the sun rose, then tore her least favorite shirt to shreds and went to work. Then she took a nap because she was so goddamn tired.
"How does that work. Like you took out the knees? Sweep the leg? We're missing an important step in your takedown." Said Proxxy. "Like, the most important step. The only step." Proxxy made sure to step on the next drunk the passed. "And good lord do you live on the moon?"
"Eighth floor jackass." Ciro said. "it's called cardio. Also, I just punched the shit out of it. Not that complicated. End of story. And then I tied it up I mean, then end of story."
"We're here and you're both idiots." Al said. "Ciro, open the door and you better pay up."
"Oh ye of little dick." Ciro said. Then laughed at her wittiness. "Oh me, and my wordplay," she said, "anyways, yeah you're an idiot. C'mon in dipshit." Ciro opened his door in the same way she always did, by mashing a closed fist against the nob and pretending she had a key. So far, the fact that anyone watching would assume her door locked had deterred any break-ins, and she was not about to mess with success. Ciro made a clicking noise with her mouth and ushered them both inside.
Riltia laid out on the floor clutching at her crotch and weeping, a strip of red fabric tied around her ankles.
Proxxy started cackling. "Ciro, you jackass."
"What did I tell you." Ciro said, chest puffed up with pride. "Goblin. Right here."
Al could only shake his head. "Ciro, you jackass."
"What's with those shitty reactions?" Ciro said, "A goddamn goblin is right here guys."
"That's Riltia." Said Al. "That is literally just Riltia."
Ciro furrowed his brow at Al, then at Riltia's weeping form, then back at Al. "The fuck are you playing at? It's a goblin. The hook nose-"
"Riltia."
"The crazy gibbering language and crinkly skin-"
"Riltia, man." Proxxy said. "The hell's the matter with you."
"But- but the pointy ears and the insatiable mining lust-"
"Still just Riltia." Al said.
"The DICK! The fucking DICK!" Ciro said. "I punched it like twenty times!"
"That's not even a thing here." Proxxy said. "You're just an idiot."
"You're an idiot." Al said.
Ciro crossed her arms and huffed. "Well screw you guys anyways."
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