Gribble's eyes slowly opened, feeling heavy and tired. A blurry mix of greens and browns filled his sight. Birds sang and leaves rustled softly, nature's gentle "good morning." For a brief moment, he simply lay there, body sinking into the soft moss and crunchy leaves, mind trying to piece together what happened last night.

As the fog of sleep lifted, Gribble stared at his surroundings in growing disbelief. Giant trees towered overhead, their twisted trunks and curvy branches unlike any he'd seen before. Wild bushes and plants surrounded him, a tangled mass of vines and thorns threatening to swallow him whole. Gribble's heart raced as a harsh truth hit him—he had no idea where he was or how he'd gotten here, lost in this strange wilderness.

Suddenly, memories of the previous evening flooded back in a dizzying rush, each flash more shocking and scary than the last. Crumbling ruins. An old prophecy carved in weathered stone. An overwhelming sense of destiny as he'd read those fateful words. His panicked escape from Grimrock's goons, lungs burning as he'd run deeper into the untamed Wild Woods, driven by a primal need to survive. Gribble's head spun as he struggled to make sense of it all—the incredible revelation of his role in the world's fate colliding with his current situation's fear and uncertainty.

Groaning with effort, Gribble pushed himself upright, muscles screaming in protest at being forced to move. His body felt like a sack of rocks, the toll of his frightening escape and a night on the hard ground making itself known. Throbbing pain pulsed in his head, and he reached up to rub his temples, fingers tangling in his messy hair. As he sat there, trying to gather his thoughts, a sudden, bone-chilling possibility crept into his mind. What if the ruins, the prophecy, the grand revelation of his destiny...what if it had all been some vivid dream? What if his exhausted mind had simply spun a wild tale as he'd slept?

Cold sweat coated Gribble's hands as the sickening idea gripped him. He tried to convince himself it had been real, that a prophecy so important couldn't possibly be a mere figment of his imagination. And yet...the longer he thought about it, the more doubts took root. After all, those ruins had seemed almost too incredible to be real, with their intricate carvings and aura of ancient power. And the notion that he, a lowly goblin cursed with strange abilities, could somehow be the key to the world's salvation or destruction? It strained belief past the breaking point. Gribble was a hair's breadth from dismissing the whole thing as a stress-induced hallucination when a peculiar spongy feeling made itself known against his palm. Curious, he looked down.

There, stubbornly clinging to his rough skin, was a clump of moss, green tendrils still dewy from the forest. Gribble's eyes widened with recognition—it was the same unique kind that had coated the ruins' stones, its distinct color and texture deeply etched in his memory. Here was solid proof he'd really been there. The prophecy was no dream. Relief washed over Gribble in a cleansing wave. With a shaking hand, he reached out and carefully poked the moss, half-expecting it to vanish like a mirage. But it held firm and real beneath his touch.

As Gribble stared at that unassuming bit of plant, the mind-boggling implications of its presence hammered his brain. If the prophecy was real...then he was destined for a purpose far grander than anything his wildest dreams had ever imagined. The sheer enormity of it crashed into him like a battering ram, leaving him reeling. Gribble's breath came in short gasps as he fought to wrap his mind around the immensity of it all. He, a miserable goblin with unsettling powers, literally held the fate of the world in his green-stained hands. Simultaneous excitement and pants-wetting terror gripped him as he struggled to absorb this new reality. 

Without warning, a scent wafting on the breeze turned Gribble's blood to ice in his veins. His freakishly sharp nose, a questionable gift from one of the many creatures he'd consumed, detected the unmistakable stench of Grimrock's guards—their sweat and leather armor blending with the forest's mossy smell. But the smell was too strong, too widespread. It was as if an entire goblin army was closing in on his location. Gribble's heart pounded against his ribcage, the drumbeat of approaching doom echoing in his skull. If those guards found him, he was as good as Grimrock's prisoner, his fate bound for a short drop and sudden stop at the end of a rope. Or worse.

Panic blazed through Gribble's body like wildfire, his brain a mess of half-formed escape plans. He leaped to his feet, wild eyes scanning the trees for any sign of his pursuers. The forest itself seemed to be closing in, grasping branches and snagging thorns reaching out to trap him in their clutches. Breathing heavily, he spun in a frantic circle, straining all his senses for a hint of his hunters' approach. They had to be close. Too close. He could practically feel their blades already cutting into his flesh.

In a burst of speed born of pure liquid terror, Gribble launched himself deeper into the Wild Woods, feet barely touching the forest floor as he raced headlong through the undergrowth. Whipping branches scored his face and limbs with stinging kisses, but he scarcely felt the burning lines of blood they left behind. His world narrowed to the single need to escape, to lose himself in the forest's tangled maze. Fallen logs and jutting stones flashed by in a blur as he pushed his body to its limits and beyond, heart racing dangerously in his chest.

Gribble understood with sinking certainty that he couldn't allow himself to be captured. Nor could he stomach the thought of battling his own kind, even in self-defense. The goblins charging toward him were not true enemies, but misguided pawns in Grimlock's twisted game. Gribble refused to repay their blind loyalty with violence.

As primal flight gripped him, Gribble's mind whirled with the cruel irony of his plight. Though his abilities had grown impressively through his dietary experimentation, he knew they were still laughably inadequate to protect him from the ruthless might of Grimrock's forces. He'd seen firsthand how the goblin warlord crushed opposition, smashing dissent like eggshells beneath his iron-shod boots. Even if by some miracle Gribble gave the guards the slip now, how could he possibly hope to fulfill a prophecy and save the world when he was so pitifully powerless? Despair wrapped icy fingers around his thundering heart, threatening to squeeze the last embers of hope from him.

Yet even as the shadows of futility pressed in from all sides, a defiant spark flared to life in Gribble's chest. He couldn't give up. Not now. Not with so much at stake. Prophecy or no prophecy, he'd been granted these powers for a reason. Maybe it was time he started acting like it. With a guttural snarl, he reached deep within himself and somehow found another gear, legs churning even faster over the treacherous ground. Keen eyes scoured the passing foliage for any sign of the exotic prey whose essence could bolster his fledgling abilities. Out here in the untamed depths of the Wild Woods, the creatures grew stranger and more marvelous. And Gribble would need every scrap of power he could scavenge if he was to have any prayer of surviving what was to come.

Guess he went deeper into the Wild Woods and it seems the goblin soldiers behind were no where to be seen.

So he ran on into the waiting wilds, a rabbit fleeing the hounds of fate nipping at his heels. But a rabbit with a growing glint of steel beneath the fear in his eyes. One way or another, Gribble vowed, he would weather the coming storm. He'd claw and scrape his way to the strength he needed. And maybe, just maybe, a once-cowering goblin could live up to a destiny he'd never asked for...

Gribble pelted through curtains of vines, green ropes that snagged and slapped at his limbs like leafy whips. Thorny underbrush clawed at his legs, their sharp barbs drawing thin trickles of blood, but he scarcely noticed the sting. Just as the burning in his lungs began to consume his entire world, he burst into a small clearing, a bubble of open space amidst the suffocating greenery. Gasping for breath, Gribble risked a quick glance back over his shoulder. The distant howling of hounds drifted on the thick forest air.

A whimper crawled up Gribble's throat and died on his lips. Despair crushed his hammering heart like a rotten apple. His legs were weak and wobbly, his body wrung dry. There was nowhere left to run, nowhere left to hide. His fantastic powers, so impressive against giant spiders and poisonous wurms, were meaningless before Grimrock's rising tide of steel and muscle. He was a mouse before lions, a tiny fish in a sea of sharks.

"Heh, some chosen one I am..." Gribble rasped, a bitter chuckle scraping past his raw throat. The old prophecy that had seemed so important and compelling in the crumbling ruins now rang empty as a jester's joke. How could a misfit like him possibly bear the weight of the world on his skinny shoulders?

Gribble thudded to the ground, the soft earth cool against his back as he gazed up at the green crystal facets of the forest canopy. Birdsong and insect chatter filtered down from above, the timeless symphony of a world that didn't know or care it teetered on a razor's edge. A world he was meant to save. Or destroy.

"If this is the end of Gribble the Goblin's grand tale, it's a disappointing end indeed," he thought, the words tasting of bitter ashes and sour regrets. But as he lay there, drinking in the forest's rich air, something shifted inside him. A small, stubborn coal of defiance amid the ashes of his spirit.

Rolling to his feet with a pained groan, Gribble stared into the wild tangle of the woods with eyes that burned. "No. Not here. Not like this. If I'm to meet my end, it won't be as Grimrock's crying prisoner." His hands clenched into twisted, white-knuckled fists, nails sharp as claws biting into his palms. "I'll play out this silly prophecy to the bitter end. And if the world burns for my pride...then let it burn."

Gribble turned and plunged back into the ancient green once more, but his walk was no longer that of a desperate runaway. A new purpose rang through the muscles of his legs, anger and defiance easing the sour brick of fear in his gut. He would strip this forest down to bedrock if he had to. Crack open its stone bones and drink the hidden marrows of power. He would prove a goblin as mighty and terrible as the greatest heroes of legend and song.

The Wild Woods closed in around him, no longer a place of terror and despair, but a wild test—a battleground in which to prove his worth against all the primal might of claw and fang. Steely resolve glinted in Gribble's eyes as he pushed ahead into the beckoning wilds, a rabbit no longer, but a snarling wolf on the hunt.

And if the gods were kind (or cruel), he just might live to become the monster this messed-up world deserved.

But Gribble understood, with a heavy certainty that settled in his bones like a killing frost, that giving up was a luxury he could ill afford.