by S. E. M. Ishida
From Goblins & Galaxies #3 Spring 2026
The wolf sniffed the air. With a stagnant breeze, smoke hung on the wind like a shroud as fire crackled in the distance. Careful to avoid alerting his prey, he stepped cautiously through the forest. His massive form melted among gnarled tree branches and their twisted shadows.
Hunger gnawed his insides. The pigs he had consumed last week had long since been digested, and his gut groaned to be filled again. The sounds of his internal agony mingled with the cries of owls and the chirp of insects.
A new scent meandered to his senses. An unfamiliar, meaty aroma tickled his nose and caused him to salivate. His stomach squirmed in anticipation. He quickened his pace until he came into view of a clearing. He crouched low as the trees thinned, and from his hidden vantage point, he watched young goats dance around a dying fire. The embers barely burned bright enough to illuminate the scene.
Six larger goats had ganged up on a seventh, the smallest, who had a single broken horn. They pelted her with hot ash. They kicked it onto her with their swift hooves and tossed it in her direction with their sturdy heads and stubby horns. She cowered against the door of a cottage. Her fur perhaps had once been pale grey or even white, but the dark soot had smothered its true hue. Uneven splotches covered her thin coat, and wisps of smoke trailed from burns on her flesh.
“Stop,” the small goat said. “I—I’ll tell mother.” Tears glistened in her eyes.
“What would mother do?” another asked with a cruel laugh. “All she cares about is that we get the job done.”
“Your unsightly fur must be hidden,” a spotted goat said. “It stands out too much. It might attract predators.”
The wolf chuckled quietly to himself. His stomach thrashed like a living thing with a will of its own. He could contain it no longer. With a thunderous growl, he lunged amidst the group of goats. They screamed. Their eyes bulged in terror. The remains of the fire were scattered by a rush of paws and panicked hooves.
Towering above them, he snatched the morsels up in his viselike jaws and swallowed them alive. He had only a moment to savor each one on his tongue before gulping it down and snatching the next. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. His belly welcomed the feast, but he hungered for more. Where had the seventh goat gone? As the last ember of the fire died, he saw the cottage door had been left ajar.
***
It was easy to be consumed. Too easy. The smallest goat cowered in the clock case. Her hooves pressed against the creaking wood. She hoped the ticking of the hands and the grinding of the gears would hide the pounding of her heart. Her siblings had never been kind, but she would not have wished for them to be eaten alive. When she closed her eyes, she saw the gaping maw of the gigantic wolf, larger than any legend.
What felt like an eternity had only been a minute. Although the little goat could not see outside the clock, she heard the wood of the cottage frame cracking and the scrape of claws against the polished floor. The wolf’s rancid breath crept past the edges of the clock case door and infiltrated her hiding place. The stench of blood and fear constricted her throat. She resigned herself to the fate of her siblings.
The clock wobbled. She braced herself for impact as it fell and crashed to the ground. A massive grey paw ripped the door from its hinges.
The wolf grinned, revealing a mouthful of pointed teeth that dripped with drool. “Time to join your family.”
Bulges writhed beneath the fur over his stomach, and muffled bleats cried out from within. “They miss you, I’m sure.”
The little goat bolted from the broken clock case. Her nimble hooves cleared the debris in a single bound, but as she leaped, the ribbon that tied her unusually long tail came undone. For a moment it wafted in the air like a pennant in the breeze before settling on the cottage floor. The wolf pinned her tail with a single sharp claw. Pain shivered upward from where he pierced her. It traveled along her spine and chilled the base of her neck.
She cursed her long tail. Her siblings and mother mocked her for it, yet another aspect of her that made her different. And now it would be the cause of her demise.
The wolf plucked her up and held her at eye level. “You’re not like the others, are you?”
His wet, black nose nearly touched her as he leaned closer for a sniff. “You smell different, too.” His red tongue slithered over a white muzzle. “You’ll make a perfect dessert.”
As he opened his maw, she gazed down into the abyss of his gullet. It reminded her of the well in the town square. How many times had she stared down into it and dropped a coin to make a wish—a wish to be anywhere else? If only now her wish could come true.
She dangled in the wolf’s grasp, and then he released her. She landed on his tongue with a squelch and shrieked as the jaws closed with the finality of a castle gate shutting before a siege. The wolf swallowed. Doused in saliva, she was pulled into his esophagus. Walls of flesh pressed in on her from all sides. She struggled, but her hooves found no purchase against the slick surface. Pressure burned within her chest.
When she thought she would suffocate, the tunnel opened into the wolf’s stomach, and her arrival was announced with a splash into a pool of acid. Toxic fumes tingled in her nostrils as the liquid stung her skin. A faint glow illuminated her undulating surroundings and the distorted faces of her siblings. Digestive juices had already eaten away patches of their fur. They squinted down at her as she lay where she fell.
“What’s this light?” a sister asked. “And just as my eyes were growing accustomed to this darkness! Swan, is that you?”
“Swan makes everything worse, even being trapped in the wolf’s belly,” a brother added.
The smallest goat realized then that the glow emanated from herself. Her white fur somehow cast its own light.
A scream escaped the mouth of another sibling. “Brother, your face—”
In the pale light, the goats saw the damage to themselves for the first time. Blood dripped from the eldest brother’s face. Acid had burned through skin to expose the muscle beneath.
“Hush, sister. Mother will rescue us,” the eldest brother said. “She always does.”
*~*~*
With a yawn, the wolf stepped from the ruined cottage and into the light of the moon. His stomach churned in digestion as its contents wriggled inside. He smiled to himself. It had been months since he had felt so full. He walked behind the cottage and lay down in the darkness. But before he could fall asleep, a shriek pierced his consciousness. His ears swiveled forward, and he jolted to his feet.
“My home!” a shrill voice cried out in the night. “What happened here?”
The wolf then remembered that the young goats had mentioned their mother. She must have returned. He peeked out far enough to watch for a chance to strike.
“Children? Mother’s back.” A cream-colored goat pawed at the scattered ash. “Children, where are you?” Her quivering voice took on a stern tone. “If this is a game, I do not find it funny. Come out this instant.”
The wolf’s stomach gurgled, and the mother goat froze. The wolf appeared beside her.
“I suppose I can make room for a midnight snack.”
Before the mother goat could run, the wolf had her in his jaws.
*~*~*
Swan tried to rise, but the eldest knocked her down. The force of his head against her side sent her sprawling. She splashed into the mire and made no effort to rise again. If the other goats didn’t force her down, she would fall from the motion of the wolf’s digestion. Her legs were more delicate than her siblings’, and she had never been as sure-footed as they were.
Suddenly, the wolf laughed. The malicious rumble rose from deep inside and shook his entire body. Then, a crunch reverberated from above. Every head turned toward the wolf’s throat. Sickening slurps grew louder, and soon, the throat widened, and mother goat’s head appeared.
For a fleeting moment, smiles brightened six faces, but the expressions turned to terror as the head alone fell into the gastric chamber followed by the lifeless body. The wolf’s stomach strained and stretched to accommodate its largest occupant. He had won. Six voices wailed in anguish as they gathered around their provider and protector.
Swan had hardly noticed herself being pulled away from her siblings. She felt guilty for the relief that washed over her at seeing their mother’s corpse. With mother dead, perhaps the abuses to make her conform would stop—rubbing dirt and filth into her fur to dull its brilliant coat, tying her long tail short with ribbons so tight they made her bleed, and worse of all, breaking her single horn.
“Better to have no horn than to look like a freak with only one,” Mother had said.
With a final gasp for air, Swan was pulled down into the wolf’s writhing bowels. The walls wrapped tightly around her in a constricting embrace. They pulsed with life despite threatening to steal her own. She couldn’t hold her breath for much longer. She had always been too weak. The goats had always said so.
But as she lay still and submerged deep within the wolf’s guts, a change began to come over her. Perhaps exposure to the wolf’s own magic spurred the transformation. Or maybe the caustic acids of digestion had seared away whatever curses that mother goat had used to suppress Swan’s magic. But whatever the cause, a crystalline spiral bloomed from the sawed off stump that remained in the center of Swan’s forehead. Her single horn, as translucent as an icicle and deadly as a blade, was restored to its rightful place. The soft light of her fur flared into radiance like the noonday sun.
As the wolf’s innards pulsed around her, the flesh caught on Swan’s horn. The wolf howled in pain. Raising her head, she sliced through bowel, muscle, and skin. With the opening soon wide enough, she breathed the fresh air of the outside world. Blood and bile gushed forth, and she emerged from the wolf’s intestines to plant her hooves on the soiled grass. She ran and filled her lungs with new life.
She looked back. The wolf’s stomach still convulsed with her siblings and mother. She returned and poked the swollen mass of fur. “Follow my voice and free yourselves,” she called.
“Silence, Swan,” a muffled voice shot back.
“Can’t you see that we have lost?” another cried.
The wolf whimpered as blood flowed from his wound. Swan touched her horn to the gaping hole. She closed it as easily as she had opened it. She stared at the wolf, his belly still gurgling and concealing mournful sobs.
“Never try to eat a unicorn again,” Swan said. And with that, she bounded away with a flash of light.
*~*~*
The wolf lay his head back down to finish digesting his meal, but the meat of goats felt like stones in his stomach. Now that he could appreciate the mythical creature for what it truly was, he yearned for the sweet and tender flesh of the unicorn. As the weight of his current meal made his eyelids droop, he dreamed of his next hunt. It was only her horn that had been his downfall. Perhaps he could break it before eating her. Next time. Soon, he would hunger again.
*~*~*
S. E. M. Ishida is a technical communicator who enjoys stories in various forms, including graphic novels, films, and games. Her fiction publications consist of three children’s books and multiple short stories. Her favorite fairy tale is “The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats” by the Brothers Grimm.”