The End, and What Came After

What is the antidote to a meaningless life? This is the question that plagues a young man as he is stabbed to death in a city's backstreets. He finds himself reborn as a goblin on an unforgiving mountain, where every moment of existence is one of struggle, violence, and pain. In a world without family or friends, where the next dawn is in question and each meal an uncertainty, can he find the answer to that question he still carries? Or will he die as meaningless as in his first life? And just what would he be willing to do to avoid so terrible an end?