by Maia Tanith
I don’t understand what they are saying, but the other girls are undressing so I copy them, my hands shaking so badly I can hardly move.
One of the hyena men has a whip. He lashes it at the girls who don’t take off their clothes, enforcing their obedience.
Then I’m naked and shaking, and we are moving in a tight knit group.
This doesn’t feel real. I watch my naked self walking along with the monsters leading us like a pack of sheep to slaughter. I feel removed from my body, like my brain has gone into complete denial about this moment, and my body is on autopilot.
We are chained and walked through to another room. This truck has rooms?
I see the monsters talking from far away, but I don’t hear their words.
Everything around me looks like its underwater, like I’m swimming. I try to bring myself back, to come out of this cocoon of terror my mind is buried in, but I can’t.
Then we are thrown into a cell and a bucket hits me in the head, knocking my consciousness back into my body with a jolt.
It was aimed at me, I assume, for peeing myself.
A pile of porridge is put in front of us. The girls eat hesitantly at first, and then with more enthusiasm as their hunger bites.
I don’t feel hungry yet. My brain is still trying to process where I am.
One of the girls puts some into my hand to encourage me to eat. “I’m Hannah,” she whispers.
“Faye,” another girl adds.
They are both incredibly pretty. It seems like a strange thing to notice at this time.
I’m only human though. Us girls notice these things.
Hannah is holding her arm, where the whip has caught her and left a nasty cut.
“I’m Delia,” I say back.
The words give me strength. It’s a fact that I can cling on to. Facts keep me sane, keep me ordered.
I’m Delia, and I might not know where the hell I am, but I know who I am. I can figure the rest out as we go.
Hannah picks up a blanket from the pile of ratty rags in the corner. I huddle close to her and Faye to sleep.
It feels like only minutes before I am woken up again by a thumping on the floor. Then someone heavy steps on me, and I yelp in pain.
I sit up, rubbing my puffy eyes to see that the nasty-looking traffickers have grabbed hold of Hannah and are dragging her away.
My fear returns in an instant, like a brick hitting me in the stomach. “Where are you taking Hannah? You can’t take her away.” My voice is weak and trembling, but I am proud that I have enough strength to force the words out.
I’m rewarded with a blow to the face, and I scoot backwards on my butt to get out of range. I’ve seen the damage those whips can do.
Then Hannah is gone through the door with the hyena men, and Faye and I are left with the others in the room.
Faye says what I am thinking. “I wonder where they’re taking her.” She chews on her thumb nail. “And where they are taking us.” Then she punches the wall, hard enough that her skin on her knuckles splits. It makes me jump, seeing a glance of all the pent-up anger in this skinny young girl.
I shake my head at the drops of blood on the floor. “I thought it was a dream too. But I pinched myself and didn’t wake up. It’s less painful than breaking your hand.”
She looks at me in surprise, then bursts into laughter.
I’m surprised for a second, then I join in. Laughing at the absurdity of the situation.
Laughing is better than crying.
But after a while, I am doing both. Laughing through my tears.
Faye sniffs and wipes her eyes. Her gaze is fierce. “I nearly got there,” she says. “I was nearly there. And now I’m here. Wherever here is. I wish this was a goddamn dream.”
“I had a date last night,” I say. My voice is still weak with fear, even after the laughing. I feel better though. There is someone here, someone on my side. “A first date. With someone I wanted to marry. Who I still want to marry. If I ever see him again. I still feel bad that he’ll think I stood him up.”
Faye’s face softens and she reaches over to take my hand. “Did you really like him?”
I think about that for a moment as I clasp her fingers in mine. They are warm and solid, and anchor me here, in this strange reality. “He was a friend. Safe. Predictable. He would’ve made me a good husband.”
That sets Faye off laughing again. “He sounds like a dog. Or a donkey. Did you even want to kiss him?”
“Not particularly,” I admit. I don’t like thinking that, even to myself. It seems disloyal.
“He would’ve made a bad husband then,” she suggests. “Or you would have made him a bad wife.”
I shake my head, unconvinced. Wanting to kiss someone is so...so unimportant. Right now, I would trade the most kissable lips on the planet for a nice, solid, safe, dependable Greg who could get me the fuck out of here.
Unfortunately, Gregs are a bit thin on the ground here.
A noise at the door and we immediately fall silent.
A tall man with stooped shoulders enters, a pair of guards following him.
One of the guards is sweating and shoots the tall man nervous looks. The other guard looks down at his feet.
The tall man looks over the pair of us. His grey eyes are cold. Without kindness or mercy. “I’ll take her,” he says, gesturing at Faye. “Leash her.”
The sweating guard steps forward and clamps a spiky collar around Faye’s neck. She cries out in pain as the spikes jab into her.
The tall man tugs on the leash, and Faye is forced to trot obediently out of the room after him. She sends me one last anguished glance as she leaves.
I look on in horror. My last anchor. My last tie to who I am.
Gone.
I’m on my own.
When the time comes, I don’t get a Greg either. Not that I was expecting one.
No, I get a grumpy-looking guard with scraggy hair and vicious-looking claws who comes into the room and barks an order at me.
I blink at him stupidly. My brain cannot comprehend that a man-animal like that can speak to me in words. I cannot understand him.
Huffing impatiently, he grabs me by the wrist and hauls me out of the room after him.
I don’t even rate a leash.
I step outside, and into hell.
A pretty good approximation of hell, anyway, though there are no devils with forked tails brandishing pitchforks at me.
I would not be surprised to see a bright-red, horned devil jumping out at me. Everything else looks just like I imagine hell to be.
Parched red sand stretches out into the distance.
A huge, dull red sun takes up half the sky and tinges the air with the color of blood. Even the clouds range from a deep pink to a blood red burgundy.
I have to face facts.
This is not Earth. This cannot be Earth.
The air smells strangely sweet. Not pleasantly so like candy, but a sickening smell that catches in the back of your throat, like the sweetness of decay.
This is definitely not Earth. We weren’t transported here in a truck.
We were in a spaceship.
I turn my head back to look. I’ve never seen anything like the machine that we stepped out of on Earth. Except maybe in a Star Wars film.
Yep, definitely a spaceship.
My head swims. I swallow back my nausea as I stumble after the guard.
He shoves me into a cage in the back of a vehicle and shuts the door on me, just as if I were a dog riding in the backseat of a car.
I crouch in the semi-darkness, pleased at least to be out of the glare of the demonic sun.
Then he takes off at high speed, and this time I cannot control my nausea. I am sick everywhere.
All over the floor, all over the walls and all over me.
I’m marooned on a strange planet, locked in a cage, and covered in pee and vomit. How much worse could things possibly get?
Chapter Two
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sp; Azr
The guards dump me in a cage to one side of an arena. Arena is a grand word for it. It’s a pathetic attempt at an arena, being little more than a field with a big hole dug in the middle of it. It looks like they’ll shove me into the hole and toss in a few others and let us battle it out at the bottom while they lean over the edge to watch.
Great, so I don’t even rate a decent-sized audience for my soon-to-be demise. I’m the entertainment in the most down-market version of the Xillian Games possible. The cut-price games for those who can’t afford to go see the real thing.
The thought is terribly deflating. So much for my poor ego. I had hoped that at least I would get an admiring crowd to cheer me on as I expire gracefully on the sands.
Nope, clearly I’m not important enough for that. Us freebooters must be common as dirt around here. It’s not even worth making a spectacle of killing us.
My opponents are still a mystery. The other cages are empty. I’m glad that I don’t have to face my fears just yet.
The sun is warm on my face. Given that my legs still aren’t working, I do what anyone else would do under the circumstances. I tug my shirt over my shoulders, lay it over my eyes, and drift off to sleep.
The guards wake me some hours later. I’m hungry and thirsty, but they don’t bring me anything to eat or drink. Instead they return five minutes later bringing me something completely ridiculous. Something I will have no use for ever again.
A female.
A human female of all things.
I’ve never seen a real life human before and I’ve never had any desire to, either. I’ve always preferred my own kind.
Human women are said to be quite attractive, but this one doesn’t look much different to a dirty farm animal.
“What am I supposed to do with her?” I ask, as she is thrown unceremoniously into the cell with me.
She smells bad, and I wrinkle up my nose and step delicately away from her. My legs are working again after my pleasant nap. I’m shaky, but I can stand. “Am I meant to eat her?”
“Do whatever you want with her, pirate,” one guard spits at me. “As long as you keep her alive. That is, if you want a chance to save your pathetic life.”
The other guard hoiks up a gob of phlegm and spits in onto the ground.
Oh no. Oh no, no, no.
She’s my mate for the Games? They are setting me up to fail here.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I say. “I’m not pairing up with this useless thing. She doesn’t even have claws, for goodness sakes. I want a better pit partner. No, I demand one.” I stand up straight and stick my nose in the air. Enough is enough. Now I am really offended.
The guards look at each other and laugh. It’s an unkind sort of laugh, and it gives me shivers up my spine. I haven’t let on that they creep me the hell out yet, so I pretend that I haven’t just gotten instant goosebumps.
These guards are the epitome of cruel brutish beasts. I may operate on the other side of the law on occasion, but even so, I’d get first dibs at a good spot in the afterlife if our gods had to choose between me or them.
The human female whimpers and is promptly sick in the corner of the cage.
My nostrils flare in disgust. No wonder she stinks so bad. “She needs water,” I say to the guards. “She’s filthy. I don’t want to share my accommodations with a beast.”
A pang of guilt assails me when I see her tear-stained face turned towards me. Her eyes are huge and wide, and her cheeks are so pale they look bloodless. Her body is as white as her face is—all over—with just a short thatch of bright red curls between her legs. The same color as the wild frizz of curls that falls past her shoulders.
Did she never see the sun on her planet? She is as pale as a bloodless grub that burrows in the dirt.
I hide my unease with a shrug. My words are true. She really does stink.
Not that I smell much better. And I’d say anything to get a bucket of water to wash with. If she asks me nicely, I’ll even share it with her.
I can at least go to my death with the dignity of being clean.
One of the guards stomps off and comes back with a bucket of water which he tosses at us through the bars of the cage. “Make the most of it,” he says with a sneer. “That’s the last you’ll get until tomorrow. We aren’t heartless. We’ll give you one last drink before we toss you into the pit.” He gives an ugly, mocking laugh as he stomps off again.
The water is grey with soap scum. I don’t like to think who had used it before it was turfed onto me and the human female.
By the time I have scrubbed my skin and sluiced the water off me as best I could, I feel marginally cleaner.
The human female doesn’t look much better after her impromptu bath, but at least she doesn’t smell quite so vile.
“My thanks for the shower,” I say to the guards, and give them a mocking bow.
They have been standing watching me, enjoying the show. Enjoying the power they have of making the remainder of my short life just that little bit more miserable.
They scowl at me and walk away.
I extend my claws and flex them. I’m not a violent person by nature. I’ve always found that street smarts and guile serve my purposes better than overt acts of violence and aggression any day. I will trick people out of their credits and their valuables so smoothly they barely realize they have been gulled. I have no need to corner them in a dark alley and bash their brains in.
Still, if I were ever to find myself on the other side of this cage, and one of those guards was nearby, I would not vouch for his continued good health.
But the bars on the cage hold tight against my efforts, and the guards walk away unscathed.
I sheath my claws again with a low growl of displeasure.
The human female is hunched in the corner of the cage, her arms clasped around her knees. Drops of water fall from the ends of her hair and puddle around her in the dirt. She is shivering.
Shock, probably, as it’s still warm out.
I growl at her, too, for good measure.
Stupid female. I’ve had enough of the whole stupid lot of them.
Delia
I’m in a cage. An honest-to-goodness cage. It’s made of wire bars with a thick mesh on them and it sits on the ground. Straight on the dirt. There isn’t even a floor. Or walls. Or even a proper roof. It’s completely open to the elements.
Even an animal in the zoo gets treated better than this.
Worst of all, I’m not alone in here.
There’s one of those scary man-beasts in here with me. Not as gruesome as the hyena men from the ship, but no less scary.
He looks pretty much like a man, only different. For a start, I’ve never seen a human man with that many muscles. He looks as though he could lift me clear off the ground with one finger. Like he could rip a full-grown tree clear out of the ground, roots and all, and barely break a sweat.
And then he’s got these claws. Huge big claws that he can shoot out of his knuckles like a cat and then retract again. I just about peed myself again when I saw him do that the first time. He could rip me apart with a single blow.
He can’t break through the wire mesh of the cage though, even with those weapons of his. I saw him try when the guards were walking away, and then give up in disgust.
This is not a good day.
I’m scared. I’m cold sitting here on the ground. I’m soaking wet. And my mouth tastes like vomit still, with a burning at the back of my throat.
I wish I had a towel. And a blanket. And a toothbrush and some super-strong minty mouthwash.
I wish the man-beast had been more polite to the guards so that they had given us a bucket of clean water and soap, and not thrown someone else’s leftovers on top of us.
I wish that they had given us water to drink instead.
And while I’m luxuriating in make-believe, I wish that I was back home on Earth and that all this was just a nightmare that I am waking up out of.
I shut my eyes, shake my head, then open my eyes again.
Nope, still stuck in a cage under a red sun. With a growly man-beast locked in with me.
So much for wishing. It has never gotten me anywhere before. I learned that as a child, when all I wished for was a family of my own, with a mother and father who loved me. I wished to not be passed from one foster family to the next, like I was a hot potato.
My wishes were useless then, and they are just as useless now.
I have to face up to this new reality or I will go mad.
The most difficult thing to bear is my lack of clothes. There are bigger things for me to worry about than whether I am wearing panties or not, but I can barely focus on anything else. I don’t go around naked at home. Not ever.
I feel horribly exposed. And even more ashamed of myself.
Because I’m not only naked but I’m also filthy.
The red dirt is sticking to me in odd patches all over. Even after our hasty wash just now, the unmistakable acrid stench of pee follows me still. I’m splattered with sick, and I can feel the red dirt sticking to my face where I tried to wipe my mouth.
If Greg saw me like this, he wouldn’t recognize me. He certainly wouldn’t ask me out on a date. He’d walk away from me, shaking his head about the poor choices some women make that end up leaving them homeless and hungry.
It’s a stroke of luck that the man-beast seems so uninterested in me. He doesn’t act threatening or aggressive to me, or like he wants to attack me and eat me. Or worse.
The thought of that happening on top of everything else makes me feel sick all over again.
My cellmate is pacing about the cage now, just like an angry tiger, and muttering to himself. If he had had a tail, he would be swishing it.
I cough to get his attention.
He ignores me.
I cough again, louder this time.
He shoots an irritated glance my way and then returns to his pacing and muttering. Not to me. Just to himself. Even though we are stuck in here together, he won’t even give me the time of day.
His clear lack of interest makes me feel slightly less vulnerable. Perhaps they all walk around in the nude here. The sun is big enough that I’m sure it never gets very cold here at any rate. Even so, I still am shivering.
