by Corin Cain
The image of Ling, skewered with a blade just like it, flashes through my mind.
As we all stand there, the Toad wheels around and brandishes the electro-rod in our direction. With the Aurelians gone, the glistening, gangly alien is refilled with sadistic confidence.
“See what happens when you’re late?” He speaks the Common tongue, and acts as if we’re responsible for the headless Toad floating in the ankle-deep water. The electro-rod crackles menacingly. “Now, walk fast!”
The Toad grabs the lead of the long chain and yanks it – sending us stumbling forward through the brackish water. The Toad moves fast – his gangly, disproportionate legs covering the ground far faster than we can.
We stumble behind him, forced to jog down the hallway until we reach a huge set of doors. They rear open, and noise slaps me as soon as we stagger through the doorway.
I look around. There’s nobody here except a few Toad guards – just enough to keep twelve terrified, chained young prisoners under control.
But I wasn’t wrong – I can hear jeers and laughter, but it’s muted; as if far away.
I turn my head. There’s a walkway ahead of us – and at the other end of it is a Toad who stares at us with bulbous eyes filled with lust. The beastly thing licks his huge, slobbery lips and rubs his belly with his splayed, webbed fingers.
I don’t know if he wants to fuck us – or eat us.
We approach the walkway. My stomach drops as I peer over the edge – looking down into a sheer drop or twenty or thirty feet, ending in swirling, deep water.
The water down below is clear, and the space it’s contained in stretches wider than an Olympic-sized swimming pool. The water is so deep, I can’t even see the bottom of the reservoir – or make out what gleams and glimmers on the sides of the deep pool.
“Go!”
Spittle follows the guttural command the leader of the Toad splutters out – yanking that chain and dragging us forward onto the walkway.
My stomach lurches. I try not to look down. There are no handrails – and if any one of us captive women fall, she’ll make sure all eleven of the rest of us will be dragged down into the water with her.
And with this heavy chain linking us all? And the weighty cuffs around our wrists?
We won’t be coming back up.
I step forward onto the walkway, testing how supportive it is underfoot. The Toad leading us is in a hurry, though – and he doesn’t have time for more nervousness. With a yank of the chain, he forces us all forward. The impact of our feet makes the walkway clong and shudder. The metal beneath our feet is treacherous and slippery.
Sure, this walkway is wide – built for the quivering girth of the flabby Toads – but I don’t trust any of the weak, trembling women behind me to hold steady on it – myself included.
I glance over my shoulder. Tessa – the girl I’m chained closest to – has sure feet, at least; thank the Gods.
But then, even that small reassurance is robbed from me.
The walkway shudders. I hear a terrified gasp from behind me. Instinct takes over and I tense, bracing myself for what I know is about to come.
Even before I glance over to see what’s happening, I feel the chain at my wrists pull taut. It yanks me backward, along with the other terrified women.
One of them is teetering on the edge of the walkway. If she plummets, the chain attached to her wrist will send the rest of us into the water right behind her.
I dig my heels in, wrapping my hands around the chain. I pull, and one of the girls down the line gasps as she’s caught right on the edge of the walkway – halfway between falling or recovering herself.
I glance over the edge of the walkway and immediately regret the decision as the clear water looms underneath me. For a second, I allow myself to imagine what it’ll be like when those chains pull me over the edge.
How long will it take before I hit the water? How quickly will I sink, with my wrists cuffed and this heavy chain attached to them? I’ll be unable to escape as the water drags me down – that much is sure…
…so, I don’t allow it to happen.
I tighten my grip on the chain and pull. I yank the off-kilter girl toward me, and as soon as they spot me doing so, the other captives do the same.
One consolidated tug on the chain and she’s saved – falling into my arms and panting desperately. She flops – nearly taking me down onto the walkway with her – and it takes all my strength to haul us both back upright.
My heart is pounding. Barely – just barely – I keep us alive.
For now.
The girl in my arms looks up, untangling herself from my tight grip.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
I nod wordlessly, and let her rejoin her place in our grim lineup.
Gods – there was a time when I could have done more than give that poor woman just a brief respite. There was a time when I’d had the confidence earned by four successful rescue missions – when I’d thought Ling and I were unstoppable.
That me – the old me – would be plotting how to get out of here even now. I’d be scanning for clues and opportunities – my eyes keen and my attention rapt.
Now, my mind feels blank. I feel blank. The old me left, and I feel empty without her. Instead of deliberate intent, instinct and habit takes over. My body reacts to our impossible situation, the panic setting in. I’ve never felt so helpless before.
“Silence!”
The single, angry word echoes out across the chamber.
On the other end of the walkway, one of the Toad guards is screaming at us – spittle flecking from his flabby lips. The leader of the Toads strides past him, and then steps sure-footedly onto the metal walkway.
The bastard’s only sure-footed because he has webbed feet, which stick to the gleaming metal like suction cups.
Towering over us captive women, the leader of the Toads uncuffs the first girl in our grim procession – detaching the chain, unclasping her handcuffs, and then uncuffing the restraint around her ankles.
For a moment, the girl is elated. Her eyes widen. She rubs her aching wrists – tasting the sensation of freedom for the first time in hours…
…and then the Toad kicks her with one of his powerful frog legs – sending her flying out above the water.
The girl screams as gravity embraces her – plummeting downwards and plunging into the clear water with a deafening splash.
I gasp, peering over the edge as the water churns down below.
Gods! What if she can’t swim?
Ling’s voice echoes in my head – telling me that I should be more concerned about myself. It’s like in the safety holo-vid we had to watch before boarding the Elnor – that told us to secure our own oxygen masks first in the event of an emergency, and only then try to help the other passengers.
“You can’t help the others if you can’t help yourself,” the echo of Ling’s wisdom reminds me.
I look down into the water. If I fall down there – when I fall down there – I might be able to tread water, but nothing else. For all the talents Ling taught me, lifeguard is not among my skillset.
Ling’s echo awakens the shadow of the old me. My brain shifts to analytical mode. I look down and wonder why the water below is so clear – especially given every other pool or body of liquid on this vessel is dirty, brackish and foul.
I look at the shimmering walls of the pool. I realize they’re not shimmering – it’s the refraction of light on thick glass. Those must be viewscreens down there – to let observers view the women flailing around inside the water.
I gulp. Whatever could be lurking on the other side of those glass viewscreens?
Down below, the surface of the water has settled. I gaze down, counting the seconds in my head. First five. Then ten. I hold my own breath, trying to see how possible it is to go without breathing for this long. It doesn’t take long for my lungs to burn.
Then – thank the Gods – the girl crashes up through the sur
face of the water, flailing and struggling to keep her head above the churning waves.
My heart beats again, and I drag in a lungful of oxygen as I see the woman flailing below me do the same. The stars stop appearing before my eyes, and my lungs stop burning.
As my breath quietens, the noise is replaced by muted, raucous laughter. I look down into the pool below, where that poor girl kicks and struggles to stay afloat.
She’s terrified, and struggling to keep her head above the surface of the water. Her clothes are dragging her down. The loose fabric flows and then clings to the curves of her body with the motion of the water. It’s almost hypnotic.
The raucous noises came from below her – and I realize I’m hearing the sound of whoever is behind the glass viewing screens. I hear arguing amid the laughter now – deep, guttural voices gurgling in a language I don’t understand, but am familiar with.
Bullfrogs.
So, this is the auction we were being taken to. With the aquatic nature of the Toads, I should have known it wouldn’t be held in a traditional auction room.
The tank below is designed to show off the merchandise – that’s why the water is so uncharacteristically clear.
The girl below is flailing and kicking in the clear water, and behind the glass screens an audience of Bullfrogs cheer, jeer, and place bids on purchasing her.
For the dangerous elite of the Toad species, this must be the perfect viewpoint. Through the glass, they have a front-row view of the poor girl as she stretches and kicks her long limbs.
The loose clothes she wears are buffeted by the churning of the water, and cling seductively to her curves on every downstroke. It’s even more sensual than seeing her stripped bare. In fact, the poor woman looks even more naked than she would have without clothes.
I can only imagine the reaction of the Bullfrogs behind those screens – gawking at her from the other side of the glass; assessing the value they place on her, as if she and all us other captive women are lobsters at a fancy restaurant.
Eventually, the heated gurgles and croaks from down below quiet – as if the bidding process has come to an end. As it does so, I look down at the poor girl in the water, and then see something in the darkness rearing up beneath her.
The girl feels long, gangly fingers curl around her kicking legs – and then she’s sucked down beneath the water. I gasp, and watch as two Toads drag her into the dark depths of the tank – and to what fate, I can only guess.
For a second there’s still, and the water settles down below.
Then, the leader of the Toad guards steps forward sure-footedly, and reaches for the chain and cuffs securing Tessa to the rest of us captives.
Knowing this might be the last chance I get, I stretch my arms forward – grabbing and squeezing her hand tightly. I hate that I can’t give Tessa anything more than that.
She turns to look back at me with those big, light brown eyes of hers – and I’m filled with loathing for my helplessness. I hate that I’m too weak to help her – to even help myself.
The leader of the Toads angrily yanks Tessa’s hand from mine, and then uncuffs the restraints around Tessa’s wrists.
I gulp – this is my last chance to save her…
…but I can’t.
I’m more helpless than she is! My hands are cuffed together, my ankles are shackled, and even if I was free – I have nothing but my bare hands to fight the towering Toad.
I can’t help her – there’s nothing I can do to help her. Ling would have found a way – she’d always found a way...
But I can’t.
Tessa, however, demonstrates her own resourcefulness.
As she staggers free – and before the Toad can punt her into the water, as he did with the first captive – Tessa turns and plunges off the walkway herself; diving headfirst into the water down below with her long arms stretched gracefully in front of her.
She shears through the water like a knife – barely making a ripple. Then, a few seconds later, Tessa comes breaking back through the surface of the water with powerful strokes of her long arms.
I don’t know where Tessa learned to swim like that, but she’s a natural in the water – as sleek and graceful as a mermaid.
As she circles the pool, I hear jeers and laughs echo up from the viewing windows down below. Clearly, the bidding has started – and it’s even more heated than with the first captive. Croaks and gurgles grow louder and louder as the Bullfrogs on the other side of that glass argue over the price of Tessa’s flesh.
I shudder. That beautiful, willowy woman is soon going to be turned into a brutalized toy for a sadistic and disgusting alien – one who outweighs her by hundreds… even a thousand pounds. I squeeze shut my eyes, remembering the horror stories I’d heard from the captives Ling and I had rescued – about how few of the women dragged to the aquariums of Bullfrogs lasted long.
Tessa? With her slight build?
She won’t last a day.
Then, suddenly, the gurgling and jeering reaches a crescendo down below, and one of the faceless creatures behind the glass roars in triumph as they secure ownership of Tessa.
Peeling open my eyes, I glance down into the water – and see the same two frogs loom up out of the depths to drag Tessa beneath the water.
She doesn’t resist. There’s no fight in her. She’s resigned to her fate, and merely takes a huge gulp of air before her face disappears beneath the water.
The last thing I see are her light brown eyes – looking up at me pleadingly until the water covers her face.
I feel a sob wrack my chest. I feel so worthless. I couldn’t help Tessa – and I can’t help myself.
The bulbous eyes of the Toad guard turn menacingly toward me next.
He stares at my bare breasts, slurping his glistening tongue across his thick lips. I squirm at the hunger in his gaze, but offer up my hands – beckoning him to step forward and uncuff me before he gets any ideas about laying those slimy fingers on my body like the previous guard had.
The one the Aurelians had decapitated and left lying in the water.
The leader of the Toads gurgles an angry warning, and advances on the guard with his electro-rod. A crackle of electricity quickly motivates the guard to hurry this process along – and instantly dissuades him from groping me.
Sticking that drooling tongue out of the corner of his mouth, the Toad focuses on working his key into the lock – and suddenly, the old me awakens in my mind.
I narrow my eyes. The Toad’s got sloppy – complacent after the obedience of Tessa and the other prisoner. That’s a mistake – and Ling taught me that the mistakes of others are opportunities for me.
I remember how he’d unlocked the other two – and the Toad doesn’t deviate from that. He starts with the cuffs around my wrists, then sucks in his breath as he prepared to bend over and unshackle my ankles.
When he does, I’ll have one moment in which my hands are free and his back is turned.
This is your chance, the echo of Ling’s voice hisses.
I glance around. Is the leader of the Toads – the one with that electro-rod – close enough for me to grab it from him? Could I use it to get away?
But, then what?
Even if I make it off this walkway, I’ll still be trapped in a ship full of slave-trading, Toad scum. I won’t last a minute before one of them grabs me – and, when they do, who knows what the consequences will be.
Knowing the sadistic nature of Toads, they might torture me – perhaps even in front of their Bullfrog customers, as entertainment.
That’s a best-case scenario. They might simply throw me out of the chute and into empty space – too rebellious and troublesome to offload on some greedy buyer.
Maybe they’ll just toss me as defective merchandise – giving me as a gift to one of the Bullfrog elite to win his favor; a toy he can break and dispose of without a thought.
The endless, nightmarish scenarios play out in my head and leave me frozen to the spot. As
I stand there, the Toad bends over to free my legs, while the leader of the Toads tightens his grip on the electro-rod and peers with disdain at his comrades clumsy work.
I look down – at the flabby, undefended back of the Toad guard. I could wrap my fingers together and ball both my hands up into a giant fist – bringing them crashing down between the Toad’s fleshy shoulder blades…
…but, instead, I freeze up.
I can’t do it.
I hesitate – and by the time I even realize I’m hesitating, it’s too late. The shackles around my ankles fall free, and suddenly I feel the webbed foot of the Toad guard slap wetly across my bare stomach. The impact knocks the air from my lungs, and sends me flying off the walkway.
For what seems like forever, I plummet downward – until I hit the surface of the water, and it stuns me just as brutally as the kick from that Toad did.
I plunge into the chill, sinking deeper and deeper – and that’s when I finally get a clear look through the glass viewscreens beneath the water…
…at the fate that awaits me when I’m sold.
Through the glass, I see a huge auction room full of bickering, jeering, slobbering Bullfrogs. I feel my stomach lurch the moment I do.
Toads are cunning, smarmy and skittish – but Bullfrogs? They’re like the worst of Toads, without the characteristic weaknesses of the species. Where Toads are craven, Bullfrogs are confrontational. Where Toads are cowardly, Bullfrogs thrill at danger.
The contrast is most apparent in their physicality – with Bullfrogs towering over the Toads, and swollen with hundreds of pounds of warty, sinewy muscle sheathed by rubbery, armor-like flab.
If my lungs weren’t already burning, I’d have been left breathless. As I try to kick my legs and stop my descent, I can’t help but stare at the disgusting creatures.
If any of those Bullfrogs buy me, it’s over.
And I don’t mean that melodramatically – I mean it literally. Toads are cruel and sadistic owners, but Bullfrogs are brutal and dangerous. That’s why they always need new slaves. The elite of the Toad species go through their slaves quickly – either crushing them during their frenzied rutting, or torturing and brutalizing them afterward; to satisfy what cruel urges weren’t sated when the Bullfrogs emptied their seed.
