Chapter 12: slave marks

I woke up feeling exhausted, like I hadn't slept at all. I see that everyone else has already gotten up. It's early morning but it seems like we are late for work but no one seems to be hurrying for it either. Everyone's dressed in regular clothes, not the slave uniforms.

"What's going on? Are we not going to work today?" I ask, rubbing my eyes, trying to drive away the temptation of laying down and sleeping again.

"It's Sunday. Apparently even slaves get to rest on Sundays." Liz tells me.

"Woah! for real? I didn't expect they'd give us Sunday off!" I say back, surprised. "So what are we gonna do today?"

"I don't know. Let's clean up this nasty place and visit other people. I think it would do us good to get acquainted with others. And buy some stuff from the market."

"Market? We've got money?" I ask, my drowsiness has almost faded away.

"Not much but the terrorists pay the slaves for their labor, just enough to buy some bread or other small necessities, barely enough to keep us alive." Liz explains. Seems like I missed a lot the two days I was gone. I didn't get paid, probably because I didn't work much—spent my days locked up.

We cleaned the house up, brooming and dusting and set up the old furniture, cleaned the disgusting bathroom and now the place looks decent enough. We found some old stuff—cups, spoons, plates, kitchen knives and daggers, a beautifully crafted comb (which I kept for myself), some plush toys, a doll and a rabbit ( the rabbit plushy, the size of my palm, was so cute, I stuffed it in my pocket.) We even some dusty old books—I bet there were people living here before us. I wonder what happened to them. All their stuff is here, signs that they lived and yet now, not a trace of their lives. Will we end up the same way too? I don't want to. I refuse to disappear! At least not without putting up a fight!

We leave the house and it feels strange, being in such an unfamiliar place. The wind is gentle and I comfort myself by deluding myself into believing that the wind is sending me soft hugs to comfort me. I take in the morning breeze and then we walk towards the market. It seems like Liz and everyone else already know the way to it. Now that I'm

looking at this place—sclavus urbs—clearly. It almost seems made up, like out of some historical movie in which they show us wars and poverty stricken villages. This little town was exactly like that. Majority of the population was young adult people—some younger than the rest, teenagers and some probably in their twenties or thirties. Some people wander in ragged clothing and some are dressed more decently, most of the people don't have any particular expression on their faces. They look empty…devoid of life. I wonder how long they've been living here. Liz, Vivi and I go to a stall in the market selling bread and stuff. Liz buys some bread and I take a look around and notice the seller staring at us.

"You lot are new here, aren't ya?" He says, his voice raspy and watchful. "Piece of advice, don't try anything stupid and don't hope for anything stupid like salvation either. The sooner you accept your fate, the easier it is."

No one answers him. He stuffs our bread into a plastic bag and I ask him, "How long have you been here, mister?"

Not bothering to lift his face, he raises his eyebrows, as he stares at me with a very serious expression. His ragged appearance makes him appear quite scary, like those scary old neighbors back at home who are always annoyed and angry.

"Fifteen years." He scoffs.

My mouth opens wide, "FIFTEEN YEARS?" I repeat, shocked.

He chuckles sarcastically at my reaction.

"There are people who've been here longer than I have. Once you fall into this abyss. You can never make it out again." The man seems to have completely given up on ever living freely again, it's heartbreaking enough to fill someone with despair.

We walked around the market a bit longer. And I bump into someone. "I'm so sorry. I didn't see you there." I apologize.

"You are the new guys, the ones who caused trouble the first day by running away!" A blonde woman accused us but it wasn't an accusation since she was right. "Listen well now, don't you ever try anything like that again! You will end up on that wall over there. (She points to the wall of fear.) And don't you do anything that will cause us more misery than what we already have." She almost yells at us with a very offensive and accusing tone and leaves, purposely bumping shoulders with me.

"Well…word sure spreads fast. And it seems like everyone is spiteful here." I say.

"Can't blame them." Vivi says in the same manner that the woman had spoken to us—cold, rude and spiteful—Seems like Vivi has already caught the terrible disease of despair.

We come across Jay and Nox, with them is another man—I recognize him, I saw him the first day when I was working at the mess hall serving meals with Jay. He had scolded us for carelessly spouting nonsense—a beautiful black man with curly hair, he always has a serious look on his face. His name is Arien, and Jay introduced him to us. And then the metallic drumming noise starts, startling all of us. They (the bad guys) do that in the morning and when they have to gather all the slaves to announce something. We gather in the open ground.

"All the new slaves gather on this side and the rest of you can leave." The man who usually makes the announcement says in his callous and rough voice.

New slaves? That's us! What are they calling us for? We didn't do anything reckless this time. All of us glance at each other in horror. All the 'new slaves' are gathered in one place and as Arien is about to leave (because he is one of the old slaves) he tells us,

"They are going to brand you."

"Brand? What's that?" Nox asks him in horror.

He stops, pauses and says, "This." He pushed aside his shirt showing us a burn mark—almost the size of a palm, perhaps a bit smaller—tattooed right above his chest by the left shoulder. "All the slaves are branded with an iron stamp thing, anywhere on their body. It's a proof, a constant reminder that we are slaves and belong to them." He said all this without any expression on his face while we stood and watched him shocked and terrified.

And then we hear screams and watch as one of the slaves gets branded. A hot burning iron stamp—as red as molten lava—is forced upon his back, leaving behind a nasty burn mark. I once read in an article on slavery, that slaves were often marked that way—with hot, burning iron poles—it would be extremely painful as branding is done at extremely high temperatures, a second degree burn, it will burn your skin and nerves causing terrifying pain.

"So…there's no way for us to avoid this?" I ask him.

"No." He says.

And I never knew a simple 'no' could ever make me feel so helpless.

I'd rather not describe the gruesome screams and the flesh peeling off as the hot iron stamp pressed against our skins.

It was night time now and we lay in our house, everyone in pain but not saying a word. That was probably the first time any one of us got burned to that extent. I sit by the wall opposite to the window so that I can face the shy moon hiding behind clouds, as it once again refused to come out and face me. "I'd rather you show yourself and give me company." I whispered to the moon.

I watch my arm—the tattoo right above my wrist—slave mark. The design itself is pretty or perhaps, I'm the strange one who finds prettiness in every strange and tragic thing.

The slave mark is a circular stamp, with a cylindrical cage inside (it almost looks crimson coloured) in which hang a pair of broken wings, engraved into our skins. It strangely suits the slaves perfectly, I think. The slaves, birds whose wings were clipped and left in this crimson cage for the rest of their pathetic life. I guess that makes us 'birds of the crimson cage', I mumble to myself. Quite a fancy name for such pathetic lives.

Arien comes knocking at our door, he enters and tells us that we should come out and sit with the others. Staying cooped up in the house wasn't gonna help us at all. Nothing would but it was still better than being alone. So we go outside and a group of people are sitting around a fire, just chatting and sharing stories with each other. It seemed like one of those therapy circles in which people with trauma sit together and talk about themselves to lighten the burden of the heart a bit. The slaves share stories of how they came to be here and what their life used to be like and how long they've been here. One of them told us he was a married man with a wife and two beautiful children. But one day suddenly, some armed men raided his village and took all the men with them. He was relieved that his family wasn't taken captive but he missed them terribly. It's been seven years since then. And many more similar stories of loved ones, and families torn apart. They asked me if I wanted to say anything about myself and Eve crossed my mind. But I simply said, "I'll pass."

Nox asks Arien how long he's been here.

"Ten years." He says. And when asked how he came to be here. He didn't say anything. But someone mentioned he was kidnapped along with his little sister.

"You have a sister? Where is she?" I ask him.

"She died. Six years ago." He replies coldly. And the circle goes quiet for a second.

"Oh, I see." Is what I manage to say.

"Normally people would say 'I'm sorry for your loss' or something along those lines." Arien says back.

"Oh should I have said that?" I ask back awkwardly. "Sorry…" I was about to say but he cut me.

"No. I prefer it this way. I'm not really fond of comforting words." He says with a small smirk on his face.

"Well then…that's good. I'm not really good at comforting words either." I told him.

And then as the night darkens and it's almost midnight—the time for our curfew—we return to our homes. The darkness of night and of our house seems to have become a safe place for us. The only place where we can escape from all madness and misery around us. And even that isn't fully ours. That is also merely a cage we feel safe in because it's the only place we can be miserable in peace. Because at the end of the day, we are merely slaves at the disposal of some bastards who consider us even less than livestock.

But either way, I've begun to seek comfort in the darkness. It hides me, prevents me from being seen by others and it's strangely liberating. I can let out a sigh of relief.

Perhaps like the moon, I've found my abode behind the clouds, hidden in the darkness.