Chapter 9: Rest well, Eve.

It was early morning and by early morning, I mean it was literally sunrise. We were woken up by loud bangs, it sounded like someone beating a metallic drum, extremely noisy and torture to the ears, I might add. I had always hated loud noises. But I should have gotten used to them or even been grateful for them, back when they were ordinary daily life noises—the countless footsteps, the rev of different engines, cars, traffic, the non ending chatter and laughter of friends—the little things, they were not so little; because from now on, I would have to get used to the noise of screams and cries of grief and nightmares.

The early morning sky was pretty. The rising sun wasn't visible but it had left its traces making sure the world knew that it was there. It painted the sky streaks of gold and gray with a hint of cerulean which grew bigger and brighter. It was beautiful...I don't know how else to describe it. 'Beautiful' may be a very common word but it holds a deep meaning to me. I don't use it for just anyone or anything. So when I say something's beautiful, it means its beauty is beyond what my words can describe and my eyes can capture. Despite the harshness of the reality we were facing, when I watched nature, it felt like it was comforting me, telling me this world was still the one I knew, even if my life had turned upside down.

It was a new day and the events that transpired last night seemed like some distant nightmare but it was inevitably my reality.

We got up half asleep in the same positions we had gone to sleep in. My body was still exhausted and groggy. And then all quickly jumped up at the sound of those loud bangs, wondering what had happened. Jay got up and decided to get out first and check the situation. He went out followed by us. We saw all the other people had also woken up and were gathering outside, we joined and asked what happened. They didn't know. Right then, the bad guys start gathering everyone to a large barren and empty area somewhere in between or slightly away from the houses (well, shacks, to be precise. since they are so run down and old, they couldn't exactly be called a proper house.) We stood there waiting anxiously for what they wanted from us.

"From today on, all of you are slaves and you will live your lives serving and obeying us. Anyone who dares go against us will be dealt with strictly. So don't even think about trying anything stupid." One of the bad guys makes this speech which inevitably fills us with helplessness. "Everyday, you will work from sunrise till sundown. you will be assigned your tasks later. And you will be given clothes befitting your position. So you will wear those. Lunch and dinner will only be served to those who work and earn their portion. Keep in mind! None of you are free, so YOU BETTER NOT TRY ANYTHING STUPID!" he warned us in his gruff and threatening tone.

"There were some fools who tried to escape last night." He's talking about us! My heartbeat quickens and fear starts to creep up again, warning me that something was about to happen. Jay and I look at each other and then at the rest of the guys, meanwhile the bad guy continues his speech, "They were fools who didn't take our warnings seriously, so we gave them a little warning. And it will serve as an example to ALL OF YOU! KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DEFY US!" He yelled out loud, pointing somewhere behind us, gesturing to us to look and fear.

Something in me, probably fear and guilt, —sixth sense, people call it generally—pulled and clawed at me, telling me to not turn behind, telling me that a horrible sight awaited me. But inevitably, all of us looked behind and a giant wave of overflowing emotions, shock, fear, sorrow, guilt, and helplessness engulfed me, swallowing me and drowning me in the abyss of my darkness. My mind stutters for a moment and a quietness takes over which is instantly followed by a panic attack as I watch Eve. As I take in the view of Eve's head attached to a spear, it stands on a wall behind us, the wall that stands as a boundary that surrounds this little town of slaves, sclavus urbs.

My mind's a mess and tears flood my eyes and my heart sinks and shatters at the same time. I am so taken in by my pain that I hadn't noticed those around me. I only come back to my senses when I see Vivi drop on the ground, crying and sobbing heavily, which makes my tears come rushing down like they were finally free from the confines of my eyes. All the other slaves are terrified and I hear gasps, whispers and murmurs. It's suddenly too noisy and suffocating and I find myself gasping for breath. The contents of last night come flooding back to me. My world has turned dark and suddenly I'm standing alone in this darkness, my hands are stained red, that horrifying and disgusting dark shade of red. The only thing I can see is Eve's head on the wall put on for everyone to watch.

The murderer, the monster within me creeps up my shoulder and wraps itself around my neck, whispering to me, 'You know you caused this right? You killed her, Reina! You killed her and you are the reason she is on that wall right now!'

'No....no...stop...enough...please...make it stop...I never...meant to hurt her...I loved her...I would have protected her if I could...I really would...—but you didn't, Ray. You killed her!' such horrific thoughts flood my mind and I start losing myself, I take my face in my hands, trying to cover myself, trying to somehow hide away, run away, deny it all but I can't. Instead I'm crying and sobbing silently, as I feel my surroundings turn into vacuum, sucking the air making me suffocate.

And then I feel someone embrace me and it's Jay. He holds me close and tight in an embrace, covering me so that I don't look at anything at all.

He gently strokes my head and whispers, "None of it is your fault." And those five little words bring me back to my senses and I'm pulled from that dark place into a warm embrace.

Although we both knew, nothing was alright. He was still trying to comfort me and I ended up crying more than I was before, because it simply reminded me of how things used to be. If we were in the past, back when we were living our ordinary little lives, Eve would have been the one to initiate the hug and this would have been a group hug of three. I wonder if Jay was also crying silently, if hugging me was just an excuse for him to have someone to hold on to and cry. It probably was. He had done that a few times back at home. He had hugged Eve when she was crying but I caught him silently crying against her shoulder. He denied it because he thought it embarrassing but we smiled and laughed and told him that he could be open with us, that he didn't have to hide.

***

The day passed by slowly and agonizingly. Most of the women were assigned to do the cleaning and cooking. Most men were sent to labor work. Some of them were put in construction work, they constructed buildings or something similar, just like the slaves in ancient Egypt, who were forced to build pyramids. I think some people even worked to make weapons and also in farms from sunrise to sundown. All of it was forced labor and the slaves were treated inhumanely, even animals were treated better.

Oh and the clothes we wore definitely gave off 'peasants or slave vibes'. We wore a tunic-like piece of clothing and loose pants, I don't know how to describe it but the color of the slave uniform was terrible, it was a gloomy, off-white and brownish sort of color and the material of the clothing was also poor. According to them (the bad guys), 'it was befitting of our position'.

We learned that this place was called "Lorath - the city clinging to rocks surrounded by stormy seas." The name was perfect for this big wide island and it was also a pretty place but of course, to us it was simply hell.

We barely had anything to eat or drink. We were served lunch and dinner only if we worked hard and earned a ticket-like strip of paper which we would hand to the bad guys serving food to the slaves for a bowl of lentil soup which was mostly water and not exactly edible either. I don't wanna think about how they might have prepared it but that's what we ate and lived on. Honestly the biggest problem was drinking water. We were barely given any. Just one glass of clean water a day, which we would save so that we could drink it when we really needed to. Ask for any more, even a drop more and you would be served with lashes of whips and driven away like animals. We barely had any nutrition or energy yet were beaten up for not working properly. The bad guys were a bunch of self-conceited bastards who considered it their right to beat up the weak and helpless simply because we were slaves and considered inferior. The bad guys would keep a close eye on the slaves and mostly just sit beneath shadows protecting them from the burning rays of the sun, gambling away playing cards or any other useless game, while we worked ourselves to the bones.

I was working or more like—slaving away at the dining hall, cooking and preparing the plates for the bad guy's dinner. I was placing potatoes, steak and salad on plates for them. There are all sorts of food here, from fresh fruits and green vegetables to tender meat and crystal clear water. It sickens me. I saw people starving, begging and crying for a morsel more of that inedible lentil soup or a drop of clean water but were told that there wasn't any for them. And yet here I find an abundance of food, so much food yet none for the truly deserving.

As I work there, Jay pops up and surprises me, "Hey, sis!" he says with a grin.

"I thought you were taken elsewhere. How'd you get here?" I asked him as my eyes widened.

"yea, I am to work at the construction sites away from here but my work finishes at sundown and I thought I'd come over and help you out." he says shrugging with a gentle smile on his face.

His breathing was ragged and his clothes were covered in dirt. "You seem exhausted. Your work has ended, you should rest." I told him.

"I could have gone over back to sclavus urbs and rest at the shack but It would be too lonely. So I came here." He replies, not looking at me but eyeing the food. "Where are the rest of the girls?"

"No idea, probably in the kitchen or working elsewhere." I say calmly as he watches me carefully place the food on the plates and hand them to another slave who was working as a waiter serving the plates to the bad guys.

"Hey, why are you making it look so pretty?" Jay asks me.

"What?" I ask him not to understand his question.

"The food. You place it on the plates so perfectly, it looks like it's been prepared by some elite restaurant. You don't need to put in so much effort for those bastards." he says to me with a straight face.

"Umm...I'm not exactly putting in the effort to make it look pretty. That's simply how I always work." I reply, slightly awkward, and then with a straight face, "Those bastards can choke on it for all I care. I hope they get food poisoning."

"You're such a damn perfectionist, Ray." he says, shaking his head, making fun of me.

"Well then, what do you want me to do? Poison it???" I ask him annoyed.

"That would be very satisfying, though. I wish we could do that", he laughs. I can't believe we were joking around in this kind of situation but I had to admit, it distracted me from the nightmares and it felt better.

"Careful! Your idle talk could end with us getting our heads chopped off." A black man with a very serious expression, warns us. He looks really pissed at us. Can't blame him, he was right about that. But the ambient that was finally lifting slowly had gone gloomy again as we quieted down, feeling guilty all over again.

***

The day ends with all of us exhausted as we return to sclavus urbs and are all reunited again. A terrible exhaustion takes over us as we feel our body crumble and fall to the ground. We don't even have the energy to talk to each other. And this dark shack had become somewhat of a house to us (not yet home) for we felt that we were finally away from that cruel slavery, allowed to lay down and let the blanket of sleepiness cover our eyes and let ourselves rest.

My body is exhausted and seriously needs to rest but my mind keeps me up all night. The memory of Eve haunting me. I see her smiling her innocent smile to the world and then it instantly changes to a bloody and messed up body-less head stuck on a spear on top of a wall. And I spring up gasping for air, sit against the wall, burying my head in my knees as I grab onto my head with both my hands. As I calm down, I look around and find everyone sleeping like a log. I'm honestly glad they managed to fall asleep.

I don't know what got into me but I used this opportunity to sneak out of the shack. And carefully avoiding the bad guys who were standing watch but honestly suck at their jobs because they spend the night gambling and laughing away like a bunch of drunkards.

I go over to that wall where Eve stands. The night is dark but the moon illuminates it with its mystical silver rays. The wind is especially cool tonight and I feel it against me as I watch Eve with a solemn expression. I quietly find a way to climb the wall and pull out Eve's head from the spear. My mind goes hazy for a second and shivers run down my spine from holding the head of a dead person—of my best friend, my sister. I climb back down and dig a hole in the ground, somewhere isolated, using the spear I removed from Eve's head.

"Goodnight, Eve. Rest well! I'm sure that your afterlife will be a great place." I then kiss her goodbye on the forehead and finally bury her nicely.

I was leaving that place to get back to the house, when I got caught by the bad guys. It seems they noticed the head which was hung as a reminder of helplessness and fear for the slaves had disappeared and ended up finding me. I do not regret giving Eve a little burial (even though I was well aware that it was absolutely, in no way, a proper burial).

In the end, I was taken and dragged away by the bad guys.