The Thirteenth

Chapter 1

Antebellum Georgia - 1858 (Present)

Anita Red stood firm upon the wooden platform which she was forcibly placed on. The shackles that held her hands and feet in bondage clanged as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, desperately attempting to reduce the pain the old wood gave her bare soles.

"'Fore we get started, would any one of you like the opportunity to come up and inspect this young negro here?", a white man standing a couple of inches away from Anita offered to the crowd of slaveholders. Anita counted in her head. One, two, three. Three white men had their hands risen. Anita could feel her heart skip a beat, and tried her hardest not to show any  fear. She could hear her slave master give off a short chuckle of satisfaction from the side of the platform.

Master Wyatt had been trying to sell Anita since she was merely eleven-years-old. Now fourteen, standing strong and healthy, she finally stood on the thin line between being a regular old field slave, and being a tortured field slave. Master Wyatt wasn't a saint, but all of his slaves were well aware that he was the least strictest slaveholder in the city of Antebellum. They were allowed to leave for church services on Sundays, in shackles of course, but no other slave in Antebellum had this privilege.

A middle aged, short, stout man was the first to approach the platform. He placed himself directly in front of Anita. She winced from the tobacco she immediately smelt on his breath, and stared ahead at the almost setting sun. This was where her peace radiated from.  "Hey, girl!" she heard Master Wyatt call. Anita's head instinctively directed towards the direction of her master. She lifted her eyes upward when she realized hers were making contact with his. "Stop moving!" Anita obediently snapped her head back to the front. She dreaded for this whole process to be over, despite what the outcome would be.

After everyone who was interested in buying Anita had inspected her, they went back to their seats and waited for the auction to begin. The auctioneer walked across the stage and began to talk to Master Wyatt in a hushed voice before he came back to the center of the stage.

"Alright," the auctioneer began. "Mr. Wyatt would like to start the bid off at ten dollars." Anita felt her palms begin to sweat as she watched at least fifteen hands fly up. Master Wyatt grinned deviously.

"Ok, sir in the back, what is your bid?"

"Fifteen dollars," the man responded.

"Fifteen dollars. Do I hear sixteen dollars?" the auctioneer asked.

The short man who had inspected Anita first rose his hand, "Twenty."

"Alright, twenty dollars. Do I hear twenty-five?"

No one had risen their hand. Anita's heart sank. Tobacco man was the last person she wanted to be sold to. "Going once...going twice?" The room stayed quiet, and Anita squeezed her eyes closed, as if to wake herself up from this horrible dream. "SOL-,"

"NO!" Master Wyatt shouted. Anita's eyes widened in astonishment. "This girl here is young and healthy! She picks more than five baskets of cotton a week and'll do everything her master commands her to! And ya'll expect me to sell her for just twenty?!" Master Wyatt grunted irritably. "I can keep her my own self if I ain't gettin' nothin' but twenty dollars! Let's go, Ben," Master Wyatt commanded to his overseer.

Bennet Fisher had been the overseer of Master Wyatt's plantation since the previous overseer died of  Syphilis a few years prior due to untreated symptoms. No one knew who he contracted this disease from, but everyone was aware of his notorious hobby of raping slaves. It's been five months since he'd gotten the job, and Bennet was still not the most keen at the position. Or in life in general. Master Wyatt only hired him because he was desperate and didn't want to pay too much for someone to whip and watch slaves; something he could easily do.