War Prize

Chapter One: KATIRINA

    My back was was hunched over in a painful way, as I clutched my knees to my chest. I flexed my toes ever so often to check the blood flow, as well as a way to calculate the time. I ticked of the minutes in my head and flexed my toes every hour. It was all I could do to deal with the coldness that surrounded me.

     The room I sat in will forever be scared into the front lobe of my brain. The fear I always feel while inside causes more than one sleepless night. I have no fear of the room itself. In fact, I found it to be fairly unoriginal. It was bare: containing no windows and one door that can only be accessed by an outside force. The temperature in the room never rises above two degrees. The slave dealer that owns me finds it to be an excellent form of torture. For the temperature is neither warm enough to be comfortable nor was it cold enough to kill the inhabitant. 

        It is also not the inky blackness that clocks me in darkness that causes me fear. I have dealt with darkness for too long to be afraid of it. The real thing that scares me is the utter silence that fills to room. It is as if all sound is swallowed up as soon as you enter Chamber X. There is a possibility of hearing what is going on on the other side of the door if a quiet ear is pressed against said door. The odds are slim as there needs to be something to listen to on the other side. The chamber is supposed to be used to hold rabid animals that require separation from others. They require a silence of being utterly alone with only their scattered thoughts as company.

     That is how the slave trader thinks of us. We are filthy animals that can be auctioned of like pieces of meat. I found it to be almost poetic that the man that sells girls would also be capable of locking one in a room designed to re-educate misbehaving animals.

     That is how it works on this space ship. The slave dealer takes the girls in, where they work until being sold off to the highest bidder on some random planet, millions of light years away from where the slaver originally picked them up. We do not speak. We do not act out. We all are simply a mound of coin to go into the slave dealers pocket after auction day. Crying does not help. Rebelling gets people killed. There is room to pray.... though many loss faith in an ultimate superior being when they have spent two months on board the slavers ship.

     That is the life I have lived for over a decade of my life. I used to be what the slave dealer calls a recyclable. I used to be passed from one family to the next. Never staying longer than a year before the family returns me and demand a refund.

        As expected the slave dealer was enraged for losing money. Though when I had developed my abilities the slave dealer found me to be more of a prize than a burden. That was the day I became his personal slave. Since then I have had to watch one girl after another be cycled though my masters ship. I had been sent to this isolated room many times because I tried to help the other girls. That is how I ended up here this time as well.

     Another girl who was declared a recyclable had been severely injured by the slaver. It was because of her status as a recyclable that she was declined medical assistance. So I had tried to heal her in secrete but was discovered. I was forced to watch as the girl was sent out into open space without any sort of protection, before I was locked away in this room. 

        I had spent hours in this room, nothing ever occurred until today. At first it was a small tumor that shook the room. Then I  was tossed against the opposite wall as the spaceship rocked to the side.

         I cried out as my head scrapped painfully against the wall. I felt as the ship righted itself, and I once again was slammed against a different wall. As I gripped my head I could feel a warm liquid oozing slightly from hairline.

        I shook my head slightly to clear my rattling brain, and began to crawl  towards where I knew the only door was located. I placed my ear against the cold metal in an attempt  to hear what was going on the other side. A shiver ran down my spine as I listen to the muffled noise of what sounded like an alarm. It was going of in sets of three... the ship was being attacked.

        I glanced down into the darkness at the area where my wrist should be. I grazed my other hand over the two inch metal band that marks me as a slave. A small plate inside is filled with my masters blood. It forces me to do as he commands, as well as makes it impossible to kill him with my own hand. Or use my 'abilities' without his permission. The only good feature about the band is it tells the wearer when their master is either dead or dying. Unlucky for me, my master is neither. I crawled back to my seat at the wall, holding the band in hopes that his fate changes.

  --

        I waited for what felt like hours for the fate to change. In that time I had dealt with being pitched against the walls. I had lost my count of time after the third time. Perhaps it had been two hours, perhaps twice that amount, before the ship ceased to rock back and forth as if on water instead of space. I once again touched the band and found it to still be showing the sign that my master is alive. 

        That means that my masters ship either won the battle or got away from the attacker. None the less I was still stuck in the re-education room until released. I re-curled into the fetal position I had originally been in before the attack. And resolved to wait. 

        I spent an hour in this state, my shivering from the cold increased as the time pasted. My fresh bruises ached, and my head was pounding after being tossed around in this room. I was nearly unconscious when the door finally opened. I opened my eyelids more to peer at a wide eyed servant girl who stood in the door way. 

        "Get up! Quick!" She hissed to me. I blinked slowly at her, my aching body unresponsive to her words. Her eyes widened as frustration shone. "Get up, stupid girl. The slaver wants you present on the command deck. Now!" She throw the down the dark article of clothing that she held in her hand, letting it lan in a crumpled heep near my feet. 

        I reached out and grabbed what I suspected to be a cloak and clutched it to my aching chest. I stood up slowly and walked toward her on weak legs. She seemed to take pity on me and let me use her as a balance on the way to the command deck. There was something wrong, I could tell but I still felt to weak to process that thought into a question. Instead I stumbled alongside the girl without uttering a word. 

         The command deck was farther away then I original thought. Though the entire trip there I had not encountered another slave besides the one leading me. That in itself was not odd. It was the fact that the ship was as quiet as the isolation room. Not being able to hear a single sound besides myself had me worried. The chill in my bones only increased as we moved closer to the command deck, yet couldn't bring myself to put on the cloak just yet. I was walking on my own by the time we reached the command deck. My strength has slowly returned the more I moved. Only to leave again as I stood in front of the command deck's metal doors. My stomach clenched in fear and excitement as my mind raced through all the options that could be waiting on the other side. 

        I slipped the cloak about my shoulder, and lifted its hood so my face was covered in shadows. When I finished the girl beside me nodded once in agreement to my action. Then the doors slid open.