A gross stench wakes me up, the taste of sulphur and meat going through my nostrils and down my throat. It was a common occurrence for dead bodies to be on the street, especially around here, but they don’t usually last long enough to begin rotting.
I push myself up from the greyscale mud I slept on, my shoeless feet making a squishing sound when I begin to walk in my living space.
‘Living space’ is sort of the best way to describe it, it’s not a house, its more of a mud filled hut, made of weak rotting planks that have strange roots growing between the seams.
All I have is a small wooden chest where I store some basic things, a ring I had stolen off my owner, a couple of copper coins that have no use, pieces of paper that have some blood on it and a pencil.
“You awake Fay?” Noah speaks through the door, he is scrawny like me, you can’t exactly get a body builder physique when you’re being fed scraps.
“Yeah, come in.” He opens it gently, trying not to break the door off its hinges like last time, “what do you want?”
“There’s a corpse, like in the middle of the street, I wanted you to come check it out with me, there’s a huge crowd.” He begins to poke and prod at my shirt.
I sigh, “yeah? What’s so interesting about a corpse?”
“I dunno, but there’s a crowd so… put two and two together, it’s going to be gnarly.”
He pulls me by the collar, taking me into the dim outside, clouds are always covering the sky nowadays, I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen the colour blue.
I begin walking with him, the place we live in is basically a spot to store cattle, therefore the living conditions are made to keep us alive for as long as we are useful, it’s fair, we did that to lesser creatures too.
There is a crowd of 60 people, men, women and children all gossiping about the latest death, too stupid to worry about their own lives. They are all in a circle position, like how people surrounded witches as they burned.
Noah pushes us through like we are royalty, we get a good look at the body. It looks to be an experiment gone wrong, a kid with 3 limbs connected like a wheel, his body coiled around itself.
“Boring.” I step back and leave, why would I want to be reminded of what’s going to happen to me one day?
Noah follows, “okay yeah whatever I get it…” I begin walking towards the only nice building in the area, the food clinic. It's made of grey bricks and has an actual interior.
I enter the building, the wood floor being soaked in mud from the countless people walking in an out. "Blood please.” Another human, a worker, holds out a syringe to collect my blood as payment. I hold my arm out and put my hand into a fist. Making my blue vein bulge.
He slides it in and collects the blood, putting it into a small vial. “Next.” It’s only me and Noah here at this time of day, so we both easily collect our scraps.
“Look mine looks like a crocodile.” He holds out one of his chips, the organic shaping of the chips just elongated one of the sides, so it looked like there was a long nose.
“Have you ever seen a crocodile?”
“No, well on the internet, yes, but no.” I forgot he was captured younger than me, probably doesn’t even remember much about the modern world.
“Crocodiles don’t have round bodies dipshit, they aren’t a circle with a stick sticking out.” I grab it at eat it whole, the texture is squishy and gross, despite the hard exterior.
“Wow we got an eco-scientist over here, leave some of the food for us lesser folk.” He grabs one of my soft crackers and chews on it, “wish I could have a cola.”
“You know what I miss?” We begin to walk back to the main part of town.
“What?”
“Mango, sweet, delicious, moist mango.” I lick my lips thinking about it, only tasting dirt.
“Well maybe Anne can plant some.”
“Oh yeah? How’s that farm going by the way?”
“Shes been having trouble with compost... but has seeds.”
“Ooo what seeds?” I begin to smell the stench of the corpse again, more people have crowded around it.
“Not sure, some fruit, we’re hoping it's a vine fruit, not a tree fruit.”
“Right, a tree fruit would be trouble. Harder to hide and stuff.” We walk back into my living quarters, I sit down on the mud.
“Do you not wanna do anything today? Old man is trying to make weapons out of planks, do you want to help?” I just lean backwards onto the wall. Noah is a part of the whole ‘I still have hope, and we can fight back’ side of things.
“No, I'm good.”
“Anne wants to see you though.” He pokes at my face.
“I'm not into romance, tell her to find another boy to obsess over.” I move down further, my elbows hitting the mud and sliding until my whole back is on the floor.
“Shes into your ‘I don't give a shit’ attitude, come on, when's the last time you felt anything?” Noah stands over me, continuously poking at my stomach. Noah is a blonde haired boy, or was supposed to be blonde haired before he shaved it all off into a weird buzzcut, a lot of the ‘rebels’ have been doing that lately.
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“I feel tired of your annoyingness.”
“Wow harsh.” He giggles while he sits beside me, “tell me.”
“Tell you what?” I hurt my neck as I turn to look at him, his brown eyes meeting mine.
“What's got you so down in the dirt, literally, in a literal sense”
“I just… I think cancer patients should accept they are going to die rather than grabbing a knife and trying to rip the tumour out.” I stick my fingers in the mud, pulling it out then dropping it with a squishy noise.
“Someone needs to get you some chemo.”
“Yeah? You look like you've gone through chemo.” He slaps me softly, falling backwards to lay on the floor with me.
“It's not wrong to have hope, to try and try until you break. Although you losing your hair would be a travesty.” He pulls on my brown hair softly, it had reached my shoulders a while ago.
I slap his hand away, “I don't want my hair this long... she does...”
“For some experiment?”
“I think she just likes it...” the sound of a carriage slowly comes in, “great, they’re here to get the body.” I lay further down into the mud.
Noah gets up, “come on, I wanna intimidate them.”
“You'll die dumbass, stay here.”
Noah doesn't listen, already out of the door and into the street, the wheels of the carriage get louder until they suddenly stop. I guess I should probably make sure Noah doesn't do anything stupid.
I slide up and walk, the rain had picked up yet again like it does every day, a light drizzle that keeps the ground nice and slippery. The crowd that was once there has scattered to various spots behind and inside the huts.
The carriage was not royal at all, just a simple wooden carriage holding 4 people in red and gold armour, completely covered face to toe with a sleek design, they’re being dragged by normal looking abnormal horses, probably designed to be stronger.
The slimmest person in armour steps out towards the body and sinks down to their feet, touching it, I hide beside a hut. I see Noah doing the same, probably got too scared to intimidate anyone.
The person takes the helmet off to speak clearly, it's my owner, purple hair that is perfectly straight going down her neck Armor, greyish pale skin, eyes that are bright orange, annoyingly beautiful, something not human, “When did this body arrive, did anyone see it die?” It speaks with an accent that isn't identifiable, European or something, her English has gotten better from the past 5 years I've been in this situation though.
A man steps out and shakes, I don't remember his name but he has a shaved head, so he is one of the rebels, “it came from the swamp and died here, we haven't touched it. Not after what you did.”
“It? I think you should know this isn't an ‘it.’ this was a 12-year-old boy named Kian, how does that make you feel?” She smiles very obviously, savouring the man who begins shaking in rage, “oh how he was screaming for mommy, begging for me to stop.” She takes a step forward.
The man moves as well, challenging her.
The man's hand begins bleeding, his nails digging into his palm, I begin to walk back, behind the houses because I don't want to see another person die. Going to go home and rest.
“Fay? Come out, now.” She looks directly at me, probably noticed i was the only one moving, urgh.
I walk out slowly, my knees shaking, I kneel so I don't fall on my ass while speaking, “Yes?”
“What should I do with this man?” She steps towards him again, her eyes genuinely glowing, giving the man an orange tint.
I speak slowly but concise, “killing him now would be a waste of resources… you’re too smart to let personal feelings get in the way of your higher goal.”
She turns back and smiles, “correct.” She walks back to the carriage and whispers to the other people in armor, they all get out, 2 picking up the body.
Once the body is in the carriage she stops, “exhilarating as always Fay…” she then wafts her hand “bring the man for experimentation, we don’t want to waste him, right?”
Irritating… she walks up to the man, he clearly readies and attack, swinging a haymaker at her, she lets it hit her clear in the head without budging.
“You done?” She takes out a small vial of blood and drinks it, then tapping the man’s head to go to sleep. As she drags him across the mud her eyes are staring directly into mine.
“You can go Fay, stay safe.” She lifts the man by his wrist and throws him into the carriage without a care in the world about damaging him.
I nod and get up, everyone is scowling at me, but I tried my best, obviously they need someone to reroute their anger to.
Once the carriage is fully gone, 3 shaved people walk over to me, what seem to be the younger kids in the town, I mean I’m young too but these kids were around 14 and willing to prove themselves.
“Demon fucker.” They begin to push me onto the mud, “DEMON FUCKER.” They begin to get louder as they kick me, nobody comes in to stop them, not even Noah.
My mind goes away from my body, I go into the fetal position and just wait till they get their anger out. A lot of the people here dislike me because one of the ‘demons’ took a liking to me, it’s not even my fault.
“Okay, stop.” Noah walks in and guides the crying kids away.
One of them shrieks, the other cries tears of anguish, then the last one just looks empty, “what was his name? Tell me.” He speaks softly.
I push myself off the mud, “I don’t know.”
“He was a great…” he walks away leaving me alone, holding back tears, Noah had collected the other two boys and is hugging them in a hut, everyone else is staring at me.
Being experimented on meant you were going to return deformed or dead, I was the one exception to that rule.
“Bye.” I say as loud as I can, bruises beginning to form on my body already, a seam on my shirt had ripped so my left shoulder is fully visible down to my arm.
I go back into my living space and open my chest, grabbing what little paper I had left.
I bite my finger, causing it to bleed, and fill the pens ink tube with it. I’m trying to figure out how they do what they do.
“Hey Fay? Can I come in?” I shove the paper back in the chest and suck the blood out of my thumb.
“Sure.”
Anne walks in, her curly ginger hair stained with mud, “the kids… said they were sorry.”
“No they didn’t.”
“Yeah they didn’t…” she sits on the chest, “let me see the bruises.”
“Why?”
“To make sure nothing is broken?” She chuckles, “take your shirt off.”
I give her a look of annoyance, “no.”
“This isn’t a ploy.” She kicks her legs into the mud playfully, “god you’re so paranoid Fay.”
“I’m fine, I can tell when I have a broken bone like most humans.” I stand and stretch, “see? Perfectly fine.”
Anne stands up and holds my arms, I don’t have any muscle because they like to keep us underfed, “Fay, if you keep bottling things up you’re going to be on that hoarders tv show.”
“Hoarders tv show?”
“I don’t know what it’s called… I forgot you’re young, you probably don’t know what that is.” She lets go of my arms and takes a step back.
“Not that young, I’m like 19.”
“Young compared to me dumbass.”
“Don’t speak subjectives to me, I’m also hot compared to a rat.”
“You think so? Have you seen a mirror?” She plants a pitiable laugh into the empty air and steps out, stopping by the door, “there’s a reason people hate you, so find out that reason and stop doing it.”
She leaves me alone yet again.