I open my eyes and scratch my nose. I have sleep a whole night and yet I feel like I just went to sleep. Both my mind and body are exhausted, I sit on my mattress and look around. The others slaves are starting to wake up to another day.

By my calculations I’m living here for about two months and I can finally understand what the locals are talking or at least get most of what they are saying. Some of them talk really fast and with a strong accent for me to understand 100%, but I can get the important parts of what they are saying.

To tell the truth I miss the day’s I didn’t understand them. Because they are a bunch of idiots with nothing good to say. Most of my roommates are not exactly philosophers, and the only interaction that we have is when they are bulling me.

Not violent bulling mind you, just a bunch of stupid pranks. They piss on my mattress every day and hide all the others so I need to sleep on something wet and smelling like hell. They keep insulting me and trying to humiliate me whenever I’m close to them.

It would be worst if I needed to work with the idiots. They would have plenty of opportunities to make my life a living hell. But I spend the whole day away from them, learning language with Athaia and doing exercises with the Brute. I just see them at lunch time and when I go to sleep.

And they would never be stupid enough to try to steal my lunch, no matter how jealous they are of what I eat. One of the first things I learned when I started to speak the language was the plans to me.

They want to make me a slave soldier. Apparently, exist a school where the wealthy send slaves to train and the ones that survive – not many according to Athaia – become some form of super soldier. At least that’s what she told me, I only have her to ask questions and she is a slave child with very little access to news and the world outside of the compound.

I could ask Brute, but our relationship is complicated. It’s very hard do try to be friendly to the guy who captured me and then raped Natali and Rita. Talking about them, Athaia told me they were sold not long after we arrived. It’s hard to explain my feelings about that, we lived together for years and they were good people. I Honestly just try not to think to much about them so I don’t need to think what happen to them .

Ironically the Moron is still around, after a few days they started to give very simple task for him to do. To pick and carry stuffy mostly, nothing that demands any brain power and he does his job pretty well.

He still a simpleton and in the beginning I was worried that he would be bully. But to my surprise they just made him a informal mascot and treat him well. I asked Athaiae about that and she told that is bad luck to beat or mistreat those who were touched by the Gods and lost their minds. It’s a very easy way to angry the Gods and be touched themselves and end up in the same position.

After she told me that, I wasted a lot of time wondering if that kind of logic was good or bad for people like the Moron. I want to say that is good, but I don’t know, with people think that is something made by the Gods, they won’t try to fix him.

On the other hand, psychological treatment until a few decades ago on Earth was just some kind of torture against the sick. They used to beat or even give electric shocks to cure people.

As per usual my roommates leave the room first. I know they won’t dare to beat me again. I’m a valuable propriety, a wrong kick or punch could kill or injure me badly and all the investment that was made in me would be lost. And from what I heard from Athaiae, my owners would kill or sold to the mines -same punishment, people die in weeks in the mines- anyone who did that.

What dosen’t mean that I try to be a smartass against them. Just because they would be punished, dosen’t mean in a moment of angry one of them wouldn’t do something that they would regret later. Better to stay low and survive.

They leave talking about how I’m going to die soon in the training to become a soldier, because I’m a piece of shit, coward, son of a sick whore and stuff like that. Like I would be angry for something like that.

The only thing that really piss me off is the fact that they urinate where I sleep. And I learned the hard way that it’s better to sleep in a wet mattress then on the floor. But there is nothing that I can do about that.

After they leave, I go take a piss in my favorite corner and leave the room. Just like most house slaves I have freedom to walk around in the compound, as long I don’t enter in any prohibited place and I must be in the slave quarters when the sun is down.

I considered a lot to try to escape, but where would I go? These guys are professional, I don’t think I could escape that easily in the first place and I would probably end in a worst position.

Here I have every day three good meals with meat, when most slaves or poor freedman are luck if they have a meal a day and meat once a month. Or at least that’s what Athaiae said to me, sometimes I think she gives me a very dark impression of the outside world to frighten me and keep me from running away.

But from the impression that I had from the place when I arrived, I think she is not far from the mark. If I escape, best case scenario, I would become a street rat and, in the worst, I would be a slave again in a far worst position.

As a soldier, even as a slave soldier they would give a good treatment so I would not rebel. Nevertheless, they would give me weapons and training and a bunch a comrade in arms who could help me escape.

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So, the best thing that I can do is to stay here and become as strong as possible. Or at least that’s what I tell myself every day to not fall into despair. I finish my business and leave to the dinning hall.

Slaves only have one meal a day, lunch, so the place is empty in the morning. I go to the kitchen and the fat cook gives me the same thing that I eat every single day in all my meals. The novelty of eating beef has faded, but I still eat with gust. I don’t know what the future waits for me so I can’t waist food.

I eat fast and after putting the bowl back in the kitchen I leave for the courtyard with a well, where my little teacher normally waits for me.

I arrive first and after taking off my clothes I use the bucket to clean my body. The water is incredible cold and makes my body shivers, but its fresh and helps the smell of urine go away.

I would love to wash my clothes too, but I was told in no uncertain terms by the slave responsible for cleaning the courtyard that she could pretend not to see me washing every morning but if I started to wash my clothes, she would tell the Dominus and I would never take a bath here again.

Why I can take a bath but not wash clothes make no sense to me. I did try to understand the logic behind but the old slave started to yell and I decided to make a tactical retreat.

I would love some soap, but there is none. When I finish, I wait for my body to dry so I can put on my clothes.

- “You must be the only slave that takes a bath every morning, it’s kind of weird.”

I look to the door and see Athaiae coming in my direction. After she realized that I wasn’t going to eat her – literary and sexually- she started to be a lot more open with me. We may not be good friends, but we are at least good colleagues.

- “Maybe, or you people are the weird ones that don’t wash enough.”

- “But it’s a good thing that you do that. Today my master wants to start teaching letters to you. The better you smell, the less he will complain.”

She looks with envy at me for having the opportunity of learning how to read and write. A slave that can do that is sure to have a comfy position and a good chance to became a freedman. Her master used to be literate slave and after a few decades of work he was given freedom to become his former owner’s secretary.

For a common slave that’s the dream. For me? I don’t know, decades as a slave to get my freedom so I can work until my death for mu old owner making a pittance or a few years in some boot camp so I can murder my owners? The latter sounds much better.

When my body is dry, I put my clothes. The first good thing about running around naked is that I lost any fear of being naked around people. The second is that thanks to exercise and better food I look a lot better, not Schwarzenegger in the 80’s good, I’m just a kid eating and exercising better for only two months. But I’m in better shape compared to when I arrived.

We leave to meet her master and I swear the fat bastard is in the same position, I think he is stuck in the chair or can’t leave anymore without breaking the wall. One of the first thing that my little teacher – she hates when I call her that – taught me was the etiquette when talking to free people.

First and most important lesson, you never look them in the eyes, always make sure to look anywhere but their eyes. The second lesson was, be submissive. If you follow these two rules you will be fine.

She told me that one of the reasons that he looked me with so much hate when we first met was that I keep looking into his eyes, like I was challenge him or something. I don’t remember that part to be honest, in my mind I was to busy trying not be paralyze by fear to be challenging anyone.

And that was the reason that she feared me in the beginning. If I was crazy enough to challenge her master, what I would do to a normal slave? I really would like to meet that version of me, he sounds badass.

After given a quick look to if he had started a diet, which he clearly didn’t, my eyes went looking for a crack in the floor. I don’t want to give him any excuse to be punished.

He knows that we are here but he makes sure to pretend that he is alone. Just a stupid power move to show that he is in charge, he must be a very petty person. It makes sense, he lived most of his life as a slave and must take very seriously any attack to his status of freedman. I hate people like him.

It takes a while, but he finally acknowledges our presence.

-“To punish me for being his best employ, I need to teach you how to read and write. The Gods knows you are too stupid to learn, but it’s my job to make a miracle and teach you. Do you understand how luck you are to learn from me?”

-“Yes , Dominus”.

I almost forgot about the third lesson in slave etiquette, call everyone Dominus. People never get angry for being call that.

-“Good, Athaiae managed to get something in your thick head about dealing with your betters. Maybe there is a very small chance for you to became literate.”

He puts a book on the table.

“All the letters of the alphabet are here, Athaiae will take you to a place with some sand so you can start writing in the sand. When you finish to memorizing all the letters you will return here. Don’t waste to much time, we don’t know when you will be send away.”

A have very few memories when I started to learn to write, but I know that he is doing a horrible job. How he expects me to learn like that? Not that I have a choice, I pick the book and speak.

-“Thank you Dominus .”

- “Make sure to give the book to Athaiae in the end of the day, she will return here and you can pick every morning. You will be severe punished if something happens to the book!”

- “Yes Dominus.”

After picking the book, me and Athaiae leave as fast as we can, no point in given the bastard the idea that we are talking our time to follow his orders. After walking in silence for a while when she speaks.

-“What is a alphabet?”

I need to think a little to my surprise, I know what a alphabet is but I never had to explain to someone else.

“Each letter of the alphabet is a sound, when you put the sounds together you form the words that we use every day.”

- “I see.”

By her expression I don’t think that she understands, she is just saying to appease me.

- “And how did you know that?”

Now I’m the one confused, the word alphabet in this language is completely different from Portuguese, Spanish or English. How did I know? And now that I stop to think, how did I learn a language so fast? I was never that good with foreign language and the ones that I knew in my last life are nothing like the ones here.

I thought that I learned fast because I’m very young and it’s super easy for kids to learn new languages. But my age dosen’t explain how did I knew a word that I never heard before. What is going one?

-“Fine, keep your secrets.”

I was lost in my mind and forgot that she had made a question and now my little teacher is angry at me. But I should think later about how I know words that I never heard before. Maybe is a gift of the Corgi Gods, which would make the most useless super power that they could give me.

Why gift to me some cool super power like the ability to fly or super straight, when you can give me the power to understand big words that I never heard before? Much more useful. Just my luck.