Chapter 04 [arc two]

The atmosphere was tense, so the man left soon after. Karilyn didn't waste any time and started to look around the room for cameras. She was paranoid that the man was spying on her through the ceiling and walls. Even after she didn't find anything, she still found herself anxiously pacing. The floor felt warm against her bare feet, and the bed looked extremely enticing. She wanted to lie down and sleep badly, but she was too nervous. Instead, she decided to see if he was telling the truth about the door's system. If he was lying, she would put her guard back up automatically.

She waited for the circle to turn green and placed her hand against it. Immediately she felt the zap from earlier and watched her hand be scanned. With that, the door slid into the wall, and she was facing the empty hallway from before. The slave let out a sigh of relief, and her shoulders fell. She was happy that he had been telling the truth about it and felt her anxiety lessen. Now she knew if anything went wrong, she wouldn't be locked in. The days spent in prison had traumatized her, and she was terrified of being locked away again. She needed a functional door and windows to be able to live without feeling a weight on her chest.

'I should look in the closet and vanity for anything weird. He might have a recorder in there under all of those clothes. Or worse, a spy cam.' Karilyn nodded to herself and waited for the door to close. Once it did, she walked over to the vanity.

The first thing she noticed was that the inside was lined with pink colored velvet. She brushed her fingers against the fabric and shivered. There were a few pieces of jewelry and some perfume, but most of it was empty. She sprayed the perfume cautiously into the air and sniffed it. If the man dosed them, she wanted to know before putting it on her skin. They smelled fine, awfully fruity, and the alcohol in them was unnoticeable. This meant they had to be the real deal, or at least expensive as hell. The jewelry she left alone because she didn't want to risk touching them and breaking out of their metal.

She closed everything up and moved onto the closet. Since it was already open, all she had to do was move some clothes around. The outfits were all in line with what she saw in the visual novel. Leather trench coats and mini skirts; neon dresses that had plastic textures; knee-length fur boots that had fuzzy little balls; etc. It was a mix of outfits you'd see in cheap dystopian cyberpunk shows where the cast wore crazy 90s hairstyles. Karilyn found herself uninterested in wearing any; she was a jeans and t-shirt type of girl. Plus, fashion was beside the point with her slave status.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

'How did he get all these clothes anyway? He couldn't have known that I'd be staying as his property.' Just thinking of herself that way made her sick. This world was disturbing with how they treated slavery, women, and the lower class on a daily basis.

"Death Becomes Her" explored a dark future where wars had changed humanity's DNA for the worse. Nearly every character that the story had you meet and befriend were cyborgs. And if they were humans, they would have had genetic enhancements by the time the true ending happened. She found herself wondering if the long-term effects of such enhancements were worth it. But she couldn't blame anyone who got them in the end; however, they gave them an edge in survival. Just being a normal, non-enhanced slave girl led her to this.

It was getting harder not to blame herself. She knew that she couldn't have stopped the abuse in the position she was in. Any attempt at rebellion would have gotten her throat slit. Or worse, she would be sold at auction to the highest bidder. And she would rather be shot dead than have that happen. But there was an itch under her skin that refused to go away. That said, she should have done something. That she could have fought back and avoided this That itch was irrational, but she still couldn't make it go away.

She closed her eyes and backed away from the closet. The twenty-two-year-old felt dizzy from how many thoughts were running together. Her brain was running on a bunch of irrational assumptions and theories that sickened her. If she was going to get a good night's sleep, she needed to bury them for now. Being that she was now in captivity, she had plenty of time to think. She could make up a good plan to execute when the time was right. Right now, it wasn't even close to being that, so she needed to rest. or else she'd go mad from her festering paranoia.

Feeling bone tired, she collapsed onto the water bed and curled up with a pillow. It felt nice and soft; she hadn't felt softness like this since she was back home. The twenty-two-year-old missed the apartment where she lived with her roommate. The walls were awfully thin, and her roommate always left the dishes in the sink, but it was home. She paid the rent from the bank account she owned and deposited her paychecks into. Memories of walking to the library with earbuds in and playing a podcast about cooking sat heavy. She would never have that again, and it just didn't feel fair.

Karilyn was struggling to cope with this reality and wished that it was a nightmare. It would take a miracle to make the dread in her heart disappear. Tears filled her eyes as she remembered her mother calling right as she was hit by the bus. She felt so guilty knowing her mother heard her die. Desperately, she hoped her phone broke from the impact, and the elderly woman only heard static. Unanswered questions like this surrounding her death made her feel depressed. If there was a way to get an explanation about it all, she'd find it.