The man took me away and didn't speak a word as we rode off in the carriage. He continued around the outskirts of the village to other struggling families, taking their boys away too. I didn't know what was happening but all that was on my mind was how my parent's decided to just throw me away like that. I understood their struggles, but I just could never be able to forgive them for what they did to me.

Whilst quiet the entire trip, I noticed that one of the boys in the carriage with us was Liandro. I noticed him look up at me and quickly back down. There were four of us in the carriage and we eventually arrived at our destination, the white manor at the top of the hill overlooking the village. It most likely belonged to the lord of this land, Mr Ogden who lived with his wife and only child, Feirut Ogden. I wondered why we had come here as the man leading the carriage opened the door and lead us out and to the manor door.

"Mr Ogden has been needing some workers for a specific job for a long time. Hopefully you'll all be worth the trouble." The man said, knocking on the door as two maids opened it. It led into a large front hall with two staircases leading up to the second floor and multiple rooms already on the first. There was a statue of Mr Ogden's face in the middle of the marble floored hall on the top of a small white pillar.

"Mr Ogden is in his office. All four of you will wait outside and he will call you in individually. I have all your names already." The man in the suit said as he led us all up the stairs and to the outside of two large wooden doors. There were four chairs outside the doors and he sat us all down, calling me up first.

"Virgil? Virgil, is that you?" He called onto me and I stood up. The doors opened and I walked into the office nervously. I looked around seeing it was wide with a desk in the middle and a leather chair at the end. Facing me were two large glass doors leading to the balcony that I saw from the outside of the manor. There were portraits on the walls such as a man in a suit, a woman and of course, Feirut. The man swung around in his chair, and to my surprise, it wasn't the man in the portrait on the wall.

He had bold and sharp eyes that immediately brought me in. His presence alone made me interested in him as he stroked his chin at the sight of me. He wore a dark blue, very clearly tailored suit and tapped the cigarette he was smoking into a glass ashtray.

"One of the children we wanted. Of course.", after tapping his cigarette, he looked over at me and smiled, "A shame your parents were so willing to give you up. I bet you couldn't believe it. Times are tough, you just weren't important enough for them to need right now I guess."

He stood up and walked over to a cabinet which was under the portrait of Mr Ogden. On top of the cabinet were cups and different bottles of alcohol.

"You want a drink?" He asked. I immediately shook my head in silence as he shrugged and poured himself a drink. "I won't stretch it with the others like I just did with you. I'll get to the point.", he took a sip from his cup, "I bought you all for a reason, and that reason, is so you can sell drugs for me."

He smirked at the sight of my confused face and walked back over to the desk, "That's right. You've all been sold to me so I can use you all to deal drugs. Of course, you'll all be doing small time work since I use more proficient and well trained candidates to sell my food in this nation. But of course, every little helps. I've decided to set up a base here with one of my colleagues in charge and you guys dealing in town. People are poor, hungry and distraught. There hasn't been a better time to deal than right now."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I shook my head for a moment, "S-so you aren't the lord of this town?"

"Of course not. It's just my alias that the guy outside was using on you guys. The real lord of this town is the 'colleague' you'll all be working under. Same bastard who raised the taxes for the sake of the 'king' or whatever. He's the guy in this portrait.", He waved his arm over at the portrait of Mr Ogden.

I clenched my fist for a moment thinking of how much this 'Mr Ogden' of his fucked up my life. I was sold into slavery because of him and his unnecessary rise of tax. The man looked me up and down with mocking look.

"I could see it the second you walked in here. Lazy kid, no magic, no ambition. Your eyes were practically dead. Hopefully the others aren't like you." He ushered me out and the second I left the room a different man grabbed me and took me down to the basement of the building. It was dark, grimy and I could hear some dripping in the distance of the basement. I went into a corner and balled up.

I was pathetic in my last life, pathetic in my new. Nothing had changed and I was the same fat kid who got eaten by a bear. I wiped the tears from my eyes, a slight bit of annoyance building up in me. I looked around the dark basement a bit more as more of the children who were sold with me were also thrown into the basement.

"Mr Ogden will be with you all shortly. Behave!" The man said as he walked back up the stairs and closed the door on us.

One of the kids stood up. He was skinny and wore a tattered green vest and shorts with dirty black hair sitting on his head.

"Did he say the same thing to you guys? No way in hell I'm selling drugs for the bastard who raised the rent on us."

A chubby kid who had short ginger hair and was wearing a t-shirt with stains nodded his head with anger in his eyes. Liandro however was busy balling up and crying in one of the corners of the basement. The chubby kid kissed his teeth at Liandro and looked over at me and the boy in the green vest.

"What're your names? I'm August." He asked with a slightly raspy voice.

"Virgil. The kid crying over there is Liandro." I replied.

"Kevin." The boy in green said.

August looked over at me and pointed at Liandro, "How do you know him?"

"Used to go to the public school with him. You know the one that got tore down a few days ago?"

"Yeah. I used to go there for a few months, found out school wasn't my thing." He said with a shoulder shrug.

Kevin sat next to August and put his fingers together, "So what now? Not like we have a choice, right?"

August looked at me and back at Kevin, "If you think I'm just gonna rot in this basement, selling drugs for some fat king loving cunt, you thought wrong.", he stood up and paced to a wall, "Think about it. Our only fate here is either we die getting robbed of drugs, being underfed, or being sold off again. We're slaves, our lives aren't important anymore."

The room was quiet for a moment until August hit the wall with his fist, "No way in hell am I gonna live like this for long! Who do these people think they are, getting to live lavish lives while we toil away for them! I'm fighting my way to the top, fuck this!" He walked over to a tattered mattress and lied down facing away from us.

Kevin stood up, "He's right. Either we fight our way out of this or we die, simple as that."

Kevin also walked off and sat down on another one of the mattresses which were prepared for us. Liandro didn't say a word while snivelling and went over to a mattress as well.

Everything August said was right. In my past life, all I did was get pushed around, laze about and be nothing but a failure to those around me. This time was going to be different, I couldn't let it all happen again. I immediately went down onto my arms and started struggling to do push ups. I began tearing up and snivelling while forcing myself to do push ups. This was my beginning and my revolt against a fucked up life.