Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 108119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Too warm.
Too soft, delicate.
I did better with death.
At fourteen, I was better off with corpses.
I moved down Red Row and stopped in front of the cage, I slid the key in the lock and pulled the metal door open.
There were three of them. They were my age, maybe younger. Dirt caked their faces, scratches marred their feet, and I couldn’t tell if they would get to keep their hair since it was matted so close to their head. They were dirty. Ugly.
Not human.
They had one thing in their favor.
They were virgins. Dirty. Virgins. So, it didn’t matter what they looked like, did it? They had something men would pay for, die for.
Something I would kill to keep.
“This way,” I said in a hollow voice. “Now.”
Nobody moved.
I glared at the three of them. Didn’t they realize? If I didn’t do this right I would get punished? They were being fucking selfish! My father called me son! Didn’t they know? Didn’t they see the desperation in my eyes?
I walked into the cage, to the first one, and kicked her in the feet, she let out a scream so piercing that I covered my ears.
When she was done, I pulled out my gun. “You either die here or you move.”
Slowly, the girls held on to each other and stood. I grabbed the first by the elbow, the rest followed after, and down we went, cages lined the path, another dark pathway appeared to my right; it led to the rooms.
They were soundproof.
They were death.
They also had showers and food.
It was like leading a starved animal to the slaughter, we fattened them up, and then we gave them everything they’d been begging for, for days.
And then. They died.
“In there.” I shoved the girls into the small windowless room, with its one shower and a bunk bed. The only table in the room had an array of fruits, vegetables, and meats.
They ran to the table and started eating. I turned away from the disgusting view of their knobby knees, and dirty fingers as they shoved food into their mouths.
They didn’t realize the food was laced with drugs.
Or that in a few short hours they would wish for more.
Beg for it, actually.
The younger-looking one lowered a piece of beef jerky and turned to me. She had blond hair, and she reminded me of my sister, the one I barely knew, the one with the boy’s name, the one who had died. Or at least Dad said she was dead; I had no way of knowing what was real or not.
She wasn’t with us.
It was better that way.
Sometimes I imagined she was free.
Sometimes I hated her because of it.
“Thank you,” the girl said in a small voice that made me want to commit violence toward her. It made no sense, but her thank you was worse than a scream or a threat. I would welcome her violence. I had no clue what to do with her thanks, maybe because I knew how misplaced it was. “For the food, and the beds.”
My heart thumped against my chest, it thumped with anger and defiance all wrapped up in one.
“Thank me when you’re finally dead,” I said in a harsh whisper. “Only then will you be free. Only then.” I slowly backed out of the room and locked the door with a resounding click. “Will any of us be free.”
I held my head high as I walked back down the hall to my post, and when I sat at that metal desk, alone in the darkness as the cold from the dungeon-like surroundings seeped into my bones, I realized. I was in the same prison.
And I was playing the game wrong.
All wrong.
I was trapped just like them.
Drinking the poison, just like them.
The only way out wasn’t playing into his hand.
It was making him think I was the one controlling it.
I pulled out the old revolver my dad had given me after my first kill and emptied all but one bullet. Then I did what any sane Russian would do.
I spun the cylinder, the sound slicing through the dark cave like a knife.
I squeezed the trigger.
And shed the last tear I would ever shed, over the fact that I was still breathing.
Now
I jerked awake the minute I felt the tear on my cheek and quickly slapped myself. I was lying in a pool of sweat. Then again, whenever I dreamed of that girl’s blue eyes and blond hair, and the trigger going off, I sweated.
Something about my father calling me son.
Something about my desperation, tested my sanity.
I wasn’t a man desperate.
I was, however, a man barely sane.
Because I gave into the madness and fed the darkness.
I wiped down my face, and then I reached for my revolver, it was a bit tarnished with age on the outside, just like I was on the inside. I gripped it tight and spun the barrel, then I did what I did every birthday, I stopped it and cursed my birth right along with my existence.