Getting Her Seal Of Slave-Ship

Author’s POV:

Olivera walked behind the woman steadily, her head and chin up high, depicting a confidence she was sure that she didn’t have, while her eyes darted all around the field, taking note of the girls of varying ages doing one hard work or the other, donned in light brown gowns that stopped nearly at their mid-thigh. A welcoming plea for sexual abuse. She thought. She wouldn’t be surprised if the girls had had experiences of molestation; the gown left nothing unrevealed especially whenever the girls bent down to pick up something. They might as well be sex slaves.

She came to an abrupt halt when she saw a little girl of about five years in the same garment, pushing a truck filled with sacks of grain. Did the wickedness of this pack and its Alpha have no limit or end? A girl of barely five years old too?! She couldn’t wash her own socks at that age. What manner of slave ship is this? She thought, her heart breaking at the sight, especially as she saw the little girl fall on her knees under exhaustion, her face worn with weariness. She had almost gone out of her way to help the kid until she heard the voice of her taskmaster.

“Lazy kid! Get up from there and push the grain to the silo! Or do you prefer to be whipped along?” The woman shouted, her eyes shooting daggers to the little girl who immediately sprung up to her feet, and starting pushing the truck again.

Olivera could see the net venations on the girl’s forehead as she struggled with all her might to push the truck. She looked around to see the reactions of the other girls in the field, but none of them were even looking at the scenario. It broke her heart further to see that they all had normalized the act which seemed to have been occurring on a daily basis.

“And what are you doing there staring like a she-goat?? Follow me. You have a lot of work to do. When you are done with that, perhaps, you can find the time to pity someone else.” The woman shouted to her, when she had noticed that Olivera had stopped at a distance and was staring after the little who was just doing her work.

Olivera turned away from the heartbreaking sight to the woman who had just enlisted herself into her special book of evil witches, and almost rolled her eyes at her, but for the fear of attracting much punishment to herself than the usual.

And so, she just nodded at the woman before she continued to move further, making sure to keep some distance between her and the woman, not wanting to bump into the latter if for an instant the woman stopped in her movements. Leonard had been lenient enough to just scold her, she had no idea what the woman in front of her would do if she did the same; maybe meticulously deliver to her two slaps, and she didn’t want that.

As she trailed behind the woman, she had the feeling of being watched, and so, she turned slightly and shivered thereafter when she saw the shrewd hulk of a man staring at her. He was still standing at that point where she had seen him at first. When their gazes met, the man licked his lips, while staring at her suggestively. She almost gagged at the sight. Hastily, she turned away in time to catch the woman taking a bend in the field.

Grateful for the obtrusion as she turned and walked through the curvature in the field which had cut away the man’s sight of her, she followed the woman more steadily, breathing easier, even as they came to halt before a small bungalow.

“Here is the changing room. You first come here after leaving your cell, to take a bath and wear your garment. You also do so after working for the day. You also join the others to eat here.” The woman stated, not looking at Olivera as she turned the door’s knob and opened the door.

Olivera nodded unconsciously after the woman was done reciting the manual for the building, before following the woman inside the white washed house. The inner décor of the house looked like a boy’s locker room, you know, that place where the boys usually bathe and change their wears before and after a sporting event. She noticed the row of bathrooms and a couple of smaller rooms perhaps reserved for when they wanted to change their clothes. She also noticed a long table surrounded with many chairs at the left wing of the hall-like house. The cafeteria. She thought, as she saw it; only that there was no chef to serve them food. She knew that they would be doing that themselves.

“Take this and go into one of the rooms, and change.” The woman said, suddenly disrupting her thoughts.

She jerked back a bit, startled at the seemingly sudden statement of the woman, her hands shivering a bit as she stretched out her hand and collected the surprisingly ironed cloth from the woman. She hadn’t seen the woman coming. She hadn’t even known when the woman had gone away and where she had brought the cloth from. She had zoned out again. She pep-talked herself inwardly to stop the habit. It wouldn’t be of help to her here.

Aware that the woman was still staring after her, she walked, conscious not to have an awkward gait as she moved into one of the changing rooms.

Once inside the room, she sighed deeply, looking at the cloth in her hands.

She had a feeling that her life was about to undergo a phenomenal change, a change that most assuredly would not leave her unscathed.

She only hoped that she would be able to stay strong and not fizzle out, emerging at the end of it all as a survivor.