Word count- 1,375

-Zoey-

A few weeks have passed since all her loved ones died in one night. She doesn’t feel anymore. Zoey just feels numb. She doesn’t understand why she’s still here, alive. Zoey wishes she died with them. She doesn’t have anything to fight for. Zoey has no hope, and she’s lost. Her family and friends are gone. Strangers who share her pain surround Zoey. Waking up like the other unfortunate ones and eating in the great hall and working all day.

The talk about a rebellion has disappeared. Her friends and family were starting it, well tried to. They had hoped that things would change. Their species would evolve into better beings. Zoey doesn’t see it anymore. Their numbers dropped, and no one had babies anymore. She doesn’t think anyone is even finding mates anymore.

***

They have a little library, not much. They gave them some books. Back in the day when they only wanted them separated from them. They made a town for them, the Volentors, with gifts. Years pass and it turns into a concentration camp. The only thing left from the original town is the library and the great hall. They are also the most rundown looking.

From what she read from journals and history books, they had all the farmland, and they destroyed that. They built this to lock them away. They wear science made collars to block out their gifts. What they are is unknown to them. A year when they are born, they put them on. Because of their intense fear, they even put collars on babies. Zoey guesses they start to develop at the age one and two. They only know what they put in the library. They don’t even have older relatives to teach them their ways and what their gifts are. Some of them don’t even believe they have gifts, that they fear them for another reason. Zoey doesn’t know what that reason could be.

She gets up from the pile of dead bodies and heads out for the day. Zoey gets in line like everyone else. The lower ranked soldiers do a dead body count. They come over to the guy that’s in charge watching them. He whispered something and the head guy didn’t look happy. They’ve been dying off and not breeding. “Vos satus monstra melius, educ tecum,” the higher ranked soldier said. It’s Latin, Earth’s dead language. Their first language is Latin, and their second language is English. It means “you freak better start to breed.”

They aren’t happy with them for not mating. They dismissed them and they all headed over to the great hall. She sits in the back of the room by herself and her loaf of bread.

As Zoey leaves, she overheard some people. “Do you think they would force us to breed together?” A girl asked someone at her table.

“I don’t see why it matters to them that we are dying off. Isn’t that what they want?” a male comment. Zoey walks over to their table and says “we do their work; we are workers without pay. We are free labor, and they can’t have that if we die off, they have to do it.”

She doesn’t hear a response; Zoey just walks away. What that girl said before, there is a good chance they will. With the rate they are going, there’s a good chance. Their slave owners are ruthless with no soul. They are capable of anything. She believes that the wet nurses are bored in the towers right outside their camp. The women die during birth because they aren’t in a hospital with doctors and medicine. Then fathers die because the mate died, so the soldiers take the baby and give it to the wet nurse tower. They raise the babies up to about four years old and ship it down here. Have a miserable life like the rest of them. They never meet their parents; the soldiers pick up and drop off the babies. As she walks out of the building, the group of people come out and follow her. “Hey, wait, what’s your name?” the girl shouts.

“Zoey,” she tells them and turns around to face them.

“Do you think they would force us to breed?” The girl asked.

“There’s a good chance they are losing profit because we aren’t breeding and dying off,” she explained to them. The male in the back kept staring at Zoey. She looks over at him and raises her eyebrow at him. “You look very familiar,” he states.

“I don’t think so. I don’t know any of you,” she said, looking at the five of them. The one girl is pretty short with blonde hair, very pale skin, with glowing blue eyes. The male in the back has almost black hair and black eyes. Zoey looks at the rest of them. Next to the male in the back, a girl is next to him with dark blue hair and normal brown eyes. Next to the girl who was talking to her is another male with blonde hair, looks a lot like the girl, but with normal green eyes. The last one is behind the male with green eyes, is a female with bright red hair and glowing red eyes. The rest of the group is about average height. She’s a little shorter than them. “Who are all of you?” Zoey asked them.

The girl with the glowing blue eyes says, “My name is Serenity; this is my twin brother Sandor.” She points to herself and the male who is now Sandor with the green eyes. The guy with the black hair and black eyes says, “I’m Jacks, and this is my mate, Aurora.” He points to himself and the girl with the dark blue hair. “This is my mate, River,” Sandor says, pointing to the redhead. “Nice to meet you all,” she said, putting her brown hair up in a ponytail. “Now we better get going to work. I’m sure none of us wants the whip,” Zoey states. They all dissemble and get to work.

Work was work today; Zoey didn’t see anyone from that group earlier after they talked. She heads off to bed and tries to sleep.

***

The next morning, Zoey gets up and lines up with everyone that sleeps in this shed. Something was different this morning. During their lineup, we all heard a commotion over by shed three, on the other side of camp. Before she knew it, her feet were running in that area. The men with the whips didn’t even get a chance to realize what was happening.

As Zoey got closer, she heard Serenity's and another girl’s voice. She ran into the shed and she saw Serenity and River over Sandor’s body. Zoey runs over and pulls off Serenity and Jacks holds her and brings her outside. She pulls off River next and Aurora helps Zoey with her.
When they got outside, that’s when shit got real. The men with the whips from Zoey’s shed are over here yelling in Latin, “capto ut iret in aulam bitch shes!” They point to her, and the other men yell in English, “grab that bitch she’s going to the court!”

They chain her up to a post in the front court. The ripping of Zoey’s shirt exposed her back, leaving her front covered. She can’t see what they are doing behind. She just hears them talking in hushed voices getting ready to whip her. Zoey looked up and saw a crowd had formed around her. Some have their eyes covered and some have their hands over their mouths.

Zoey screams in pain when the whip connects with her bare back. Again and again, all night they were whipping. She can tell after a little while when it’s coming by the sound it makes. She prepares herself for it.

Zoey can feel the warm blood drip down off of her back. At first it stung so badly, now she feels numb. “Factum tuum canis,” the male with the whip said. Zoey sighs as she realizes what he said. “You’re done bitch,” not a nice way of saying she’s done. He walks away from her, and now she’s alone at night.