Author's Note: Thank you everyone for reading. Please comment because I'd love to know your thoughts. I hope you enjoy!

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Ren’s eyes opened as she heard Brenner’s Officers open up the door to the warehouse. One raised his whistle to his mouth and let out three short blasts. It woke up anyone who wasn’t awake already.

Ren threw her legs over the side of her bed and forced herself off her mattress. The Officers were already starting to walk down the isles of beds and pull anyone still lying down up onto their feet. A few newbies let out screams of surprise when the Officer’s would grab them.

She rubbed her eyes with her palms and then ran them over her scalp. The prickly feeling of shaved head had always felt normal to her for the last twelve years.

“Come on! Get out there!” she heard one of the Officers yell at them. She looked over her shoulder to see with no shock it was Mitch. He was always the loudest and most violent.

All of the Rats shuffled out of the warehouse to outside. The air was still damp as a layer of dew covered most of the grass. There was still about an hour before the sun would come up. Brenner’s house was visible from the warehouse. A couple Officers escorted a group of women up to the house. They usually cleaned and cooked for the Brenner’s or prepared things that were meant to sell at the Market. Ren had never been in the house. Having a Rat in the house was bad enough, none of the Brenner’s wanted one that could speak properly too.

            The Officers continued to shout at them. She followed the crowd of Rats as they made their way to the barn. Mitch and a few other Officers pushed them foreword and continued to shout. Asserting their authority was something they loved to do and was one of the many things they abused.

            The pungent smell of the barn had become normal to Ren’s nose. She grabbed a bucket off the wall and made her way into the first open stall. Two large cows were standing in there chewing really loudly. The animals stunk, but Ren just ignored it as she picked up a stool from the corner and set it down beside the animal. She placed her bucket underneath it and began going to work. Milking was always her first job of the day.

            Bristol grabbed a stool and positioned herself next to the other animal. The sound of the milk hitting the metal bucket filled the barn. Ren bit down on her cheeks as she heard Bristol began to work. For what Ren couldn’t say, Bristol definitely could. She knew she’d have to listen to Bristol’s stories about outside the camps that never made sense.

            “You know what today is?” she asked her.

            Ren shook her head, even though she wasn’t visible because of the large beasts standing between them. That didn’t seem to bother Bristol at all as she kept going on with her story.

            “It woulda been my son’s birthday. Eight he woulda been,” she told her as she began her work. “I use to take him to the gates outside of Selkirk. He loved it. Use to believe he could be a Officer one day. Didn’t know it would be one who’d kill him.”

            Ren started to bite even harder on her cheeks. Everyone in the camp has heard many, many, times about her baby. The story about him had constantly changed from him passing away in his sleep, getting a strange form of the Virus, to Officers killing him.

            “Monsters they are. Working us like animals. I did nothin’ and they brought me here. Asked a few people to spare some money and next thing I know they’re arrestin’ me for harassment,” she said viciously. “Those no good ignorant bastards do nothin’ right-“

            “Is that right,” a voice said cutting her off.

            Both of their heads shot up to the opening of the stall. Mitch was leaning up against the boards. The black designs that were sprawled up his neck were peeking out from his uniform. He had a smirk on his lips. Bristol’s face had gone red, her shaved blonde hair made it even more noticeable. Ren’s face was pale, making her dark freckles even more pronounced, and her jaw was wide open.

            “You want to repeat that?” Mitch asked her.

            “I didn’t say anything,” she said quickly.

            “Oh really?” he said uncrossing his arms off of his chest. He began to slowly walk towards them, enjoying the fear radiating off of them. “Well someone in here definitely said that and we both know that Ren is too stupid to talk. So it must be you.”

            The Officers knew almost no one by name, except for Ren. They didn’t care about any Rat, but everyone loved to take advantage of the one who couldn’t talk back.

            “I swear I didn’t say anything,” Bristol kept to her terrible excuse.

            “I don’t think Mr Brenner would appreciate hearing these things. Not only are you bad mouthing him, but you have the ability to lie about it.”

            Mitch grabbed Bristol’s arm and hauled her up onto her feet.

            “We’ll go ask Mr Brenner what he thinks we should do about this,” he told her.

            “No!” she yelled out.

            It was rare that the Officers actually brought any of the Rats to Mr Brenner. Instead, they usually punished them themselves.

            “You’re going to yell at me now?” he asked her. He grabbed her neck with his other hand. Bristol grabbed his hand and tried to pry it off her throat. But what could she possibly do? “Do her work too, Ren.”

            He dragged her out of the stall and Ren continued with her work right away. She couldn’t let Bristol being beaten cause her to be beaten too. She cursed Bristol for leaving her with two cows to deal with.

            Once she was done milking, she carefully picked up the heavy bucket and brought it over to the other bucket. She heard most people already leave the barn and go to the fridge. Being the slowest worker was never good.

            She wrapped her fingers around the handles and lifted the heavy buckets off the ground. The muscles in her arm already started to ache and she took small steps to make sure none of the milk split out over the edge. She careful walked over to the fridge. It was a small building lined with shelves where they held all the milk until the truck came to take it to the factory.

            Ren put one of the buckets down when she got in front of the fridge. After opening the door, she wedged her foot into the door. She picked up the other bucket and walked as quickly as she could into the fridge before the door slammed shut on her.

            A cold shiver ran up her spine and she made her way to one of the large metal containers in the fridge. It was rare she was ever in the fridge alone. Usually, it was packed with girls waiting to empty their bucket into one of the containers. Letting go of one bucket, she climbed up onto a stool and emptied the milk into the container. Her arms screaming in pain as she lifted them above her head. She cursed Bristol again as she picked up her bucket and emptied it into the container. She picked up the buckets and ran out of the fridge and back into the barn. She had to make up time somewhere.

            An Officer walked in as Ren was putting her buckets back up on the wall. No one else was in the barn and she knew he was here to punish her for being the last one. The Officer crinkled his nose and twisted his face in disgust.

            “This place smells terrible,” he said pointing out the obvious. He looked at Ren and then covered his nose with his hand. “Clean this place up.”

            Ren opened her mouth and started to fight with her tongue to speak. He held his hand up and she stopped.

            “Do it now,” he ordered her.

            “B…b…but I’v…v…”she tried to speak.

            “I don’t care what you have to say. Clean it up now. No one is going to miss you. I’ll be back before the end of the day and it better be completely spotless.”

            The Officer left the barn to get away from the stench. Ren turned around and cursed Bristol out again.

            Ren couldn’t stop herself from gagging all day as she scrubbed the stalls clean of urine and shit. The Offices obviously cared more about animals than the Rats. If Bristol just kept her mouth shut for once, Ren wouldn’t have to any of this.

            Once there was only one stall left, Ren took her bucket outside of the barn. She dumped the disgusting brown water out onto the grass and took it over to the spout. As she was filling the bucket with new water she heard someone coming up behind her. Expecting it was an Officer she didn’t turn around until she felt the person place a hand on her shoulder.

            It wasn’t an Officer, but instead it was Bristol. Dark bruises shadowed her eyes and the side of her jaw was swollen. The lower half of her face was stained red from the blood that had come out of her nose and mouth. Ren knew her back would be covered with lashes from a whip. She had seen so many Rats looking like this, or even worse, after the Officers were done punishing them. Still she couldn’t stop herself from slightly gasping.

            “An Officer told me to come here,” she said quietly. Her words were garbled with her swollen mouth. “Don’t know who looks worse: me or you?”

            Ren looked down at herself. Her light grey uniform was covered in brown streaks. Her knees were completely covered in it from kneeling down on the ground most of the day. Pieces of hay were stuck to her and there were streaks on the skin of her arms. Ren was certain it would be on her face too. 

            Bristol reached over to the spout and turned off the water. She picked up the bucket with one hand while cradling her other to her chest. Ren tried to pay no attention to this, as it wasn’t her problem. Bristol will work slower for the next couple of days, but Ren was refusing to do anymore of her work.

            “B…b…back corn…n…ner,” Ren tried to instruct her.

            Bristol nodded her head and went into the barn. After looking down at herself, Ren went back into the barn too. She grabbed one of the buckets on the wall and brought it back over to the spout and began filling it with water. The horrible smell returned to her nose now that she was aware that she was covered in it.

            She brought her bucket into the barn and went into the back corner stall. Bristol was on her knees scrubbing the stall with a rag in her good hand. Ren got on the ground beside her and dipped her rag in the cold water. She brought the rag up to her face and washed away and traces of shit she may have.

            The cold water felt heavenly, especially on her parched lips. The only water the Rats were allowed to have is when they fed them at night and when they shower them once a week. Any other time Rats used water for a personal use always led to a punishment. Ren knew they weren’t getting a shower until a couple more days and was refusing to live with the shit on her.

            Bristol was quiet as Ren washed herself clean. The punishments sure had their effect.

            When she was done, she made sure there were still streaks on her clothes so she didn’t raise too much suspicion. She emptied her water in the grass.

            An Officer walked by her at the same time. He was dragging a man’s lifeless body behind him. It was another Rat who had died from either exhaustion or dehydration, a daily occurrence. The Officer had only the man’s foot in his hand as he brought him to the Butcher. Every Rat knew that it was the worse job to be working in the Butcher. Cutting apart the dead and feeding it to the animals was capable of making you even more scared of dying in this place.

            Ren knew she couldn’t be standing around, so she started to run so she could start doing her job.