Chapter 60

AWAY FROM SANITY

ELENA

Clang, Clang! Something struck our metal confinement and an alarm was blaring loud for everyone to wake up but I was already awake. I was used to it.

In came the commander alongside two other huge-looking men.

"Out! Out! Out!" He yelled. No second guesses, we all ran out of the dorm into the cold morning. Then arranged in a single file on the fields followed by a roll call.

Everywhere was silent you could hear leaves fall from trees and strike the ground and tension filled our hearts.

I was used to this but every time, it felt brand new. I saw things differently every time.

The commander summoned the new workers and we stepped out. Funny enough, it wasn't just me, Twenty and Twenty-one, we had other new people transferred from other places

Looking around, I figured that people from different work sites had different uniforms. Some people wore a red vest and black combat trousers, some other people wore green and black, and some blue and black. Only very few of us wore full black then I concluded that we all dressed according to the work we did.

"Jay!" The man I saw from earlier that had told his guards to mark me summoned and a younger man dressed in green and black emerged from amidst the other district commanders. He was wearing exactly the same thing as some of the workers but he had a tag on his neck. He was mute at first then he spoke in an unfamiliar accent.

"If you are dressed like me, follow me" was the only thing he said and workers fell out of the line and headed east with him. Another young man with a tag on his neck, dressed in red and black came out and did the same thing as well. Same for other colors until very few of us were left behind all dressed in black. The commander rolled his eyes and paced to and fro then, he spoke.

"The rest of you, follow me," I muttered a silent curse. Why was it always me with this monstrous being? But that was one out of the several thousands of questions I had no answer to.

We followed him to a building on the north side of the vast fields till all the buildings disappeared from a distance and soon, we got to a small cabin at the edge of the cliff. All seven of us.

"Stay here" he commanded and went into the building only to come out shortly with three women with huge body-build seeming like men, all dressed in black and Atom. As soon as I saw him, I looked away and a primitive heat ran from my head, down my spine to my toes.

They all scared me.

"I have come to deliver the creatures" commander said "they are yours now"

"A girl?" One of the women came over to me and lifted my chin "in a slaughter pit?" She raised a brow. "It’s been decades since we had one last. Can it function?" She asked then, it occurred to me that of all seven of us workers, I was the only female.

"We brought it here in chains. It fed on pig food for ten days. Is that enough for you?"

"Pig food." Another woman croaked "that's a joke right? We want warriors not animals"

"It is a beast." He responded "it belonged to Athena" he added. Whatever that was, I didn't understand but I dare not make any sound. The woman dropped my chin and raised my sleeve to check the mark on my upper arm then she sighed "if it doesn't perform in seven days, I'll kill it."

The commander looked at me "it would perform." I didn't know why he had much faith in me. After all, to all of them, we weren't humans but creatures at the lowest part of life. We were beneath their foot. The woman nodded.

"You are excused." She told him "they are ours now" and without any other exchange of words, the commander left us to our fate.

The woman. She was tall, belted from head to toe with knives arranged in each pouch that rounded her waist. She assessed us from head to toe and then asked for our names.

"Twenty-two" I said. She paused

"From Dome?" She queried

"Si" I replied without looking at her face. It was like a taboo if I did.

"You look like you are going to die already. They say you are from Athena but that doesn't matter - if you don't cope in seven days, I will kill you" she leaned forth and stroked the hair hovering down my face and tucked it behind my ear. "Atom!" She called and he approached. "You take care of this one. I might just get angry at it" she let go and then turned to the rest of the black workers. "The rest of you would work at the stables" she yelled then turned to me sharply "you will be with Atom at the furnace..."

"Furnace?" Atom interjected

"Should we just kill it? We need male creatures not wimps"

"It has probably never worked at a furnace before"

"Then make it work. Do we have a problem here?"

Atom looked at me for a while "It is no problem at all" his voice drained.

"Good." She turned back to us "you would refer to me as black commander and that..." She pointed to one of the other women "that is a black sergeant" she pointed to the third woman as well "black mistress" then she turned to Atom "you would refer to him as The Black Soldier" she paced for a while "you report to the black soldier if you need to request anything. Are we clear?"

"Yes!" We thundered in unison

Like a flamingo, she turned around and marched in with her black mistress. A black sergeant came forth and took the workers to the stables for proper training leaving me alone with the black soldier.

I stood there, head bowed waiting for him to give the command.

"Come along he said" but I stood still. I knew what come meant but what was ‘along’?

Seeing my immobile expression, he came over. "Do you even understand a thing?!" He snapped. He sounded angry and I almost jumped out of my skin. "Follow me!" He added. I knew what that meant so I obeyed.

He took me to a mud house meters away from the back of the building. It was guarded by two other black workers that held very sharp knives. They held it up as we approached but once they saw the black soldier, they lowered their weapon.

Trying to stay close as possible, I followed him through the doors, and to my amazement, it sort of led to an underground. It was really dark inside but I relied on my senses to follow him which wasn't totally accurate for I struck my leg against the wall twice. Suddenly, his footsteps stopped and I did the same and almost immediately, he pulled a switch and something made a roaring sound then the lights went on. It lit the room and then, where I was began to register. I almost swallowed my tongue seeing the environment I had found myself.

The huge space was filled with shelves that carried huge cylindrical glass filled with a kind of liquid thingummy and body parts were suspended in them. Heads, arms, legs...body parts!

I almost threw up. A cold chill grasped me and shot down my spine. I stepped away from the shelves too quickly and then shot Atom a look but he didn't seem to care. He reached for one of the plugs that were attached to the switch and tugged at it and like dropping curtains, a stack rolled down from the ceiling.

"Try not to look," he told me but I couldn't help it. My eyes was everywhere.