Julian really chose the perfect day to become a monster, I thought bitterly, as he yanked my arm and dragged me out of the bookstore. His grip was rough, like he wanted to make sure I remembered my place. I glanced back once and saw Kenneth was still standing there, staring at me with confusion and pity. The look of someone who had just realized the world was far filthier than he imagined, and that he had absolutely no power to change it.
Polar had already opened the front door of the car, but Julian stopped.
"Trunk," he ordered coldly.
Polar hesitated for a fraction of a second, then walked to the back and opened it. Julian shoved me hard in that direction. My body stumbled and fell into the narrow, dark space. Before I could get up, the books followed, thrown without care. One hit my shoulder, another my face. The pain wasn't from their weight, but from their meaning. Books about freedom, used to remind me that I had none.
Julian stepped closer, looking down at me like I was broken property. He spat, right onto my face.
"Never forget who you are."
Then the trunk was slammed shut. My breath shook, but I didn't cry. Crying had never changed anything. I grabbed one of the books near me and pressed it to my chest.
The car finally stopped and I was dragged out without warning. The books were left behind in the trunk, birthday gifts that never even became mine. Julian, who had promised them to me. Julian, who now treated me like an animal because I had spoken to another man. And I knew that was the only reason.
He dragged me into the front yard and shouted to Felix. His voice was loud and commanding. He told Felix to bring the whip to punish me for daring to speak to someone without his permission.
Yes. That was the reason.
The first lash hit my back and a scream escaped my throat. Not because I wanted to beg, but because my body had no choice. The second, the third, and more came without pause. Heat spread, then turned into burning pain. With the next strikes, my clothes began to tear. Maria's clothes. The only thing I still had from her now destroyed before my eyes, just like her life once had been.
I collapsed after the tenth lash. My knees hit the ground, my head bowed, and my breath ragged. Julian walked closer, grabbed my hair and forced my head up so I had to look at him. His face was calm and satisfied as if he had just delivered justice.
"Lock her up for four days," he said coldly to Felix. "No food. No water."
I was released and my body dropped back to the ground. In my head, only one thought spun endlessly: my birthday gift wasn't books. It was a reminder that I still belonged to him.
Felix dragged me to the basement without a word. His grip was strong and cold, like he was moving damaged property. The iron door opened, and I was shoved inside. The room was narrow, damp, smelled of soil and rust. Before closing the door, he let out a long breath. Not pity, but more like exhaustion from a routine that never changed. Then he left me in the dark.
I collapsed on the floor. My back throbbed. Old wounds layered under new ones. Every tiny movement felt like my skin was being cut from the inside. I tried to breathe quietly, but my breaths were heavy, like my chest was carrying a growing weight.
In the darkness, the pain shifted into something else. Something hotter and sharper. It's like anger crawled into my chest. I hated Julian and I hated the way he treated me like I wasn't human, like my body and life were objects he could crush whenever he wanted.
I closed my eyes, not to surrender, but to keep that hatred from exploding uselessly. This had to end. Not with tears, not with begging. I would end it on my own way.
I curled up in the corner. My throat was dry, my breath short. Moonlight slipped in through a small window above, slicing the darkness like a thin blade. Then I heard footsteps. I looked up and saw Felix behind the bars. He was about forty-three. Tall, stiff posture, broad shoulders, a hard face with a strong jaw and eyes that always looked tired. Gray was creeping into his hair. His thin mustache was neat. His uniform was always clean, like he was trying to cover the rot of this house with discipline.
He threw a bottle of water at me. My hands shook as I caught it.
"This is all I can give you," he said briefly.
I opened it and drank greedily. Then he placed several books on the floor, pushing them through the bars. The bookstore books.
"Julian ordered me to burn these," he said. "But I want you to read them first."
I stared at him. "Why? If he finds out, you'll be punished. Whipped like me. Or worse."
"Relax. There's no executioner in this house who will whip me."
I swallowed. "You've whipped me dozens of times."
"And every time, it disgusted me more than it hurt you," he said quietly. "I'm not proud. But I won't pretend I'm holy either."
I picked up one book. "Why give these to me?"
"Because a free mind is more dangerous than a whip," he replied. "They want your body to submit. I want you to know the world can be more than this."
I looked at the cover. Then at him. "Are you afraid?"
"Every day," he said. "But fear can't be an excuse to let evil live."
He stepped back. "Read quickly."
The door closed softly.
For the first time, the pain on my back was defeated by something stronger. A dangerous hope.
Under the moonlight, I opened the book. The French Revolution. The pages smelled old, but the words felt alive. About starving people and feasting nobles. About humans treated as property. About systems that survive not because they are right, but because everyone is too afraid to fight them.
One line made my chest tremble: Freedom is not given. It is taken.
My hands trembled as I turned the pages. In that world, slaves, farmers, and the poor were called a stupid mass by the nobles, just like I was called an asset, an object, trash. And yet they were the ones who eventually brought kingdoms to their knees. Not with prayers, not with begging, but with the courage to say enough.
I closed my eyes for a moment. The lashes on my back still throbbed, but now the pain felt different. Not just suffering, but meaning and purpose. My body might be chained, but my mind had just found a way out.
I read about leaders who were not born from noble blood, but from wounds. About people who had lost everything, so they had nothing left to fear. About revolutions that began not with weapons, but with the realization that living as a slave was worse than dying as a rebel.
The book felt heavy in my hands. Not because of its size, but because its words pressed against my heart from the inside. I, a nameless Slave, without rights, without a future, was reading about a world where people like me had once stood up and won.
Ilifted my face toward the moonlight. Maybe I wasn't insane for hating this world. Maybe this world was the one that was wrong. I didn't want to just survive. I wanted to fight.
Four days, four nights. With my back still burning from wounds, with my empty stomach held together by bread that taste like a rock and a bottle of water from Felix, I read.
The first book, about the French Revolution, taught me that systems don't fall because of mercy, but because of collective courage. The second spoke of slavery in 18th and 19th century America. Of humans traded like livestock, of laws that protected owners, not victims. My hands shook reading it. There was no difference. Only the year had changed, but the methods were the same. The language of oppression was always the same, only repackaged to look modern.
The third book was about the slave rebellion in Haiti. Slaves who were illiterate, poor, starving, yet defeated empires. I read that part over and over again. They had no advanced weapons. They only had anger, desperation, and the courage to die. And that was enough.
Felix came every midnight. He opened the door slightly and threw in a bottle of water and a piece of bread.
"You still alive?" he asked briefly.
"Unfortunately," I answered.
He didn't laugh. But his eyes always changed, as if he was watching something grow and knew it was dangerous.
I read how slavery was always justified by economics, social stability, and security. Just like Gordon, just like Julian. They never called us human, they called us assets, resources, investments.
I read about revolutions that failed because they trusted the mercy of their rulers. About revolutions that succeeded because slaves stopped asking permission to live. About the truth that oppressors never give up power willingly. They must be forced and that was when I understood.
Revolution is not about revenge, it is about breaking the chain. About making sure no child is born only to inherit a whip and about ending a world that treats suffering as normal.
I swore Gordon would burn alive the people who wrote these books.
I closed the last book with trembling hands. My chest felt tight, not from sadness, but because it was filled with something new.
Purpose.
I didn't want freedom just for myself. I wanted this system to die. I wanted houses like Valemont to fall and I wanted slaves to stop calling themselves Slaves.
If they called me insane, so be it. If they called me a monster, I accepted it.
Because the real madness was letting slavery exist in the year 2187.
I stopped thinking about how to survive, right now, I started thinking about how to destroy.
On the fifth day, the cell door opened. No apology, no explanation, just Felix ordering me back to work as usual. As if there had been no four days of hunger. My body still hurt and my back still burned, but the world never cared about a slave's pain.
I washed floors, cleaned tables, wiped dust from expensive furniture worth more than my life. My hands moved automatically, but my mind was quiet. Inside, everything had changed. Every corner of this house now looked like a prison, not a home. Every painting felt like a mockery of the suffering that funded their luxury.
I carried a tray of food to Julian's study. He sat writing, like he had never destroyed my life, like he had never thrown my body into a trunk, like he had never ordered my punishment.
I set the food down.
"Get out," he said without looking at me.
I left silently. I did not bow, I did not say thank you. My silence was no longer submission, it was a warning he didn't even realize he had received.
Gordon, Markus, and Connor had gone to the office. The house felt lighter without them, though still poisoned. Victoria sat in the backyard, drinking tea under a white umbrella, elegant like a queen ruling a kingdom built on bones. Her eyes swept over me briefly, filled with calm hatred. I lowered my head, not out of respect, but because I wasn't ready to show the fire in my eyes.
That afternoon, the front yard became silent in the wrong way. A female Slave, only seventeen, only three months in the Valemont house, was caught holding a piece of bread from the dining table.
"What are you holding?" Markus asked coldly.
"I-I'm hungry, sir… just a little…" her voice broke.
Markus slapped her without hesitation. She stumbled, the bread falling to the ground.
"Thief," he said softly, as if it were the most disgusting crime in the world. "Felix!"
Felix came and his face hardened when he saw who stood in the yard.
"Twenty lashes," Markus ordered. "So she remembers her place."
The girl dropped to her knees. "Please, sir… I won't do it again… I was just hungry… please…"
Felix exhaled sharply. The whip rose and first strike made her scream, the second made her knees buckle and the third tore her clothes.
"Mercy… mercy… please…" her voice broke into sobs.
We, the other eight Slaves, stood in a line. No one moved, no one even dared to close their eyes.
The fifth lash dropped her to the ground.
"Stand up. Don't be dramatic," Markus said.
Felix pulled her up. She was nearly unconscious.
"Ten," Markus counted. "Only halfway."
Blood began to seep down her back. Her cries turned into hoarse, wordless sounds. Her body reacted to pain, not commands.
"Why do you always steal?" Markus asked casually. "You're fed. You're given a bed."
Fed.
Like feeding a dog so it can keep hunting.
By the fifteenth lash, she no longer screamed. Only weak sobs, like a broken doll.
"Twenty," Markus finally said. "Enough."
Felix lowered the whip. His hand shook slightly, but his face stayed blank. The girl lay on the ground, barely conscious.
"Drag her to the kitchen," Markus ordered, walking away as if he'd watched something ordinary.
That night in the kitchen, under dim oil lamps, I cleaned her wounds and gently applied salve. Her hands trembled, her eyes lowered, but her pain wasn't just from the whip. It was from a world that didn't care.
The other Slaves sat around us. Eight of them. Pale faces, nervous eyes, just like I once was. No one dared look at me too long. One word, one movement could summon Valemont's or Felix's rage. We had no names here, no voices, we're just moving objects.
I looked at them and said quietly, "We can't go on like this. It has to stop. You think she's the only one suffering today? No. It's all of us. Every day."
Silence.
"I know you're afraid," I continued. "I am too. But if we stay quiet, they will keep crushing us. No one is coming to save us. No one cares."
One Slave whispered, "B-but how? They have power. Weapons. Whips…"
I stared at him.
"We have something they don't. Courage they haven't seen yet. We have our minds. And we have each other. If we start planning, slowly, carefully, we can change everything. Not all at once. But it starts here."
They were silent, afraid, but some eyes began to burn.
I finished applying the salve and said softly,
"Tomorrow, we begin. No talking outside. No recklessness. But we begin. We will not be Slaves forever."
They stared at me. Their bodies stiff, and their eyes trembling.
That was the beginning.
A small fire they would never be able to put out.
I smiled faintly in the darkness, even as my back still burned.
That fire would become a rebellion, and I would be the one to light it.