My head was banging as I tried to open my eyes, but a severe pain shot through my skull, forcing a broken groan past my lips. The world around me felt distant, like I was sinking beneath dark water.
I could hear voices faintly in the background, murmurs blending into one another, but I couldn't make out what they were saying at first. Everything sounded muffled, unreal.
It took everything in me to finally open my eyes after a long, exhausting battle with the darkness.
The first thing I saw was a girl curled to the side beside me, sobbing with her head bowed, her shoulders trembling violently. The room looked strange,.unfamiliar.
My eyes moved on their own, scanning the entire space slowly as my vision adjusted. I saw many other girls like me. Some were young, my age, maybe even younger, while others were older, their faces hardened by something I couldn't yet name.
Fear gripped me as I began to understand the situation I had found myself in.
The room was huge, large enough to house about thirty to forty girls. The air smelled stale, thick with sweat, fear, and something metallic. I realized I was lying on the bare ground, the cold concrete biting into my skin. I was still in my nightwear.
The nightwear that was supposed to be white was now smeared with thick blood stains and dirt. My breath hitched.
That was when everything dawned on me.
The blood was my father's.
One minute my father was killed in front of me, shot down like he was nothing, and the next minute I was here, in a filthy room filled with women from God knows where.
The sorrow I had forgotten in the shock came crashing back with full force. Tears pooled in my eyes, blurring my vision. My head throbbed violently, threatening to split open as I wept bitterly for my dead father. I did not even get a proper chance to mourn him before I was dragged into whatever nightmare this was.
"Bitch, stop being noisy!" one of the mature girls suddenly shouted at the girl close to me, the one who had been crying.
Her harsh voice sliced through the room, but it only made the poor girl cry harder.
"I said stop crying! Your tears are not going to solve anything. You're only disturbing our peace," she snapped again irritably.
I forced my eyes open wider to observe what was happening. The girl didn't seem capable of stopping. If anything, she cried louder, probably out of fear. But the older girl wasn't having it. She stood up and walked toward her with deliberate steps.
"Pretty little things like you get sold easily in the slave market," she sneered, grabbing the crying girl by the hair and yanking her head back.
"Leaving girls like us without a master year after year."
My heart skipped.
Slave market?
"I wonder what would happen to you if I cut off that mouth of yours," she continued cruelly. "It would save us from the noise and give girls like us—who have been here for years—a chance to finally be bought tonight."
So we were to be sold tonight to a new master?
My mind went blank from the shock. Sold? Auctioned? Like objects?
Before I could fully process what I had just heard, the older girl called on some of her minions.
"Jane, come help hold her down while I deal with that pretty face of hers."
The crying girl tried to fight back, but they were stronger than her.
"Bitch, you dare to put up a fight?" The older girl slapped her hard and kicked her in the stomach.
I looked around desperately. The other girls pretended not to see what was happening. Some looked away. Others stared blankly, as if they had grown used to such brutality.
"Let me tell you something," the older girl spat.
"Even if we kill you here, it's the slave market. No one gives a fuck about what happens to you. Hold her down," she commanded again.
Something inside me snapped.
I couldn't just watch another person get killed in front of me. I had just watched my father die. The pain and anger that had been suffocating me suddenly found direction. I forced myself to stand despite the dizziness and confronted them.
"Let her go," I said, my voice trembling but loud enough.
The girls froze mid-action and slowly turned to look at me.
"What did you say?" one of them asked, narrowing her eyes.
"I said let her go," I repeated, even though my heart was pounding violently against my ribs.
She laughed hysterically.
"Two beauties, kicked out of the competition. What a night. Maybe we'll finally be lucky and get bought," she said, her eyes shining with twisted excitement. The others chuckled darkly.
They made me sick. Who gets happy to be a slave? Only in this cursed room could someone see bondage as salvation.
"You both are sick," I spat. "You need to be in a psych ward."
"And you need to be in the morgue," they retorted.
Before I could react, they pounced on me.
I couldn't fight them off. My body was still weak, my head spinning. Slaps rained down on my face. Kicks landed on my stomach and back. Pain exploded everywhere.
"Hold her down!" I heard one of them shout.
I stopped struggling.
A bitter thought crossed my mind, maybe it wouldn't be so bad if they killed me. Maybe I would see Papa again. How was I supposed to survive without him? The world had already ended for me the moment he died.
Tears streamed down my face as I lay there, waiting for whatever they planned to do.
"What is going on here?"
A sharp woman's voice cut through the chaos like a blade. The girls immediately stopped.
"Just teaching the new girls some manners," one of them replied smoothly.
My heart heaved as they released me. I dropped to the floor fully, curling slightly as my stomach throbbed from the earlier kicks.
The woman ignored the tension in the room as if it was nothing unusual.
"Everyone, when your name is called, Bruno here will bring you out front. If you are lucky, you will be bought tonight and go home with your new master. If you are not so lucky, you will stay back until the next auction."
She spoke like she was explaining the rules of a
game.
"If you don't understand anything, you may ask questions."
Silence lingered for a moment.
"When can we go back home? I don't want to be a slave," one of the girls who had been quiet asked softly, her voice shaking.
The woman's expression did not change.
"It is not your choice to make. You all have one thing in common, you have no parents and nobody to go back to. Some of your families owed the Mafia families and every debt must be paid. Some of your families were criminals. This is the only way you can pay their debt which you have inherited."
A chill ran down my spine.
"Why doesn't everyone go directly to the Mafia family they owe?" I asked, bitterness coating my tongue. "Why bring us here to be sold?"
Her eyes landed on me, and she smiled faintly.
"Brilliant question." The word felt like mockery.
"This is to show you that you have no power of your own anymore. It is a game to them, and they love it. They strip you of your power, reduce you to filth. It is a warning. A demonstration of what happens if you ever betray them."
The room felt smaller.
"But it is not all bad," she continued casually.
"Most slaves go on to become mistresses—respected women in society. Some have even earned the right to be kept as pets, collared, personally belonging to the master who bought them. If you play your game right, you might even earn your freedom."
My heart dropped at every word.
"So it's a lifetime contract?" I asked bitterly.
"Correct."
The finality in her tone crushed whatever fragile hope I had been clinging to.
"Now, if there are no other questions, I will take my leave. Our guests will arrive shortly. And don't even think of running. This place is heavily guarded, unless you are courting death."
With that, she turned gracefully on her heels and left the room, the echo of her steps fading down the corridor.
And just like that, we were left alone again, waiting to be sold.