Uprising

by J. Thorn

  The guards formed us into a line. As I shuffled to the front of it, I willed myself to find the silence my grandfather had always cherished, the great silence where I could find that which I seek. I had never truly understood those words until that moment. In the silence, I could be anything I wanted. In the silence, there could be peace despite the world around me.

  I stepped forward, and they pushed me into a rickety chair and shaved my head. I watched my black locks hit the floor but didn’t even have the time to mourn them before the men were stripping me naked. They made crude remarks before throwing me stiff clothes that were crawling with lice. All the while, I felt as if I had been watching myself from afar—as if this was happening to some other Rayna. But when they pinned me down like an animal and stuffed a dirty rag in my mouth, I began to lose my composure.

  I watched as a guard fingered a long steel poker by the fire pit flaming in the far corner. His fingers twirled as a light melody blew from his lips. I tried to shift my arm that lay flat and rigid against the hard surface of the slab where they’d pinned me.

  The protective silence had eluded me, and my attention was firmly focused on the man with the poker. I looked at one of the guards holding me, my eyes pleading with the tears I could no longer control.

  I spit the rag from my mouth.

  “What’s he going to do with that? What are you doing?” I couldn’t control the shrilling quiver in my voice.

  He laughed and then jammed the rag back into my mouth with his fist.

  “Shut up and bite down, bitch. You’re about to get your answer.”

  My gaze shifted back to the man at the fire as he pulled what I thought was a poker from the hot coals, the steel ends glowing a vivid blood-orange. I shook my head—a hot brand, not a poker. This couldn’t be happening.

  No!

  The word gurgled in my throat as he stalked closer and I saw the number 11 float before me like fiery campfire coals. I wanted to fight, but I couldn’t move since several of the men were holding me down. The smell of charred flesh filled my nose as the hot steel branded the skin on my right forearm, casting sickly smoke into the air. I clenched my teeth against the rag with all the strength I had left.

  Grandpa.

  His face filled my mind like a beautiful mirage before the room spun black.

  3

  I’d thought I’d grown accustomed to pain and often commended myself on how well I could ignore it. Years of crawling and scavenging through the putrid lake had a way of increasing your pain threshold. I’d been wrong. No bruise or scrape I’d had before could compare to the agony I felt as the guards threw me into a cell with a fresh brand on my right arm.

  My head felt light and dizzy while nausea gripped my stomach. The deranged cries of the men and women in other cells rang out around me, but I heard none of them. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t think.

  The cell couldn’t have been more than 500 square feet, the floor covered with dead roaches and an ashen beam of natural light seeping in from a barred window where the wall met the ceiling about 20 feet up. A few minutes passed before I realized I wasn’t alone in the cell. I lifted my head from the cradle of my arms as a person stepped up to me. My eyes landed on a scuffed boot as her voice cut through the prison cacophony with a strident swing.

  “You can’t lay there. The rats will eat you for supper, especially with that red-raw burn on your arm.”

  The sound of her voice irritated my mental wounds while my fingers were pressing on my physical ones.

  I stood up, not looking for a fight in my condition but feeling one brewing in my stomach. “Please don’t tell me what to do.”

  For a brief second, I faced her. She appeared to be in her late teens or early twenties—about my age. I was as tall as her, but she had a narrower frame. Her head had been shaved, and she had delicately placed features and pronounced cheekbones with fair skin. Even through the dim lighting, her wide-set blue eyes sparkled.

  “I’m just trying to help you out.”

  I turned my back on the girl in a fast spin, gripping the bars and shaking them. I was sick and tired of seeing bars and I was going to tear them out, one by one. I wanted answers. I wanted Corvus to pay for what he’d done to me and my home. I wanted Asher and my grandfather, and I wanted to turn back the clock and start all over again.

  “Where am I? What is this place?”

  I screamed the words into the void, now contributing to the panicked and deranged voices that I’d recoiled from only a few minutes before. Nobody heard my cries. Nobody was going to give me the answers I needed. I felt a hand on my shoulder which snapped me from my thoughts.

  “Hey! Stop, would ya! You seriously need to chill.”

  I spun around and faced her, my arm pulsing and my head already itchy with razor burn.

  “Get your hands off me.”

  She flashed her palms and took a step back. That’s when I noticed the guy sitting crossed-legged on a torn cot. He was leaning into the sharp angle of the cell corner, his dark eyes set inside a cloak of smooth, ebony skin. I thought he was the same age as the girl, but his eyes skittered up and down as if he had a battle raging inside of his head. His thick lips stretched into a waning smile before he turned away.

  Taking a step forward, I clenched my teeth and eyeballed the girl. “What is going on here?”

  “You better calm down. Jules and I are not your enemy, but we can be if you don’t settle down.”

  We glared at each other, neither looking away. The quiet guy sat in the corner’s shadows and didn’t move, but I could sense his growing interest in me.

  Before I could respond, the girl spoke again. “I’m Kora and this is Julyen. He won’t hurt you but he is a bit slow sometimes. Got hit on the head and sometimes he’s here, and sometimes he isn’t.”

  “Rayna,” I said, my voice breaking from a raw throat as I looked again at Julyen with softer eyes.

  She ran her fingernails over her stubbly scalp and shook her head. “You want to know where you are, Rayna? You’re in hell.”

  I scowled at her as my burnt arm began to pulse like an insect was trying to burrow out of it. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  Pivoting in a half-turn, she rolled up her sleeve to reveal the scarred markings on her own branded skin.

  “I’m 555, and he’s 29. What’d you get?”

  “Eleven. What does it mean?”

  “It means they own you now. You’ll either be sold at market or remain here to work the railroads. Either way, you’re done.”

  My heart dropped.

  “Nah. I’m getting out of here. I don’t belong here.”

  She laughed.

  “There ain’t no way outta here, honey. You’re in the pit now. Get used to it.”

  She backed away slowly, a sly smile plastered on her lips as she turned her back on me and made for the cot and her silent friend, who watched me still without a word.

  4

  I awoke with a raw itch in my throat that felt as though I’d swallowed a hot wire. Sitting straight up in my bunk, I struggled to shake the fog from my head and focus on the surroundings and the guttural voices barking orders. I heard the creaking of rusty hinges as the cell door opened. The burn in my throat spread to my stomach, creating an ache to go along with the reluctant anticipation caused by early morning visitors.

  Two guards stood at the cell entrance, dressed identically in gritty, gray threads and long boots. They pointed at Kora and Julyen.

  “Out. Now.”

  My eyes darted away from the guards to Kora and Julyen as they scampered to the front of the cell silently, their eyes locked on the thick layer of grime covering the floor. They passed by me without a glance and walked into the hallway, joining a line of other prisoners heading down the long, dank corridor.

  I swallowed hard. Where are they taking them?

  Without another word, the guards slammed the cell door shut and I was left alone.

  I couldn’t decide
if I was angry at Kora for leaving me behind or pissed at the guards because they hadn’t taken me, as well. Probably both. My brand had stopped bleeding, but it would be days before it scabbed over, leaving me with an oozing, pinkish, bloody liquid that I wanted to dig my nails into but could barely touch. Eleven. That would be a number I’d live with for the rest of my life, which at this point felt like it could be measured in days. Eleven. Maybe being branded as Three would have been more appropriate for someone as desperate as me. Death would come after three weeks without food, three days without water.

  Just as I slumped back down into my wrangled cot and closed my eyes, the cell door opened again and I was greeted by a deep, gravelly voice.

  “You next. Let’s go.”

  I raised my head, but apparently it wasn’t fast enough for the guard stomping toward me. His fingers grasped my elbow as he yanked me to my feet.

  For a split second, I turned a brazen eye on him. That old Hydran temper flared and I could almost hear Grandpa telling me to calm down. Telling someone to calm down almost never calms them down.

  “If I have to say it again, you’ll wish the brand was the only pain you had to deal with.”

  I glanced away and allowed him to push me into the corridor.

  He led me toward the room where they had lined us up the day before, the place filled with the same people who had crossed the desert with me in the wagon. Except now, we all looked alike—hairless and branded, with lice-infested threads barely covering our bruised bodies.

  “Go, maggots! Go!”

  “Don’t make us split your skulls!”

  “You stink like garbage. Now, move!”

  Prodded by their shouts and insults, we ran like a herd through a different door than the previous day. A rush of dry, hot air hit me in the face as a ray of bleak morning light came over the mountains on the eastern horizon. I hadn’t been here long, but I wasn’t fooled by the weak light. In an hour or two, the sun would be over the peaks and blasting us with unforgiving intensity.

  We stumbled into a dirt yard bordered by high walls capped with razor wire. As I milled about with the other prisoners, I looked to the perimeter of the yard. I noticed the strangling barbed wire that curled and dangled along the fence and the towers shadowing the complex. My mind had already begun to sift out the possibilities for an escape when I spotted it. There, perched atop a wall, was a magnificent bald eagle—and he appeared to be staring right at me.

  When I was a child, my grandfather would tell me stories about the continent’s mystic creatures. My favorite was the tale he’d spin about the elusive American bald eagle. He said the early people of our world believed the eagle to be sacred because it flew much higher than other birds. To see one means you will be bestowed freedom and courage.

  I noticed the eagle’s pure, white, feathered head and yellow beak, and for the barest of moments I forgot the squalor of the prison and marveled at the bird’s majestic presence. For reasons I cannot explain, I felt my grandfather’s energy in that bird. Maybe he had come to deliver a message to me.

  Freedom. Courage.

  “Listen up!”

  I startled, spinning around to see a man emerge from the prison building and stalk purposefully toward us. He wore the same clothes as the other guards except his garments looked freshly scrubbed, his leather boots even gleaming under a fresh polish. He was unusually tall with square shoulders that seemed to rotate in an exaggerated motion as he moved.

  Men and women carrying all sorts of weapons followed him, some of them dressed in guard uniforms while some wore prison garb—like us. Several of the prisoners near me began to whine, looking from the armed guards to the wall where old blood stains had darkened it into a dirty shade of burgundy. They wouldn’t have gone through all this trouble just to execute us now, would they? My fellow prisoners had already jumped to that conclusion, but I felt as though we were in for something far worse than a quick death.

  I swung my head in the direction of the eagle, but the bird had taken flight, soaring high and free above us.

  5

  I knew at once that the man with the broad shoulders held a higher rank than the other guards. His dress, movements, and demeanor had been crisp since he appeared. Precise. He didn’t waste motion and he didn’t waste words. I watched as he stopped a few yards from our group, his eyes glaring at us from under a shock of thick grey hair. He spent several moments with his arms behind his back and his feet spread, looking at each of us from head to toe. After what felt like hours of uncomfortable silence, he spoke.

  “Property.” His wiry moustache curved at the edges above the hint of a grin. He began a slow pace along the length of the line, making hard and prolonged eye contact with all two dozen of us as he went along.

  “Your life no longer belongs to you. You have been branded as our property. You are nothing but a number now. Everything you knew, everyone you knew. Gone. All of it.” He paused and looked to the sky, picking each word as it floated down from above. “You will be sold into slavery or work here on the tracks. Today’s examination will determine how you will spend the rest of your life.”

  The guards who had brought the weapons had arranged them in various locations within the prison yard. I saw wooden staves, bows with soft arrowheads, and clubs. Unfortunately for me, no Band. No Bright. I had a feeling that the skills I’d honed in my days sparring at the Troll and practicing with our forbidden weapons would be put to the test.

  The man stopped again, inhaling the silence and seeming to feed off the nervousness it created amongst the prisoners.

  His long arms gestured widely.

  “You will fight. We will assess. That is all you need to know.” The wrinkles etched in his rugged skin creased deeper. He turned to the guards with a single word. “Begin.”

  They sprang into action, belting out orders and separating us into two seemingly random groups. I couldn’t stop my heart from racing as I stepped into the line sent to the steel framework that had been erected in the middle of the yard. I heard some whispers from the other prisoners—those who’d believed we’d be hanged from those bars. But that didn’t make any sense. The man in charge worked with a cold efficiency that told me we’d already have been dead if he believed we had no value. But from what I could see of the other prisoners, some of us would be by sundown.

  “Grab the bars with both hands. Pull your chin up to it until it touches and then drop back down and do it again. Don’t let go.”

  The instructions had come from a guard, his words steady and flat as if he’d said them many times. It made me realize that every other person who’d ever been in here had had the same thoughts I was having.

  But I had seen the eagle. That had to matter.

  “You! Go first!”

  Another guard dragged a kid to the bars—the guy who’d tried to escape in the desert the day before. His swollen and bruised face made it appear as if he had his eyes closed. His shirt had fallen off his shoulders, his body so malnourished that it couldn’t support the thin fabric.

  He stood under the bars and peered up at them with tears in his eyes. I held my breath as he turned to the guards.

  “Please, I can barely move my arms. I can’t.”

  The guards jeered and stamped their clubs into the dirt. One guard stepped closer and gave him a hard shove.

  “Go on! You can either do it or you can’t, you sack of crap. You sure you want to give up already?”

  Even from where I stood, I could see the roll of the kid’s throat as he gulped and tried to hold back the tears. He looked back up at those bars as if his life depended on it, and we all knew it did. His thin arms reached up half-heartedly as he grasped the steel and squeezed his eyes shut. He winced as he strained to pull his weight up, but his fingers slipped from the bars.

  He collapsed to the dirt in a heap, his frail body trembling at the guard’s feet. The guards broke out in laughter as one of them kicked the kid in the back while he attempted to get to his knees. An awf
ul shriek tore from his lips and he crumbled into the dirt again.

  “Fail. Away with him.”

  The master’s words had cut through the guards’ laughter, stopping them as they hovered over the trembling boy. One of them nodded and addressed the leader. “Yes, Drake.”

  The man grimaced at the sound of his name, and I had a feeling that some prison protocol had just been breached. The other guards stopped, looking at the one who’d answered the leader I now knew as Drake.

  “In my quarters. Sundown. Now, away with him.”

  The guards dragged the kid off by the arms while his screams echoed through the courtyard.

  “No! Please, no! Let me try again. I can do it, I swear I can do it!”

  But the guards never broke stride and the kid’s pleas for a second chance went unheard as they took him back inside the complex.

  After watching that unfold, prisoners went through the examinations two at a time without so much as a word. They did the best they could while the guards took notes. All the while, I remained silently thankful for the years I’d spent crawling Lake Union and building my upper-body strength. When my turn came, it wasn’t the pull-ups that had me worried; it was whatever these beastly people would be deciding based on my performance. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do well on this test.

  I stepped up to the bars with a hammer in my chest. As I curled my hands around the cold steel and began pulling my chin up, I blocked out everything around me and willed my aching muscles to cooperate while the brand on my right arm began to burn again. Even when I’d pushed out about twelve pull-ups and the girl beside me dropped after two, I kept going. I pulled on those bars until my hands stung raw and my arms turned to jelly. Finally, it was number twenty-five that got the best of me.