The Ascension (Book One): Toss the Dice

Chapter Twenty - Four

"I'm sorry." Said Derek from beside me and I turned to look at him.

"Wha' are ya sorry fer?" I asked.

"I don't like this job and if I had a choice I wouldn't sell you into slavery. You seem like a nice enough person and I shouldn't have talked to you. Now I feel guiltier than I did before." He put his head in his hands. "I never wanted to do this job." He said. "My brother said that this was the only way to keep our little sister from being sold into slavery and to keep us from being forced to join the Zillithian or Cronian armies. So we became slave traders but when we came back from our first raid we found that our mother had been killed and our sister had been taken but we were in the business now and my brother told me that we couldn't stop now that we started. I tried to quit but my brother told me that if I quit now he would kill me himself rather than see me tortured to death. I didn't want to make my brother go through with that and so I kept doing it. He was one of the crew members who was caught in Jalk. The Captain sent us in to kill them ourselves, we snuck in and I slit my brothers throat myself and had to cover his mouth so that he wouldn't scream and alert anyone that we had killed them. But talking to you has made me feel even guiltier about what I'm doing."

I put my hand on his and he looked up at me, tears in his eyes. "I's all righ'." I said. "I'm sorry fer yar losses. Bu' I've ascepted my fa'e on the ship. I'll be fine."

Derek nodded and wiped the few tears that had escaped from his eyes. He sat up straight and sniffed away all the other tears.

"I'll make sure that your sold to someone better than the scumbags that took my sister and I'll make sure to get out of this business and try to fix this country as much as I, as one person, can. I'll try to stop the slave trade." He said.

"Fanks." I said, smiling. A knock came at the door leading into the room that Sheera had disappeared into. Derek looked up at it and then back down at me.

"That's the knock that indicates that it's your turn to be sold."

I nodded and stood as Derek led me toward the door. He opened it and patted me once on the head, making sure not to disturb the fancy hair do that the orange dressed lady had done. I looked up at him and saw that he had slight tears in his eyes. I nodded and gave him a weak smile. He nodded back and sniffed away his last tear. "Sorry." He whispered as he opened the door and led me into the room beyond. "Just don't say anything."

In the next room the walls were made of a dark mahogany wood. The carpets were in dark shades of purples and reds. To my right there was a fireplace with a crackling fire setting a cheery glow in the room where a group of people were selling other human beings for money. I tried to clear my face of all emotion so that no one would ever know exactly what I was thinking. Sitting to my left was a large group of men and women. All the men were dressed in dark green suits and had tall dark green top hats and coats hooked onto large mahogany coat rack. Sitting next to them or on the floor, chained to the men's chairs were girls. All of them dressed in different colors in different styles of fabric. They were obviously all girl who had been sold to the men all around the room. Some of the girls looked frightened and others were like me, with blank expressions on their faces. But a large amount of the girls simply looked around with anger on their faces. Dark expressions that said they wanted to kill anyone who came to close to them.

Derek led me to the center of the room, directly between the half circle of men and the fireplace where the fire still crackled happily. The fire began warming my back as Derek pulled out a piece of paper and began reading from it.

"This girl has no country of origin. She was with a group of pirates when stolen and has no given name either. She was taken from the city of Jalk where her pirate ship was docked. As you can see she had long white hair that falls all the way to her knees. There is a slight red streak in the back that goes all the way from the top of her head to the tips of her hair." He turned me around so the men could see the back of my hair. He turned me back around as he continued with his narration. "She is prone to fight against authority from time to time and is known as quite the troublemaker. She isn't very good at household chores but she is a quick learner and knows how take orders. She has a good body," Derek cringed at that part. "With a unique skin color and hourglass shape. We are starting the bidding at five hundred quibbles."