Numen (Draft 3)

Chapter 1

Numen is the type of place you would compare with Hell. Except, it is filled with Angels, golds and whites, skyscrapers that stroke the clouds and of course, riches galore. For Angels, this place is a haven; delicious gourmet cuisine at every corner, beautiful flowy clothes that sit perfectly against the body underneath, futuristic machinery and technology powered with magic, wing salons and of course, slaves to do all the work. However, if you are not an Angel, you are a slave, and you are going to have a very tough time... Slaves in Numen have become the most prized and expensive commodity. The more you own, the higher your status. However, slave life is never easy and if you've managed to fall into a cruel master's hands, then good luck surviving!

My name is Aristotle, but nobody's used my full name since the crowning I received when I was three. Everyone just called me Ari for short and I lived with my brother Loki in level 100 in the Canaan Tower, also known as the 'Emperor's suite.' We were born twin Angels, twin Angel royalty. But life as Angel royalty didn't last long for me. No; after I witnessed my father (the previous Emperor) stab and throw my mother off the balcony, he had other plans for me. I hate calling him my father, I only addressed him as Orion, his name. He had this magic, the power to control other's minds, and thus, their actions. He used it on my brother, who he forced to become my master against his will, and he enslaved me, saying I wasn't his son, and that I would never be his son, even though Loki somehow was... I was thirteen.

What ensued was six and half years of torture, starvation, humiliation, and hell. Everything about me being an Angel seemed to go out the window for Orion, he treated me like every other slave. I received a horrible thing called a slave-seal; a branding created with the master's blood pressed onto the bare skin of the slave. The blood contained the power to initiate shocks at the site, to control the slave. It almost acted like a shock collar, to teach obedience and discipline. It was done on the neck, where it was usually done for all slaves. Loki was being controlled the entire time that Orion taught him to reign the kingdom for he was to be the next Emperor... When he was controlled, the golden magic that glazed his eyes made him blind to what he was doing, and deaf to my screams. Soon, everyone thought his eyes were naturally gold, even though I knew they were the same blue as mine... Soon, everyone forgot I existed. I had merely been couped up and tucked away from the public, kept behind glass cells like an animal, forced onto my hands and knees in front of my brother, been starved and beaten every day and used as a sex toy for Loki's associates and colleagues for years on end.

Halfway through these years of hell, Loki one night sat with me in my cell. Orion had given us exactly three minutes to be together as ourselves. He held me tightly, hugged me and bawled with me while he squeezed my skeletal body and sobbed, repeating how sorry he was. It had been two weeks without a single meal. The other Elf and demon slaves around me had been fed, but Orion hadn't given me anything... It was then Loki showed me a dagger he'd stolen from Orion during a conference with the kingdom, he told me he'd kill him to get me free. I watched in silence with the final minute Loki had been given uncontrolled as he flew upwards with the dagger and implanted it directly into the back of Orion's neck. Loki went into a fit of rage as he stabbed it repeatedly into his back, chest, neck and finally head. He was well and truly dead. However, the control on Loki didn't die and Orion's spirit continued to torment him, knowing the magic he'd injected into Loki's veins wouldn't disappear just by killing him. The next day, Loki became the emperor, gold-eyed and solemn. Being a slave that day became even harder. Orion wasn't even there, and Loki was still spurring the same things Orion had taught him to say to me. I had to keep remembering that it wasn't Loki's fault and that he had no control over his actions, but it got so hard sometimes to differentiate. Occasionally he'd manage to break free for small moments, and in those moments, he'd try to feed me, tend to the injuries he'd given me or just give me a hug and tell me it wouldn't last forever. But those three and half years just didn't seem to end. I was the only Angel who'd managed to become a slave in a kingdom where being an Angel was supposed to be a euphoric paradise. Even my wings didn't work. So, while other Angels were soaring with their friends, enjoying sky lounges and ceiling hammocks, I was stuck on the ground, usually on my knees, hidden from the public.