Freya

Part 1

''Freya," the owner of the gruff voice said, opening the door, "it's your turn to get up.''

With a nod, I got up from the dirty floor of my cell, casting a glance towards the dirty-haired keeper I got out from there. My eyebrows furrowed as I thought about what task they will give me today. I hope I don't have to clean the dungeons.

I kept my head down as we walked down the familiar path. After living in this place all my life, I know the paths like the back of my hands. I soon figured that we were going towards the hall. I scrunched up my eyebrows as I thought about all the times they warned us to never enter the hall by the keepers.

The ban has always made me curious about what's in there, but even my mother, who has lived 50 years of her life spent here, has never entered or seen the hall. The place where we live, my home, is called PTH by the keepers. They say that there are few of us humans left here in this world and that it's their job to make sure that we don't vanish from the face of this world.

As I entered the room, my eyes went towards the rusty window. It was open, which caused my eyes to widen. They rarely allow us to open the windows, even though the stench of the place sometimes makes the keepers sick. We are different. The keepers and us. Yet, we are so similar. My mother told me that the keepers were the superior version of us humans. Far stronger than us, their senses are also sharper than ours, which explains why they get sick so often because of the hideous smell inside this place. I always wondered why they won't just keep the windows open if they hate the smell so much, but apparently, they are not as smart as we believe them to be.

Pulling myself back from my thoughts, I glanced outside again. Black clouds filled the sky, not a speck of sunlight, large trees, and a few birds flying outside. Maybe it's going to rain today. The cool gust of wind coming from the window made me shiver, tousling my hair in the air. Sweeping my hair behind my ear, I moved towards the other side where the others were standing in a queue. I gave a nod to a redhead looking towards me; that's Mr. Lucas. He was the keeper that was assigned to my mother at her birth, way friendlier than my keeper and way nicer. Mr. Lucas used to share his food with me whenever I was given a punishment. Another thing different about the keepers is that they age much slower than us. That's what Mr. Lucas had told me. Mr. Lucas turned 178 a few days ago, but he looks the same age as Martha, my older sister who is 20? No, maybe she is 23? I'll have to ask her about her age.

All this thinking made the time pass quickly and by the time I returned to my senses I found out that the Head Keeper was saying something.

"—saddened to say that even after all our efforts, we can't keep this place floating for much longer. There are many others outside this place, completely different from all of you that want to shut down this place," there were gasps from all around the hall "We have little choice but to send a few of you out so, there are many nobles that want you. They will pay a high price too. Your designated keepers will explain this matter to you ‌and you can decide among yourselves who wants to volunteer to go. Remember, your sacrifice today will help others like you in the future."

When the head finished speaking, I could hear a few sniffles and whimpers. Maybe everyone was scared. Perhaps they were all already mourning the ones that would go. All I know is that I'll be volunteering. I want to see what's beyond these walls. Who knows what the outside world holds for us?

This is not what I signed up for. I know I said I'd willingly sign up to volunteer, but nobody told me that I'd have to work at the king's mansion. After training me to be in the outside world for the last month, the least they could do was to tell me who I'd work for. All the knowledge I got from the training was mostly the history of this world. It's called Earth. Used to have a lot of humans, they got arrogant and offended the mythical beings. It's not clear how they did it or how they managed to offend so much of them. There are a lot of them. Centaurs, trolls, elves, pixies, and whatnot. Some books stated that the humans wanted to keep the centaurs and the griffins as rides. Keep the elves and pixies as pets, but nobody knows for sure. All the beings that knew about these events are either dead or don't remember most of it.

My main question is how did they have the time to teach us the history of this planet (although it was very interesting) but not about the beings we are supposed to serve. By we, I mean the only 5 girls that willingly volunteered. None of the males volunteered. Maybe they were smart for not doing so.

The head keeper told us that we will be teleported to the mansion, he did not want us to know the way to lessen the possibility of us running. Or trying to be heroes and come back to save the others. How would we even be able to do this and what do we have to save the others from? The head keeper is a little silly.

Alas, before we knew what was happening all three of us standing in front of a mansion. We learned during our training that big houses are called mansions. Oh! And that the keepers are called wolves... werewolves!

My first impression of the mansion was that it was very sparkly and bright. There was a lot of red, black, gold and yellow color. It was as if the had fairies puked on it. Before I had the time even inspect the naked mermaid fountain, I was startled by the sound of choking.

Lo and behold a naked man came running from the door straight towards us. Two of the girls were already on the floor, the other two were cowering in front of me truth, be told I was the one who ran to hide behind them, while the choking sound seemed to be coming from the head. His teeth were out and there was saliva splashing out from his mouth, his tongue dangling in the air.

Looking at him like this I think I might have even peed a little.

Before we could even understand what was happening the naked man had already jumped in the air. The last thing I heard before fainting was " Doggie—

In actuality I had not fainted nor do I think the previous two girls did, but in our training, we had learned to face any danger by fainting. I had planned to just lay there and act as if I had fainted but who knew I was too careless. I slipped and banged my head against the fountain. My head burned when I started to wake up that was when I understood what my stupidity has caused me. It has cost me my only chance to escape with the rest. Who knows I might have already been half-eaten or attracted those blood-thirsty vampires. Though I do not feel any pain other than in my head who knows they might be waiting for me to wake up before they finish me off. I hope that I've sour blood and rotten meat, if they do decide to finish me off I don't want them to have a good time.