Strangers By Nature | Red Dead Redemption II |

Chapter One | Denounment of the O'Driscoll's

I'm thinking of ending things. Once this thought arrives it sticks, it stays. It lingers. It doesn't go away. Believe me, I've tried to make disappear. It dominates my mind. It overtakes my thoughts.

The idea isn't new. It's old. I've been thinking of this for years. Ever since that fateful night, I've been plagued. It sounds more uncertain than it is, thinking is but a question. However, this thought is growing less and less vague and more and more solid.

Sitting in this tent all I can do is contemplate until I'm called upon for some disturbed task. Whether that be the slaughter of a few folks who owe these people money or a blood bath of a robbery.

I haven't been with the O'Driscolls for a short time. I've been here since I was young. Fifteen to be exact. After I-
"Peter! Get out here!" Someone slapped on the fabric of my tent, shouting and shattering my train of thought.
"I'll be right there," I said aloud, standing up lazily.

I'd heard some commotion, they'd surely brought in some sort of prisoner. I pity the fool who was captured, as nothing but hell awaits them. There are three treatments I've observed for prisoners or hostages. They'll be tortured violently, fingernails ripped off, skin peeled, bones broken. And that's the most humane treatment.

The other option is slavery. Sexual slavery. You'll be chained up in a pair of stocks, bent over like some sort of sex object. Man or woman. It didn't matter, the idea throughout this hell was a hole is a hole. But this monicker only applied to the slaves. If you were caught with another man outside of that you'd be mutilated and killed as a display.

Then the third treatment was only for women. They'd be raped, horribly. I can still hear the screaming to this day. Then after nine months, a new O'Driscoll would be born. And if it wasn't a boy, the baby girl would grow to have the same duty as the mother.

I didn't want to leave my glorified pillow fort. I don't like it here, I'm terrified to close my eyes. I'd leave if I could. It isn't hard to escape, I just have to leave. But after a certain amount of time, they'd consider me a runaway. And they'd send several men out to find me. And they always did. All the runaways I'd seen had always been brought back. And they'd be subject to one of the three punishments.

Death seems like the only escape, the only way to free myself from this horror that I unknowingly committed myself to. I never should have agreed to come here, never should have even considered it. What an idiot I was.

I left my tent, crawled outside and took in the putrid air. The air that always smelled of death. I've never been sure if it's from the human bodies or the dead livestock.

We'd moved camps often, and still do every year or so. Once the law gets word of us we leave in a hurry. Currently, we're up between Mount Shann and Mount Hagen. Some sort of farm area. A ranch if I had to put a name on it.

I watched as a ruckus echoed out from the entrance to the ranch. Looking over I saw a man with a bag over his head, he was kicking up a fight as multiple men dragged him into camp.
"Get your damn hands off me!" The man shouted, in a deep grave voice.

All sorts of profanities and insults spewed out of the sack on his head like a machine. One by one he insulted the men taking him in blindly.
"Peter help us chain him up!" Steve asked, dragging him down into the cellar. I'd seen many people go in there. Most didn't come back out. Not in one piece at least. I hated Steve with a passion, his stupid bald head, those warts on his chin, and the way his eyeglass lens has been smudged for the past four years.

However, I still did as I was told, wandering over and fastening the chains to the man's wrists and the ceiling. Once he was hung by his wrists the others left. I was curious about this stranger, I'd never spoken to a captive before. So with a cautious hand, I gently pulled the sack off the man's face.