The Captive

Chapter 2: Aftermath

I stayed standing for many hours.

I realized that when the sun started to rise.

The fires had died down and many of the beasts were starting to return to the townsquare. For beasts, many of them looked like humans. After everything I'd seen tonight I don't think I could believe them to have an ounce of humanity.

The boy beside me had long ago fainted and was now sleeping peacefully at my feet. 

I blinked a few times and noticed that the beasts were moving the bodies. There were not as many as there appeared to be in the dark of night. In fact, most of the town still looked to be in tact.

Everything did seem worse in the dark.

A man came out into the middle of the square and let out a loud, piercing whistle. The beasts gathered around him. He was speaking and I tried to listen.

"We will let the males finish cleaning. They may rest when the dead have been buried in a respectful fashion. I know several of you have found your mates and I caution you to keep them separated from the rest. We are in a delicate situation. The Alpha returns tomorrow, and tomorrow we will hold a feast for his return." He spoke these words and suddenly, I knew he was only the stand-in leader.

The women would probably be put in charge of cooking...the beasts themselves might take to the hunting. Who knew? I would be burying dead people for the rest of the day.

Later that day, a boy of my sister's age was helping me dig. His name was Lance. He wasn't taking this well.

He started crying silently and not long after, his shovel fell. My palms were already bleeding and had been for some time, but I didn't dare stop because of the beast that watched over us. No one wanted to test whether he could use that whip on his belt or not. He certainly seemed the type.

I bumped Lance with my shovel "Pick it up and keep going. We only have a few more."

He shook his head and covered his face with his hands "I can't do it anymore! This is the tenth one! They have six other people digging the same amount of graves in pairs! Do you know how many graves that is? And with more to go? How can they just kill all of those people..."

I growled out, seeing the man start moving our way "Pick up the goddamned shovel before you join them." He stopped and looked around scared. The man stopped and glared him down. He hollered "Get back to digging, boy!"

Lance quickly hopped up and started digging with me again. He glanced at me with his brown eyes "How are you still going?" I peeked at him and shook my head "I just am. Two more, Lance, and then we can piss and sleep for a while. They won't make us work until we can't move. That would be contradictory to their cause of keeping us alive. They need us for labor, so we labor. We can't labor if we're sick and half-dead, now can we?"

He panted "Is that really what you're thinking about right now?"

I asked dryly "Would you rather me focus on the fact that I'm considering on cutting my hands off because they hurt so bad? Or perhaps that my back is killing me?"

He grumbled "Yeah, yeah."

We moved onto the next one and it went on even slower than the last. My arms and back were burning. It took up to an hour to finish the one we were working on before starting on our last one.

Lance and I muttered back to each other to pass the time. We mostly said words that started with a single letter. We would see how many we could get before moving onto the next letter in the alphabet. It helped take the focus off the job.

When we finished, we were allowed to drink water and eat a small portion of deer meat. It tasted like heaven after having been starved for a day. I went far into the woods to piss and only came back after I had my clothes firmly repositioned. 

Having dirt smeared all over me helped conceal my true identity and I didn't plan on washing any time soon, no matter how uncomfortable I became.

We were led to small barracks were pallets of straw and thin wool blankets were laid out. 

I didn't hesitate to crawl into one and cover up. I face the wall and thought about my mother and Julie. I could only hope they were safe and minding their own. Julie could make it as long as she hadn't become the attention of one of the beasts as some women had. I hoped long and hard for her, but I didn't pray. 

I remained unfaithful from the day my father was taken from me. I never took up prayer again, which is probably why I threw away femininity so easily. It's true what people say about our religion; men and women pray to the same god, but women seem to have read a different book.

I almost smiled at the thought. Most women in this village would rather die than pretend to be a man. 

And here I was with cut hair and trousers sleeping next to twenty other boys who believed me one of them. I may be a woman, but I took more after my father than my mother. My lips were full, but my jaw was too square. My eyes were big and deep-set, but my nose too long. I passed as a boy because I was not pretty enough to be a girl. I was just somewhere in between, but right now that was saving my life.