Bane of Existence

~1~

•Everything Changes•
...
-Bane-
noun|ˈbān | a source of harm or ruin.
~1~

They were so fast. They came and took us away without warning, not telling us where they were taking us. Even our best seer didn't see it coming.

100, that was the number of children they took between the ages of 4 and 18. Why? I didn't know at the time, but we were their worst nightmare. The bane of existence.

I remember that first day, how I felt when they brought us into the school for the first time.

It brought a feeling of death, every wolf within the vicinity could feel it. It swallowed us whole like black holes and took everything in its path. That school, it was the black hole for all of us.

The first time I got punished for speaking our native language, Greek, they slapped me on the wrist with a ruler. We were forced to learn English. A language that seemed so weird to us.

They forced us to wear uniforms every day, and if we didn't follow that rule, the punishment was petrifying.

Within my first week at school, I thought they were bluffing, so I didn't wear my uniform. I remember the feeling of the priest's hands pulling my casual clothes off of me forcefully and shoving me down the hallways in front of all the other children. I was to be an example. It worked, no one ever tried it again.

They didn't call us by our names, but numbers instead. I was number 03 because I had been one of the first to be pulled from my home that day.

We slept in dorms sorted by our genders. They were really just large rooms with about 10-15 beds lined up with our numbers on the bottom. We kept our clothes in a chest underneath it and we're definitely not allowed to even try and get up in the night. If we tried, there was a nun in a room connected that had a window to watch us through the night.

I still found ways around it.

I used to test every rule, test every demand. I didn't want to be at the school, it was so wrong what they were doing to us just because of our bloodlines. I wouldn't stand for it. I was a stubborn 15-year-old.

One day, one punishment, that all stopped. I didn't test them anymore, I knew they were serious, and so did everyone else.

~flashback~

I was walking down the halls between my classes. I had just finished history and was on my way with my class down to the English classroom just down the hall. That was when Father William called out to me.

"Number 3, recite the scripture in which the sun god wrote to the moon goddess, thanking her for her sacrifice," he demanded.

I snorted and rolled my eyes. He always did this to me. Every time I refused, I still don't speak English and he'll be livid if I spoke in Greek.

I still spoke anyway, the biggest regret of my life. "Den to xéro sta angliká." (I do not know it in English).

"Wretched child," he sneered before grabbing my arm and dragging me down the hall. He ordered one of the nuns to continue taking the class to English and start the lesson.