A Game of Colours

Chapter 1: Run.

All my life, I've been passed around from master to master. Food is nothing but a fantasy, and I, unlike you, do not welcome the sunrise. I am nothing but a blur among the masses of others who were captured and taken to labour for nothing for the rest of our lives. I am a slave. I am just a number, but one with a story to tell.

I am a slave, but do not intend on dying one.

The cart shakes up and down on the bumpy road; chains rattling with it in a merciless tune. The air is hot and dry from an unbearable July day, leaving a sticky taste on my parched tongue. My body has given up reminding me of my hunger, choosing to save what energy is left to survive through another day. Days have passed by this way; but it feels like years. The crying has long ceased; but that only makes it worse; for hope has gone with it. With no one to protest, a grim, desolate silence fills the air. The people around me are blank and unreadable. Though their features vary, despair is written across each of them. I know the face well. It is the face of a man who was born a slave; who gave up the moment he was born.

But mine is different.

I wasn't always in chains. I had a home. I had the taste of my own freedom—and it was taken away from me. Mark my words; I intend to take it back.

I look on longingly at the driver of the cart as he drains the last of his water skin. He takes notice of me and licks his lips, letting out a happy sigh and turning back around. Finally, the cart comes to a stop, and we're let out from one hell hole into the next. I look angrily down at the chains grinding at my ankles, thoughts of home only a distant and unreachable memory.

Jackson Plantation is its name, every syllable sounding out the unspeakable horror that accompanies it. People of all ages and sizes live here; but to the white devils who claim us as their own, we are livestock. We are used until we have no more purpose, then killed and replaced as easily as a wash rag. We pick cotton from dawn till dusk every day under the scorching heat of the blazing sun. Around four in the morning, we wake up to a clanging bell; followed by yells from the slave trader Mr. Frederick (but we just call him Dick, and for good reason too). He's a ruthless and miserable man. Filthy, too. His greasy black locks hang over his face like a curtain, perhaps to hide the horror within. He's short and chubby, and his breath makes me want to vomit the little amount of food I have in me. He has a small moustache full of crumbs that he twiddles with his fingers. Even the masters hate him, but he's cheap and a sadist. Says the job gives him pleasure, so he'll do it better than anybody else. Lord, is he right. In his eyes, black and endless, I see only the devil.

Funny how I've introduced him so well, and yet forgotten to do so myself.

I spend too much hating on him, I guess.

But can you blame me?

My name is Alice, by the way.

Welcome to hell.

Humming to myself, I run my hands through my thick, tousled hair, unsuccessfully trying to untangle the strands without a brush. My hands, calloused and sore, attempt to navigate the labyrinth that is my hair. I sigh in defeat, throwing it up into a bun and heading out to face another day. The morning is crisp, the sun's rays barely flooding over the hills and still fighting back the darkness of night.

The field is unusually empty, and I scan the area looking for the other workers. After a few moments, I hear faint cries coming from the manor. Instantly, I know what it means.

A crowd has already gathered around the whipping post. I push through to the front, the mutters of the slaves around me informing me of what's happened.