Slave Side Effects (On Hiatus)

Chapter 7

(A/N: I try not to do these in this book... but warning that I made this dark... why did I make this so dark? I don't know... I really don't know. Like... I was just thinking about how I should try and write some fluff... and then boom........dead person.)

Michael knew he needed these people. They were more like a family than he ever had since his brother was murdered. He knew that they saw each other as family. The three older guys seemed to have been through so much together. Every person here has a past, some more twisted than others, but he can not stop wondering. Does he truly belong?

***

All that could be seen was darkness... black as far as the eye could see. Yet splotches of white, blues, purples, and reds glimmered and shimmered like the sea. It was as if creation itself was a beauty to behold, as endlessly small splatters of white paint seemed to glow within a dark dome of unending, suffocating, black. The flecks of white got smaller and smaller, the longer stared at, the more seemed to come out and dance in the dark. It was as though tiny fairies took little paintbrushes and flicked them around, growing smaller and smaller the longer searched for.
(I was bored... oh come onnnnn why is it so blurryyyyyyyy ahhhh)

(Not) A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a disheveled family of crime lords argued and bantered (I have no idea if that is how you use that word) around a rectangular table. Slaves worked in the back of the room, higher-ups hovering threateningly over their shoulders. Small windows set high in the walls, only just a sliver of sky visible through the cloudy glass. A wiry man in baggy clothes came hobbling through the door, his hands visibly shaking and his jaw tense. He walked up to the table, eyes flickering towards any movement. He gave a quick bow to the crime lords that now stared at him, anger evident in their eyes as he had interrupted their 'conversation'. The man softly cleared his throat before speaking in a shivering voice.

"We... have- We have not yet caught the missing slave- missing slave yet sir... uhh- and ma'am...! Though-"

The person sitting at the head of the table jumped from his seat, his face ablaze with anger. He had already been on edge whilst speaking to his family.

"I do not CARE about the missing SLAVE you FOOL! There are only three things I care about in this world. Power, the Wiliams family, and secrets. My secrets. Do you HEAR SLAVES on that list? NO! No. Now get out of my presence you Fool." (Can you figure out who I imagined voice acting this part? I tried using words he uses a lot Haha)

The man, some may believe his name to now be Fool, hunched over further, lowering his head as far as it would go. "I... I apologize, sir... He... I assumed- I assumed you would like to find- find your daughter as-"

"What?"

"I um..." He shivered, curling in on himself more than what seemed possible as he noticed the eyes of the others sitting 'calmly' around the table were turned to face him. "W-well... umm... well you see...."

"Oh come on, use your words! We don't have all day, you imbecile."

"A-at the space cen-center, your daughter... your daughter was last seen being taken by a group of guys, one of them- one matches the description of the missing William, and one of the others- another one is the missing slave! We think..." Panic rose in the man's voice, the words slipping out at an increasing speed as his words shook. The other man that had earlier shouted at him now stood silent, his head downcast and his eyes indistinguishable. He gave off an odd feeling, not terrible, but definitely not good. There was silence, other than the quiet tinkering of the slaves on the far side of the room. Tension sat thick in the air, too thick to cut with a knife. There was no difference as a new person sitting around the table added their input.

"Well, I suppose we shall have to go after them then, eh?"

"I suppose so."

With his last input, the man at the head of the table finally sat down once again, waving his hand to dismiss the messenger in baggy clothes. With that, the tension seemed to freeze and begin to slowly melt, releasing the slaves to comfortably breathe. Or at least as comfortably as they could be with the higher ups hovering over their shoulders.

(The rest of this chapter isn't that important to the story line... and isn't that... what's the word....logical?)
Not too far away, in a building just down what could resemble a street, there sat a workshop. Very similar to the previous room, the walls were gray and dull, limited sun light flickering through the tiny windows set close to the ceiling. Dirty tables sat in rows, though here metal and other substances were strewn across the tables. A few slaves worked with them, tinkering around, trying new things. They had deep set eyes and hunched shoulders. One man stopped moving, slumping forward slightly. The 'higher up' that guarded this set of slaves poked him, and the man flinched slightly. He was quickly told to get back to work, though all he did was lift his bleary eyes up to the guard, a bewildering smirk gracing his face. And with that, his body fell off the stool he had earlier sat upon. The guard stepped back, quickly masking his surprised face and poked the man slightly with his weapon. The man did not move, no longer having a rise and fall to his chest. The man, was dead.

(The writer has now lost all working brain cells)
The guard whispered something strange under his breath as he drags the corpse out of the building. It seemed to be somewhere along the lines of "another one bites the dust," and as the other slaves who had not stopped working glance towards the door, as a whisper escapes the second guards lips.

"And another ones down."

"Another ones down. Another one bites the dust." The guard by the door, guarding the entrance, pipes up without skipping a beat.
"Ehhhhhhhh" the guard from before comes back into the room, wiping his hands off as he makes a disgusted face.

"Well, time to get back to work. At least these things didn't stop." The second guard gestures to the other slaves as he leaves the room. As he does so, the remaining slaves share side glances at one another.

"Wait... Jeffrey, what time is it?" The second guard stops in the doorway.

"About... oh... lunch time for these things I suppose."

And with that, both guard leave the room, though they just sat outside the door to make sure none of the slaves tried to escape.

As soon as they were out of sight, a whole layer of tension seemed to be released from the shoulders of the slaves. Sighs of relief escaped their mouths as they let themselves slump onto the tables. Silence soon suffocated the room. Though that was broken by one of the middle aged men.

"So... second one we've lost in the last two months..."

A woman spoke up, hatred poisoning her voice.
"Oh shut up!"

"I'm just stating the tru-"

"We still don't know if he is dead!"

Silence once again. Her 'son' had gone missing about a month back. They all knew that the boy's survival chance was minimal. They all knew that at this point, he is most likely no longer living in this plane of existence. But none of them had the heart to tell her that. No one could tell the person that treated him like her own child. She had lost her daughter when she was forced into slavery as the boy lost his parents. They had comforted one another for years upon years, ten to be precise. But then when he had been taken out for his scheduled pod racing, he never came back, the guards revealed nothing. She had waited for weeks for him to return, but eventually she gave up. A sliver of hope still lingers in her eyes, yet it's already left her posture. She had nearly given up on her son returning. Nearly given up on life.
Nearly given up on it all.

~1430 words
I'll be honest, this was a bit of a filler chapter. I have no idea where I am going with this story any more. If anyone has any ideas I can work off of, they would be wonderful to hear! Hope you enjoyed.