"To be honest, I'm not really sure. All I know is the alien at the controls is making it happen. I'm so sorry this is happening to you, Silver. I wish I could change it."
My eyes fill with tears and she looks at me closer, likely just now having enough mental bandwidth to notice that they are freakish. Then her eyes dart to my hair, then down to my naked body before looking at her own.
I hate that I feel a prickle of shame that I'm like this now, but she doesn't comment about my body.
She gulps hard and her tremors become more violent. "Trafficking?"
I nod and she sobs, once again trying to heave herself away from the hold the chamber has on her. I scramble to think of something to help her feel better. There is nothing. Absolutely nothing. Anything I could say would be empty.
Or a lie.
Best to stick to facts, then. I open my mouth to tell her about the things I've learned but I'm interrupted by one of the slimes.
"Move back."
Silver tries to cling to my hands but I pull hard to break her grip so I can do what he says.
I won't put her through any more rounds of torture than necessary.
When her chamber closes and she screams, it's like a knife to my heart. I can't keep the tears from pouring down.
The loneliness is like a crushing weight and it's hard to breathe.
"Now, what was I saying? Right. We can most certainly prove the indigo one is sufficiently moist for whatever use you have in mind. I was always partial to some knife play to add some additional juices to the mix. Not to mention the delectable screams each time I push in, but you chose your own pleasure."
I take a long breath and roughly wipe the tears from my eyes. I won't survive this if I let myself fall apart.
And where would that leave Silver?
"Show our good viewers what they have to look forward to."
I turn back to him, afraid I know what he wants, but hoping there is a way around it.
I stare and hold my breath, willing him to see another comment on the feed that tells him to torture me some other way. The thought makes me glance over and I see comments with images that make me look away just as fast.
"I can always bring that one back out and have her do it."
I stride forward, turn around so my back is to the camera and get down on my knees. As I tilt forward onto my hands to ensure they have the best view possible, I think of gray blood creeping across the floor.
It's the first time I've smiled in a very long time.
6
Thivoll
I wake up to pain.
It pulses through my body, pounding in my skull with an insistent rhythm. I groan, hoping the cryosickness wears off soon. I've read about it, but never thought I'd ever experience it. It's so typical of the genali to steal our tech and never bother to access our upgrades.
We fixed the pain response issue generations ago.
Then it occurs to me they likely use the improved version for themselves and intentionally use this one to torture people.
Thela curse them. I somehow feel complicit even though I wasn't even alive yet when we invented it.
I hear a beep next to my ear and awkwardly shift my bound limbs around so I can look toward it. A screen is flashing a completed countdown.
That's odd.
