My owner asked if I wanted to stay the night after the show she gave me, naturally I said no, I can’t stand that place, all my worst memories are there.

  I’m being taken in a worse carriage, a bag over my head which makes breathing increasingly difficult with my panic attack rising.

  Today was one of the worser ones, I really thought she was chilling out, recently she has just been letting me eat and sleep there while playing mind games, now she is getting me to kill people with my own hands.

  She made a mistake though. The only thing I was missing from my research was the fact that the pen I was using was poor, there was no secret code or the fact that I’m human making it impossible.

  I had snuck out with a fountain pen, put it snuggly into my pant pocket. I have my hand in my pocket right now just so I know not to lose it.

  The carriage stops, the bag gets removed from my head and I get kicked out, the man in armour leaving, almost having the carriage ride over my leg.

  This place looks exactly the same, but everything feels different, one door opens with a slushing sound and Noah walks out, “how was it?”

  I’ve only told him good things about my time with her throughout the years, but I know some part of him knows I’m lying.

  “Was good, got bread with butter, new clothes, she healed my wounds too.” I smile at him, acting like there’s a camera facing me.

  Noah doesn’t reply, “sounds rough.”

  “No it’s fine, really I’m fine.” I walk towards my hut, he follows me.

  “Hey,” he grabs my shoulder, “Anne has something to show you.” He takes me to her hut, which was one of the furthest ones away, near the murky water. The fireflies in the sky are very prevalent around her house.

  He knocks on her door incredibly softly, “are you awake? Fay wants to see the farm.” There is no response so he knocks twice softly, “helllooo?”

  A few moments pass and he kicks the door, it flies open, Anne is awake, startled and afraid, rubbing her eyes.

  “Noah what the fuck!?” She gets up and looks at the door, one of the hinges got broken.

  “Don’t swear in front of Fay, I’ll fix it later.”

  She looks over at me and gives a faint smile, “hey Fay, how was it?”

  “Good, like always.”

  “Glad to know she treats you better than everyone else.” There’s a faint spite in her voice, “nevermind, sorry, look.” She takes me into her hut and shows me the progress of the plant, she had used planks to build a big pot for compost.

  The compost just being human feces, it was very disturbingly gross, but good for farming. There is a little green sprout, it looks unnatural in the grey world we live in.

  “How do you sleep here? Smells like shit.” Noah breaks the silence, I’m just staring in awe, looking at this actual piece of hope. This isn’t revolution, this is just hope that we can prosper in a place where decay is inevitable.

  I speak softly, “you know what it is?”

  Anne crouches down “tomatoes, it’ll fill the world with colour when it grows fully…”

  Noah crouches in between us, squishing me a bit, “yeah and we can use the red from the tomatoes to make war paint.”

  I sigh, “that’s… sure… go ahead.” Noah flicks my forehead a couple times before getting up, brushing the mud off his pants.

  “Those are pretty fancy clothes; the mud doesn’t stick to them.” He pulls on the fabric, “uh…”

  His face twists in confusion, making me confused, “what is it?”

  He lifts the arm hole, pulling my skin with it, “this shirt is threaded into you…”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I take a deep breath in, “yeah it’s okay.” Of course she would do this, every place where my body touches the fabric is connected to my skin, my collar, my shoulders, my pants probably do the same thing on my waist.

  I smile, “alright, well I’m going to bed, thanks for showing me the plant Anne.” She just stares at me in disbelief but does not try to stop me from leaving.

  The mud on my finger's dissolves, the clothes seem to do a routine cleaning every few seconds. What did she say again? 2 oz of blood a day I need to feed it? If I stop feeding it, will it die? Will I die if it dies? I don’t want to test that theory.

  I enter my hut, opening my chest to check my notes, I had a lot of the healing spell notes she did, now that I know what the ‘carry variable’ looks like I can easily fill in the rest.

  It goes, body, carry variable, and then 3 symbols which probably combine to heal. It’s like a new language. There are a couple people here with sickness and disease, I’m hoping this baseline spell can help them…

  I just need blood. I’ll chat to those workers tomorrow, see if I can get a vial of my own.

  I put my things back into the chest, including my fountain pen, then lay down to start another day.

  My clothes are annoyingly sticky, like I have glue on the inside, it takes a while to be comfortable… I’m guessing I won’t be able to cut it up or anything, she would’ve made that harm me.

  Goodnight…

  …

  Good morning

  I stay face down in the mud, having this self-cleaning spell on me has really made me care even less about professionalism.

  Someone knocks on the door, it's far too soft to be Noah, “Fay? Can we talk?” Anne’s voice comes through the door.

  “Yeah sure.” I sit upright, the mud on my face falling off with zero friction.

  She comes in with a little frown, “wanted to talk last night but you seemed in... a bad headspace...”

  “Hm? Aren't we all?”

  “In comparison to the rest of us? Yes.” Her eyes never leave mine, she sits in front of me, cross legged.

  “Comparisons blahmarisons.” I try to keep the conversation light.

  “What does she do to you?”

  She keeps the conversation dark.

  “Just feeds and takes care of me, the usual.” I say my usual lie, i know she and Noah don’t believe it for a second, everyone else does though, everyone else thinks I’ve seduced the demon.

  Her hands ball into fists, “She threaded clothes onto your fucking skin.”

  “So what? At least she isn't killing me.” I lean backwards on the rotting wall, “It's a spell to keep me clean.” I grab some mud and smear it on my face, it dissolves after a few seconds, “see?”

  “And that doesn't make you feel, you know, not human?”

  “Does it matter?” I say this without much thought behind it, it seems to anger her, like i just stabbed her with a knife.

  She pulls my sleeve, the fabric barely moves as its fused to my body, “listen, we are ALL struggling, but we also take solace in each other's company, YOU don't have that, for the past 5 years... since... 14... you've been singled out by this-this thing and we have no fucking clue what she is doing to you.” She pulls in closer, her face to mine, she doesn't say a word. Her greenish eyes pierce mine with unsaid words.

  “I'm fine.” Is all I can get out, she pulls back and laughs.

  I watch her step out, not even turning back, her dirty clothes blow in the wind as she leaves, the ginger hair on her head looks almost grey from the sunlight.

  My body seems to act on its own, I walk out and start following her for some reason. She begins to quicken so I do too.

  “Why are you following me?” She says out of breath, still speed walking towards the food clinic.

  “I’m going to the food clinic.”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re holding another meeting.” She says this like it means anything to me.

  “Good, maybe I can talk them out of being stupid.”

  She continues her fast pace, “they aren’t being stupid, they’re being human.”

  “Then I’ll talk them out of that too.” I catch up to her, walking side by side. She doesn’t say another word as we reach the food clinic.

  There are a bunch of people convening inside, the stench in the air makes me almost gag, Anne doesn’t seem to notice.

  I walk in and everyone stares at me, “I’m just here for food scraps.” I walk up to one of the workers, “take my blood.”

  The worker steps forward, “I’m busy.” His words spit into my face. I prepare myself for another beating.

  “Hey hey, it’s fine.” I hear the soothing voice of Jackson, someone I consider to be a cult leader nowadays. “Take my blood, I’ll pay.” He holds out his arm gracefully, with his palm open.

  “No, just take mine.” I put my arm out in front of his, Jackson smiles a bit and takes a stride back, the crowd is full of whispers, I can hear faint words of discontent and envy towards me.

  Jackson runs his hand through his brown blonde hair, mud covering his entire body head to toe, he gives the worker the tiniest of nods, “go for it.”

  The worker grabs the syringe from a box and inserts it into my arm, carefully extracting it into the vial.

  “Oh, I actually changed my mind, I don’t want food, can I get that back?” I reach for the vial, hoping the worker wouldn’t care enough… to care.

  He pulls away, “what for?”

  “Personal reasons.”

  That seems to set the stage for an all out revolution just on me, I admit it’s strange to be asking for blood, that’s something a demon would say.

  Jackson grabs the vial from his hand and passes it to me, “here, stay safe okay?” He puts it in my hand, putting his second hand under mine. “Just tell me, why don’t you like the idea of us fighting back?”

  “I think it’ll get you all killed.”

  “Right, because when a lion attacks your family you just let it, you don’t do all you can to protect them.”

  I frown, “that’s not the situation, the lion is coming once a week to take someone, but if you attack the lion it’ll kill all of us. That doesn’t sound very wise does it?”

  He lets go, leaving the vial in my hands, “hah, Noah was right, you are sharp.” He turns back towards the crowd, “take care of yourself Fay.”

  I nod and leave, god damn it I wish Jackson was a bad guy, the fact that I told the owner to kill him… instead of sadness it now fills me with dread.