01.

Chapter One.

“Bloody hell.” The dirt speckled adolescent murmured angrily under his breath. He gritted his teeth and pushed his ashen hair from his eyes. This time; this time he’d get it right.

Not even eight yards away stood a young doe with her head bend low to the grass, tail twitching peacefully. The adolescent rocked himself off his knees and onto the balls of his bare feet, which sunk slightly into the same dirt that was plastered to his body.

With all things considered, the boy was quite small for his age-though his exact age was unknown. At full height he stood a foot taller than the doe he was hunting and was yet smaller than the dying shrubbery surrounding him and her. His dark hair hung at the middle of his abdomen and was horribly uncared for. A touch of pain was constantly evident in his almond shaped eyes, but sometimes was thought to be a look of disapproval. However, at this moment, the only look in his eyes was hunger.

With a careful amount of silence, he positioned an arrow in the handmade nook of his bow and drew back on the string. The arrow was aimed right behind her shoulders; to where her ribs were. Through the time he’d spent hunting for food, the adolescent had found it much quicker to take his time finding that spot, than to just shoot for the heart. The arrow buried deep into her ribs and before it could let out a scream, he’d broken its neck. When he released it, she tumbled to the ground. Dead.

 

He’d circled his camp four times before allowing himself to return to it. Hardly thirty days previous, he had discovered a young man close to his own age searching through his campsite. As he approached him, a twig snapped beneath his foot and the young man bolted away. Nothing had been taken. In fact, hardly anything was moved. The event however, let the him know that he needed to be more careful and since then, he patrols the surrounding area three times daily, and stakes out around his camp many different times before he enters.

Using the sharp edge of a rock he quickly and quietly removed the skin from the doe and cut her meat into rations before starting a fire.

Two hours later he had eaten his fill, wrapped the meat up, stored it far enough underground to stay fresh, and gone down to the lake to fill his trophy army jug with water for the next two days. Now, he was flat on his back under a blue tarp he found three months ago, sleeping. His fire had long been out and hardly one red cinder was visible. Encasing him was his collection of skin from the deer he’d killed in the past six months. At this point, he was practically swimming in the skins but couldn’t bring himself to throw any away with the memories of last year’s impossibly cold winter clawing at the back of his mind. He had nearly died of the common cold because of how unprepared he was. But, this year he was ready. And at this point, he was able to just relax and wait for it to come.

 

His eyes opened wearily. The early morning had coated everything in a blue tint. He slowly got to his feet and stretched. The pops in his metal bindings were loud, but not loud enough to hear if you were standing at the oak tree three yards away.

With a heavy dose of sleepiness oozing off of him he stumbled to his right where a thick oak tree stood nice and tall. Behind it was a small garden he’d been keeping. He yawned painfully and knelt down next to it and picked off strawberries that were just ripened before walking back to his site. Start fire, cook meat, and hunt. As he grasped two rocks in order to catch a spark a heart dropping click sounded behind him.

“Don’t move.” A deep voice commanded. “Or so help me god I’ll kill you where you are.” The adolescent stared hard at the ground, examining the shadows on the rocks he held. A hand grabbed him by the shoulder and flipped him onto his elbows where he kicked his foot up so fast it was nearly invisible, and send the gun spinning in the air. The look strewn on the man’s unshaven face was a mixture of confusion, bewilderment, and horror at what was unfolding. Before he could regain his focus, the ashen haired boy had leapt from his stance and threw himself on the man, digging his knees into his lungs and causing him to fall backwards. He lunged for his arrows and upon grabbing one, nailed it through the man’s grubby hands and covered his mouth to muffle the scream.

“W-what are you?” The sweaty man stammered to the adolescent who’d just remounted the man’s chest; gun pointed at the center of his forehead. The stabbed hand was pumping out the hot blood over one of his animal hides.

For a long while, the boy went silent and simply glared at the man. One eye a soft blue. The other was piercing silver. 

“None of your damn business.” He growled and smashed the butt of the gun against the man’s skull.

***

“Well maybe if you weren’t so awkward you’d actually get something done right!” A fat man with a white apron was waving a very large butcher knife directly in front of his young employee who had been carrying a box of fish when he tripped. The box broke open and the fish went everywhere, causing the young man’s day to go from tolerable, to crappy. “I expect you to clean that up and finish scaling today’s delivery before you even think to leave.” The fat man had sweat peppering his face. “And if you do leave then don’t even think about coming back!”

Once the fat man had wobbled away from him the young man got back onto his feet and sighed. Mr. D really was as hard to work for as people had said. As he began picking fish up off the cement floor he reflected on the days when he actually had a life outside of school and work. With a sigh he quickly and quietly tried to complete his task.

 

He cut off the engine and sat back in his seat for a moment, basking in the silence of the night. It was ten thirty now. It’d taken him and extra hour and a half to finish his work. Tonight was definitely not his night. It seemed like one thing after another went wrong. First he showed up late, and then he spilt the fish. When he started scaling them he was cutting too deep, then he wasn’t cutting deep enough, then he was cutting his hand. One thing after another after another.

The seat fell back into a recline and he contemplated just sleeping in his car for the night. At least then he wouldn’t have to move his legs again. He turned his keys forward a notch and the radio began to play slow jazz. He smiled as the saxophone took a solo. He’d sworn he’d learn to play one, one day but, his parents wouldn’t buy him one; so he started to work.

He sat there, absorbing the soothing melody and letting himself slip into a state of utter tranquility. His eyes began to sink as the other instruments, a flute, single drum, piano, and a few others he couldn’t name immediately, joined the sax in a lulling harmony. They swayed through the note range, peaking at different times, and sinking together. It reminded him of wheat fields with the waves rippling through them, or a rainy day. Something calming. A few taps crashed through his mood and when he opened his eyes he saw Theta, one of the servants.

“I’m coming.” He moaned, turning off the engine again and getting out of the car into a skin splitting kind of cold. He covered his face with his hands and squeezed his eyes shut as Theta shut the car door and held open his porcelain hand. The adolescent shook his head and began to run to the front door as the wind cut through his hair and threw it in every direction. When he got to the porch Theta’s hand shot forward and opened the door for him. He ran into the dark house and stomped his feet on the rug just as the hall light flicked on.

At the end of the hall was not his mother or father but another servant named Epsilon. This one was manufactured in Tokyo and therefor had no determined gender. An it.

Theta was made right before the big wigs decided that gendered property could get too personal and eradicated it, and so he has a gender and a small bit of personality. Just enough to smile at someone when they show up and frown when he got in trouble. Once upon a time, before the servants were produced by the hundreds, they were made by hand, and were actual people. Well, volunteers really. People who wanted to help science for the greater good and sacrifice their bodies to do so. However back then they were only changed in their skin. Once it was a success, scientists began to change their bones to metal frames, and take out all muscle, tendons, veins, and soon organs, until there was nothing much left but a heart and lungs.

These days, there wasn’t even that. Now they’re just super advanced robots with nothing to really control them except a computer chip in their ‘brain’ and a command system in your house. When you buy them, you take the number printed on their chests and add them to your command system. Three hours later, they’re all yours. Unless they’re like Theta, which none of them really are anymore. If they’re like him, then you have to brand them with the family emblem like they used to back when Negros were enslaved. Once on each shoulder and thigh, though he wasn’t sure if the Negros were branded four times.

“Hey Epsilon.” He said as he padded down the hall in his socks with Theta close behind him. “Fun day?” He knew they were mute, but when your parents work every moment you’re around they’re silence becomes a good friend. When he got to the end of the hall Epsilon reached out to the boy and removed the name tag from his shirt that read ‘Zak’. ‘Zak’ was not his name. In fact, it was the name of the kid who’d had his job three years ago but, Mr. D was too cheap to get any new ones for employees.

His name was Drew.

As Drew was escorted through the dining room he saw the rest of the servants sleep-standing. Zeta, Phi, Iota, Kappa, Mu, Nu, Xi, Omikron, Rho, Sigma, Tau, and Upsilon. Rho, Tau, and Phi; along with Mu, Nu, and Xi, were all bought on three for one deals off the coast of Florida. They were made with rounded ‘faces’ than the others were, and were smaller in size. Omikron, and Sigma were from Drew’s Uncle Henry, and had slim face with a broad frame. Zeta, Iota, and Kappa were all from Tokyo, like Upsilon and Epsilon, and therefor had perfectly fake faces with nothing to really divide them from anything.

As he walked by they exited sleep mode and one by one, lifted their faces and watched him pass. When he got to his bedroom Epsilon handed him the set of pajamas placed there earlier by Theta when he did the laundry, and they both left for exactly three minutes so he could change. When he was younger and still getting used to having Theta around he would take out his mickey mouse stop watch and time him to see how long he would be gone. Three minutes exactly, every single time, no matter what. So it wasn’t surprising when three minutes had passed and Theta walked back in. At this point, Epsilon, who was only around to make sure Drew got from point A to point B had gone back to the dining room to go into sleep mode.

Drew pulled back the covers to his bed and slid in while Theta reset his alarm for school.

“Goodnight Theta.” Drew said, but Theta simply turned and shut the lights off before going to the corner of the room to go to sleep mode. Theta’s job was to make sure Drew was safe and taken care of at all times. And as of ten seconds ago, his job was complete. In thirty minutes, Drew would be the only one awake in the entire house.

Author's Note

Took me a few days to finally spit out but I think it's just alright. What do you think?

Reviews

[Alex Thomas]

Wow. A bit creepy actually. Gives a bleak outlook on the future. A few things to be careful of: You repeat and in almost every sentence, which gives this fantastic chapter, a bit of boring repetition. You also used the wrong form of 'their' toward the end. You said 'they're' which is a contraction for 'they are'. I think you meant the possessive, 'their'. Other than that, I really wonder how the two seemingly separate pieces of this chapter are linked. I like how well you conveyed the scene in each. The background details in the second part are a bit blunt, but necessary. A great job.