Emma had been there for about two hours when the door finally opened. Feeling exhausted, she didn’t even bother to turn to see who it was. She had finally given up and laid on the cold floor, facing the wall.
She heard the door closing and waited for the person to speak. Instead, the person starting laughing hard. She knew that voice. Emma turned and sat down.
“What do you want?” she asked Andrea.
“I got you, got you real good.” She said. “I still can’t believe it was so easy to fool you. You were so desperate and ready to believe anything.” Andrea paused to laugh out loud. “Oh Emma, I didn’t think fate would give me a chance to get such sweet revenge but I’m glad it did. Now you have no one to protect you and I can do whatever I want.
I noticed that Axel was treating you a little bit too well and knew I had to do something about it. Now the bond between you two is completely shattered. He will never trust you again and you’ll be stuck with me and my team. Oh Emma, why did you make your destruction so easy?”
“Why did kylie betray me?” I asked.
“I made a deal with her,” Andrea said. “Besides if I wanted, I could have just forced her to do by threatening her. It’s not really hard for me to get my way around here.”
“Okay,” Emma said and lay back down.
“Hey, you’re not going to just ignore me like that. Why are you not angry?”
“I’ve had enough time to be angry. When they brought me here, I nearly went mad. I screamed and screamed but I’ve now resigned to my fate. I don’t have the energy to complain or yell at anybody. Whether I do anything or not, I’m still stuck here for 24 hours.”
“What if I prolong your stay here?”
“I won’t care. By tomorrow, I’ll be used to the place so just do whatever you want. My heart is heavy and I’m tired of everything. I just want to rest.”
“B1tch,” Andrea said and left the room. She locked the door and Emma heard her retreating footsteps.
Eventually, Emma was able to fall asleep. When she woke up the next morning, she was feeling better. Although she still felt uneasy being in such a small space, she seemed to be getting the hang of it.
An hour later, the hunger started attacking. Her mouth was dry and her stomach was rumbling every now and then. Emma tried not to think about food in vain. Another hour passed in agony. At some point, she smelled food which made her mouth water and her stomach grumble louder. It was extreme torture.
Since she barely had energy to do anything, she just lay on the cold floor, trying to make herself fall asleep. Sleep did not come. She endured the torture while wide awake. At round midday, the door was opened. One of the guards who had put her there came in.
“Stand up,” he said. “And don’t think you have been forgiven. We are just getting you out because there’s too much work to be done and we need all the labour we can get.”
Emma smiled and stood up. “That’s good enough for me. I will do any work as long as I can eat and stay out of this dank room.”
“Cool. Have got the best job for you. Eat this.”
He tossed her a small paper back. Emma opened it and saw two slices of stale bread. “How am I supposed to eat this?”
“You can choose not to eat it,” he said. “I don’t really care. Let’s go.”
“Why are you so mean to me?” Emma asked, following him along the hallway.
“I’m just doing my job,” he said. “I’m under no obligation to be nice to you.”
As they passed by the part with the cages, Emma could sense that there was no one there. Her friends were out. She wondered what they thought of the fact that she had tried to escape alone, without even telling them about the tunnel. She wondered if Richard understood her like always. He was the one whose approval she cared about most. It was obvious Alison thought she was the biggest b! tch alive and couldn’t wait to let her know the next time they met.
“What’s your name?” she asked the guard. She had to take her mind off the stale bread she was eating, and a conversation seemed like the best way to do so.
“Ken,” he said. “Why do you ask?”
“Is asking a bad thing? I just want to know the person I’m walking with. It seems like we’ll be spending a lot of time together. Were you put in charge of me or something?”
“Basically,” he said.
They passed the barn and went behind it. There were 15 sheep grazing on the lush grass behind it.
“Why do you people keep animals?”
“Because we like meat,” he said. “There are very few wild animals around here. Most of them have either been killed or moved inwards, deeper into the forest. Sometimes, we go hunting but it’s good to have readily available meat here. Do you have a problem with that?”
“No, was just asking.”
He stopped walking. “Here we are.”
“Am I supposed to graze sheep?” Emma asked.
Ken chuckled. “No, you’re going to dag them.”
“What is that?”
“It means removing soiled wool from their backsides.”
“What the hell. That sounds really gross. I don’t think I can do that.”
“You have no choice,” another voice said. Emma turned and saw a young man carrying a red overall and some tools in his hand. “Everyone hates this job. But you’re a slave so you have no choice but to do it.”
Emma glanced at the sheep and saw that most of their backsides had dirty wool that had been soiled by their excreta. That was what she was supposed to work on. She felt nauseous and ran aside to throw up.
“I can’t do this,” she said, when she returned to the pair.
The young man tossed her the overall. “Dress up and get to work, missy.”
“What are the alternatives?” she asked.
“None, you have to do it. You can either do it while we watch, or do it while we hit you. By the end of the day, that wool needs to be removed. It poses a high risk for the sheep and we don’t want them getting sick, now that there’s a lot of rain and reaching the camping grounds can be hard.”
“I don’t know how to do it.”
“I’ll teach you,” the young man said. “Get dressed.”
Emma sighed and started putting on the overall, over her black shirt and loose pants.”