CAGE

I tried to scream, but the second blow caught me squarely on the temple. The room tilted, the dirty ceiling spinning until it blurred into a grey fog. As my eyes drifted shut, I saw them, my parents smiling triumphantly, discussing which drugs they'll buy next after they were paid.

They had already turned back to their drugs, stepping over my limp body as if I were nothing more than a piece of trash they’d finally managed to take to the curb.

If I knew this is how my life would end, like I wouldn't have bothered to work two jobs. I wouldn't have sacrificed my youth for them.

I would have tried to live life to the fullest. I once thought that, after my degree, I would get a good job and send them to rehabilitation. But now, I knew that was far from impossible.

The darkness was heavy.

It wasn't the soft sleep of exhaustion; it was the thick, suffocating unconsciousness of trauma. When I finally dragged my eyes open, the first thing I felt wasn't pain. It was the cold that was biting into my arms.

A bone-deep, ancient chill that vibrated through the stone floor beneath me.

I tried to lift my hand to my throbbing head to check my injury but a sharp clink stopped me.

My breath hitched as I turned to look at my other hand.

Both of my hands where shackled with heavy chains. I wasn't in my bedroom. I wasn't even in the apartment and that told me that whatever memories running through my head wasn't a dream but the reality thta, I have being sold.

The air tasted of salt, damp earth, and the metallic tang of old blood.

I blinked, my vision slowly adjusting to the dim, flickering light of a torch somewhere down a corridor. I was in a cage.

My fingers shook as I slammed a jagged stone against the heavy padlock.

Clang. Clang.

The sound echoed through the damp corridor, a rhythmic scream of metal on metal that yielded nothing.

"Please," I sobbed, my breath hitching in the salty air. "Please, just break."

In a moment of jagged desperation, I reached for the one thing I had kept hidden, the heavy pin holding up my waist-length hair. I had promised myself that I would never let it down, never reveal the "bewitching" beauty my parents had their eyes on some time ago. With a sharp tug, the pins came free.

My hair cascaded down my back like a veil of dark silk, shimmering even in the gloom.

I jammed the pin into the lock, twisting with a frantic, raw energy until it clicked. I had learned how to pick locks when my parents...no egg and sperm donor started locking me outside of the apartment.

I didn't wait. I scrambled out of the cage, bare feet slapping against the cold nasty floor. I ran until my lungs burned, my eyes fixed on a sliver of light at the end of the hall and I was almost there.

Suddenly, a massive hand shot out from my

peripheral view.

"Where do you think you're going, little bitch?"

A burly guard wrenched me back by my hair. I let out a choked cry as my back hit the stone wall with a sickening crack. But the adrenaline was a frozen fire in my veins; I felt no pain, only fury. As the man leaned in, I lunged forward, burying my fist in his gut and driving my knee into his crotch with everything I had.

The man wheezed, dropping to his knees, but before I could bolt, a second guard stepped out behind me.

Before I could scream, he snapped something heavy and metallic around my neck.

BZZZT.

I collapsed, my muscles seizing as a high-voltage shock tore through me.

"Easy now," the second guard taunted, hovering over me with a cruel smirk. "You’ve got fire. That’ll up the price, but it makes you a pain in my ass."

"Let me go!" I hissed, my eyes blazing with a primal rage. "You're monsters! All of you! Let me out! I will report you guys to the police authorities."

"HAahahah....police? Do you think this is the legal world? This is a black auction market sweetheart.

And besides, your parents sold you. You are really useless if your parents can't even stand you. And to think they sold you for just $100,000? Truly pathetic. They couldn't wait to get you away from them" He cruelly said, the words sinking deep into my bones.

I had almost forgotten where I was but that wasn't going to stop me because I am no one's little bitch.

"FUCK YOU...DOUBLE FUCK YOU. GIVING HOW MUCH UGLY YOU ARE, I AM SURE YOUR WIFE HAS DIVORCED YOU AND LEFT FOR A BETTER MAN. ONE WHO WOULDN'T ABUSE HER DAY AND NIGHT. IF I AM PATHETIC, THEN YOU ARE WORSE. I'M SURE YOU CAN'T EVEN SATISFY HER LOOKING AT YOUR SMALL LIMP DICK TUCKED AWAY IN YOUR BOXERS BECAUSE OF SHAME"