Born for silk

“Shut up, woman!” the biggest one, with a bald head and square jaw, snarls before reaching for her and pulling her to her feet. She stumbles as he leans in, “You’ll keep for weeks with all that blubber.” Her eyes lock in on mine. She doesn’t speak, but the terror she feels screams from her gaze. “Take the fat one to the basement.”

While three Endigo keep watch, two drag our Wardeness into a hallway, and I slide my hand along the floor, looking for a piece of glass or debris.

My stomach churns.

I can smell burning flesh and hair. The air is electrified. I find myself inhaling a putrid smell and nearly gag as the body of air seems to roll down my throat.

“That’s something aint it?” the same one says to me, grabbing a hold of my elbow and pulling me to my feet. “The smell of contaminated flesh. See,” he pulls me further into the room, toward a fire in a barrel. “We cut his leg off and cooked it when it was fresh. Nice. Not as sweet as your legs will be.” He licks his lips. “Don’t worry. Usually, we keep the live meat clean, but the water stopped ru

I take in my surrounding through side eyes: old mattresses, sofas, and barrels. So many different barrels, and one is on fire, the light illuminating a ring around us.

Then I see the man—the live meat.

My eyes hollow. My heart rings in my ears like an alarm. He is missing a forearm, sliced off at the elbow, and a shin; the kneecap is an avocado colour and oozes with yellow puss.

I cover my mouth to stop from vomiting.

Should I run?

Scream for help?

“No. No!” I hear a woman scream from somewhere inside the building. I snap my head toward the sound. I don’t need to see anything. I can imagine what they are doing. Like my raptor’s teeth—slicing into flesh, sucking muscles from tiny bones.

Screaming won’t help.

The woman’s guttural cries wind up, building and building until they cut off. Right in the middle. Like her voice box was severed in half, or perhaps she just passed out.

Hunted, killed, raped, eaten.

If you’re lucky, it’ll be in that order.

She wasn’t lucky.

Across from me on another soiled sofa, Iris has her eyes squeezed shut, her hair is dishevelled, and her dress is stained and ripped. I sit upright and still, watchful.

“Can I touch that one?” A younger one bares his teeth, thin like sewing needles, and rubs at the swell between his thighs, staring at Iris. “I like that one.”

“Not now, you fool,” the largest one says.

Iris sways. Her body gives way and flops to the side on the filthy sofa.

“Iris,” I whisper-shout. I won’t be able to carry her out if we get a chance to escape. I need her to run. Fight. Survive. “Iris.” But she’s out cold. His words were too much for her to handle.

As I sit stiff like an obedient doll, my eyes veer around the room to watch the men as they go about their routines. The young one plops down on a stained pink sofa and picks his teeth with a rusty knife, angry eyes never leaving Iris’s unconscious body.

The big one, the leader, moves over to a bench and lifts a barrel onto it; it must weigh a ton. He’s strong.

Can’t overpower him, not even with Iris.

A ski

Can’t run.

The live meat, twitching and disorientated, stares at a puddle of piss on the concrete by his feet. He’s given up. A man twice my size with far more muscles didn’t escape…

Fighting back isn’t possible.

I think about the dead baby bird, belly up and stiff. Like me now. It broke its neck on the glass dome. I always thought it was an accident, but maybe it would rather die than be trapped and taunted by the other birds. Maybe it was being chased. Hunted. Maybe it was courageous and resilient, not insignificant. Determined. It tried to break free instead of cowering in a corner of the aviary.

I’ll be the upside-down bird.

I think through the dusky first-light as the Endigos take turns sleeping. I won’t go huddled in a corner. There is a way out… I scan the cavernous space. It’s an old factory of sorts.

I pay attention to details; the floor is cracked and so are the bricks, so maybe there is a hole somewhere small enough for me to fit through…

I keep looking. Strip drains run in tracks down the centre, maybe there is a well I could hide inside. Seven beds, but only five men.

Where are the other two?

Three sofas, and old tables are squeezed close together, probably for warmth at night. The echo of each slight noise denotes a larger area swallowed by the dark. The stench of death climbs along my tongue.

No clean water…

With that, I remember the closest mill is down, which means Trade men will be coming to fix it.

Alert, I mull the next few days or weeks over in all their horror. When I heard stories of Endigos and feral Fur men, I presumed they would capture and kill their prey. It never occurred to me that they would keep them alive, live with them, clean them, cutting pieces off day by day until they bid them farewell with a final slash.

I’m staring at the drains, thanking the pond for teaching me to swim and wondering where they may lead, when the young one stands. I hide my interest but track him subtly as he checks the other men are asleep.

With the others out cold, he turns to Iris.

I swallow as he approaches her. Placing a hand on either side of her body, he looks engrossed in her every feature. His eyes flick to her forehead, where the blood from the crash has dried to a crusty river. He leans over and his tongue lashes out, lapping at the bloody trail.

I gasp, and his eyes snap across.

He rises, staring at me.

My heart thrashes inside my ribcage, the fearful organ is desperate to leap free from the snare of his gaze. I shuffle backward on the mattress.

“Pretty, pretty, little girl. Pretty, pretty, little girls,” he says, a taunting lullaby. He would only be a few years older than me, perhaps newly a man. Is he mad? I know nothing of the behaviours of men. The anatomy, yes, I’m quite versed in that area from my Silk Girl training, but not the ma

I track him with my eyes as he sits back on his pink sofa, but now he’s fixated on me. “I’ve never had a Silk Girl before.”

“We belong to The Trade. To the king.”

I don’t know why I say it.

Such a redundant attempt to rattle him.

“Ooo,” he mocks, as I knew he would. “Where is he now? Have you met him? I’m sure you have if you’re his Silk Girls.” His face contorts with thoughts of anger and bitterness as he continues, “They say King Rome is the closest thing left to a pure Xin De.” He leans into the barrel at his side and pulls out a strip of cooked, pink flesh, a seam of fat around the edge. All the while looking at me, he plucks pieces of the loin apart and plops them into his mouth. “They say he’s full of metal and eight foot tall.” The fire licks upward from the barrel between us. “I saw a pure Xin De once. The Trade left me and my family—starving. This bitch was dead when I found her in an abandoned basement. There was half a baby hanging from inside her. Still fresh. Both of them. Maternal deaths are so common that even at the age of nine, I knew what had happened. Xin De are too big for their own mothers. Without Trade help, women die. Just another way they control us.”

He hates The Trade.

He talks around a chewy piece of meat. “I tried to cut the baby free so I could put it on salt for later, but the woman’s skin was like hide. I’m part Xin De, got some of the undesirable mutilations, but I don’t have skin like that…” Then he smiles at me, and my stomach turns. I roll my lips together to mask the revulsion I feel. “Not like you,” he adds. “I’ll go into you like a knife into that baby that hung from her. You’re soft. Your skin is thin. They made you so fragile and made themselves so indestructible. It’s no wonder the Trade has been trying to backpedal this fucking Gene Age disaster. Mix us. Blend Common and Xin De. So tell me, little Silk Girl, tell me all the tales of King Rome. Your saviour.”

I know we are sheltered in the Silk Aviary, but Silk Girls are well read, so I don’t allow him to frighten me.

Instead of detesting him for his vulgar story, I stare at this young man, unable to overlook the despair hidden beneath his layers of resentment. What must he have seen and done in his young life? Would I be any different if I had walked in his shoes? I hope I would still be decent even as I fought to survive.

It seems fruitless, but time is my friend, so I humour his request while I consider what to do.

“King Rome has a giant eagle named Odio,” I begin, playing along. “He is as big as I am. Wings twice the span of my arms outstretched. They say he flies into each battle first and rips the head of the opposing leader right off his shoulders with his talons. Carries the head to King Rome and places it in his hands to symbolise the begi

The man leans forward onto his knees, murky brown eyes narrowing. He is dirty, yes, but youthful in a way that saddens me. “You’re not what I expected from a Silk Girl. I’ve jerked off to the idea of the perfect little breeding girls you are. Pure. Unopened by a man. Adore, pleasure, provide, am I right? Nothing in your pretty heads except that.” He hums in thought. “But you’re… talking about beheadings, sitting there all stiff and alert, like you’re going to try to take us all on. Is that it, little girl? You’re not even that squeamish. Your friend couldn’t stand the sight or smell, but you…” He studies me harder. “What are you?”

“I’m different.”

“How different?” he poses, a challenge skittering along each syllable. “How different are you, little girl?”

“I’m just like you. Surviving.” I look at his leader—at least I think he is— and remember the way he belittled him. He snores on his mattress. Quickly returning my gaze, I say, “With people ordering me around. Like the Wardeness. Those who think they know better than me. Or are smarter. Prettier”—I flash a look at Iris— “I’m just trying to survive in The Cradle. It’s made for them, not us.”

Fuck. I feel sick. I want Meaningful Purpose as much as any Trade citizen, and my words are profane.

We are staring at each other, and I feign intimacy, push it into the length and depth of our eye contact, using every inch of strength to not recoil or grimace.

His eyes drops to my throat.

I swallow as he leers, dipping his heated gaze lower to my chest and then my lap, where his vile thoughts are almost tangible fingers removing my clothes.