Bound and Broken: An Isekai Adventure Dark Fantasy (Melas Book 1) V.A. Lewis (feel good books to read .TXT) 📖

dying, falling to the ground with a hole in her chest. She was protecting me, even in death. I was powerless— helpless to stop it. And it was all because of him.

It was because of him I died. It was because of him I lived. And it was because of him my mother was dead.

Everything. Even the situation I was in now, was all because of that fake god. So as I stared into the symbol about to be pressed onto my face, all I saw was red.

And as the symbol was burned onto me, I screamed. It was a scream of pain and suffering. A scream of anger and hatred. And a scream for revenge.

It was the only thing I could cling on to; the drive to fill the void in my very soul. I had lost my reason to live, and now I found a new one.

To make the Church pay. To make these slavers pay. To make god pay.

That was why I had to live.

Chapter 12: Slave

"Here you go," a voice said.

I looked up and met a pair of blue eyes staring at me. A middle aged man with brown hair was holding a bowl of slops out to me. I gratefully accepted the food— little as it was— and nodded my head to him.

"Thank you."

We briefly made eye contact before he averted his gaze. He sat down next to me, and we began to eat our meal; I did not say much, though he did not say anything either. Although he did keep passing glances at my face, which made me slightly uncomfortable.

I knew he was not being rude. I knew he had no ulterior motives for sneaking peeks at me. His name was Theodore, and he was the one who helped look after me since I first awoke. Yet, everytime he looked at me, I got a reminder. A reminder of...

I looked down at my bowl of soup and stared. A little disheveled girl looked right back up at me. She had silver eyes and black hair, which was quite unusual for a Human in this world. But I paid that little mind. It was the symbol on my face that disturbed me; the black letter M surrounded by a circle with chains spread from its back. It marked my face, next to my left eye. A logo showing that I was a product of the Mancis Company to all who saw me.

Staring at my reflection, I felt… anger. It burned deep inside me, and it was almost like I could see the fire in my eyes. My desire for revenge.

But along with that fury came the memory of how I got it. The pain of all the wrong that had been done to me as I was permanently scarred. As I recalled that, I… cringed.

It hurt so much! Why couldn’t they just have given me a tattoo?! Just use ink! It’s much cheaper than using some special mana tool to do it!

I sighed. For all I try to make light of it as a coping mechanism, it did hurt a lot. Not just internally, but externally; my physical body was scarred and burned for at least a minute straight.

And unlike the other times I got dismembered, burned, or had all the bones in my body broken, I wasn’t numbed by adrenaline when this happened. It was neither a high stakes situation where hormones numbed the pain, nor was I anywhere near close enough to death for my body and mind to ignore the pain.

And the memory was not a blur sitting in the back of my head like all my near death experiences. It was fresh in my head, every detail clear as day to me. And it hurt. A lot.

I slowly put the bowl down, the soup— or sludge— lapping gently within the wooden container. I turned to Theodore— the kindly man who had been looking after me ever since I woke up— and spoke softly.

"Thank you."

The brown haired man paused mid bite, and turned to face me. He met my gaze for a second before flinching; after taking a second to regain his composure, he replied

"There’s nothing to thank me for. A child like you shouldn’t be in this situation in the first place."

Of course, this situation…

We were slaves, being trafficked illegally into the Free Lands. Groups of men and some women were chained together by the dozens, kept in a small area at the center of the camp, as the slavers went about their work. They fed us, of course; but it was clear they gave us whatever scrap or morsel they could gather, since most of us sat around doing nothing for the whole day.

Some men, like Theodore, were picked out to do manual labor. They were only chained by their feet, and allowed some level of free roam within the camp, while everyone else was bound to one another. Well, everyone except for me. I had freedom of movement too, if for different reasons from the middle aged man.

It had been two weeks since I was branded by the Mancis Company. We spent most of the first week staying in that first encampment, as the slavers forged whatever documents were necessary to sell us as slaves; enslaving people from other countries was supposed to be illegal, after all.

Since we started traveling again, we had a pretty basic daily routine: wake up and get on the wagons; wait and ride until the sun sets; stop and set up camp; eat dinner and go to sleep.

Oh and there were the occasional beatings too; totally not something worth mentioning. It was just slavers doing slaver things— it’s to be expected of course!

I sighed and turned my attention back to Theodore.

"No one should be in this situation in the first place,"