A/N: I keep coming with ideas for stories without ever documenting them, and just have the urge to write them xD

And they're basically ALWAYS Sci-fi.

[...]

Existence... Exactly... What is that?

Is it life? Is it fate? Destiny? Just what is 'existence'? Can you possibly exist without living - live without existing?

Do I... Exist?...

[...]

I woke up in bed.

I was drenched in sweat, my head pounding in my chest, my blonde hair falling around my shoulders. I rubbed my head, breathing deeply, trying to remember the dream.

Nothing came to mind.

"Len? Are you okay?" A voice called up to me through the flimsy wooden floorboards beneath my mattress, "I thought I heard you scream."

"I'm fine," I replied, leaning back on my hands, resting my head against the termite-infested wall, "I just had a bad dream, I think."

"Okay." The reply came, before I heard the shuffling of my sister snuggling back under her sheets. I just sat there, staring blankly into space.

I'd heard someone - I knew I had. Was I going crazy at the age of fourteen?

[...]

I can't remember falling back asleep that night - but before I knew it, there was sunlight streaming through the collapsing roof above me, signalling the start of a new day.

"Morning Len!" My sister chirped happily, my bedroom door being pushed open. She was basically the female version of me - petite, with bright blonde hair falling around her shoulders, pushed out of her eyes with two black hair-clips at her fringe, exposing her cerulean eyes.

She wore clothes similar to my usual day clothes - brown shorts with a loose, ragged, sleeveless white shirt. As usual, her face was covered with spots of mud, her exposed elbows scarred and bare with dried blood. Unhygienic by anyone's standards.

"Morning," I said, slipping out of bed and grabbing my pair of shorts, as I usually slept nude to avoid overheating - except in the winter, when Rin and I even resorted to snuggling under the same blanket for heat.

"Two days 'til the master comes," Rin reminded me, her voice betraying no worry, "So we have to work hard, okay~!"

I nodded as Rin ran out, knocking on the door next to me. It wasn't ideal living with twenty other hungry, smelly kids - but it was what we had to deal with. As far as slaves went, we were treated pretty well - we were given rooms to stay in, usually two to a room, but it could be less or more, depending on your behaviour and usefulness.

Luckily for me, I was one of the youngest boys, meaning I wasn't too old enough yet to be seen instantly as a man and pulled out of slavery by the government, but not so young I was completely useless. I was one of the only ones not forced to share a room - not that Rin and I never did.

It's been centuries since time was documented, so I can't even give you a rough estimate of what century it is. Let's just say, the government nowadays is whoever's the biggest, burliest and richest, and the rest of the population are worthless. Somewhere along the line, women were announced to be the same level of use as livestock and, since then, have been kept as 'pets'.

When I say that - I mean literally.

Every woman is micro-chipped at birth, given a collar, name and sent off to some rich man to do god-knows-what for him for the rest of their lives. Men, however, are treated better - given lives, able to work and live like normal, civilized humans.

But since women are seen as so worthless, slave drivers usually try to get hold of orphaned boys, or boys who are so feminine that you wouldn't be able to tell otherwise.

Apparently, I fall into both of those categories.

"Oi, boy, ya gonna stan' there like stunned leman all day or ya gonna get movin'?" A thickly accented voice asked me from the doorway. There stood the twenty-three year old 'Mistress' of the house - Miss Ann.

She was well known for her strange accent, blonde tangles that fell around her perfectly creamy face with blue eyes. Every house had a mistress that was in charge of getting every slave to work on time, injured, sick, even on death's door - it didn't matter.

"Sorry, Miss," I apologised, ducking out of her way. The Mistresses were the girls who, back in their younger years, slept with the slave drivers and did everything they were told. In return, as they grew older, they were given pretty dresses, hygienic stuff.

That's what my sister wanted and, frankly, that scared me.

I went downstairs into the main area - which was where all the girls in the house slept every night. Sheets and mattresses covered every section of the floor, some girls still awake, half-naked or even more exposed, though it didn't cause any blushes from me and wouldn't have with the two other guys living in the house if they'd been present. We were used to it anyway - and we didn't exactly have time to be distracted by those sorts of things. When we were released one day, we'd be able to get our own slave girls and enjoy ourselves then - right?

At least, that's what some of the guys said. I found it sickening to be honest. I only wanted to get out of here, so I could buy Rin and, in a sense, free her.

"'Urry up and get changed ya lot!" Miss Ann called, walking down the stairs, moving her hips in a suggestive way that'd probably become natural by habit.

One of the girls groaned tiredly and Ann lashed out with the whip she always had on her hip, the rope slashing across the girl's bare back, causing her to yelp.

"'Nough complainin'!" Miss Ann barked, "'Urry up! Speakin' o' 'urryin', where be those boys?!"

"I'll get them, Miss!" Rin said obediently from my side, racing off up the stares, despite her feet being sore from days of walking on hard gravel and hot sand.

"I wan' y'all outside in the next ten minutes, ya 'ear me?!" Miss Ann said angrily, pushing the girls out the way as she left the rickety old building, slamming the door shut so hard, the walls shook and saw dust fluttered down into my hair.

Immediately, all the girls rushed over to the girl who had been whipped and was now crying in the corner, or continued to change. I stood there, my mind blank besides a few words in my head.

Is this existence?

[...]

So... Do you think this fanfic needs to become M rated? No lemon, lime, citrus whatever you call it. M purely for the themes of the whole environment they're in. Tell me if you think it's too harsh, because it'll get worse later on...