From Slaver to Slave
William Ault
I guess I deserved what happened to me; I got too cocky. That's how shit happens. Amazing how one little decision can fuck your life up so much. But, it happens to everyone, I suppose. Everyone's got that one little thing in the back of their heads where they say to themselves, "You know, I really shouldn't have done that." For me, that thing was joining the Slavers Guild.
You can't blame me. I was young, I had nothing else, and what's worse – I was addicted to Jet. I joined the guild because I needed to facilitate my addiction. Sure, I could have sold Jet on the streets to punks for pocket change, but that's no job for an extrovert like me. I needed a community, people to reach out to; even if those people were callous, cold hearted lunatics.
And so, I walked all those miles from New Reno, my heart, the place I was born, to the Den. I thought I was bad, but when I saw some of the junkies there, I really had something to be thankful for. At least I wasn't that bad; at least I wasn't scum. I rented an apartment and slept with rats and scumbags, who'd shoot their own blood just for another hit of Jet.
It was during those months before I joined the guild that I grew an intense hatred for my fellow man, for human beings. It was humans who dropped the bombs; it was humans who killed the Earth. It was humans who invented that foul drug, Jet. I became angry inside. This anger wouldn't cease, and then one day I caught some punk kid with his hands around my wallet.
I just snapped; it wasn't my fault. I was insane back then. I pulled out bottle of Nuka-Cola, and smashed the kid over the head with it. He fell down, unconscious and bleeding profusely. I looked around – no one. No one was around; no one saw what I did. I made a decision then that caused my life to spiral down uncontrollably. I took one of the glass shards that remained from the shattering of the Nuka-Cola, and I slit the kid's throat. He gurgled on his blood, in unconscious struggle.
I fell to my knees; was I really that bad? What had I just done? A child, innocent for the most part, lay dead at my feet. I did what I had to. I stuck his body in a trash bag, and during one of my numerous runs back to New Reno, I buried him at Golgotha.
Golgotha is a horrible place, not fit for anyone to spend their eternal rest. It was the most inconspicuous, however, so that's where the child was recommitted to the Earth. I normally didn't stay too long in Golgotha; it gives you the creeps after the first thirty minutes. This time, though, I took a long walk down the highway that divides it, and thought about things.
I still wasn't right in the head, but I realized one thing – I needed a purpose in life. Something I could look forward to doing when I woke up in the morning. Like most of my decisions, however, I was flawed. I decided that the purpose I was looking for was slaving.
Immediately after arriving in the Den once more, I took a trip to Metzger's, the Slavers Guild. The guards let me in, and I talked with him for a while. I warmed up to him, he was convincing, and the Guild represented something more than enslavement to me. It represented family, a family I had never had; a heavily armed and highly protective family.
The first few missions I went on went rather well; I preformed good, and I had more money than I had ever had in my entire life. I lived in the Guild, making a makeshift bed and buying a footlocker from one of the merchants to keep my stuff in. Most of this stuff was Jet.
In fact, nearly all my money that I gained from enslaving people was put into my addiction. I made a couple thousand dollars a week, not bad money for a petty slaver. By the time I got done buying Jet, I had a little over a hundred dollars left. I would buy whatever food I could find and spent the rest on beer, and occasionally I would rent a cheap whore, or 'borrow' a slave from Metzger's stash. I was living the life that only I could have dreamed of – violence, sex, and most importantly, Jet.
To Be Continued…