Dear readers,

Thank you for reading the first chapter of my first fanfiction. As some of you may be aware, this story has been inspired by the story "Psychopomp" by ParadiseAvenger, which can be found here [ s/7859352/1/Psychopomp], which I personally recommend. Before anybody accuses me of ripping his or her story of, please read both stories first and then draw suitable comparisons.

On another note, I don't really have much experience with the rating system, as this is my first fanfiction. At time of writing I consider T to be an adequate rating. If you think this is too low, please inform me so I can change it.

Anyway, this concludes my first author's note. If you would please read and review my story. I always appreciate honest reviews.

With kind regards,

PicUnrelated

"I'm being sold into slavery? I don't know how...", cried Crona.

"Halts Maul du Schweinehund", yelled a harsh voice. It was followed by the sound of whip impacting human flesh. Maka sighed, Crona had just expressed the feelings of everyone in her village who was still alive.

The slavers' attack came in the middle of the night. Maka was awoken by the sound of detonating mortar shells. This caused her to panic, which is why she ran out into the street. Half the village was burning. Then a team of slavers systematically herded them together, shooting anyone who dared to resist, and out of the village. She saw the corpses of the village's militia on the way, they had fought bravely, but now it was in vain. Her father was among them.

In the front of the village, where the slavers had already build a temporary camp, presumably for the purpose of processing their new acquisitions. First they lined them up. However, there was a young mother, who didn't want to let go of her daughter. A slaver solved this problem by beating the mother with the butt of his rifle. After the slavers had lined them up, they sorted them by gender, so they could start to asses their loot.

A man with a suit walked through the lines. He talked to every single one of them. Sometimes he signaled the slavers to take somebody aside. But most of them remained where they were.

"Hello young lady", he said to Maka once he came round to her, "Do you have any relatives outside this village who can pay some ransom?" She thought about lying to him,but what if he found out she lied. He would certainly find out.

"No", she answered, and he went over to the next captive. He was closely followed by another slaver, who basically ripped the clothes of her body. She had seen that he was more careful when he was dealing with a more a delicate garment, like the mayor's wife's silk nightgown. Maka's body started shaking in the cold West Wyoming air. She was in a daze, not really realizing what was happening, like in a nightmare before one realizes that one has a nightmare. Next, a slaver who was carrying pliers came along. Maka wondered what he would do, but he just looked at her and moved on to the next captive.

Farther away from her was a slaver, who had a white bind with a red cross on it. He was thoroughly inspecting an elderly woman. Then he gave a sing to two other slaver's who led her away. Maka could hear gunshots from the direction they were dragging her. She saw how the slaver with the pliers pulled the wedding ring of the finger of a woman who had been married earlier this year. The slaver with the white bind was inspecting the woman next to Maka, Susanne. It was at this moment that Maka realized that her life may be over in a couple of minutes. If this man found reason for it, he would send her to the firing squad. She didn't want to die. He made a gesture. Susanne would get shot and maybe it would be her turn next. The slaver started examining her now. Maybe he would not order her execution. Who was she kidding. Susanne didn't make the cut, and she was taller and stronger than her. Well, Maka did get better grades in school, but the slaver couldn't possibly know that. He was looking into her mouth now. Her remaining lifetime would be until he finished plus the time the trip to the firing squad would take. It couldn't be more than five minutes now. He stopped looking into her mouth, now he would give the order to shoot her. Except that he didn't. Instead he moved on to Meme Tantane. She wasn't going to get shot! She would not die today! She would see the sun rise again! But from where? That's when she realized that these men were slavers, taking anyone they can capture and selling them.

Looking over to Susanne, she saw that a different slaver with pliers was pulling some of her teeth. The ones with fillings, to be precise. Maka suddenly became very grateful that she didn't have any fillings. Yet another slaver went trough the lines and put some sort of thing on their necks. When it was her turn, Maka could hear a lock clicking shut. Obviously some sort of slave collar. The next slaver who was busy examining them was carrying a clipboard with him and seemed to be talking nonstop.

"Looks... but... definitively...", he muttered, Maka could only make out a few words, then he asked her: "Are you educated in any way?".

"Well, I can read.", said Maka reluctantly, afraid of making him angry.

"What is written here?", he asked, turning his clipboard around and pointing at the title of his the document. Maka couldn't recognize the first letter of the word. The bad lighting also didn't help. She knew she had to say something. Soon. Wait, would she want them to know that she could read, well somewhat. But she already told him she could. He would get angry and do something nasty to her if she couldn't convince him that she could read. But what the hell was written there? She could only recognize a few letters of the word. Then he whacked her over the head with his clipboard.

"So this one is worth eleven million new Nevada Dollars", he said to himself as he wrote on his clipboard. Maka wondered how much this sum, that her entire life had been so brutally reduced to, was actually worth. How much were eleven million new Nevada dollars in the Democratic Republic of New Nevada? Did that country have any laws limiting abuse of slaves, like the Federal Republic of southern Michigan, or would her future owner be allowed to pull her limb from limb if he wanted to and had a suitable instrument?