Preface
The sticky pungent smell.
The place filled with rats and the house of disease and malice. I wonder how this can be an effective place for training. Maybe they want us to be tough. Immune to such threats of life. Because what we are going to face is way more dangerous than this place offers.
I am escorted to the sewage underground. This is the pre-independence era and I am a girl wanting to live and not just survive. My birth is itself a curse upon me since I am a girl and that too in such conservative environment. From childhood, we are trained how to be good wives to our husbands, how to satisfy them and how to take care of our children. We are not considered as human. We are treated like objects. And my family couldn't do much but to abandon me. Because I'm so stubborn and strong-headed. I don't want to live like a piece of sh*t.
Secondly, the invaders have looted and plundered our once prosperous land from years. I couldn't even fathom the consequences if I stayed at the surface right now. Maybe I would be a victim of trafficking and send to some filthy oversized man for serving him as his sex toy.
But thanks to my brother that I could escape all of it. He is the only closest person to my heart. And I consider him family. Others are just for namesake.
I still remember the way we escaped the horrible nightmare cast in our town. Houses burnt, people died and young women were kidnapped for things that I don't want to even imagine. My brother and I escaped the town somehow and made it past the river overnight. Then he cut off my long blonde hair. Gave me a 'young boy' look. I took off my tunic and wore a worn out pant and shirt just like workers. This was the best disguise available for now. Till we were in some safer location.