My story starts out like they all do, with normality. Giggling at a dirty joke my aunt had made while the radio blares into my ears. In stories everything is business as usual, that is until the exact moment it's not. We hit a spike in the road; losing control slamming my head into the side of the car, my thoughts ringing throughout my skull like an echo in a cave. After that my memories are chopped fragments of the whole picture.
The sun is setting.
Someone is holding my wrists.
Red hair.
Children.
Corn stalks.
Then I'm forced to my knees in a clearing, only to look up and see a giant cross adorned with corn and a skeleton of a man long dead in uniform. Torch light flickered in front of him filling the hollows of his eye sockets with light before bathing them in darkness again. I would have screamed if I could have remembered how.
"I've brought the outlander," the boy standing above me says. He has hair the color of the torches and it flickers like fire too, or maybe that's just my eyes playing tricks on me. He speaks to a younger boy with pale skin and dark with eyes much older than his earthly body.
"Thank you, Malachi. Tell me, outlander, how old are you?" it takes me a moment to understand the question, another to spit the blood from my mouth and yet another to think of my answer. There wasn't a single person around that looked older than high school age. My excitement over turning eighteen in January deflated like the balloons after the party. I try to shake my head but it rattles my thoughts around so much that I have to stop. I need to be able to think clearly despite the spots that sparkle across my vision and the dizziness that threatens to send me falling onto my face. The truth probably wasn't the best thing to go for at the moment.
"Sev- seventeen last month," I muttered to the boy. It may have been pushing it but the leader seemed to accept my answer as fact because then he asked for my name. "Jesse. I'm Jesse."
"Enough talk, Isaac. Let's give her to He Who Walks Behind the Rows!" the red haired boy yelled, getting a handful of other children to join in his cheering.
"Silence, Malachi!" the boy called Isaac snapped, his dark eyes glaring through the fire light."The more we have to serve him the better. She is not yet of age; we must use her as a servant, not a sacrifice."
Malachi sneered but said nothing else. I chance a glance around searching for a face but I'm not sure whose I'm looking for.
"Now, Jesse isn't a very suitable name. You will take the name of Zelophehad's daughter, Mahlah. Rise Mahlah and become his servant. "
My knees had fallen asleep lying in the dirt and my whole body aches from the abuse it had suffered. I did not know who he was or what serving him entailed but I seem to have no choice. I struggle to get my feet underneath me but my limbs are simply too exhausted. Malachi impatiently grabbed a hold of my upper arm and hauled me up. The other boy planted his hands on my shoulders, his thin lips spreading into a grin that, despite my blurry mind, I'd never be able to forget.
"Sister Mahlah, Welcome to Gatlin."