1472. The first slave trade takes place, conducted by the Portuguese.

1503. The Spanish and Portuguese replace Native American gold miners with African slaves in Central America and the Caribbean.

1791. Eli Whitney patents the cotton gin, a tool used to clean the cotton that slaves pick, providing an easier and more efficient method of cotton cleaning. With the invention of this tool came the wider expansion of slavery.

1820. The Missouri Compromise is established, abolishing slavery in Maine but letting Missouri remain a slave state, thus temporarily ending the feud between the North and the South.

1831. Turner's Rebellion takes place, causing mass bloodshed in Southampton County. Lead by Nat Turner, enslaved Virginians attempt to start an uprising. All surviving slaves are hanged, including Turner.

1863. Abraham Lincoln ratifies the Emancipation Proclamation, abolishing completely the enslavement of Africans.

1868. The fourteenth amendment is ratified, allowing former African slaves citizenship.
1879. The Subjugation Relief Act is brought into effect, replacing the newly freed African slaves and filling in their previous positions with "less sentient" beings (pokémon).

...I set the book down on the sand beneath my lounge chair. It isn't so much that I am fed up with reading it, but I am getting sick of everything slavery-related overall. Well, I tried to read a historical non-fiction, but the whole topic of slavery makes me feel ill. And the fact that it still continues today doesn't help ease my stomach.

Enslaving Africans in the first place was a heinous mistake, but replacing them with pokémon... We deemed pokémon as non-sentient beings who are willing to break their bones to serve us, even though I'm fairly sure most of the creatures are ten times smarter than us. No one realizes it, though. People these days just tend to ignorantly succumb to all that their idles (people with higher statuses than them) put into their minds and force them to believe. Everyone's been hypnotized, and sometimes I feel like I'm the only one unaffected by the authorities' mesmerizing, swinging pocket watches. The main reason for my unaltered independence, I think, is based on the fact that I am not a social person. I don't watch television, nor do I listen to the news. I have barely any friends, and my parents are rarely ever around. The times my parents are around are usually for events that seldom take place, such as major holidays.

I relax my arms and let them lay on the sand. The gentle undulations of the waves against the rocks and sands of the beach never cease to ease me. Letting out a sigh, I sit up straight in the chair to get a better look at the horizon.

New Year's Day is approaching, meaning my parents will be coming home, as long as they aren't abruptly caught up in their jobs. Their airlines could also cancel due to snow, but I doubt it'd snow here. It could snow up north, where they work, but I heard it rarely snows up there anymore.

I hope their airline gets canceled.

Don't get me wrong, living by and having to take care of myself can be a pain. Sometimes, living by myself can even get a bit scary, especially since I live in a mansion. I swear, I haven't visited some of the floors in my house for weeks. When I do visit them, usually to do laundry or find supplies, it feels like I'm exploring vast catacombs or ruins or something along those lines. One misstep could lead to an arrow through my neck.

Why my parents bought such a grandiose monstrosity, I'll never know. I can only assume that they bought it because they had the money to. Their jobs pay well. Their immorally despicable jobs pay very well. What do they work as? They're assassins. They get paid huge amounts of money to round up pokémon and send them across oceans to their eventual demise, and that's how they assassinate them. The non-hyperbolical translation: My parents work in the slavery business. Selling slaves these days is like selling gold. Of course, it's extremely difficult to mine the gold, but it's worth it when you're there at that auction, advertising your ores to all the eager scum with hundred-bills at the ready in their grubby hands.

What's horrible is that there's no escaping slavery. Even in the Caribbean, where I live now, there are slave auctions. When I first came to this place, I was kind of hoping I'd be leaving the torturous horror that is slavery back in North America. The horror followed me though, clinging onto the underside of the plane and dangling there until the plane landed. Stepping out of the plane and onto the tarmac, I could feel it. I could sense the horror looming behind me from the shadows of the airplane. I could sense that nothing had changed. It was humid. The air was salty. The scenery was more vibrant... But it was all the same as North America nonetheless.

I remember my parents grinning down at me and me responsively looking up at them with contempt, because right there, at that very airport, was an auction stall. We had to pass by the stall to get to the baggage claim. All the recently captured pokémon sitting in their tiny cages, malaise as they'll ever be, were too ignorant to bust through the wires of their cells.

Pokémon are blinded by the loyalty they are expected to hold to their masters, when, in reality, they share no sincere bonds with humans. Alternating from owner to owner (being sold over and over again), they still give their current owner all their respect, too ignorant to attempt to overthrow them or start an uprising like Nat Turner once did. But hey, as long as their pokéballs are in the hands of someone, they have one instinct, and that is to obey the hand that feeds them and possesses their means of captivity: the vile, red and white, China-made contraptions that serve as their temporary cages.

«Explanation of Our Hierarchy»

I am close to drifting off to sleep when a bellowing noise in the distance disturbs me. My eyes slowly open. A black speck is visible moving along the horizon slowly. I lean forward groggily and try, to the best of my ability, to make out the spot. The glaring sun doesn't help. Finally, I'm able to conclude that it is, in fact, not a ship, but rather a lapras. "Wow," I murmur. I've never seen such a beautiful creature before. Too bad it's miles away. Its cries kind of remind me of a wailord's, matching their serene moans almost perfectly. I spend ten minutes staring at the sight in awe. If only I could get close to it. Maybe I should just take my kayak out to sea and get a better look, and if the sea swallows me up, the lapras can rescue me, because that's apparently what they were born to do: serve and aid us, the human race. But man, if I could just lay on its shell and have it take me off to sea...

I'm about to make for the kayak when something stops me, something that completely erases all my chances of encountering the lapras. Another silhouette is now visible in the distance, closing in on the creature. It's easy to distinguish the two silhouettes from one another, as one is a maritime, elegant being, and the other is a nautical, metal giant.

A ship, one would call it.

God, have mercy on the lapras. No... The ship's going after that lapras. Judging by the way the pokémon isn't changing its course of direction, either it isn't aware of the ship, or it doesn't see the ship as anything hostile. Even as the ship approaches the lapras, the lapras disregards it completely. I know what's going to happen next, so therefore there is no reason for me to watch anymore.

I stand up, history book in hand, and make my way up the wooden stairs from the sand to the backdoor of my house without looking back.

Every opportunity we have to make money, we will seize it without considering the consequences. You're probably wondering how a lapras can be used as a slave. It can't. No one uses pokémon with such anatomical structures for doing labor, but rather for clothing and decoration. I think slaves must be strictly bipedal. Maybe there are a few exceptions, but I'm not quite sure. Actually, lapras have been used before to transport cargo and to guide boats down canals, but that was a long time ago. Now that people are aware of their rarity and value, they'd rather dissect lapras for all they're worth. I heard their shells are priceless, and their skin makes quite a warm pair of boots. Come to think of it, there are certain instances where quadrupeds and other non-bipedal pokémon have been used as slaves. Electric-types such as jolteon and manectric are usually used for supplying power plants with the energy they need 24/7. Imagine constantly having to exert tremendous amounts of energy over a span of 24 hours. If you can't do it, the plant workers will deem you unfit, like a ponyta with a single broken limp, and put you down.

If there's a species of pokémon that isn't constantly hunted down by humans, they must be living at the bottom of the sea (in other words, they have yet to be discovered). The reason humanoids are sought after for enslavement is because they can do all that Africans can do and more, with the help of their advanced strength and adeptness. Send them to the fields or make them haul crates, as long as they're not Africans! Using black people as slaves would be morally wrong, but using pokémon, that's another story!

A while back, here on the island, a charmeleon was being used to transport luggage from boat to dock and vise versa. Suddenly, for unknown reasons, it evolved into a charizard. With such scrawny arms, the charizard would have never been able to lift luggage, and because there were no other jobs available for it, it was simply killed and sold to the owner of the island's museum, a scales specialist. The creature couldn't be used on the fields – it'd burn the crops. Had there been a fossil fuel power plant on the island, the dock owners would have reconsidered killing it, but this island's electricity relies on winds rather than fires. And of course, the dock owners couldn't just release it into the wilderness. Pokémon are technically finite, so they must be used for one thing or another, be it enslavement or a food source.

Years after the abolition of African slavery, our pathetic human race decided, "Nah, we can't do shit without slaves!" So we ratified the RSA, an act as nefarious as the antecedent enslavement of black people. The creation of this act just tells me how the human race hasn't learned at all from its mistakes. What's more disgusting is how the North of America didn't protest against it like they did with black slavery. "Well hey," the North said. "Pokémon don't have feelings, so we have no problem with enslaving them. Up here, we have our [Great Britain's] Industrial Revolution, so we're set. But as long as the South isn't enslaving humans, we couldn't care less what they do."

All pokémon that don't belong to the bipedal category are either eaten, worn, or used as ornamental kitsches. Seel, for example, cannot tend to crops. However, they do make "fashionable" coats. Scarves now come in all different stylish shapes and colors; eevee scarves start at one hundred dollars, ninetales at two. Miltank are eaten often, as well as most Flying-types and Water-types. You can cut the shells off your corphish with your new skarmory wing knife. Buttered corphish is considered a delicacy. I don't know why. To me, corphish doesn't taste good at all. But then again, everyone has a different look on things. And it just so happens that I am the only person who sees pokémon slavery just as cruel as black slavery! Isn't it great being unique?

I stand in the high-vaulted living room, silently ruminating by myself. Living on an island hasn't been very good for my social life. Sure, since the island is small, everyone knows each other, but I try to conceal myself in the depths of my mansion most of the time. It's not because I'm shy – hah! Not at all! You saw me just now consider meeting the lapras. I'm not shy. Choosing to be reclusive is based on something much more deeper than just being shy. If you haven't noticed by now, I hate most humans. All our goddamn mistakes being made one after another are leading, slowly and insidiously, to the inevitable destruction of life as we know it. Here's what I think: We started with black slavery, with whites on top, and then we progressed to pokémon slavery, with whites and blacks on top. So, if this pattern continues, then that means pokémon are soon to control us! I know they can do it. They're definitely smart enough to. They just have to see through the hypnotizing powers of the pokéball. When this will happen, I don't know for sure. But it'll happen. Oh, it'll happen.

Feeling a bit lonely all of a sudden, I decide to call my friend – my only friend on the island. I dial her number in my phone while the reminiscence of an old song reverberates through my head.

...Build your penitentiary, we build your schools,
brainwash education to make us the fools.
Hate is your reward for our love,

telling us of your God above.

We gonna chase them crazy baldheads out of the town...

My friend picks up on the other end. Her harsh voice startles me. I tell her we should meet up, and she gladly accepts. On my way to pick her up, I stop by Pusser's briefly. The woman at the counter, I think her name is Barbara, seems surprised to see me.

"Oh Honey, it's been so long," she complains.

I nod my head, aware of my abnormally-prolonged absence from being in that bar. Just seeing my face around town is becoming a breathtaking anomaly, but I can't help it if I don't want to be seen by people.

"Let me guess," Barbara says with a smug smirk. "You want the mango, mm?"

I don't look at her, but instead eye the pitiful machop as it struggles to swab the dirtied tables on the far side of the restaurant. I let out a defeated sigh of sorrow, before saying, "Nah... Today, I'll have a large rum punch."

Barbara replies with a soft laugh, before proceeding to fiddle with the bar machines and tequila dispensers. I turn from the machop to Barbara curiously. She seems to be working on something... It's only when I see her take the carton of punch from its freezer does my jaw fall open. Is she... getting me a rum punch? I'm only one year under the legal drinking age on the island, but still... There wasn't even a requisition for my ID! I decide to go with it. Barbara hands me my drink and it's gone within ten minutes. Wow. Did not expect her to give me alcohol. But then again, I practically live in the most permissive chain of isles in the world. I lay money on the counter and begin to test my movements. To my relief, I'm not even tipsy. I thank Barbara and leave her and the machop.

I feel a bit better now, for once. I can feel a sense of peace greet me along with the daylight. I just hope I'm able to drive. . .

. . .Back when I was living in the mainland of North America, my family (who lived with me at the time) owned an eevee. Good Lord, those things are cute. Especially when they look up at you, reins flanking from the scruffs of their necks, and give you those sad, pleading eyes, as if to say, "Please, make it stop..." Eevee worked for us, constantly transporting freight from complex to complex around the estate via rein and sleigh. Sad thing is, when there wasn't snow on the ground—which was very rare during those years—my parents would still make Eevee transport the freight, despite how her sleigh was made specifically for snow. I'd go outside and see two lines running up the hill, carved into the unusually-exposed loam that was the estate's grass. And halfway up the hill would be Eevee, panting, distressed.

I remember when Eevee first came to the estate. My father called me down to the living room and presented to me a box, cloaked under a red towel. A faint scratching noise emitted from within the cardboard which sparked my interest. I eagerly lifted the towel, revealing the furry neonate within. It was balled up, in a fetal position like a frightened caterpie. I slowly reached into the box and caressed her soft fur until she stuck her paw out and dragged her nails along the cardboard like she had done before. She looked up at me with tired eyes. Those eyes. I could never forget those eyes, two brown saucers existing among a background of silky fur. Eevee yawned, unintentionally flashing her set of small teeth. I began scratching her neck, which seemed to please her immensely.

My father then closed the box on my hand, forcing me to recoil. I gave him a questioning glare and was about to protest when he waved a finger at me.

"Once she grows up a bit more, he'll be working the sled," my father explained. "To be honest, I was hoping for something bigger, but they didn't have much of a variety of species for auction. All they had was this darn four-legger. I swear, I bet I could catch more pokémon in a day than they could in a week." This was before my parents took jobs as Pokémon Pursuers. This was also before it was uncommon for quadrupeds to work for humans.

I glowered at my father incredulously. I couldn't say anything though. Upon seeing the eevee, I had thought she was going to be our pet. Being a young boy then, I didn't know any better.

Disregarding the advised purpose of Eevee's stay at the estate, I treated her like a pet in secret. I'd sneak her food every night, and I'd occasionally let her sleep with me. When my parents weren't home, I would even go so far as to do Eevee's work for her. She would yip her thanks and nuzzle against my ankle. But when she was working, she'd cock her head at me, causing the reins around her neck to tighten, and give me such an overtly pained expression that it would bring a tear to my eye. She didn't want to slave all day. What pokémon would? I think I was the only human Eevee truly respected. But I think my father eventually caught on to me feeding Eevee, and, well, things went downhill from there...

The creak of the car's door thankfully brings my woeful reverie to an end. Gloria sits down on the passenger seat.

"I thought you were picking me up thirty..." she trails off. With a sigh and a flutter of her hand, she dismisses the thought.

"Yeah, well, I got caught up in something. Instead of yelling at me, why don't you go nuts over the fact that this is the first time we've seen each other in weeks?" I playfully punch her shoulder.

Gloria is silent for a moment before realizing that, yes, we have not, in fact, seen each other in a long time. "Oh, Mian, where have you been?" she cries.

I smile and shrug. To be honest, I don't even know where I've been – figuratively. On the island, there isn't really a school. There's an elementary school that doubles as a church, but nonetheless it isn't much of a school to speak of. The absence of school hasn't really helped my social life. Back in North America, I had plenty of friends before I left Middle School. I haven't been an outcast my whole life, sheesh. I happened to meet Gloria by chance a while back. I was sitting cross-legged on the white sands of the island's west-coastal beach, soaking up the sun. I eyed a native from afar. She eyed me back. Because we were both visibly around the same age, we were automatically drawn together like magnets. I had an unusual whim to befriend someone at that moment, fortunately for Gloria.

Living a solitary life has been going fine for me. There are times of frustration and psychological distress, but other than that, I am perfectly sane. Perfectly. Sane.

"Where do you want to go?" I ask Gloria.

A stray hair has made its way over her face. She pushes it away with a grin, and says, "Yuet Sage. Let's go."

"Yuet Sage?" I repeat. "I've never been there before."

"Really? O Mama, you are missing out!"

Yuet Sage it is, then. Also known as Sage Mountain, Yuet Sage is the only location on the island consisting a rainforest-like climate. The rest of the island is dry and sandy. I've lived on this island for several years, but not once have I visited this mountain. After all, this island is fairly large, if not larger than the rest that make up the archipelago. Also, enclosing myself on my property would explain why the other half of the island is like the dark side of the moon to me.

You know, I've been living here for a while now. I expected I'd get bored of this place after living here long enough, but, to my surprise, I still love it just as much (despite how it's a slave island). As long as I'm not camping out, I can cope. And besides, I'd rather wade through waist-deep water than waist-deep snow.

I've been driving for a while now. Every once in a while, my eyelids tend to droop, but I'm able to keep them open. Gloria guides me through the steep, winding roads. She herself hasn't been to Sage Mountain in a while, so it's no wonder that we get lost. She frantically taps her nails against the dashboard, beginning to grow impatient. Is she... getting mad at me? Listen Sister, it's not my fault we're lost. Gloria can be a little restless at times. Restless and vehement. And irritable. And annoying. And oblivious. And naïve... Oh, is there any human being I can truly respect? I'm horrible, I know. But no, Gloria's a sweetheart, she really is.

I turn up a particularly narrow road and proceed up it, all the while Gloria is babbling in my ear about how she "could have sworn it was left, right, right, under the tunnel, and left". My temple pulses wildly. Gloria's incessant jiving and the burst of blood throughout my head is all I can hear. I'm about to shush her when I realize the road my car just traversed up has abruptly ended at a house's garage. What kind of road is this? I twist my body around to look out the car's trunk's window. It's a long way down to the main road. I let out an exasperated groan and put the car in reverse.

"Well that's weird," Gloria states.

I concur while keeping my eye on the road behind. My car moves backwards ever so slowly. Gaining confidence, I speed up a little, entering a steady pace down the hill. I slam the brake, forcing Gloria's body back into her seat.

"What happened?"

I gasp and mutter, "Jesus," under my breath. I step out of the car and creep down the hill. There, in the middle of the road, stands a small, blue, unidentifiable creature. It has some odd, dark-gray growth dangling from its left wrist, and it has another dark-gray growth infused onto its neck. Its crimson eyes, full of pure fear, stare at the rear of my car. It doesn't stir, it just stands there, paralyzed from the site of the metal titan that nearly killed it. I flap my hands at it, trying to shoo it off so I can continue down the hill.

Gloria gets out of the car and now stands on the opposite side of the road as me. "That's a riolu," she murmurs, placing a hand on her cheek.

I've seen riolu before, but none of them had such protrusions on their bodies. As I creep closer, I can now see what the body's "oddities" really are: they're made of metal, much like the aired bones on the riolu's arms, but these metals are inorganic, as in they're man-made.

Shackles and a collar. Disgusting. The ends of the shackles still seem to be smoldering as they melt and drip onto the concrete below. I hold my hands out so as not to spook the thing. It gives me no attention, and continues gawking at the car.

Then, it happens. My car starts rolling downwards slightly. It gains a bit of speed before I fully notice it. Gloria screams. I look from the car to the riolu in panic. Come on, Damian, do something. Don't just stand there, do something, dammit! The car is still slow enough to seize, but I can't move. My mind becomes a spectacular blur of jumbled thoughts. I can't think straight... I-I...

Finally, I do something. I make a terrible mistake, but at least I do something... Without thinking, I run towards the riolu, grab it, and leap out of the way before the car crushes us. With the stunned riolu in my arms, I watch, mouth agape, as my car rolls down the road until it reaches the main road, where it crosses it perpendicularly (luckily not harming any other cars passing by) and crashes into the metal road rail, dispersing a brilliant array of sparks and shrapnel everywhere. The rail was installed to prevent cars from driving off the road, off the cliff, and into the ocean. Now, it bulges out above the water and is in need of replacing. It momentarily suspends my car in the air, before it begins to break apart. From up on the hill, I see my car finally break through the rail and start its unconditional tumble downwards, out of site. I hear a couple crashes, the sound of metal on rock, followed by a thunderous explosion of water. The riolu involuntarily jerks about in my arms at the sound of the splash, before it reverts back to its inanimate state, a limp, blue pillow in my arms.

After an uncomfortable minute of silence, I turn to Gloria, whose hand now covers her mouth. She looks back at me and away from the wreck. I can't find words. I might as well explain myself. "I left the... the... I left the car in drive."

"Why would you do that when you leave your car!?" Gloria gasps, obviously astonished by my stupidity.

Dammit, why can't I think properly? I try to calm her down, but I only end up spluttering gibberish about the emergency brake. The smell of burning rubber reaches my nose. "You smell that? I did put the brake on! Why it rolled away, I don't know!" My voice rises. "It was some old Suzuki; it wasn't reliable anymore anyway!"

Gloria brings her hand to her face. Sighing, she suggests, "We should get out of here before we have to pay for that guardrail. But on second thought, we should return that riolu before we get in even bigger trouble."

"What? No..." I hug the pokémon tighter to my chest. I back up from the road. "We can't just give it back."

"Of course we must. Mian, give it to me." She beckons me with the flicking of her fingers.

I back away even more. And now, I commit the second most stupid act today: I turn and dart for the trees. Gloria screams after me. . .

. . .I find it amazing how I can predetermine my entire fate with just one false action. The hierarchy's going to want my neck now. They're going to want my neck broken, as in I'm going to get executed. The only way the hierarchy would not come after me is if Gloria doesn't tell anyone about this, but I know she will. And this is not likely something that would just be condoned by the hierarchy. This island isn't small, but it's not big either. I look above at the canopy of the trees. This whole mountain must be Yuet Sage. Who knew? Who knew Gloria and I were so close to our destination? Had we gone up the right road at that time, I might have been able to keep my life. My dull, forlorn life. I lower my head and stare at the blue cushion, who rests against a tree a couple meters away. Actually, 'rest' isn't a fitting term for it. The cushion stares back with its gleaming, red eyes. It's still stunned and unable to make out any expression. I don't expect it to show me any gratitude, not any time soon anyway.

I'm not even sure if it's aware I just killed myself trying to help it.