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This story was first and foremost inspired by a friend of mine at the time by name of ChibiXzaide. The original concept of Kiros was hers, as well as the idea of Irkens in slavery. It was her dream that I based this on. Though we've fallen out and I continue to write this independently, I still want others to acknowledge that she is the creative genius behind this. I wouldn't have written any of this if not for her.


"You're late, Truck-driver!!" the bellow was powerful, enraged, and I visibly cringed down, my antennae pressing against my head. Oh god, I didn't want this. Not after all the snow, the rain, my shitty day to end all shitty days….. "I told you not another late shipment! Now tell me why the hell I was cursed to deal with such incompetent, ungrateful slugs every damn day!! You worthless bug! Tell me why you're such a goddamn idiot!!!"
"S-sir… I-I-I d-don't know…. Sir…." I managed to sputter out, keeping my eyes to the floor, cringing like the beaten dog I was. I yelped as my Master grabbed me by the back of the neck, so roughly that I thought the bones might snap at any moment, and he lifted me up from the floor like a tiny rag doll. Panic seized me, even before I realized that his strong fingers were cutting off my air supply, and I struggled desperately, trying to get his fingers off my neck, making strained sounds as I tried so hard and uselessly to take a breath.

He grinned, bringing his weathered and ugly face close to mine. I could barely hide the look if disgust as I smelled the stink of his breath, like rancid meat left out to spoil in the sun after a rain, a rather ironic thing that the only reason I could smell it at all was the fact that I was trying so hard to take in air. It was obvious to me that he found my plight amusing, thought that his power over me was absolute. Which it was.

"I'll tell you why, slime. It's because you're an Irken! A goddamned, fucking alien! You can't help being such a useless son of a bitch, it's a trait of you're entire snarking race! But maybe if I beat your ass to a pulp every day you'll get one iota of discipline in you and be able to do your one menial damned job! If you die right here I can get another slave for less than it takes to feed you for one day!" His face was bright red, his eyes burning with a hatred I could only gasp at, mostly because I couldn't very well do anything else. I could see the crazed mind behind it, and it scared me. Scared me so badly… But during all this the room around us was fuzzing in my vision, my gasping becoming more desperate, then finally less so as against my will my body decided that I couldn't live for too long without air.
Then, agony abruptly flared in my entire body as my shoulder cracked hard against the ground, and I cried out without even thinking of it, my hand immediately rising to cradle the injured limb. Any thought of blacking out that I had had was both repelled and desperately wished for by that pain, but at least I could breathe again. The rest of me was battered, bruised as all hell, and it didn't help it when my Master pulled back his boot and kicked me powerfully just below the ribs, knocking what weak, coughing breath I had managed to take right out of me with painful force.
"Get to your quarters, Irken! There'll be no food for you here!" he barked, giving me a long, intense glare that dared me to try and stay. Of course, I wasn't the daring type, and I scrambled up as fast as my beaten body would allow, gritting my teeth painfully at my shoulder, still struggling to take in enough air and not black out because of my movement, and climbed the small ladder to my cot that was upstairs. Once there, I set my bag down, somewhat bewildered that somehow through all of that I had managed to keep it slung across my arm, and then carefully sank down. Carefully cradling my aching arm, which was still throbbing unmercifully with each tired beat of my heart, I leaned forward on the one that didn't hurt as much, my antennae finally rising from painfully tight against my head to just a very low set.

It was strange in here for some reason, and I couldn't quite place it. I shivered a bit, noting somewhat bitterly in the back of my mind that it was still as cold as ever. I doubted that would ever change… But even though I was bone tired, my body crying out for rest, I didn't think I could ever sleep without placing that nagging thought in my mind. I sighed heavily, closing my eyes for a moment and moving my head so I could rub my eyes past the lids, the motion only helping very slightly with the heaviness and hurt there. But of course I didn't make any more noise than that. After all, I already heard the heavy, invasive snores from Gorit's cot, and Jeran's…..

Wait…. That was it. My eyes snapped open, and I looked over to Jeran's cot fearfully, my antennae snapping off my head, but immediately falling back down again so fast that it literally jarred my hearing, and I winced from it. But that discomfort was lost on me.

I don't know what it is about fear. That all encompassing, invading thing that makes one's limbs lock up, unable to move or do anything more than stare blankly at the object of their terror until either they're able to snap out of it themselves… or they die. But in that moment, as I literally could count as every individual muscle on my malnourished frame immediately went as rigid as a board, time seemed to slow down as my senses went from dull to hypersensitive in less than a second. In any other situation, I would probably have welcomed the extreme and sudden awareness of everything around me, but not now…

Gorit was snoring… impossibly loud. There's no way that the sound could have been that much. Everything in the room… Once blurred, now crystal clear as if someone had cleaned a dirty window and was looking out of it and marveling at the sharpness of what was on the other side. Even the cold, so numbing, turned from a hard fact of life to something that was only distantly felt, as if it were nothing of consequence.

God… oh, god, no…

Jeran's cot was empty.

And I was the last Irken to have gotten back.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh goddamn shit! My mind screamed at me, my eyes widening slightly as I felt my breath become even more ragged and irregular than before. Hell, I was nearly hyperventilating! No matter what I did, I just couldn't slow my breath down, everything revolving around the shocking, concrete fact that was staring me in the face, basically blaring at me.

Jeran was gone.

The Master never let slaves walk around this late. He never kept us in more than one spot.

Jeran was dead.

That thought echoed with harsh finality into my mind, reverberating around my skull, bouncing off those invisible walls of consciousness and growing both stronger and fainter with each repetition. Jeran was dead. Jeran was dead. Jeran was fucking dead! Goddammit, I didn't care how much I hated him! He was a person! They murdered him! Just last night he had been sleeping there, peacefully enough, never content, I guess, but not DEAD!

And god, oh god, I could have stopped him. I could've spoken up when he was about to say it…. I SAW the danger! I could have yelled at him to shut the fuck up, and he would have beaten me when the Master wasn't around to see it. But he would be alive to do it! And all I did was sit like a dumb idiot and run away when the Master told me to! Was this what humans did?? Was this what the Irkens had done?

No! No no no nononononononono! NO!

Click!

One of my flattened antennae shot up as high as it would go at the sudden sound of a door opening, and there was a scuff from outside, where the snow was drifting lazily down in clumps, wet, because surprisingly, even though it was both night and below freezing, the air had actually warmed since the snow had started. Warm enough for only a light jacket, as my hypersensitive hearing could actually pick out the sound of the material scraping across itself. My breathing caught, a sound coming through hoarsely as something of a despairing sob, and with a disturbing awareness of myself and what I was doing, I hopped down to the floor, the pain in my aching limbs and body just something to note in my highly aware state, and with a trembling series of scuffling steps I had scrambled over to Jeran's cot, which was right below the window, climbing onto it and looking out with dread.

My breathing came fast and scared as I watched, to the point where it was actually quite surprising that I hadn't passed out already. My Master was below, standing in the doorway to the house, if the silhouette of shadow on the freshly fallen snow was any indication. Another man was talking to him, a voice I didn't particularly recognize… then again all humans sounded the same, anyway. There was a laugh; the atmosphere was relaxed and casual. This other man must be a friend or guest. My Master never treated his workers to such friendly tones.

"Oh no! No, man! You have me there!" My Master's jolly tone was… disturbing. I felt nearly like vomiting my guts out right there…. How could he be so happy… after doing such horrible things, like murder? God…. "My work is my life. But overseeing this craphole is one cushy job compared to pushing pencils, eh?" There was the sound of a clap, and the shadow of my Master moved. Obviously he had just slapped the other man rather heartily on the back. It wasn't an unfamiliar gesture; I had seen other humans do it often.

"It pays good, so I have no complaints on my part!" the other man said, his voice a bit strained from the friendly blow that my Master had put to him. His voice was different, more refined… yet, sneaky, in a way. Like he was used to doing shady deals, but in my Master's presence he didn't dare to try such a thing. But it was also slightly slurred… They must have been drinking. That was never a good thing. "Besides, at least I don't have to deal with worthless greenies. Just… Just beautiful… stupid secretaries!" he laughed very hard at that, a laugh that was soon echoed by my Master. Obviously there was a joke there that I didn't get.

"Ah, Doug, you're too much!" my Master said, emitting a very disgusting, tremendous burp at the end of his sentence. He laughed again at it, before walking out into the snow, followed by the other man. I could see them now, and I looked closer, pressing my face close to the cold, cracked glass. My Master looked as he always did, but of course the man following him was a bit different, tall, what I guess to be fairly young, with black hair. I was fascinated by how… casual… they both were. I'd almost never seen a human like that, ever. "But the greenies! They're stupider that secretaries! And ugly little fuckers! But keep them in line…. Keep 'em in line, and you have workers like no others for half the cost of a goddamn chicken!"

By this time, the two were partially on their way to the sleek black car that I guessed to be the other man's vehicle. My breath, hot and fast, was steaming the cracked glass before me, and impatiently, with a quick, nearly frantic movement, I lifted my arm and brought my dirty, ragged sleeve to the fore, using the thin cloth to wipe away the moisture as best I could. Just a second later, I cursed myself for my stupidity as my arm flared with burning pain, not half as bad as actual water, but still, how in the world had I forgotten that fog on a window was water?? I grimaced, just baring the pain, and raising my antennae to try my hardest to catch the rest of the conversation.

Why am I doing this? My own thought was as a slap to the face, waking me in the briefest, lightest sense from my fear-induced haze of chaos. There was no reason for me to be sitting here, staring out a window as if my life depended on catching the drunken boasts of two human males with decidedly less than favorable temperaments. In fact, all instincts of danger gestured wildly and frantically to me leaving the window, forgetting what had happened here and crawling back to my cot to heal as best I could before the next backbreaking day of labor would begin. That was the smart choice, the choice that would keep me alive for at least another few days.

Despite my thoughts, I just sat there, listening to the conversation as my Master described to the other man his pride in how he beat down 'the greenies'. I shuddered involuntarily, my fear rising and making my gut sink down to the floor. I had never heard of some of the painful, torturous ways that he spoke of, many dealing with water, sometimes even forcing an Irken to drink it, or injecting it in very small amounts into the bloodstream… or far, far worse things than death, that no moral person would ever consider doing to a fellow living being. But if there was one thing I had learned from my imprisonment, it was that my Master was many things, but moral was not one of them.

"Hey… isn't that one o' them right now?" the question was a little reeling, obviously the drinks had had more than enough time to take effect, but it was enough to make an icy hot thrill of fear crawl up my spine like a spider, my antennae both snapping down to my head as I froze, my breath completely halting in my throat. A claxon of alarms blared in my mind, every single one of them telling me to run, to flee, to scramble away before anyone saw me. But try as I might, my treacherous limbs refused to unlock, and I was stuck, my eyes wide, as in a moment of clarity so increased that the world was in slow motion, my Master turned his head, looking up to where the man pointed.

Right at me.