Faceless Men
When she was a child Athena loved being alone. It wasn't a good idea, it was a luxury she allowed herself. She prided herself on her ability to slip away from the eyes of supervision and hide in secluded places. To disappear. When she was gone everything bothering her was gone, too. As she hid from her parents and the tribe so too did she hide from her worries, her fears, her responsibilities and chores. Even as a child she had her share of responsibilities, as did all children of the tribe.
When she was alone, Athena didn't have to shovel brahmin shit. She didn't have to tan hides or sew clothing. She didn't have to do whatever her father told her to do, without question. When she was alone her father and mother didn't hit her. Her brothers didn't beat her up for fun. When she was alone she was never yelled at, choked, or picked up and thrown. She didn't have to clean. When she was alone, Athena could just be. Just exist. It was a time when she found peace.
The day it happened she didn't just escape. She fled. She was seven years old. She'd fucked up really bad. Brahmin had died, and she was certain when their deaths came to light she was next. It was the worst thing she'd ever done, and as she ran away she cried. She could feel the blows, feel her body break under the punishment she was sure to receive. She didn't intend to come back this time. She was gone for good, she knew it. If she came back she wouldn't be the same person. That Athena was dead. She was a new Athena, someone with a clean slate. Someone without a past. Her new life was just beginning. She was unaware of how correct she was to think that.
She thought she was alone, in the shelter of a rocky outcropping some two miles away from the tribe. Her feet hurt, so she sat down to rest. He crept up behind her, as she rubbed the soles of her feet he grabbed her. She bit his hand but he wouldn't let her scream. She kicked and thrashed, but the combination of her fatigue and his strength made it all for naught. He carried her back to his camp, a group of hard-looking men wearing football pads and carrying lawnmower blades fashioned into makeshift machetes. Faceless men, wearing bandanas and goggles. They were all filthy, covered in wasteland dust.
"What'd you bring us here, Cato?" one of the faceless men addressed the man carrying Athena in a growl. "Supper?"
"Maybe," Athena could feel the man's hot gravel voice on the back of her head. "She's tough. I'm thinking of giving her a collar."
"Chain her up?" the faceless man examined her. "Let's see her."
The man holding Athena tossed her to the ground, but before she could get up and run away she felt a boot come crashing down on her back. Whatever beating she had left home to avoid that day caught up with her and then some. She was beat into unconsciousness.
When she woke up it was dark. She had been stripped naked, only now around her neck was fastened a thick metal collar. It bit into her skin, too tight to put her finger between. Her whole body hurt. Her left eye was too swollen to look out of. She began to cry. She sobbed. She couldn't even tell where she was, all she knew was that it was cold, and hard.
A faint mechanical whirring came from the collar. She could feel it vibrate her esophagus. She clawed at it with her swollen and bruised hands. Her hands hurt. They were bloody. The tips of her fingers were raw.
"Hey, quit it in there!" she could barely hear. The origin of the voice rattled the chain-link fence she realized she was caged in. She screamed at the man, as loud as she could. "Hey, shut the fuck up!" She screamed more. She started hitting the collar. "Shut the fuck up before I shut you up!"
"Fuck you!" her voice was a strangled cry. The guard opened the cage door and entered the cage. Everything in Athena's body was screaming in pain, but she slipped between his legs and ran out.
She ran naked across the wasteland in pitch darkness, not knowing where she was going and in total pain. At a certain point a clicking noise started in her collar, only to stop abruptly accompanied by the cessation of the collar's mechanic hum and the smell of burnt plastic. She ran through the night, and when the sun came up she hid. She tried to sleep but found she couldn't. She hid and sobbed until she heard voices. She thought they were the faceless men searching for her, but it turned out to be a Twisted Hair raiding party, fresh from an assault on another tribe.
They recognized her instantly by her dreadlocks. The faceless men had tried to strip her of her tribal identity by taking her clothes, but they didn't realize all of her tribal markings were contained within the twists of her hair. She fell at the feet of her tribesmen sobbing and clutching the collar.
The raiding party brought her back to the tribe. Efforts were undertaken to free her from the collar, but they only succeeded in loosening it and damaging the metal, fusing it together so the collar couldn't be removed. She described the faceless men to the elders, who discussed the damage done to her with fear and awe. Unbeknownst to them, this was their first encounter with Caesar's Legion. It set the tone for every encounter proceeding, until the Legion wiped out the Twisted Hairs for good.