"A slave?"
"Yes. At the base, there are many slaves like me."
As he spoke, he broke into a fit of violent coughing. Then, he pulled a name tag from his pocket and handed it to Evelyn Ford. "This is my identification."
Evelyn Ford took the name tag. The name "Mason Morgan" was written on it in red ink. The pin was slightly bent, as if it had been worn for many years.
Mason Morgan was only twenty years old. He had fled to Frelia as a refugee five years ago. For a mouthful of food, he became Chad Lowell’s slave.
In reality, it meant being his servant. He didn’t just have to serve tea and water. Chad Lowell, now twenty-two, had a violent temper and liked to beat people. But to survive, Mason Morgan had no choice but to eke out a living under him.
He spoke clearly and deliberately, but his clothes were soaked, his lips were pale from the cold, and he couldn’t stop shivering.
To verify his story, Quincy and Miles Vaughn stripped off his clothes. Beneath the sopping, tattered cotton jacket, his emaciated body was covered in all sorts of injuries. It looked like his clothes had been torn by a whip; more than a dozen crisscrossing lash marks covered his back.
"Hmm, he’s probably telling the truth. There are bruises on his abdomen, too. Looks like he was kicked a few times." Miles Vaughn looked at the tattered rags of the cotton jacket in his hands, tutted, and wrung the water out of it.
"Hey kid, can you get up? We’ll help you across the stream."
Mason Morgan nodded quickly. When his eyes met Evelyn Ford’s, he flinched and looked away. "Just don’t kill me, that’s all I ask. Just don’t kill me."
Evelyn Ford chuckled at his words. ’Am I some kind of crazed killer? Why is he so afraid of me?’
Perhaps afraid the boy would freeze to death, Quincy felt a pang of pity and tossed Mason Morgan a relatively clean old piece of clothing.
He and Ethan Dawson were going to help him across the stream. The island couldn’t possibly take in an outsider.
Besides, Mason Morgan wasn’t a refugee or a villager. He was from the base, and his status was ’slave’.
The word ’slave’ echoed in her mind, and Evelyn Ford felt a sense of disgust and repulsion toward the Second Base.
’Thank goodness we didn’t go into the city, or into the base.’
Mason Morgan thanked them again and again. It was clear he was running on fumes. Just as Ethan Dawson and Quincy pulled him to his feet to take him to the shore, he suddenly coughed up several mouthfuls of blood and passed out.
Evelyn Ford had checked him over. His injuries weren’t fake. The internal ones were even more severe than the external ones. Without treatment, he wouldn’t live for more than three days.
Combined with having been soaked in the water for several hours and inhaling some of it, his condition was even worse.
"What do we do?" Quincy was stunned. He suspected Mason Morgan had fainted on purpose.
"Carry him to the woodshed. Send a stove over so he doesn’t freeze to death."
"What about his injuries?"
Evelyn Ford glanced at Quincy. "You treat them. Lock the woodshed, and don’t let him wander around. Once he wakes up, we’ll send him on his way."
Evelyn Ford suddenly remembered something. Ronan Kendrick could use hypnosis.
Back in the living room, the horror movie had ended, and everyone had returned to their own rooms.
"Ronan Kendrick, can hypnosis be used to erase someone’s memories?"
’If Mason Morgan isn’t lying, his experience is just too tragic. We can’t just kill a pitiful person for no reason.’
"It can scramble a person’s memories."
Evelyn Ford nodded. "Before we send him out, alter his memory."
That night, Evelyn Ford had a nightmare. She dreamed of herself in her past life, surviving by hiding in some forgotten corner. She went so long without food or water that she was nothing but protruding bones and sagging skin. She got into a brawl with a nearby refugee over a tiny mouse. She had no strength, but she was an expert in the body’s pressure points and quickly had a man much larger than her begging for mercy.
Sometimes she was the one getting beaten. In the fifth year of the apocalypse, insects were rampant. She didn’t lack food, but the lack of water nearly killed her several times.
That’s just how people are. The more you want to die, the more you’re afraid to, and the more you find you can’t.
Back then, she would think, ’My life is terrifyingly tenacious.’
That’s right, she had almost forgotten. She had drunk another person’s blood. It was from someone who had just died, someone who had fought with her over food before.
Unlike Ronan Kendrick’s blood, that blood was filled with the stench of rot and decay.
Evelyn Ford didn’t dare to eat the dead flesh. She ate insects, cockroaches, mice, and even dirt.
When she woke up, Evelyn Ford stared blankly at the dim night light by the bed. Feeling the strong, steady beat of her heart in her chest, she closed her eyes and turned over.
Ronan Kendrick instinctively pulled her into his embrace. He wasn’t awake.
The word "slave" terrified Evelyn Ford. It meant being like livestock, with no human rights, no freedom, not even the ability to ensure one’s own survival.
When she woke again, several hours had passed. Evelyn Ford was sick. For the first time in years, she was running a high fever.
Everyone was worried about her. The bedroom lights were bright, and the hallway lights were on too. Evelyn Ford groggily opened her eyes. She had been talking nonsense, sometimes calling for her mother, sometimes for her father.
"How did Evelyn Ford get sick all of a sudden? Did she get chilled by the wind?"
"There hasn’t been much wind these past two days. She probably touched cold water."
Only Evelyn Ford knew it was because of the nightmare.
Evelyn Ford took some potent medicine and a fever reducer, but her mind was still muddled. Sometimes she couldn’t tell if she was awake or dreaming, let alone distinguish between her past life and her present one.
When she awoke, she thought she was still in that forgotten corner, lying in wait for a mouse to come out and forage. The moment she saw Ronan Kendrick, she trembled in fear.
After a long moment, her chaotic mind cleared a little.
Evelyn Ford was sick for a whole week. Mason Morgan was still recovering in the woodshed. Quincy said his internal injuries were severe, and he had vomited up clotted blood several more times.
Lying in bed and smelling the aroma of food, Evelyn Ford had no appetite at all. For the past few days, whenever she fell asleep, she would dream. She would return to her past life, her stomach filled with all kinds of insects. They were bitter and foul-smelling, but if she ate them mixed with dirt, it would soothe her throat a little.
Whenever Evelyn Ford saw meat, she would remember the person who had died in front of her, the one whose blood she had drained.
On the sixth day, Evelyn Ford finally regained her energy. During the days she was sick, the others hadn’t stopped working. The warehouse was full of ground cornmeal and neatly stacked corncobs.
The ceramic vats in the kitchen were packed with cured fish slathered in chili peppers, which would be delicious fried or grilled.
Evelyn Ford went to the woodshed to check on Mason Morgan. He was still recuperating. Quincy told her that Mason Morgan’s right leg had been broken, and he couldn’t walk right now.
’What are we going to do now?’
The polar night had not ended. Six kilometers away, on the Source River Dam, the street racers were full of unrestrained passion.
Two more days passed. Officer Graham pulled two bodies from the water. An idea struck Evelyn Ford, and she had Mason Morgan come out to identify them.
"I know them. Their master is a friend of Mr. Lowell’s. They were probably like me—their master lost a race, so the slaves were beaten to death."
Judging by how swollen and decomposed the bodies were, they must have been dead for four or five days.
Mason Morgan found their name tags on the bodies. Just like his, the pins were bent, as if they had been used for many years.
Evelyn Ford looked at Miles Vaughn and Peter Owens. "Burn them."