“Agh! What the fuck!” she caught a glimpse of ghostly white hands disappearing back into the hollow of the desk, accompanied by a pathetic whimper. With considerably more dread than she’d felt, even compared to the rest of this morning, Cora bent down to look into the hollow.
A girl cringed back into the corner. She was naked, her neck chained to a ring set into the roof of the hollow. Young, too. Maybe 18.
Fuck, god, I hope she’s 18 or I’m going to jail just for looking at her. Oh, fuck. Oh FUCK, FUCK THIS IS SO FUCKED.
Cora immediately reached for her, not thinking, just wanting to get that fucking collar off of her. The girl whimpered, but didn’t move, didn’t offer any resistance at all. The collar wasn’t even locked. Cora popped the latch and slid it off the girl’s neck, cooing softly, wordlessly, either in comfort for the girl or herself, she wasn’t sure. She took the girl’s hand, pulling her up and out of the desk’s hollow.
“Mike,” Cora said to the butler, voice the quiet kind of calm that only really came before total panic, “What the fuck is this?”
“Ah, yes, that is Linnea, one of your brother’s favorites,” Mike said, his cheer now forced enough it wasn’t at all convincing. Though there was a sick humor to the curve of his lips beneath that moustache. Understandable, considering.
“My name is Linnea,” Cora whispered, really just remembering what Mike had said earlier, but Mike took it as a question.
“Indeed, one of your brother’s little jokes,” Mike said, with a cruel sort of glee creeping into the edges of his voice. “He was so very fond of you.”
Cora stared at the naked, cowering girl in front of her. She didn’t really take in anything about the girl herself. Her mind was too busy digesting everything she implied.
In a manic burst, Cora dropped to her knees, scrabbling at the drawers of the desk. Most opened easily, filled with various documents and stationery, the right hand drawer had an ornate gun that was juuuuust to the left of a Colt 1911. Cora stuffed that into her waistband, but when one of the large side cupboards wouldn’t open as she pulled, she knew she’d found her target.
For a moment, she considered whipping out that gun and shooting the handle, but quickly dismissed it. If this really was a safe, it probably only looked like a wooden door. She examined the handle, noticing a glossy, thumb shaped depression. Quickly, she grabbed the handle, jabbing her thumb home. With a high beep and mechanical whirr, the door loosed in her hand.
She yanked it open in a frenzy, some papers fluttering to the floor as she did. Indeed, the walls of the safe were a thin veneer of wood over thick metal, but the safe itself was largely empty. A shelf up top held a few bundles of cash, and the lower compartment held what looked like a deed to the house, and….
Pieces of thick parchment paper, each with a photograph attached. Linnea the slave’s eyes stared out at her from one, so empty and devoid of hope Cora feared she would fall in.
Cora’s hand shook as she picked up the parchment paper and began to read.
In the year 115 of the reign of Emperor-King Patroklos, the ruler of the universe, in the fifth month of the Egalitan calendar, on the twenty-seventh day.
Thus, before the people in the bazaar of Tyrinno a noble by the name of Linnaeus, the son of Luto, who is surnamed Light, bought a female slave by the name of Tania, who is not surnamed and was born in Tyrinno, of unknown linneage, from the trader Corto for the price of Twelve Thousand Patrician.
Linnaeus is to buy the female slave Tania thus as an irredeemable slave who is without debt and without possessions, and who is an unpersecutable and unreproachable permanent possession of his sons, grandsons, family, and descendants as well. Accordingly, Linnaeus, himself, and his sons, grandsons, family, and descendants may at will hit her, abuse her, bind her, sell her off, pledge her, give and offer her as a gift, and do whatsoever they may wish to do to her. They are entitled to treat her just as a female slave inherited from their father or grandfather, or a female slave who was born in their house, born on their side, or born at home, or as permanent property purchased.
Accordingly, as regards this female slave named Tania, Corto no longer has any concern with her, renounces all the old claims to her, and has no power to coerce her. This female-slave contract takes effect and is persuasive, and effective and authorized for all the people, both for a king and a minister. Whoever may bring and hold this female-slave contract, may receive and take this female slave named Tania, and may hold her as his female slave on this condition, such condition as is written in this female-slave.
This female-slave contract was written by Corto, the son of Carlo by the authority of Carlo, the Chief Magistrate, by the order of Linnaeus, and with the consent of Corto.
Signature of Carlo, the Chief Magistrate of Tyrinno.
Cora wasn’t certain precisely why she was weeping, tears making the final words difficult to read. She didn’t stop, though, as she picked up the next document. The details changed, but the bones were all the same. Pieces of paper that purported to turn living, breathing humans into her brother’s property. And now, hers.
First, she threw up in the safe. She knew this couldn’t be real, but dream, experience, whatever, the idea she had the depravity in herself to conjure it was sickening. Second, ignoring the hot bile dripping through her fingers, she gathered the contracts, staggered to the fireplace, and threw them in.
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED!]
[LASHES TO ASHES, LUST TO DUST]
“What the fuck!?” Cora said, shooting bolt upright, hands waving wildly at the blue text boxes as she yelled what was quickly starting to feel like her catchphrase.
LOL
JUST KIDDING
GOOD WORK THOUGH
“Who’s saying that!?” she asked as the boxes dissipated, replaced by a booming voice. Whirling around, She saw Mike, his bushy eyebrows suddenly looking like rage-filled black stormclouds, but that voice hadn’t come from his direction, and he hadn’t reacted to it. Linnea-Tania, her name was Tania-cowered in the corner. She seemed an unlikely source.
NOT ONE OF THEM! The voice boomed in her head.
“What are these theatrics,” Mike growled, his mask of perfect servile impassivity finally slipping. “These games. Fake papers? Forgeries? Why Linnea? Simply fresh cruelty?”
UH OH! IF IT ISN'T THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR ACTIONS
WELL
NOT YOURS
BUT KIND OF
“What the fuck is going on!?” Cora yelled, stepping back as Mike began to advance on her. She was pretty apprehensive about the way his fingers were clenching.
DIDN’T LIKE THE WAY THIS WORLD’S STORYLINE WAS PROGRESSING
YOU BECAME AVAILABLE AT JUUUUUUST THE RIGHT TIME TO PUT THINGS BACK ON TRACK
THE CONTRACTS WERE A GOOD START!
“Your brother… Well, maybe I could have overpowered him in my prime, but not now, no matter how depraved he became,” Mike growled, his face as manic now as it had been passive, “but you, you Linnea…. Well, if I die having ended the Light family line, I will wear the rictus grin of the happiest corpse on the pile.”
He lunged at her, and Cora’s training kicked in. Whoever Linnea was, she’d kept in shape. Her body snapped to follow her mind’s commands, driving her hip into Mike’s and leveraging his lunging arm up over her shoulder. He hit the ground with a tell-tale wheeze, quickly cut off when Cora’s palm hit him hard in the nose. He groaned, blinking back tears and suddenly struggling to breathe through a broken nose.
“Oh, fuck, I-“ Cora stammered, but not taking her weight off his chest. “well, you were attacking and-, Mike, those weren’t fake, I don’t think. They were sickening. I-, I don’t want you. I don’t want any of you. None of this can be real but I… I don’t think I can even play along.”
‘I DON’T THINK I CAN EVEN PLAY ALONG’
THAT WAS PRETTY CLOSE TO YOUR LINE FROM WEDDING NIGHT!
LOVED Cadey CARMICHEAL
Cora didn’t have the mental bandwidth to deal with burgeoning schizophrenia right now.
YEAH, I’M HURTING MORE THAN HELPING RIGHT NOW AREN’T I
HERE
In a burst of blue, information bloomed around Mike’s head. There were a lot of numbers, usually attached to words, and basically none of it meant anything to Cora.
OKAY
HERE’S SOME RELEVANT STUFF
Three lines of text swam to the front
[Anger: 19/20]
[Devotion: -67/60]
[Affection: confusedly despising]
Okay, probably could’ve guessed all that, Cora thought, figuring visual hallucinations were a bad sign.
“Mike, listen to me. I’m starting to worry I’m not going to wake up from this, so whether this is real, or whether it’s the last fever dream of a dying brain, I have to roll with it. I am not Linnea Light. You are welcome to think I am, and have just gone insane. Hell, maybe that is what’s happening and my old life was the dream, but the monster you knew is as dead as her brother.”
Mike glared up at her, but he seemed lucid enough to understand her words.
“Tricks,” he coughed, “I can’t fathom why, but tricks.”
He tried to rise but Cora grabbed his arm, putting it into a wrist lock above his head. He laughed, a mixture of pain and hopeless mirth.
“Well, one thing is odd, I admit. I never once saw you attend one of Iain’s self defense sessions. These skills of yours were quite unanticipated,” he chuckled, insanely, to himself, then snarled; “Go on, now, you hateful bitch, kill me. I’ve done enough for that right? To die in defiance?” His words were tough, but their tone, his eyes, were pleading. It made Cora wonder what the alternative was.
Fuck, I’m gonna find a torture room somewhere in here aren’t I.
“No, Jesus, Mike, I only hurt you because you were coming at me. As far as I’m concerned you’re free,” she said, standing up and backing away from him, making sure she wasn’t blocking the door. “Is there something else I need to say? Do? Sign? Fuck, did I need those papers to set you free?”
Mike stood, slowly, eyeing her warily and dusting himself off with one hand while he held his nose with the other. He regarded her for another moment.
“No,” he said, his voice unfortunately hilariously nasal due to Cora’s assault, “If those were in fact the Bonds of Ownership, I am free, we all are.”
‘THEY WERE’
A box of text appeared next to Mike’s head.
[STATUS: FREED MAN]
Cool, but forgive me if I don’t take legal advice from my hallucinations.
An image of that McConaughey gif swam into her vision, with the words ‘Be a lot cooler if you did’ before fading back out.
Not convincing.