It was to a pounding head and a hard metal surface underneath him that Jace awoke from his black, dreamless sleep. he slowly and groggily opened his eyes. The pitch-black that surrounded him made him momentarily wonder if his eyes were still closed, but as he blinked several times, he realized it wasn't as dark as he had initially thought. As his eyes adjust though, his confusion only increased.
Surrounding him was a dark room, enclosed all around with metal, green-tinted walls, with some piping running along the ceiling. He was laying on what appeared to be a metal shelf. There were several such shelves all down the long room, with motionless forms laying atop them. after a moment he realized they were other people, though it was too dark in each alcove to identify them or see any detail.
Jace laid back, his head spinning. what was he doing here? the last thing he remembered was scrounging for some food in a dumpster in an alley somewhere. he rested his head on the metal platform he was laying on, then yanked his head up when it produced a sharp pain in the back of his skull. He tried to bring his hand up to feel the back of his head, but rough, metallic feeling metal bands around his wrist abruptly stopped him. he tried to sit up to look, but almost hit his head on the shelf just above him. He also realized there was an elastic band wrapped around his neck. so many things were happening at once, he couldn't process it all at once.
OK Jace, let's take this one step at a time. He thought to himself. As he slowly processed his surroundings, he realized the pain in the back of his head was probably from being knocked out. But why would someone knock him out? He was nobody, he was just a lowly street urchin, he had no connections, no family, his name was even just something he heard as a kid and decided he liked it.
He wracked his brain to see if there had been any of the gangs he had offended recently, but he couldn't think of anyone. He tried to avoid the gangs at all costs, lit seemed worse to be in a gang with all the infighting that went on than just avoiding a gang, so he was just a lone wolf, although sometimes he would run errands for the lower downs of the gangs if he was ever desperate for food, but he's been on a high streak recently and hadn't needed to do more than his usually scavenging.
As he processed, the pieces began to fall into place. The shackles, the pain in the back of his head from being knocked out, the tight, dark quarters, the band around his neck… Panic raced through him. 𝘐'𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺! He realized. And not for any particular reason, he had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He began to struggle against his imprisonment. 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦! He thought as he pulled against his restraints. But the bands were far too strong, and with his malnourished body, he wouldn't have been able to break much more than bonds of yarn anyway. He wasn't a big boy, or very strong, even among his fellow street urchins. He had been pretty average, which he was fine if it meant avoiding detection or ridicule. He had just wanted to live.
Finally, after a few minutes of pulling and tugging, he had done nothing more than rub his wrists raw, so he finally gave up. 𝘊𝘢𝘭𝘮 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘑𝘢𝘤𝘦, 𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦. He leaned over as much as his tender wrists would let him to look up at the seat above his own. He heard breathing up there, so he knew it was occupied.
"He- "
Pain. Intense pain. It was just a brief flash of it, but it was so painful and so unexpected that it stopped him short. He tried to cry out, but it was also cut off and turned into a cough when the pain returned. He recognized what it was, he had experienced it on a lesser scale on some homes when he would try to steal stuff to sell. The collar around his neck was electrically powered, and speaking or making sound with your mouth activated it. It was a way to keep them quiet and prevent rebellion.
He slowly returned to his position and – very gently – rested his head on what he guessed was his bed. His mind was spinning, but he was also in a stupor, he had no clue what to do now, he was terrified. He had never left the city he grew up in, and even though he lived a lifestyle that many would consider intimidating, it was all he'd known and he was comfortable in a weird, scraping to survive kind of way. Anyway, it was way better than slavery. A least he had some semblance of freedom. He closed his eyes to try and process all this at once.
"Hey, kid."
He could barely hear it, it wasn't even loud enough to be considered a whisper, it was more like someone was breathing words. The only reason he could hear was because of the absolute silence that surrounded them. He turned his head toward where the man's voice was coming from, one of the shelves lining the wall, but he couldn't make out more than an outline.
He tried to open his mouth to respond, but then closed it again after remembering the collar.
"Don't bother speaking, talking like this talks some practice. Something about not using your vocal cords."
Jace had to strain his ears to hear him, but he could understand everything that was being said pretty clearly.
"I know communicating like this is hard when you can't respond, but we'll get to that later. Right now, I'm sure you're in an absolute panic, so I just wanted to give you the low down of what's going on here. It's not much better than you think it is, but at least knowing will help."
"You're on the 𝘏𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘳 right now. It's a slaver's ship as I'm sure you've figured out. We're on our way to the conditioning site where they take newbie slaves like us and make them 'ripe' as they call it in the market. Right now, we're just what they call 'picked' and they gotta take us in to get fixed up so we'll sell better. But don't worry, that's still months away, we still gotta make a couple stops first."
"We can talk more later, but for now just some advice. Not sure how rebellious or anything you are, but just cooperate with the slavers and don't rebel too much, otherwise it will just cause you trouble."
He went quiet then. Jace had barely time to process what he had said before a section of the wall slid aside and bright light filled the room. It blinded Jace. And before he could recover, a shadow blocked his vision. He felt his shackles click open, only to be roughly clamped to another pair. Then he was roughly yanked out of his compartment to his feet and dragged out of the room. He blinked wildly, trying to recover his vision. When he finally did, he found himself in a small, bare office, with a man sitting behind a small desk across from him. The man didn't look extraordinary. Clean-shaven, a little on the heavy side, but decent enough looking. He did however look very bored.
The man looked up at him with vague disinterest, then sighed and stood up, shoving his chair behind him as he did so.
"well, we better get this over with." He said as he went around the desk and looked closely at Jace's face.
"Honestly Alf, I don't see what Jones was thinking, picking up a guy like this. He's filthy! And he's tiny! Not a scrap of muscle or fat! How in the world are we gonna make a profit off this thing?"
It took Jace a moment to realize he wasn't talking to him, but the big guy next to him that was holding the other end of the chains attached to his cuffs.
"You've seen what happens to 'em after the ripening Sean." Alf said, "They're miracle workers there!"
Sean shook his head, "I suppose so." He circled Jace, looking him over. He stopped behind him. "What's this Alf?!" he said, and lightly cuffed Jace at the base of the skull, right below his head wound. "Why isn't this taken care of?"
"Oh, I didn't see that, Onboarding was supposed to take care of it."
"Yeah? Well, we're the ones who're gonna get crap about it if it's not taken care of! Damaged goods don't sell well!" He shoved Jace towards Alf. "Get him cleaned up and bandaged. He's good enough otherwise."
"Do I hafta clean him? You know Marketing cleans em before the presentation!"
"yeah well, I don't want them stinking the place up!"
Alf grumbled, then hauled Jace back through the door and down the haul. As Jace stumbled after him, he realized that that whole time, they hadn't even acknowledged him at all. 𝘞𝘦'𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮. He realized, struggling to keep up with Alf's large strides. 𝘞𝘦'𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘴.