It had been three days. Three long uncomfortable days and not once did her master come into the basement.
Blue knew he'd been home, his foot falls were the only real way she knew how long it had been, yet he'd continued to leave her down here without food or water and under orders not to move for three days.
She'd failed more than once at remaining in place. Eventually she simply grew too tired, too exhausted to stay awake and had anxiously chosen to lay down before she fell again.
Sleeping was not easy however and she often awoke more tired than before. It was difficult to sleep peacefully or deeply when one had to keep breathing at a consistent rate or else stop breathing altogether when the small amount of air was stopped because of the cloth getting into a position which covered her windpipe.
So she really only dozed off for a minute or so before being awoken by the lack of air and having to calm herself again to allow air to pass once more.
The pain in her knees had long since become something she was accustomed to, as had the discomfort in her mouth.
This third day everything ached and she felt weaker. Her mouth was so dry that she wondered if it looked like the patches of dirt where no rain had fallen for a very long time.
She could barely find the strength to rise from the floor and resume her kneeling position when the sound of her master's foot falls informed her he was awake. Yet she had to if she was going to have any hope of reducing the amount of further punishment she would surely receive for failing to follow instructions.
Blue pushed herself once more onto her knees and nearly fell down again from how lightheaded she'd become. Catching herself on her bound hands, her arms and legs shaking from the effort of keeping her upright, slowly and carefully she tried again to push herself back onto her knees.
If her master chose to come down this day she had to be on her knees.
The thuds of her master's footfalls seemed to move from one end of the house to another, not following his normal routine that Blue had observed from the past few days, but neither did the footfalls seem to be coming nearer the basement door.
Still she remained on alert, or as much as she could while trying to remain upright and not give in to the fatigue that had settled deep into her being.
She wanted very much to simply lay back down and try to sleep or at least ease the aching of her body, yet she dared not do so until after she heard the thudding footfalls depart the house. It was not safe for her to lay down until then.
This thought saddened her. Her instruction had been clear that she was to do as she was told and here she had failed so quickly and so early in less than a week after being purchased. She'd thought that she had done better during the lessons.
Blue was ashamed of herself. Ashamed of how poorly she had done and how she had failed her instructor, her parents and her master.
She resolved that if she were to be given a second chance she'd work harder to do all her master asked of her and not disappoint him again.
If there was anything she could do in order to not be left down here again she'd do it, if she were given the chance.
It was possible there would be no second chance for her and she would instead be left down here to perish.
Blue was shaken from her dismal thoughts by the thudding footfalls moving overhead once more. She waited nervously for them to continue out of the house as they had done the previous days, yet this time the footfalls took a different route. One that led them to the place she remembered the door being, the door which led out of this darkness and into the rest of the house.
She was unprepared for the opening of the door and the bright light which fell down the stairway illuminating the first half of the basement.
Though the light itself did not reach her, she was so accustomed to the complete darkness that it was still necessary to squint in order to perceive what was happening.
Once the massive shadow of her master's frame began to enter the basement, Blue lowered her head in docility both in a show of willingness to obey as well as shame for having disobeyed not only the first time but the subsequent times as well.
The sound of each thudding footfall caused a small tremor of fear to course through her, she flinches involuntarily though she does not dare lift her head to look up at him. Trying not to move even a little during his approach and hoping that she was still at least close to the place where he had left her days before.
His feet appeared in front of her and she steeled herself for whatever was to come next, determined to take it without protesting or looking up from the floor.
His large grey hand appeared just within her vision, palm up expectantly. Blue did not hesitate more than a few seconds before carefully placing her chin in his hand, swallowing painfully, nervously, when his fingers grip her cheeks and lift her face upwards.
She keeps her eyes lowered while her master stares at her face, seemingly inspecting it before his thumb and forefinger grip her jaw firmly, continuing to exert an increasing amount of pressure until her mouth opens more than the cloth already forced it to be.
Blue clenched her fingers tightly, trying not to make a sound from the discomfort and pain of his grip on her face.
Her eyes widen when she feels the cloth being slowly unstuck from the dry interior of her mouth and then pulled out, nearly causing her to gag. Finally the cloth is free and her ability to breathe fully is restored for the first time in three days yet the grip on her face is not released, instead she is abruptly pulled upwards by the face until she is on her feet, her legs shaking slightly after not being used to standing for days.
She shifted slightly, uneasy with how her master was glaring at her. Watching her with a cold intensity that caused a bud of fear to take hold within her being. Blue immediately wished she had not moved even that much for the grip on her face tightened and she was then led forward at a pace which had her stumbling to keep up.
Her master's pace did not lessen nor did he look back once he'd faced forward. Though it was an awkward way to continue walking, he did not let go of her face while making his way up the stairs from the basement and into the rest of the house. Instead his hold adjusted slightly in order to be more convenient for him while he all but dragged her through the house towards the storage room where the other two had been held the first night here.
He paused only to open the door before tossing Blue inside. Unable to catch herself to lessen the collision with a crate and then the floor, she curled in on herself mostly from the pain flaring in her ribs, shoulder and hip choosing to lay where she fell rather than move and possibly make the situation worse.
Breathing in shallow gasps and struggling to remain silent, letting no pained sound escape. She briefly thought that perhaps her being weakened by the last few days was a blessing. It meant she could not offer even the slightest resistance which may incur more of his wrath.
This action of choosing not to move appeared to be the incorrect one as within a matter of seconds Blue was yanked upwards onto her battered knees by her hair, her head forced back and upwards to make her look up at her master.
The tiny bud of fear that had taken hold minutes earlier now began to grow not only from how he was treating her but also from the anger which darkened his face. She'd never seen anyone look as angry or as frightening as her master did in this moment.
The next ten seconds were a blur, Blue wasn't even sure what had happened. She only knew that she'd made the mistake of looking directly at her master and then she could only see multitudes of white lights, her right cheek burning and her head was ringing.
He'd never hit her before. It seemed he was not against doing so after all.
Blue felt the grip on her hair tighten and her head was pulled back again but she was too disoriented to understand what was going on. Didn't realize something had been put around her neck until after her head had stopped ringing and she could see her master's hand pulling away from her and reaching towards the top of one of the nearby crates. It was only now that he spoke.
"You have disobeyed me again. It is clear to me that you do not know how to behave and until you do some changes will be made." He brought forth a length of rope and tied one end around the object he'd placed around her neck.
"Training will begin this evening and continue until you have either learned how to behave or I have decided to get rid of a thing that cannot be made to work."
He glared down at her as though waiting for something, realizing this Blue timidly spoke though he throat burned from the dryness.
"Yes, Master Moor. I-I am s-"
The rest of her apology was cut off by another slap to her face. The hand holding her hair was released only to be moved to her arm, gripping tightly just below her shoulder. He then began to shake her roughly.
" 'You'!? There is no you!" He shook her roughly by the arm. "Clearly I have been far too lenient with you. You are mine! I paid for you. Your name is mine. The clothes you wear are mine. The food you eat is mine. Your very life is mine. You are nothing!" He'd continued to shake her while speaking, nearly lifting her from the floor by the time he'd finished.
His eyes narrowed and his grip on her arm tightened. His other hand came up to roughly take hold of her face, ensuring he had her attention. Each word was enunciated clearly and dripping with disgust. "This creature is unworthy of the designation previously given. It shall be called 'Thing' from this point on. Perhaps then it will remember what it is."
He let go of her arm a second before smacking her to the floor. The newly renamed Thing lay there for a moment, head ringing and unable to see straight.
A part of her seemed to detach itself from the rest of her being and float away somewhere. Leaving her strangely empty feeling.
She didn't know when her master had left the room, only that when she could see straight again she was alone.
Her face hurt. Her shoulder and hip hurt. Yet the part of her which hurt the most was deep within her chest. If she'd had the liquid to spare she'd have lain there and cried until she could cry no longer, yet that was not an option. At least not at this moment.
Instead she slowly raised herself onto her knees, using her bound hands to steady herself as best as she could, then looked around the room she was in.
The first thing she noticed was the rope hanging from the thing her master had placed upon her neck, the other end of the rope seemed to be tied to an iron ring coming up from the floor at the base of the nearest wall.
It was at this point that she became aware of just how tight the object she was certain was a collar, around her neck was, it restricted her breathing to somewhat quick shallow breaths but at least it was better than the cloth had been.
Her gaze moved across the few crates that were in here and landed upon a small bowl which had been set on the floor halfway across the room. Cautiously she walked forward, then began to walk faster once she saw the bowl contained water.
She was eager for the liquid within the bowl, certain if she could have even a little it would soothe the ache she felt in her being.
The rope became taught less than a foot from the bowl. At being brought to a halt so close to the water she nearly wept instead she tried to figure out how to bring the bowl close enough to access.
She couldn't use her hands, at least not very well. Perhaps she could scoot the bowl closer with her foot.
Carefully she sat down as close to the bowl as the rope would let her, then stretched her legs out on either side of the bowl, hooked her feet around it and then slowly brought it closer. She scooted backwards a little ways and then brought the bowl closer again, hoping the rope would allow her to have access to the bowl now that she'd brought it closer.
Slowly she maneuvered her legs back beneath her and then carefully got onto her front, her arms pinned beneath her awkwardly yet she could reach. In this moment that bowl's contents were all that mattered. Once her face made contact with the water inside the bowl she drank greedily, only pausing long enough to lift her head to breath so she didn't choke herself before resuming drinking from the bowl.
Water had never tasted this good. Never been this refreshing. But then she'd never been this deprived of it before.
Once the water was gone and she'd used her tongue to lick the remaining drops from the bowl, she carefully got back into a kneeling position and from there to her feet in order to walk back to the place near the crate where she'd been thrown.
After sitting down and leaning against the crate she tried to get a look at her knees, immediately wishing she had not done so.
Both knees were cut up in several places from the loose rocks she'd knelt on, around the cuts and scrapes was bruising in various colors and sizes.
She grimaced and leaned her head against the crate, trying not to think about what her master had said and finding it very difficult to avoid.
The pain in her chest grew more noticeable now that she'd allowed herself to think even briefly about what he'd said, what he'd called her.
Being struck had hurt as well, it had hurt very much, her face still stung yet she'd half expected it. She'd been taught that being hit was considerably more likely than not, she'd been foolish to think after barely a day that her master was not the kind of person to be violent towards her.
Being told she was only a thing and having "thing" be her new designation, new name hurt far more than when he'd hit her.
She knew that she belonged to him, that everything she had or was given belonged to him. There was no way around that. Not for her and not for her people.
Her name had been taken the moment she'd left home as had everything she owned aside from the tribal marking on her shoulder.
All she had was her master's, even her name. Both her old and new one.
She squeezed her eyes shut tightly to prevent tears from falling and buried her face in her knees.
She really did have nothing.
Perhaps her master was right, perhaps she was just a thing.
Maybe she always had been. A thing being trained to serve as best it could and hope to survive. A thing to be punished. A thing to work or to be used if it's master found it pleasing. A thing to be killed at the whim of its master.
Just a thing.
Not a person, only a thing.