Year 3018

Planet Oblivium

Kingdom of Muhenda, Kl8ngon Continent

Sector 7, City of Slaves

04:00 a.m.

The sound of a siren sounded loudly, echoing throughout sector seven, in an extremely irritating and annoying way to the ears, to the point of forcing all people to wake up even before the time predicted by the system, which usually happened at five in the morning. The work had been hard and infinitely tiring for a short rest. As the name itself suggested, this was the slaves city, a precarious, dirty and decadent place, located several miles away from the Kingdom's capital city. Divided by different sectors, scaled by levels of work, the city sheltered from the nobles to the plebs, all coming from Syru kingdom.

"Attention everyone! Go immediately to the transport terminal. Those who will be found in their dormitory after ten minutes will be severely punished!" warned an authoritative voice that sounded quite audible throughout the sector.

"What the fuck." murmured a female slave who lived in sector seven, waking up with the siren noise. "What happened this time? It's not time to wake up yet. Can't we rest in this pigsty anymore?"

"Damn, this can't be good" thought loudly another young slave.

In only one dorm they could inhabit up to ten slaves.

"What do you think it could be, Ethan?" the girl asked, scratching her head, still half asleep, with her face apparently overwhelmed by the fatigue of the previous day's forced labor, covering a yawn with her hand.

"It could be anything. We are slaves, remember? So that's it, they order us and we obey without question if we don't want to die, simple as that." Ethan answered.

A seventeen years old biracial black boy, with a very light-skin. Owner of a pair of shining honey-colored eyes and curly hair, Ethan was the delegate of all human slaves. Ethan stood up from the ground.

"Is this another collective punishment from the prince?" speculated Allyria, with a terrifying look, afraid even of her own suppositions. "We already missed the evening meal yesterday."

"If we stand here speculating we'll never know. And you heard, we have less than ten minutes to present ourselves at the transport terminal, so come on." Ethan said.

"What are you still doing standing here?" voiced the foreman of sector seven came in, and automatically the girls were static, paralyzed with fear.

A tall young Croog, 19 years old, with a snow-white albino skin tone and equally white hair, two irises in his eyes of an extremely blue color, quite handsome to the eye, scanning the place with just his gaze, sketching on his face the disgust he felt just for being in there breathing the same environment.

"Didn't you hear the bell and the call?"

"Yes, we heard it, fortunately slavery hasn't taken away our hearing yet..." Ethan answered promptly, staring at the foreman who was taller than him, without fear in his eyes.

"What do you say?" the foreman waved, entangled, frowning, approaching, already holding the whip that was stuck to his waist.

"What she meant was that we are leaving right now." Allyria said, putting herself right in front of Ethan. "Isn't that right, girls?"

She asked the other girls in the dormitory expecting support from them, but they were shaking with fear of the foreman that they couldn't even open their mouths.

"I said isn't it?" she extended her sentence, throwing a look at Ethan, this time in an attempt to force him to agree.

"Ok, fine. That's what I meant, sir."

The foreman took a deep breath, keeping a penetrating gaze towards the two of them.

"Get out of my sight, now!" ordered the foreman at last, fluttering.

"You don't even have to ask twice. Let's go girls!" Allyria shouted for the other girls to follow her. Pushing Ethan in front of her passing the foreman.

They all hurried to the exit of the dormitory, and the foreman didn't take his eyes off Ethan, until he finally lost sight of them. Sector seven sheltered mostly men and women who directly or indirectly served the human royalty of Syru, people who were linked to royalty and all their descendants.

Ethan, Allyria and the other girls from the same dormitory went to the transportation terminal, that was less than ten minutes away. There they joined the other slaves from the same sector. In all, the slaves city had ten sectors and thousands of dormitories, each sector had a different color of clothing that identified it, for sector seven was the golden color, representing nobility and royalty.

"What's wrong with you to face the foreman?" Allyria asked as they walked towards the transportation terminal.

"It's not my fault if he asks stupid questions."

"Ethan!" Allyria looked sideways.

"What? It's the truth. They cut off my freedom, not my tongue. Tell me, who wouldn't hear that damn siren?"

"By the way... Have you been able to talk to Darren yet? The one whose prince, newly arrived?" Allyria asked cautiously.

"No, I haven't had the chance yet." Ethan answered, crossing his arms, after being pushed by a slave on purpose.

He intended to say something that was stuck in his throat.

"Hey! You two there! Less talk and more legs moving, fast!" one of the Croogs soldiers shouted.

"Never mind. Let's go." said Allyria, pulling Ethan by the arm, following the path.

Monitored by specialized soldiers, all the slaves were led to board a train with no previous destination. The fear of uncertainty was dominant, it was visible on everyone's face. The train followed its destination quickly, it was so crowded that it couldn't even fit anymore people standing. Ethan and Allyria were together, squeezed in the middle of so many people, while trying to balance themselves on the metal bars affixed to the top plate, against the extremely fast speed of the train. After long and disquieting minutes they finally arrived at their destination. They were all led to an open field full of stones piled up.

"You are late! And I hate to wait." claimed a very vibrant and extremely arrogant male voice.

He was actually the prince of Muhenda, an 18-year-old Croog named Kwame Nankela. He had brownish skin and eyes with two golden irises.

"What you expected, idiot, is four o'clock in the morning." mumbled quietly Ethan.

"Stay quiet. Do you want to die?" Allyria whispered softly.

"It was my fault, sir. It won't happen again." Fahid recognized bowing his head.

"You bet it don't. Let the delegate of the slaves introduce himself right now!" the prince demanded, standing up in front of all the slaves, with his chest out and his head raised.

Ethan come forward, emerging from the crowd.

"Here I am." Ethan answered, standing up in front of the Croog prince, avoiding to keep eye contact with him not because of fear or dread, he just wanted to avoid more retaliation against his people.

Kwame walked a few steps around Ethan, closely watching him. He didn't move a muscle at all, until the prince standing up in front of him again.

"Today I have a simple task for all of you. Do you see all these stones there?" Kwame pointed in the direction of the stones, making Ethan follow the look in the same direction. "I want you to take them and pile them up there at the end of the field."

Ethan kept his eyes on the stones for a few moments.

"Start it now!" the prince firmly ordered, coming close to Ethan, facing the boy.

All of them without contesting began to take the stones and transport them to the intended place. It would take an estimated of two hours to complete all the work and anyone who collapsed from tiredness or was helped by someone else would be severely punished. At that moment most of the slaves wished Ethan were dead, because all that punishment was his fault.

06:30 A.M.

It had been about two hours and thirty minutes of hard labor, much fatigue, thirst and hunger under the burning sun. Finally the slaves had finished carrying all the stones. There were in the group of slaves several old people and children from the age of twelve and up, all of them were bursting with fatigue.

"It is done!" shouted Ethan to the prince. Breathless, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "Can we go back to the city now?"

Kwame, who wore a golden royal costume, made of the finest Croog gold cloth, slowly approached, his haughtiness announcing who was the authority there.

"Beautiful work. Now I want you to take it all and put it back where it was."

"What?" Ethan questioned.

"Are you guys deaf? I told you to put it all back where it was and I want you to do it right now!" shouted the prince.

"We have already done what your majesty ordered us to do."

Mentioned Darren, an 18-year-old boy, Prince of Syro, son of Queen Svetlana. He approached, all sweaty and equally tired.

"We haven't eaten anything since yesterday because of the punishment you have ordered. We are worse than empty bags. And we have old people and children here, who don't have the same physical structure, so please have a little mercy." he intervened, almost begging, holding an elderly man who would almost fall from exhaustion.

Kwame laughed in Darren's face.

"The great crown prince of the filth, begging for mercy. I can't believe I lived long enough to witness such an event in history, and the world didn't even stop turning, look how wonderful. Where was your damn mercy when your people tortured, humiliated and murdered thousands of my people? Huh? Tell me? Where was your damn compassion when the father of that wretched..."

Holding Ethan by the arm abruptly, pulling him tight as if to introduce him and the young man who was dead tired almost fell down.

"… betrayed and cowardly murdered my father? Tell me where?!" he let go of Ethan's arm with all his strength, almost knocking him down, being supported by Darren. "Oh, but of course. As expected, the little prince doesn't have an answer to that, does you? Well then, don't make me lose my patience and get to work, everybody!"

"At least a little bit of water, just a little, for the children and for the elderly, they won't be able to..." Darren tried to intervene once again.

Kwame whipped a twelve-year-old boy who was sitting on the stones beside them three times in a row, making the boy scream, leaving his whole body marked by open wounds in living flesh.

"Why did you do that?" Ethan screamed, bending down to protect the frightened boy who was trembling and groaning on the floor. "He is just a child!"

"And what about me? Don't forget, slave, that many of our people who were tortured and murdered after your bloody arrival on our planet were also children, and I haven't seen any human caring about this or having mercy on them. So why should I care? Now get back to work, before my whip sings in your face, and I won't say it again! Move, you wretches!" Kwame shouted, furious whipping the floor.