"I wish you were never born. Why didn't you die when I drank those abortion pills?"
These words echoed through Freya's childhood, a constant refrain from her mother's lips. Her mother never loved her. She was an unwanted accident, a burden. Yet, young Freya clung to the fragile hope that someday, her mother's heart would soften, that she would learn to love her child.
This hope shattered like glass one day when Freya confided in her mother about her boyfriend's harassment.
"I'm telling the truth, Mom! Why don't you believe me?" Freya pleaded, tears welling in her eyes.
"Shut up, Freya! You're just making this up to get my attention. Well, you have it now. This is what you get for lying, this is where you belong!"
Freya's world crumbled. Her mother, instead of offering comfort and protection, had abandoned her, dumping her in an old, dilapidated factory building.
"No, no, no, please! What are you doing?!" Freya cried, struggling against the grip of two burly men who were dragging her inside the building.
Her pleas were met with silence. Terror choked her as her vision blurred and faded to black.
When Freya regained consciousness, she found herself trapped inside a cage. A crowd of onlookers gawked at her, their faces a mixture of curiosity and disgust.
"Freya the Slave sold to Mr. Carrigan."
"Freya the Slave sold to Mrs. Vernick."
"Freya the Slave sold to Mr. Mortis."
"Slave... Sold... Slave... Sold..."
These words, repeated like a cruel mantra, haunted Freya. Each time, she felt a fresh wave of despair – another master, another cage. At just twelve years old, she had been thrown into this abyss of human trafficking, a living nightmare.
Eight years. Eight years of captivity, of being treated as less than human. The first four years had been a blur of abuse – two years with the sadistic Mr. Carrigan, followed by two years under the equally cruel Mrs. Vernick. But the last four years, under the ownership of Mr. Mortis, had been a descent into a new level of torment. The physical, mental, and emotional pain inflicted upon her by Mortis was beyond anything she had endured before.
As Freya was ushered into the cage, the bidding began.
"One dollar!"
"Two dollars!"
"Four dollars!"
"Fifty dollars!"
The room fell silent. All eyes turned towards the man who had just made the highest bid. It was unprecedented. Slaves rarely fetch more than five dollars.
"Freya the Slave sold to the man at the back. What is your name, sir?"
"Garret."
"Who is that?"
"That's Mr. Garret. They say he's a vampire."
"Well, if that's true, Freya won't have any blood left soon."
Whispers and murmurs rippled through the crowd, chilling Freya to the bone. Yet, a strange sense of relief washed over her.
"This is it," she whispered to herself, "finally, an end to the torment."
Freya knew Garret would likely kill her. And in that knowledge, she found a strange kind of peace. All her life had been a symphony of pain, a constant cycle of tears and suffering. The prospect of death, swift and final, seemed almost… welcome.
In their town, the existence of vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures was an open secret. Freya, however, had always dismissed them as mere folklore, the stuff of movies. But her reality shattered when she was thrust into a world where these creatures were not just myths, but everyday beings.
To maintain a fragile peace, the human governor and the monster governor had established a pact: coexistence within strict boundaries and protocols.
Freya, however, found herself surprisingly unfazed by these creatures. After all, she had faced far more terrifying monsters in her own home. Her mother's revolving door of abusive boyfriends had transformed her childhood into a living hell. Each new man brought a fresh wave of cruelty, each one a different mask of evil.