The floor was cold and rough. It always was. The chipped stone brickwork was uncomfortable to sleep on ever since he was taken in by slavers from Shadowvale, the lawless city of monsters and murderers. Even after months he had not gotten used to it. At least here he was being fed.
Back in Chicago he was a nobody, a street urchin, a lost child that hid amongst the homeless, he couldn't even begin to guess how long he had survived practically on his own after he was abandoned, weeks? Months? Years? None of it mattered. What mattered was the daily struggle for survival, and survive he did. Until he was taken in, forcefully by strangers and brought to a strange new city he did not know of. Not that he knew a lot.
"Hey, little shit." A man wearing a dressed down but still formal suit said to him as he passed his cage. "Breakfast." He says before throwing a small loaf of bread into the young, malnourished child's cage, with all the callousness one would expect of someone who kept children in cages.
But the child did not care. Despite the rags that once could be called clothes still clinging to his body being in tatters, despite the fact he smelled foul and had not bathed in months, despite the fact that he couldn't read nor write, nor even tell you his name, he didn't care. After all, what use was a name when you were starving?
So, with a ravenous gaze he descended upon the bread with a dive and began to devour it in a manner fit for pigs. He was as far from human as one could be, and yet he was.
After he had eaten, his hunger still far from sated but no longer in threat of death, he scooted over to the bucket of water he had in his cell and drank from it. The water was dirty and still, it was not in the least bit clean but he drank from it as if it were the fountain of youth. And then, after he no longer felt thirst he laid back down on what could laughably be called a bed, nothing more than a spot he had convinced himself was a place to sleep.
This was a place they kept the slaves, rows and rows of cages filled with all manners of types. Humans, Vampires, Werewolves, even demons, it was a hodgepodge of various races all stacked into this tiny room where they all stayed until needed.
Of course the wails of despair and anguish could be heard day and night from all around him, mutterings of isolation, and cries of madness, but by now he had managed to block it all out, it was nothing more than background noise to him. A testament to the ability of humans to adapt to a situation.
Soon the beatings would come. It was part of the routine. After food he would sleep for a bit longer, then be taken by a few men into the "training room" where they would tell him some things over and over and hit him with a whip. At first he cried, at first he begged for help and for them to stop. But by now he didn't utter a sound, he barely even felt it, the familiar sting of the whip was as much a mother to him as anything else. In fact he didn't feel much of anything nowadays. He had become numb to the world, even the cold hard ground seemed to matter little now, though it still made it uncomfortable to sleep. It didn't cause him agony anymore. Still, needless thinking like this was tiring, sleep was better, in sleep he didn't think. So he rested, waiting for the morning beating to come.
But it never did, he waited, and waited, and waited but there was no sign of the men who hurt him. In fact there was no sign of anyone managing the place at all. Which, to be fair, was none too weird, but it was strange it was happening now.
Then he heard it, an explosion, it rocked the building with a violent force, dust from the ceiling fell down on his head softly. The others in the cells panicked, crying out in fear or dismay, unsure what was going on, save a few. The child was among the few. That isn't to say he knew what was going on, but he seemed to not care much about what was happening, he had already accepted that whatever happened he would live through, or not. He was not a master of his own fate.
More explosions. Gunfire. The sound of bullets hitting flesh, grunts of pain, the sound of magic, lighting, fire, water, dark. Someone raging, someone transforming, more gunfire, more screams of pain, and then… nothing.
There was silence that filled the room like a gas, overtaking the unclean air they were so used to, even those who whimpered and hollered all night long were silent. Even the child, who had grown so weary, didn't know what was about to happen.
And then a woman arrived walking down the steps into the basement where the people were kept, She wore a dark red dress, a tan purse on her arm, and had on her face a bunny mask, it looked like a cheap plastic mask you would buy at a store but if one was to look closer it was made of a highly durable and flexible metal alloy.
Flanking her left and right was two men in suits, each with their own mask. One wore a green frog mask and the other wore an alligator mask, both made of the same alloy.
Even the child could tell just by looking at her she was someone important, the way she carried herself with such confidence was beyond impressive. Not that he cared much, but noting these things was a survival skill he had learned when he was still in chicago. Picking out the rich people was important to get the best handouts.
She snaps her fingers and the other two split up to begin inspecting and freeing the others in the room, while she herself began looking around as if inspecting cargo.
The child slumped back a bit. He had lost interest. Even if he was out of this cage it would change nothing. He would be back to surviving, scrounging for food. He didn't have much to live for. And honestly, at the moment, he didn't feel like it either.
The woman's eyes glanced over at the boy as she was inspecting the room full of people, not paying him more than a second thought. But, after she finished her inspection she slowly walked over to the boy's cell, where he sat on the stone floor, unmoving.
Once she was close enough she reached into her purse and pulled out a hand fan. She then reaches through the cage's bars with the fan and lightly places the tip of it under the boy's chin, lifting his face and eyes up to meet hers. What lay before her was a boy, no older than 6, skinny beyond belief, with long black hair that went down to his back. He looked malnourished, diseased, and completely vacant. His eyes showed no soul, no drive, no will, just emptiness.
"Tell me boy." She begins, her words like honeyed wine as she speaks with an elegant and calm tone. "What is your name?"
The boy looked at her for a moment, his eyes meeting hers for real for the first time as he pondered her question. Then, after a moment to consider, he opened his mouth to do something more than to beg or scream or cry. "I have no name, ma'am." he says dryly. His voice soft and shallow, almost like an automated response. The ma'am too was drilled into him, the men who beat him ensured he would never speak without a formal tone.
"My oh my~" she says with a bit of faux surprise. "Well we can't have that now can we?" she smiles under her mask, which of course was not visible to the boy. She then pulls her fan back and taps the cage's door once with it, and, like magic, the cell's door opens with a creak. This got the boy's attention, he looked up at her for the first time of his own choice, still inside the cage, unmoving otherwise.
"You may call me Mother Hare~" she says with the same honeyed and sweet tone she had from before. "And, I believe, You may need me far more than I would have needed you~" She grins under her mask, thoughts going through her head far more advanced than the boy could ever hope to understand.
"Now, let's get you out of there shall we?" she said as she bent down, reached in, and grabbed the boy's hand, pulling him outside gently. He does not resist, but he was confused by her motives, her actions did not make sense to him, nor what she expected of him.
"You aren't much of a talker are you?" She says as she fans out the hand fan in front of her and chuckles to herself as she gazes off at the other cells being opened and inspected by her compatriots.
"Well no matter." She pauses, looking back at him again, her brilliant blue eyes gleaming at him from under the mask. "I think we should start with a name." She pauses once more as she gazes upon the boy, as if to inspect his worth.
"Did you know…" She says, shifting gears as she shifts her body to face the boy once more. "That this world is a giant gem, rough, and uncut. It takes people like me to ensure it can shine as beautifully as it was meant to~" she then closes her fan and bends down to be closer to the boy speaking. "I'm in need of… a whetstone… a polisher… someone who can help me clean this world a little." She pauses again, letting the boy who seemed so very slow to catch on to what she was saying, his mind not understanding her grand metaphors. "Emery." she says with a note of inspiration. "That will be your name. Emery, the perfect little mixture to help with all the polishing this world needs~" she offers him her hand and he, slowly, and tentatively, takes it.
"Welcome to The Den, little Emery." She says with a soft laugh before she starts to leave, hand in hand, with the boy, now named Emery, up to the great unknown topside that awaits him.