The Forgotten World 2: Slavery of the Wolves

Eeko lifts his tired eyes to the clear sunny sky as the sweat dribbles down his face from his forehead. His black and dark gray hair absorbs heat from the sun quickly making him feel even hotter. He is exhausted and not used to working quite this hard. Even fighting off a giant dragon and climbing the tallest mountain seemed like nothing in comparison to the work he is doing now.

A red hawk soars across the sky and shrieks majestically. The red hawk, unlike Eeko, is free and soars to whatever places it please.

“Dear God, please send someone to save us from this disaster-“ Eeko prays.

“GET BACK TO WORK, SKUNK!” the master of the house yells at Eeko.

Eeko opens his chocolate brown eyes because he closed them while praying and snarls at the house master, but gives up and gets back to work. Last time he attempted to fight against his master, he got whipped so hard he could barely stand and still had to get back to work. Thinking about this makes his back hurt and he shakes his head.

Eeko’s current job is to crawl through a field of corn and pluck out each weed he finds. At least ten other Lopospoli are somewhere in the field as well. The corn in the field isn’t quite that tall yet and so the sky is still visible from down on the ground and the house master can see his slaves in the field. Most of the weeds Eeko finds are covered in sharp thorns that pierce his skin and make him bleed.

“I wish there was a reward for this,” Eeko mutters under his breath.

“Well...we do get a few meals to keep our strength up and we get to sleep in the shed-“ a Wolf Girl says, appearing from between corn stalks.

“Darleen, the meals are horrible and tasteless. I figure that not even the pigs would like to eat it and so it is given to us because we are desperate. And the shed is smelly and dangerously hot. There are over 100 of us in a single shed each night and some of the women are pregnant. I’m pretty sure that the other day, Darcy had her litter in there and so it reeks of blood in there,” Eeko argues, cutting her off before she can continue.

Darleen is only a few days younger than Eeko. Darleen has light pink hair and dark pink wolf ears and a wolf tail. Her hair was once long and silky, but the house master cut it short so it wouldn’t interfere with her ability to work. Because Darleen hasn’t had a good bath in a long time, her hair is matted and the ends are all uneven and split.

Eeko and Darleen aren’t very close and argue often, but the master of the house and land already has his mind set on pairing them together once they come of age. Neither of them know for sure that this will happen, but Eeko already figured it out. He is uncomfortable thinking about such a situation.

“You wouldn’t know what really goes on here and how our situation isn’t actually the worst it could be because you ran away as a baby and abandoned us,” Darleen argues back. “While you lived in luxury, we suffered!”

“Don’t you dare forget that I saved you from Pete Brian. I can’t imagine what horrid things he could have done to you,” Eeko says, glaring at the girl.

Darleen winces. Some of her closest friends died because of Pete Brian so that is a sore subject for her. She’d never again have as good of friends as the ones she lost. Eeko’s eyes widen briefly before he squints and he falls silent. His ears go backwards and he tucks his tail between his legs. Standing there in the corn field is the house master.

“Talking again instead of working, are you?!” the house master asks.

The house master is a tall man with slightly tanned skin. His broad, muscular shoulders helped him to grab and take control of his slaves when they were unwilling to listen. His light brown hair is slicked back with oil and gel and along his upper lip is some stubble as he was beginning to grow a mustache again. In his clenched hand is a long whip with a hard metal tip.

Darleen senses the master’s presence and also goes into submission mode. The master whips her first and she cries out in pain. When it comes to Eeko’s turn, right as the whip is about to come down, he turns into a black wolf with a white streak down his back like a skunk and runs off as quickly as he can. The enraged house master chases after the wolf and attempts multiple times to hit him with the whip, all while trying not to trip over corn roots. They zip out of the corn field and across the rest of the property.

“WATCH OUT, CHICKENS!” Eeko cries out as he rams his body through the chicken door on the hen house.

The frightened hens go flying out of the coop shrieking and flapping frantically. Their black and white feathers go up into the air before they come twirling back down in the breeze. The house master throws open the door and finds Eeko hiding in one of the nests. The frightened wolf gulps nervously as he is now helpless and about to receive an even worse punishment than if he just let the house master whip him.

The house master grabs Eeko by the scruff and drags him out of the hen house. The master not only whips and beats Eeko for misbehaving, but at nightfall, he is put on a leash and tied outside the shed to be publicly humiliated by the other slaves of the house.

“Wow, Eeko...just...wow. Look at you! You know talking isn’t allowed during work hours!” a spinach green wolf says, sauntering over to the doorway of the shed.

The green wolf stands inside the cramped shed staring out at Eeko on his chain. The collar around the black and white wolf’s neck is almost chokingly tight.

“Whatever, Rikard. It’s better than being in the shed, actually,” Eeko says, snarling.

Eeko is very uncomfortable, but there is no way he is letting anyone think they are better than him. He’ll do what he has to do to protect his dignity.

“It’s safer in here. The whole pack of us could easily fend off any intruder. You, however, are bait on a chain. They’ll stop by and gobble you up, and maybe they won’t be hungry for us inside the shed,” Rikard says, smoothing a paw over the hair on his head.

“You sleep on the blood and mess of Lopospoli Girls who’ve given birth in that shed. Out here, I get fresh air and quiet,” Eeko says. “And it is fairly clean!”

Rikard exits the shed further, baring his glistening fangs at Eeko. Of all the wolves, Rikard is the closest to an Alpha they can get, but he can be cruel and selfish sometimes.

“Do you have a problem with me, Spinach Face?” Eeko asks.

With a snarl and a growl, Rikard pounces on defenseless Eeko and beats him up. Eeko tries to struggle, but each time he does, the collar chokes him more.

Before Rikard knocks Eeko unconscious, he whispers in his ear, “Coming of age day is worse than you can even imagine. Yours is in a few days.”