Chapter
1 – When the High Wears off
People joke about life not being
fair, but when your life is at a dead end, the joke no longer becomes funny. I
worked two jobs, one at an office and another at a supermarket, to help my
family pay the bills and put food on the table. My husband was disabled because
of a workplace accident, so he could only collect disability checks, but at
least he could stay home and take care of our child, which we could only have
one of, no matter how many times we tried to have more. Even with the hero
association of the Dominion’s recent takeover of the world and their balancing
wages for all normal humans and superhumans, we continued to struggle because
of the many debts we owe. There didn’t seem to be any hope that our lives would
get better, no matter how much we prayed, until a woman with dark skin
approached me at the supermarket.
“Are you okay? What’s your name?”
she asked.
“Briar. I’m fine, thank you for
asking,” I said.
“You don’t look fine, girl. You
seem like you’re going to die from exhaustion any second now, Briar.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me if I did,”
I said.
“I know that feeling, sister. I was
like you, too, until a friend approached me with the same offer I’m going to
give you.” The woman gave me a card with roses on it. “Call that number and set
up an interview with my employer. We’ll get you a better job than this. It’ll
make you happier and free you from all your stress.”
The woman walked away without
saying another word. It was obvious she was a stripper or sex worker, given her
somewhat scantily clad choice of clothes. Still, for some reason, I didn’t
think it’d hurt to call for an interview and see what the job was. When I
called, I got an interview the next day at a strip club. The man who
interviewed me checked me out, looked at my background, and said he’d give me
the job within an hour. I was so taken aback by it all that I hesitated to
accept at first.
“I’m sure you’re concerned about
your family, but you don’t have to worry about them. We’ll give you about the
same hours as your supermarket job, but you’ll be paid more, you can change
into your normal clothes, and they don’t need to know a thing,” he said.
I’ve been a woman dedicated to my
faith; however, it’s been degrading over the years because of the suffering
I’ve been through. The thought of my family continuing to suffer forced me to
shake hands with the man, and before I knew it, I danced with the woman I met
for money in embarrassing clothes, or lack thereof. After my first day, I
brought my concerns to the woman, who consoled me. She shared the same faith
but rationalized taking this job as necessary to care for our families. She then
offered me a pill and some alcohol to wash it down, and without thinking too
much, I took it and felt better.
Days later, our family finally
became financially stable. My job gave me time off to spend with my family. I
got used to it after a week and actually started to enjoy it. One day, I was
offered extra money to perform an especially erotic dance with the woman, and I
accepted, despite not knowing what to do. The woman told me to follow her lead,
so I did. She kissed me, and we danced in a way that looked like we were having
sex. After that, I received more requests to do similar dances and was then
asked to do even more explicit things for more money. Because of how good it
all made me feel and the money involved, I agreed.
The extra work involved being in a
sex club and giving my body to others for their pleasure. In my heart, I knew
it was degrading, but I didn’t care. I was happy for the first time in years, had enough money to make this kind of work my primary job, and, at my new
friends’ suggestion, I did. A couple of months passed, and my husband and child
finally realized something in me had changed. My husband confronted me about
it, and I blew him off. It was at this time that I cared more about sex work
than my family because of how much better and freer it made me feel. We argued
from day to day so much so that I’d leave my home so I could sleep over my new
friends’ house and relate my grievances with them.
It got to the point where the woman
who initially recruited asked me, “Your family is more of a burden now than the
reason why you work, haven’t they?”
“They have. This place and these
people feel more like my family now than they do,” I said.
“We have a way of taking care of
that. We use the AI-driven care you bought, so your husband could get around,
arrange an accident to get rid of them permanently, if you want.”
I thought about it, weighed my
happiness and freedom in my new life against the pains and restrictions of my
family, and decided to okay the plan. The next day, the AI-driven car my
husband used got into an accident, and both he and my child died, along with a
few other pedestrians. My conscience hardly felt a thing at the time. In fact,
I felt freer than I ever had before. For the next month, I enjoyed a life of
constant pleasure and happiness without the constraints and stresses of a
family.
These new people were my family.
They made me happier than my family ever has. Being a wife was a mistake, and
being a mother, doubly so. They kept me from being truly free and happy. I
can’t imagine my life getting any better than this, and yet, the woman who
first recruited me had a new way to make more money and feel an even deeper
level of pleasure and happiness. Because I’m a normal human, I wasn’t able to
handle the rougher superhuman clients, but with the new modifications, I would
be able to experience pleasure on a whole new level.
It was strange. I was excited for
the day, got up early, and headed out to the factory on the outskirts of the
city, where I would be changed, but when I got there, my excitement quickly
went away. People were screaming in pain, not out of pleasure, but out of fear
for their lives. Many were there against their will to be taken advantage of
and turned into living sex objects. Of course, I’d seen it before; however,
seeing a person being painfully turned is another thing entirely. The pangs of
my dead conscience started to bother me again for the first time in months.
I wanted to leave and never look
back, and yet, I kept moving. I told myself it wouldn’t be bad for me. That it
would be quick and painless for me, that I’d leave as quickly as I’d arrive,
and I’d experience a whole new way to live happily. All that positive thinking
vanished as soon as I saw the huge boiling pot below me that I was supposed to
dive into. It was grey, sludgy, sinking, and so hot that I started to sweat
from just being near it. Before I could turn away to ask if I could leave, the
woman I knew pushed me into the pot, and I burned.
It was my wake-up call, as I felt
every inch of me burn in agonizing pain. My skin and bones felt as if they were
melting off, and the sensations of the drugs in my system were erased. Suddenly,
I began to feel used to the pain, and then crawled out of the pot and lay on
the floor. The woman I knew told me that I looked beautiful in my new form, and
I was brought a full-body mirror to look at myself. My pink hair looked
completely gray, along with the rest of my body. My eyes were entirely silver,
and the shape of my body fit the clothes I was wearing, and yet, I’m completely
naked now and feel as if I’m made of a metallic glass.
I was congratulated by the people
surrounding me since people they bring here sometimes don’t survive the
transformation process and simply become one with the sludge in the pot. I felt
as if my mind and conscience saw everything clearly for the first time in a
while, and I began to remember everything with a heavy sense of regret, remorse,
and anger, most importantly. My anger began boiling like the sludge, and as
soon as I got up, I put my hand straight through the throat of the woman I knew.
In those seconds, I realized I really never knew her name. Seeing that she wasn’t
instantly dead, or rather, not caring that she wasn’t, I stuck my other hand
through her chest and then through her head, killing her for certain.
It was then that security was
called and descended on me. I used my new body to beat them down, cut their
eyes and throats with my sharp fingers, and plunged my hands into their throats,
heads, and chests. No matter what gun or superpower they used against me, I
hardly felt a thing, but I also didn’t care if I did. I wanted to kill every single
person in this factory for what they did to me and the others in it. I also
wanted them to kill me for my mistakes and end this rotten life I’ve lived, and
yet, I managed to live until the last bit of security was killed by my hand.
Why did I survive? Why am I still
living? I’ve been going over the events of my life as I’m lying on the rooftop,
looking at the night sky, and thinking about what I should do with my life now.
All I can think about is revenge and killing the perverts who made me into one
of them, so that’s what I’ll do. I know where their few hideouts are, so I’ll kill
every one of them. They won’t hurt or corrupt anyone else by the end of this
night.
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