When the newly risen bright sun’s beams started to hurt her eyes, she realized she’s been walking on the dirt road outside the city for a long time. Her feet started to bleed from small scratches by pebbles on the road and the blood mixed with dirt while leaving faint footprints. She felt like she has just woken up from a long nightmare when the sun came to her eyesight. She stared at her back, to the road she passed. Even though the place she just escaped got out of her sight, it felt like if she steps back even a little, she would be swallowed by her past.

    She was lucky. She managed to somehow escape and survive. She was just 10 but she saw much younger kids than her die in front of her eyes. A few years ago she was just a small child enjoying her days with other kids around her age. Even though those days are long gone now, the memories filled with enjoyment and happiness were still alive.

    She was just a nameless orphan living beside a sanctuary in a city in the south of Welsia, a city named Hapu with the friends of her age. The town was small but wealthy from fertile farms. The orphanage was well-maintained but nannies were strict and sometimes abusive on discipline. They would punish improper behaviour but indifferent in general. They weren’t around except for meals and bedtime and orphans had their time to play and learn on their own. It was a happy atmosphere for her.

    She’d lost both her father and mother. She had never learnt why but she didn’t miss them. How can people miss someone they don’t know. Although, there was a gap she couldn’t grasp the depth but it wasn’t a burden. She had plenty of friends she enjoyed her days with and nannies who kept her safe and warm. She had been happy.

    It was until she turned 6. After a few months of her sixth birthday, orphanage’s funds had gone low and nannies had rough times managing all children. A fire started on a hot summer day burnt many farmlands and donations for the orphanage had cut. Some children were over 8, at the age to start working for peasants so they had sent to the remaining farms or left the town for good. She and her peers weren’t that lucky. They weren’t old enough to work or young enough to stay in the orphanage. Children under 6 were allowed to stay but others were a burden for nannies. Most of them adopted by townspeople to raise to send for work like older children but she wasn’t one of them. Nannies agreed to get rid of the remaining children. They met a man who wanted the children for a good amount of money. It was obvious that he didn’t have good intentions but when nannies got the money, they didn’t think for a second time.

    The man was a slave trader. He was travelling with a large group as camouflage to deceive people as a merchant. The children he bought was in a good shape so he thought they were good products. He didn’t care whether they were women, men or small children because they were products he can sell in a good deal in the market. They were no better than a vase he can sell in his eyes. He brought her to the market too alongside all her friends. People would point them with their fingers, giggle and look with pitiful eyes. She got used to those noises and faces of people measuring her to decide whether to buy her as a slave or not. After years’ travel in Welsia with his group from one slave market to others, they reached a city in the north of Welsia, Ka-nefer. They reached to a slave market in an outskirt town in the capital of Welsia. For her luck, a rich man bought her from the trader for a good deal when she was 9.

    He was a young man of a noble family with ancient history. Their family was a little unorthodoxy and people in their land scared of them. They were infamous for their dark mysteries and terrifying experiments. They frequently brought children to their house and no one ever had seen those children again. Though there was no way both slave traders and people in town would care about slave children’s whereabouts since they were nobody with neither families nor names.

    The man who bought her with a few other children around her age brought her to a big mansion with a luxurious appearance. Mansion was old but well-kept. She didn’t have much chance to look around since they have thrown the children to the basement at the moment they brought in. There was a cage in the filthy basement which used to keep the children. A strong metallic smell became scary when she noticed red stains on the floors and walls. They took one kid once every few days and the taken children never returned. She managed to escape from their hands reaching for her too but it was only temporary and when no children left except for her, she realized it was her turn this time.

    They took her out from the basement and despite her resistance, they tied her to a table. The room was creepy and the table she was lying on had bloodstains around it. It looked like a room from a sanctuary. There were candles and books everywhere. It was obvious she was going to lose her life like others on that table. She just wanted to live in that orphanage with her friends for a little more. She just wanted to live. After feeling a great pain she fainted and when she opened her eyes, she saw smiling faces looking at her. They were enthusiastically talking about her and results. They were yelling as ‘It worked!’ or ‘Success!’ to each other. They took her to a room in the same basement but the surrounding was better than the room with the cage. They continued to take her to the room with the table and kept doing experiments and researches on her. She had no idea what we're doing and she didn’t want to learn.

    She didn’t know anybody but people in the mansion took care of her. Even though they weren’t neglecting, they were rude and she was lonely. A few days later she met with a boy who came to the basement from pure curiosity to the kid researchers was talking about. His name was Amenenheb. They became quite close in a few days since she had no one else to talk to or depend on other than him. She didn’t exactly know who he was or why he was there but his kindness and interest was enough. He even started to call her with a name; Masika. It meant born during rain since she brought in during the rainy season. Even though it was a common and simple name in Welsia, she liked it. It was her name, only given to her. Amenenheb became the only person she became close after her friends in the orphanage. She wanted to spend as much time as she can with him. But it wasn’t going to be as she planned.

    Amenenheb was the second son of the family who brought her in as an experiment subject. He was interested in her when he heard she was the subject of the experiment which gave them their long-awaited success. He wanted to learned what was that creature and what was so special about it. She was like a pet on his eyes so he wanted to tame her by getting closer to her. He had a big effect on her when the time for the last experiment came.

    They tied her to the table once more. She thought it would be like other times when they tied her, injected stuff and let her go after examine her a little. But this time she felt a stinging pain all over her body like she was lying on a needle bed. She wanted to escape, she resisted and managed to untie herself. The experiment stopped and researchers became uncomfortable by her attitude. They couldn’t hold her and put the table as she resisted and ran from them. she tried to open the door but couldn’t as it was locked and got şn to a corner in the room. That time Amenenheb came to her sight.

    He came to her when he saw she was running from the people who were trying to capture and tie her. He said they wouldn’t hurt her anymore and he needed her. He convinced her once more to lie down to the table. She lied on the table but when they started the experiment again she felt the same pain unlike what he told her. When she looked at him from the table she was lying, she saw his grinning face as she screams and begs them to stop. He had the same expression on his face as other people in the room like he was excited to see the results of the painful experiment.

    She realized at that moment, he wasn’t her friend at all and she was just an object on his eyes too like other people in the room. Somehow she found the strength to untie even stronger ties from before she escaped first and managed to release her one arm. She hit and dropped a candlestick beside the table she was lying and the room set on fire. The experiment stopped and everyone started to run away but the area they were standing already surrounded by the fire so no one managed to escape. She was fortunate that the door was just beside her and she escaped on time before fires swallowed her too. She didn’t want to look back and see Amenenheb again but couldn’t help herself. When she looked back she saw him lying on the ground with dull eyes and she understood he died already.

    When she got out of the mansion, fires followed her to the main door and the whole building started to destroy under the beautiful night sky with a great column of fire. It was inevitable people would gather around the house to check whether there are survivors. She started walking down to a road as soon as she escaped from the mansion and head to the road into the southern woods.

    She walked until sunrise and there was still nothing around except woods and small animals. She didn’t know anything about the surroundings and she had no one to trust. She just continued to walk after a little break under a tree.

    It was already noon when she heard some noise behind her. It was the noise of horses beating the ground, creatures she found so majestic when she saw one for the first time while she was travelling with slave traders. Two large wagons which following two brown horses was approaching her. When two men whose controlling horses on the front of the wagon saw her, they pulled halter of horses and stopped in front of her. Horses snorted with a loud noise and a man looked at her.

    “Where ya’ headed.” Asked the man with a weird accent. “Cat got yer tongue, kid?”