Chapter 1 - Life at a slave camp

chapter 1.Life at the slave camp. the sound of whips cracking over slave backs was heard all throughout the slave camp. Young Jachiro sat in the bunker occupied by the youngest of slaves. He was born here, His mother was out working in the quarry south of the barracks. his father had disappeared long ago, Jachiro didn’t know if he escaped, or was killed. The works for the young ones was mild, dishes and cleaning mostly, and life was ok. That is, until you hit five. At five years old they start taking them out to the fields, where they hitched them up like cattle to plows and made them plow the fields. Jachiro was on the verge of weeping. He was turning five in a few days. he remembered how his friends had been ripped out of the room, screaming and kicking and begging not to have to go. He was scared. Jachiro pulled his wings close to him, they didn't give out blankets here, so he was relatively lucky. You see, his father was a bat, and his mother was a cat. So he was looked upon as strange. Even his best friend, a hedgehog named Lutho, thought he looked funny. Suddenly, Jachiro felt a large paw on his shoulder. he looked up and found the smiling face of his mother. "How was my little trooper today?" Jachiro laughed as his mom tickled him under the wingpit."Haaahahahaaa, mommy, stop!, hahahahaaaaa!" Once they stopped laughing, Jachiro asked a question he had in his head all day. "Mommy? Why where they whipping those people?" His mother sighed and sat down. "Jachiro, those people tried to get over the gate. The warden doesn’t want us to leave." "Oh". Jachiro wondered why the warden wanted them to stay. "Lutho said the warden was going to have them killed." "Where did he hear that?" Jachiro's mother asked. "Don't listen to him, he's probably imagining that. Come on, time for bed." She led him out of the bunker he was in and out the door. But then she led him to a different set of barracks. "Mommy? your barracks are over there!" His mother sighed again. "The warden wants you to start sleeping with the other kids." They kissed each other, then Jachiro went off to the other barracks....................................................................................................... The laughter of children echoed through the walls of the cabin as Jachiro stood nervously outside. he had never been around this many other children before in his life, and only a few people knew he had wings because he was good at hiding them under his shirt. He sighed, brought up his courage, and opened the door. Inside, anthro children of all ages were playing around the room, The children’s cabin was one of the largest buildings in the whole camp, and the tallest. It seam’s the kid's had built a network of wooden planks that worked like roads so they could get anywhere in the room. The beds were lined up like shelves on the sides of the wall, 30 rows up and 20 rows across. They weren't very big, each bed was about three feet high and five feet long, and didn't have blankets, although some of the older, smarter kids stole towels from the kitchens and used them. But most kids got a small bean-bag pillow from their mothers. Jachiro walked down room looking for a free bed. He found a one on the ninth row with a pillow still inside It a rare find. His had been stolen and destroyed a long time ago. He hauled his small bag of belongings up a ladder, a spare pair of clothes, a bracelet he made, a pretty green rock he found, and a stuffed bird doll that, according to his mother, had once belonged to his father. he was in the process of climbing into his new bed when his foot slipped on a ladder wrung. Instinctively, he pulled his wings out from his shirt and flapped furiously to stop himself from falling. All the laughter and chatter going on in the room stopped, and the only sound herd was the beating of Jachiro’s wings. Jachiro started to blush, until his face was as red as a tomato. Finally, after what seemed like hours, a polar bear at the age of thirteen or so called him down. Wary of the other eyes watching him, he slowly climbed down the ladder. At the bottom, the boy alerted him of a sort of rule in the cabin. "There’s a rule in this bunker kid," he started, "Anyone with wings goes to the top row of beds. It's not a social thing, It's a thing they developed when the first kids used there bunkers. It's like an unspoken law, now get up there." "Uh, ok sir." "Don't call me sir, the names Koji kid. What's yours?" "Uh, Jachiro." He repacked his things and, tacking the pillow from the bead, started the climb up to the higher levels. It was actually a long climb up the tall row of ladders up to the top row. In every row he saw kids staring at him from all age groups. At the top he saw a diverse group of winged anthros, Birds of every color, insects with elegant glossy wings, and what he could have sworn was a dragon. He found an empty bed between a cockatiel and a dragonfly. He spread out all his things again as the chatter started to return. Jachiro had incredibly good hearing, and decided to listen in on one of the conversation going on near him. "Did you see that guy? he has wings bigger than Touki's, but he's a cat!" "I know! It's so weird! He's just like Kagro!" It was here that Jachiro cut in. "Who's Kagro?" he asked. The conversation below ceased immediately, then, a leopard girl climbed up the ladder and told him who Kagro was. " Kagro is a mouse, But he has big wings like yours so he looks like you. Oh, by the way I'm Myna, what's your name?" "Jachiro," he replied, "So where is Kagro?" Myna paused to remember, them told him, "Oh, He's about Twelve bed's over on the other wall, but he's a little shy." "Ok, Thanks a lot" he said as he climbed down the nearest ladder. He tried out the networks of planks, and found that it was very easy to get from one place to another. The planks only went up to the 25th floor and in the space above the planks and the roof he could see older winged kids flying to floor to floor. But Jachiro's wings were still not strong enough to fly more than a few feet up, so he had to use the ladders. ,Finally, after allot of climbing, he saw a mouse on the top floor facing the wall, trying to keep warm in his soft feathered wings. "So," Jachiro said, "Does It really get that cold up here?" The mouse spoke softly, "A little, but it will get colder later." He turned around, slightly startled that someone was talking to him. He had unusual fur for a mouse, a rich golden color, and he looked about Jachiro's age. "Who are you?" "I'm Jachiro, and I'm just like you!" He stretched out his wings to prove it. "And are you Kagro?" "Yeah, I am." he turned away again. "You know, My momma said I was the only one like me in the whole camp, But now I know I’m-" "My momma's dead." "Oh." That caught Jachiro off guard and silenced him. He didn't even want to imagine what life would be like without his mother. "I think you should leave now, please." "oh, ok. He left down the ladders, and came back five minutes later with his precious rock. Kagro didn't even turn around this time. "Here," He said as he set his rock down on the foot of his bed, "It reminds me of my father, so maybe it will help you think of your momma." As he was leaving, Kagro spoke. "My momma was a canary. She made me a special bracelet with her own feather's. But It broke right after she died. My fathers always to busy, and I have all the pieces in this bag, so I was wondering, Could you fix it?" Jachiro smiled. "Sure, I'd be happy to." Kagro turned around and reached under his pillow. He pulled out a little cloth bag and handed it to Jachiro. Then he took the emerald green rock in it's place. Then he turned around to face Jachiro. "Thank you." he said to Jachiro as he climbed down the ladder. He was up all night fixing Kagro's bracelet. In the box there was a strip of leather, a few blue beads, and five Golden yellow feathers. The leather was thin and ripping in some places and it had to be replaced, so he asked around until a rabbit gave him a piece of yarn. So he spent the rest of the night weaving the yarn through the beads and tying on the feathers. He only got about two hours of sleep, the slaves woke at five o'clock each morning. right before they started their work, Jachiro sought out Kagro and gave him back his bracelet. Jachiro then discovered that Kagro was up all night too, welding a small hole into the rock, so it hung from a piece of twine like a necklace. He gave it to Jachiro as a gift for fixing his bracelet. They had been friends ever since.………………………………................................................................

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