The cursed blessing

Being homeless

Aya

Castor threw me out of the brothel, and I had only the clothes that I was wearing and a little money that I always kept in my bra. I wandered around for days until my knees felt too weak to support my weight. I stayed near a dumpster and hoped to find some leftovers to sustain my body because I wanted to save my money for the really hard times.

Sometimes I found some slightly rotten fruits or some leftover pizza crust to eat. I was a fighter and even though I had nothing left, I never thought of giving up. Zacel wouldn’t want me to die, he wanted to be with me and protect me.

One night I was wandering the streets and tried to be as quiet as possible because some demons are hunting for humans and halfbloods at night to make them sign a contract or worse, when I heard a scream. It was a high-pitched noise that I couldn’t ignore. I ran as fast as my now bone thin legs could carry me and saw a girl fighting of two demons at the same time. She was stuck in a dead end and had no other choice than to fight. She put her palm forward and I could make out the black half circle, which started to glow red. In a blink of an eye she shot fire out of her mark and nearly burned one of the demons but the second one creeped up her back and tackled her to the ground. Now he was on top of her and she tried to wiggle herself out of his grip but failed. As I saw the second one opening the zipper of his pants, I saw red and started to run to help her. With the most fake sounding battle cry I stopped in front of them. He smirked at me and said, “Hey Enel there is another one! The more the merrier right.” He winked at me and his smile turned into something even more evil. As he came closer, I tried to back off because I had neither a weapon nor the strength to fight of a demon. He got to me and tried to tackle me down as another pulse came from my body and knocked him out.  One down and one more to go I thought, when I saw the girl firing another round out of her palm and this time, she got the other demon right in the face. He cried out in pain and ran away, dragging his friend behind him, which left me standing there with the unknown girl that I rescued.

She looked at me and smiled,” Hi my name is Petra and who are you?”

“My name is Aya, nice to meet you.”

“Aya you look horrible, come on let’s get you something to eat and a bath.”

For all I cared she could be a serial killer or a human trafficker, the offering sounded so nice that I couldn’t reject it.

About fifteen minutes later we stood in front of an old looking factory building and Petra said, “Welcome to my home.”

We entered the building and I was surprised to see a bed, a sofa, a fridge and even a small shower built with a plastic tarp and a garden hose. Petra went straight to the fridge and gave me a cheese sandwich and a cup filled with water. I gulped it down in one sip and ate the sandwich with two bites.

“Now that you are full, let`s talk about what happened earlier. I didn’t see a mark on you which means you are either human or not sixteen yet. How did you knock the demon out without any halfblood powers?”

I decided to be truthful and explained everything to her, from my job as a prostitute to Zacel and my friend Lydia. She listened carefully and never interrupted me until I finished.

“That’s an awful story, I am so sorry for your loss, but it might be better this way demons who f**k slaves are the worse kinds of evil.”

“That’s not true,” I argued.

“Yes most of them are evil but I believe there are some good ones out there as well. Zacel was one of the good guys.”

“We will see about that,” she answered.

“How long until you become sixteen,” she asked.

“About three months from now,” I answered.

“Perfect, do you want to join the revolution when you turn sixteen?”

“Wait what? What revolution? My master always said that there is no revolution because of the contracts.”

“Yes and no darling,” she grinned.

“Some halfbreeds are free and still alive and the rumours are that there are some wealthy demons who are siding with the revolution. They buy contracts and recruit halfbloods for the cause.”

“Why should a demon do that?”

“As you said there are even some good guys at the brothel, so I assume there are a few who don’t want to exploit humans the way the demons do and furthermore some demons might like their children at least I hope that is the case. I want my father to like me, but I fear that I will never have the chance to meet him.”

I hugged Petra and we talked about our pasts and how we would find the revolution. Weeks passed and we still had no clue if the revolution really existed and where we could find them. We lived a decent life with some stolen food and most of the time we stayed in the factory building.

Petra started to train material arts with me as she was a professional fighter, who was sent to fight other slaves in the big arena. Her master was really proud of her until she lost a fight against a two-meter muscleman. Her master punched her until she was nearly dead and left her on the street to rot. Her heart stopped and with her death the contract reduced to ashes. She explained to me that she saw a light but something told her to stay and fight for a better world, so she opened her eyes and her heart started to beat again.