4.| The Fury Of A Slave

Don't get me wrong, every one of those rough-looking men had a history of being abusers written on their faces. But the auctioneer who had just spoken to us gave me an uneasy, distinctly sour feeling in my stomach.

He kept eyeing me more intensely than the others, making me nervously shift despite the cuffs biting into my raw ankles. I clenched my teeth, stifling the hiss of pain as it reopened the bloody wounds. 

So much had happened since my spirit awoke anew in this young vessel between the stopping and restarting of his heart. Yet, I didn't even know the poor boy's name.

"P-Please! I beg you, just let me return to my grandmother!" A trembling childlike voice pierced the tense silence.

He was quieted by the crack of one of the men's whips, making me and a few others jump from being startled.

The pitiful plea was immediately drowned out by a resounding crack as one of the burly enforcers lashed his whip through the air. 

I flinched along with several others at the startling sound and ferocity of the strike. 

The thin cotton shirt offered little protection as a thick line of blood welled up across the child's back. I could only imagine the searing pain, yet he admirably stifled any whimpers until the shock faded into tense quiet.

Had it been me, someone unaccustomed to that kind of physical pain, I would've been screaming like my nuts just got trampled over.

"You'll learn what becomes of those who defy our orders," the auctioneer shouted, pointing a finger at the boy. Next to him stood a single man clad in black armor, dangling the whip in the air. 

"You vermin speak only when spoken to. You obey our every command without hesitation. If I tell you to jump, your question will be 'how high?' If I instruct you to bleed, you need only ask 'how much?'"

When he turned to show the others, I noticed the white pentagram with a crimson upside down cross painted into the metal of his armor.

I knew that symbol from somewhere. Trying to ignore the biting wind that raked across the platform, I thought hard.

Punishers. That's what they were called in the game's lore. You learned about the Punishers around fifteen years after the main character was born.

But since I never played it out of spite toward my father, I only knew what he had told me about them while making the game.

Punishers were a brutal order, so fanatically devoted to the church of the All Mother that they were eventually excommunicated for taking her teachings to excessive, inhumane extremes. 

They believed torturing and executing sinners, whores, bastards; anyone who strayed from the righteous path—would purge the stain of evil and prevent Daemons from being drawn to the holy Vatican City during their feeding hours.

"Number twenty-four!" the auctioneer shouted next.

No one moved at first. 

We all glanced around uncertainly until I noticed a girl with a short, choppy haircut staring blankly ahead. Some black strands hung longer than others in an unprofessional hack job. The number 24 was printed clearly on her shirt.

"Hey, that's your number," I whispered, but she didn't react. When I waved my hand in an exaggerated stretch, she finally looked right at me. 

She was deaf.

"You heard him calling you, girl!" A Punisher's gruff voice rang out as he swung his wicked whip back, then lashed it forward.

I didn't hesitate. I ran and planted myself in front of her, sticking my hand out to catch the whip's descent. The leather coiled around my palm, tearing into the flesh as the Punisher and I glared at each other defiantly.