Bleeding Kyber Chapter 2: 02_ Struggle for freedom(1)

Read chapter 2 of Bleeding Kyber by theRonin_666 on NovelPedia.

After 5 years... In time the little girl (Allegedly), became a teenage boy... What could possibly go wrong in a mining cave? Mostly a cave in, or some idiot blasting the support walls but is that it? That was the question that mostly found its way into Herald's head. The other miners used to say that Greel bought him for a thousand credits. Thought he was a girl, selling him for slaves or a pleasure house. But all she bought was a laborer worth a thousand credits. 'Still, I have to work for a little more than 77 years.' At that thought, tears swirled in his eyes. 'Damn it. My previous life was so good. I could have bought a beautiful, peaceful house for 40 Lakh rupees back in India. But no. I died, got shoved into a sci-fi egg, and reincarnated here. Where is the god who handles this stuff? I need a word with management.' A sharp sting penetrated his body as a photonic whip, high end in pain, lashed against his back. "Move it, half-half." Half-half, the nickname the controllers gave him for his womanly, mostly androgynous, face and manly body. If skin, bones and a little chest hair is what you call manly that is. "And here comes the damn pigs." A voice spoke from behind Herald, making him turn to the side. A wretched old man, missing his front teeth pushed a mining cart. Sweat forming a pool at his feet as he struggled to push it, he cursed at the controllers eying him. Photonic whips ready in their hands. "Careful oldie, they may beat the crap out of you." "Remove the may brat!" A small smirk graced his lips, making the already crooked face look more... lewd? A shiver travelled through his spine as his back tightened. "Just so you know, I am a man." "And here I thought about getting laid." "Eww!" A scowl deepened on his face as he glared at the old man, only for him to howl in agony. The controllers whipped him, air trembling as the photonic whips lashed out on the old man. "That ought to happen, damn leacher." Only for him to howl along, the controllers whipped him, again. "Look at the soft meat howl." Loud laughter rang in the mines, the slaves and controllers laughing along as they looked at the fat controller whip them nonstop. Long marks appeared on his back, red and swollen with blood seeping slowly. 'One of these days, I am going to fuck this place upside down.' The beating had left Herald facedown in the dust for a good twenty minutes, which was about standard. The fat controller whose name was Drell, though Herald preferred “Pig Number Three” had gotten bored and wandered off to find someone else to brutalize. The old man, wheezing and bleeding, had been dragged to the side of the tunnel by a couple of other slaves who’d learned long ago that you didn’t leave bodies in the cart path. Somebody had thrown a rag at Herald. He’d used it to wipe the blood from his mouth and then just lay there, staring at the rock ceiling and counting the years. The smell of sweat drifted into his nose. It was disturbingly familiar, the memories of his past life still sometimes walked between sleep. Eating biryani in restaurants with friends, cricket in the streets and the crowded trains. 'Seventy-seven. Give or take.' The thing about being reincarnated into a mining slave’s body was that you had a lot of time to think. Too much time to daydream. Herald had spent the first two years cataloguing everything he missed from his old life, the smell of garam masala hitting hot oil, the sound of his mother yelling at him to take his shoes off at the door, the feel of a proper mattress. He’d spent the next year trying to figure out if this was some kind of cosmic punishment or just an administrative error in the universe’s filing system. And then he’d spent the rest of the time nursing a low, steady stream of rage that he’d learned to keep very, very quiet. Hidden beneath metaphorical 'dams' in his mind. Until days like today. It started as a distant rumble. Not the sound of explosives blasting crystal walls, not the machinery grinding. Thunder.