This Is How It Is.

This is how it is.

Noise you don't have time to recognize and then before you even know that what you should be feeling is fear there are shapes, shapes you can barely tell are human in their slick, faceless armor.

Light and then dark and then light again, someone screaming, short and barking.

A hard hand on your arm, your feet barely brushing the floor, then flying, landing in a pile of other bodies, warm and squirming and stinking with fear.

Dark again.

Your heart hammering so hard it shakes your whole body, acid bile in your throat.

You make yourself breathe deep and slow, fighting for calm, and thinking to yourself that it's a mistake, they can't keep you once they know you're a free woman.

It's a lie, and you know it, even as you tell it to yourself, over and over.


This is how it is.


When the light comes again it blinds you, blinds everyone.  There's shouting and pushing as hard-faced men and women separate everyone into two groups.

You're in one group, with all the other young women. Everyone else is pushed back into what you can see now is a container in the cargo hold of a ship.

When you try to tell them you're a free woman of the Republic and they have no right to do this, one of them hits you in the small of the back so hard your vision goes white with pain.

At first you don't understand why they're making all the girls take off their pants or pull up their skirts and then the doctor reaches you with her cold probe and cruel fingers.

Some of the girls get a red band fastened around their wrists before they're shoved back into the container with the rest.

Even then, it isn't until you're on your back pinned down by the sweaty weight of a man three times your size that you realize what the red band means. They're the virgins; you're already spoiled.

Fair game.

The pain rips you open and splits you apart and separates you from everything you know as yourself. You close your eyes and think about the wide plains of home, try to hear the soft susurration of the wind across the grass in the harsh panting of the man on top of you, against you, in you.


You tell yourself that they have your body, skin and bones and flesh, but not your mind, not what's really you.


It's a lie, and you know it, even as you tell it to yourself, over and over.




This is how it is.


They move you in a long line, one hand attached to the person in front, one to the one behind, with thin, tough fabric straps too tough to break but soft enough to leave no mark.

Out of the hold of the one ship and across the hangar towards the next.

You see a uniform, the woman wearing it is Amarr but there are laws, there are rules, even in the Empire.

Shouting as loud as you can to her, because she has to listen, it's her job, there are laws.

She looks.

Money changes hands.

She looks away.

It's one person, one customs officer. There will be others. And someone must have heard you shouting. Someone must have.

It's a lie, and you know it, even as you tell it to yourself, over and over.


This is how it is.


Row upon row, packed shoulder to shoulder, ankles and wrists strapped to the pole running from one end of the hold to the other, level after level. In the dark, the only proof you have that you're not alone is the warm shoulders pressed to yours and the moaning breath of a thousand others above you, below you, around you.

No one talks.

You're there long enough for your muscles to cramp, tightening up into knots of fire. Someone near you is crying with the pain, then someone else, and then the whole hold is filled with sobbing, blending together into one single constant howl of despair, as heavy and thick as the darkness.

Eventually someone can't hold onto their bladder any more and a warm splatter of urine drips onto your hair from above and runs down your bowed back.  There's no reason but your no-longer-relevant dignity but you try not to follow suit. The shame and relief when you fail bring tears to your eyes.

The smell gets worse, sweat and piss and then shit.  People start retching and there's a new note to the stink. Your stomach flips and twists and you swallow back the vomit that burns in your throat, again and again.

The rest of it doesn't matter, the fact that you're tied hand and foot in the dark, that you've lost control of your bowels.  You gag and swallow, gag and swallow, telling yourself that there's still something you can control, even here, even now.

It's a lie, and you know it, even as you tell it to yourself, over and over.



This is how it is.

They make you crawl, forcing long-cramped muscles to move, through a spray of antiseptic water so cold and hard it stings your skin like a lash.  It takes away the smell, though, and you're blindly, burningly angry with yourself when you notice that you're grateful.

There are metal prods with sharp, shocking ends to get you to your feet, bent double at first, to get you stumbling and then jogging as your legs start to work again. A long corridor, a bright, open space, shouting, more shocks.

When you're all herded into smaller groups, yours has only other young women without red bands on their wrists.  After some pushing and shoving you find yourself standing with three women who could be your cousins, same height, same hair color, same skin.

A matched set, one of the men with the prods calls you.

You'll be worth more.

What they can sell you for and what you're worth are not the same thing.  You're a human being, your value can't be measured in money.  

It's a lie, and you know it, even as you tell it to yourself.

Over and over.



This is how it is.