My Rogue System

LYRA'S P.O.V.

Mud everywhere, thick and sludgy squelching between my toes and slapping onto my legs, so I'm half-stuck in it every time I take a step. It's not just the normal mud we see everywhere. Here in the Outer Waste, mud comes with friends-tiny bits of sharp stones that jab you in all the right places. And we're supposed to be grateful for it, according to Kael. He tells us every day, like some kind of warped mantra: "Labor is life. Debt is salvation."

He stands over us, smirking that sick smile like he's a saint. A savior. Oh, yes, Kael-the noble "overseer" of the Broken Lands, author of other people's suffering. He watches us with those squinty, lifeless eyes as if he's doing us all a favor, forcing us to "redeem ourselves." And he saves his nastiest looks for me, Lyra the "ungrateful."

Yes, that's what he calls me. I don't know why I am to be grateful to a heartless man like Kael; here, they force us to do anything you can call "difficult".

"Why so glum, Lyra?" he calls, grinning as I yank a rock from the mud. His voice is a slick drawl that somehow makes everything sound cheap. He loves an audience, so everyone's watching, heads lowered but eyes peeking out, knowing that I'll get it worse if I look back.

He leans in, voice low, mocking, like he's sharing a little secret just between us. "Still thinking about your precious family? Ah, how lucky you are. They found such a generous way to settle their debt. If it weren't for me, where would you be? Hmm?"

Oh, yes. I'm positively blessed.

It wasn't always like this. I wasn't always mud-stained and scraped raw, toiling under Kael's twisted ideas of mercy. Just few weeks, I had a home. I had... well, I guess I thought I had a family. A mother and father who maybe loved me in their messed-up way.

Turns out, though, I was wrong. Turns out I was just a bargain they were willing to make.

I remember that day, the day I learned the whole awful truth. Every painful detail.

My "mother" called me in from the porch, voice pinched and nervous. I walked in, watching her pace around like a mouse caught between two traps. She wouldn't look at me directly. That should've been my first clue that something was off. When she finally spoke, it was in this tiny, broken voice that was almost as irritating as Kael's smirk.

"Lyra... we, um... We have some... news." She cleared her throat, eyes darting everywhere but at me. "You're not... not our blood. You're adopted."

I felt my mind kind of freeze like my body didn't want to let the words sink in.

"What?" I said, blinking like an idiot.

"You're... we took you in," she repeated, voice high and reedy like she was trying to convince herself it was somehow noble. "We never wished for any of this to happen. And our love for you has been top-notch, hasn't it?"

"Has it?" I snapped back, anger rising in me. Seeing Kael, the overseer of a dangerous syndicate waiting outside with his men, I prayed silently that this was not what I was thinking.

Then she said it. The sentence that would come back to me in all my worst moments.

"Kael offered to... help us, Lyra. He's willing to take you in exchange for our debt. He's a fair man. He could've demanded much more..."

I choked on words. I tried to open my mouth but only gasps of disbelief escaped. It felt like my world stopped. My heart was pounding like it was trying to beat itself out of my chest. I had a lot of names for Kael, but "fair" wasn't one of them. Kael I can say I haven't seen him in real life, but who dares not know who he was. The overseer of a dangerous syndicate in town and a ruthless loan shark. Rumor has it that he does more than enslaving his debtor's children. I heard he has the backing of big men in disguise.

My father, or better still the one I believed was my father, cleared his throat, stiff and stone-faced. "It's better this way," he said. Like he was doing me a favor. "Debt doesn't go away, Lyra. Someone has to pay it, and... well, you're the best option. Since you're not ours, after all..."

The best option. I wasn't a daughter, not a beloved child, but a convenient pawn in a dirty deal. It was a brutal, stinging truth that left a taste like ash in my mouth.

"Hey!" Kael snaps, slapping his palm against a nearby rock. I blink from my thoughts as Kael narrowed his beardy eyes at me. "Are you sleeping, girl?" he sneers, with a disgusting curl to his lip. "Daydreaming won't pay your debt. Get moving, or you'll earn an extra stripe across that sorry back of yours."

I lower my eyes, trying hard not to reply, while I rained curses on him inwardly. Just keep quiet, I tell myself. There's no use in talking back to Kael-not if I want to keep my skin intact.

I grab another rock, mud clinging to my fingers, and fling it into the pile Kael has us building. For what? I have no idea. Kael makes us dig holes, then fill them, then dig them again. The purpose doesn't matter. It's not about work; it's about breaking us down, stripping us to the bone.

After a while, you start feeling like a creature, not a person. A thing with hands and feet but no self-left inside. That's what Kael's so good at, what he's always after-turning us into hollow, empty shells. Keeps him in power, I guess, knowing that we've got nothing left to fight with. And maybe that's what he's after with me, too. The final surrender. But I'm not giving him that. Not yet.

That night, I sit alone, slumped against the cold, stone wall of the slave quarters. The other slaves keep their distance; I'm new, and they know better than to get close. Kael has his eyes on me-his new "investment," fresh and unbroken. But I see them watching me in their quiet way, sympathy written all over their faces.

Beside me, Rhea, an older woman with sharp, lined features, gives me a look. She has scars crisscrossing her hands, which surely would be Mark from Kael's "lessons." She stares, and then snorts, as if my face is some kind of joke.

"So, you're the fresh meat, huh?" she said.

I raise my eyebrow trying to force a smile. "That's me. Fresh as the day they abandoned me."

"Family troubles, I take it?" She chuckled

I didn't answer her, but my bitter laugh says it all. Rhea nods, and smirked with a kind of look that made me hate her just a little. "You'll get over it," she said. "Or you'll learn to hate 'em for it. Either way, you'll survive."

Survive. It's a word that tastes like dust in my mouth. There's no point surviving if this is all there is, but I don't say that. I just shrug and lean my head back against the wall, letting the silence fill the space between us.

"You hate him?" she asks, watching me with her cold, sharp eyes.

I know she means Kael. There's no use lying. "More than anything," I say, "More than that I hate the dirt under my fingernails."

She nods, a bitter smile creeping over her lips. "Good. It'll keep you going, that hate."

But I don't want hate. I don't want to live in this cramped, miserable feeling that eats at my insides. What I wanted was to feel something close to belonging. It was stupid, maybe, a fantasy, but I'd thought, once, that I'd had it.

But that fantasy shattered the day my parents handed me over, the day they told me I was nothing to them but a way out.

In the middle of the night, I lie awake, staring up at the cracked ceiling, my fingers tracing the raw blisters and scars on my hands. The scars I got from beatings from Kael's men when I was refusing to be brought here. Memories I didn't invite flooded back. The warmness of our home, especially my bed, the way I had imagined my mother loved me even in her quiet, fragile way. I thought I had a family.

I close my eyes, letting the anger and betrayal simmer under my skin. It's a dark heavy feeling, I never wanted, but it's there. It's all I have now. I tell myself I'll use it. I'll keep it close, let it fuel me, let it keep me from falling into Kael's twisted game.

Because one day, I'm going to break free from this. I don't know how, don't know when, but it's a promise I make to myself.

I don't care how long it takes. I don't care what it costs.

When I'm free, I'll find my so-called family. And when I do, I'll remind them exactly what it feels like to be cast aside, used up, and discarded like a worthless thing.

"Oh dear little brain, why haven't you thought of this since you came around." I slapped my head as a beautiful thought flashed into my brain.

*Author's Note*

Welcome my lovely readers.

How are you all doing?

Like the first chapter?

Then you are about to like it even more when you keep reading.

Lyra is special and you're about to find that out.