Prologue
"I'm sorry, sir! I'm very sorry!" Silas pleaded for forgiveness with his head bowed low, but the big brute of a man felt no empathy for the boy. He kicked Silas, who then crumpled to the floor and clutched his side in a mixture of pain and fear.
"You fool, you let my prize horse getaway. You knew the punishment from the beginning!" The man then jerked Silas up onto his feet and cursed. Silas shook with fear as he once again felt his leg being lifted from the ground.
He kicked and clawed at the ground in fear. He'd experienced the shed too many times before, and he knew its horrors.
Dirt filled his mouth as his master dragged him across the ground. The agonizing memories of the sharp pain he had encountered from the whip came to mind. He shut his eyes and winced at the memory.
The man opened the shed's door and shoved Silas into its darkness, which engulfed him. The man took the chain in one hand and the boy's wrist in the other, then tied him to an old rusty pole.
Silas took a deep breath before he heard the whip's awful crackle sound against his chest. Pain followed shortly after. He screamed and gasped for air and then waited pitifully for the next swing.
A few years ago, he would never have been in such a pathetic state. He'd have his loving mother and father caring for him. He'd be living a life of peace. But, fate had set a different path for Silas, one of anguish and tears, the life of an enslaved person to humanity.
The plague had stolen his mother and father, leaving him with nothing but miserable life. He buried his parents' bodies himself behind their house. Afterward, he sat in the corner of the little cottage that once had been full of energy and waited for death.
Instead of death, a wretched man found him. The man had been passing through a forest looking for a place to stay when he spotted an overgrown cottage.
The man opened the door, stepped into the dark home, and observed his surroundings. The place seemed to have three different rooms; the living room, a bedroom, and a kitchen. Items were scattered across the floor, the pots and pans were dirty in the kitchen, and the beds unmade.
The man noticed, to his surprise, a skinny, half-dead figure in the corner of the bedroom. His face smudged with dirt, and his clothes were torn to shreds. The man stared at the boy with astonishment. The boy met his gaze with hollow eyes and remained quiet.
An average person would have taken pity on the boy, but the man's eyes saw an opportunity, a future in which this boy would benefit him.
He reached into his bag for some bread that had been brought along with him. He knew the best way to lure out a desperate soul was through what they sought out most.
"Here, boy!" he barked as he threw the bread a foot or so away from the boy. The man was baffled when the boy did not respond to his gesture. Any average child would have greedily taken the bread and hastily eaten it. He had done this before many times, and it had never failed. He then remembered the hollow look in the boy's eyes. It was the look of a human who had lost the will to live.
Eventually, the boy slowly reached for the bread and took a bite out of it. Then realizing how desperate he was, he gulped the bread down hastily. He then looked to the man hoping for more. The man tossed him a quarter of a loaf, and the boy took it.
A cruel thought then crossed the man's mind. He decided to take the boy back to his home. As long as he earned the boy's trust, he would quickly be able to take advantage of him. He would make the boy a slave and keep him with the other merchandise.
That night, while the man slept, the boy would be tied to a piece of furniture so that he could not escape. In the morning, he would be taken from his home. The boy would not resist the entire time, for inside, he was dead.
The journey to the manor would take three whole days. During the night, the man tied his wrist to the boy in case reality came rushing back to the boy, and he decided to escape. He fed the boy bits of bread to keep him alive, and kept the rest to himself.
The day they came to the manor, servants came out to greet them. Then the man directed one of the servants to take the boy away. The servant tried to communicate with the boy, but the boy was unresponsive. The gossip spread throughout the manor.
"Did you hear? They say the boy the Master brought home is mute. I wonder if they'll put him to work?" one servant would say to another.
"I feel sorry for the boy. He would have been better off in the forest." or "Will they throw him in with the others?" is what many of the servants would reply.
For the next few days, the servants tried to work with the boy. They found that the only time he interacted with the servants was when he desperately needed something such as food or water.
The man who was the Master of the mansion was infuriated that his new find was a dud. Finally, the Master decided to hurry up the progress by using the shed. The place the boy would come to dread.
