The lassie safeguarded herself that she would not be heard by those hordes of lunatics. Even the way she took breaths was really taken prudently — once she’s caught, she would be a goner. Under a pile of dried leaves where she hid, she itched… literally. Bugs; it must be the bugs that made her itch that much. 

Twigs cracked, as one chap in a suit confidently paced on her. Iyaz whistled a melody out of his mouth then managed to let out a malevolent laughter. It seemed like he could sense the lady hiding from somewhere. He sniffed like a domineering predator looking for its prey.

*In the interim at Zhackary’s*

“To whom can hear this message, I am being chased by insane people! These dicks look like they’re after me, so I need to get separated from my brother. SOS bitches! I’m gonna die if no one comes quickly. Well… I certainly don’t wanna die though. But I could because we’ll die soon anyway.”

This was heard from across the line connecting to the duo that Jaden earlier spoke to. As she went on, her voice gradually became clearer as a signal that they’re near her location. She said this a while ago before even sprinting under the autumn bed to hide.

Zhackary and Jeffery sprinted through the deeper part of the woods and found a frequency that was the same as Keisha’s. In an instance, the radio beeped once again and somebody in a low volume of speech came calling his name.

“Zhackary? Y-ya there?… P-Please do speak up… Fuck, my ass is itchy.”

Zhackary hurriedly answered as soon as he heard the girl speak, “Keisha? Where are you? Jeffery and I are on the way to where you are- Wait, why are you whispering? Is something happening there?”

“I am currently wearing the earpiece you gave me before. I’m just hiding under a pile of leaves. And my ex is now hunting me down.” Keisha from the other side whispered, being as careful as possible. “I don’t even know what the fuck he's doing here.”

“Your ex? What is he doing there?” He questioned with an irritated face, scratching his head aggressively. He already knew who Iyaz was and how he treated Keisha before. It angered him that they would get to encounter the lunatic again; aware that he’s in the organization.

“I don’t know. But he’s into something.”

“Where do you think they came from?”, he said as both him and Jeffery strolled through the woods, tracking Keisha’s exact location. 

“I saw them heading here from the east. You should use a compass for this shit.” Keisha then carefully exclaimed, “Oh for pete’s sake, why are these bugs keep biting on my skin? This makes it a little more difficult to deal with these bitches.”

“We’ll be there in no time. I think we’re close”, Zhackary closed the conversation to conserve batteries then walked ahead along with Jeffery to where Keisha was.

*At Keisha’s destination*

Keisha couldn’t take it anymore; coming out of her hiding place to sprint for life’s sake would not really save her. She finds herself dumbfounded after doing so, because who in the world would choose a pile of fallen leaves as a good hiding spot? Could’ve climbed a tree, put on a disguise or blended in with nature, or dug herself a hole. 

Scoffing and all, her point was to give up, so she let out a sneeze as a joke. This obviously caught the men’s attention, and the same lunatic applauded at the sight.

“Oh nice! I thought I’m gonna die here from goddamn anemia and suffocation. Good heavens, I’m out...” She paused realizing that she’s already surrounded by men wearing tuxedos while holding some weapons like some 007 trying to look cool. 

Iyaz grinned in satisfaction after seeing her act — the same grin which terrorized her entire being back in the days, “Ah! The same Keisha I’ve known for all these years. You really give up that easily.”

The lassie answered with her eyes rolling, kind of admitting defeat but really wasn’t, “Yeah, and the same asshole who still does his bullshit. For the record, I didn’t give up. I just thought it’s pointless to run away from a pea-sized brain of a stalker like you.”

The men then walked towards her and picked her up from sitting arrogantly on those highlands of leaves. They fastened her arms and hands to her back so that she couldn’t move. Though there’s a slight chance of running away, she was not thinking about getting herself free; she cannot run any further. And if so, these folks might be handling blades within their pockets, it’s not worth risking.

Just as they were about to head to where they came from, Zhackary and Jeffery finally arrived, witnessing the state of the girl being seized. They saw how Iyaz ruthlessly hit Keisha’s face that made her collapse to the ground. 

“KEISH-“

Before he could finish his howling, Jeffery, however, halted him from getting caught as well. He pushed Zhackary to a tree next to them to hide. This didn’t go unnoticed by the leader of the pack and commanded some of his men to check on where the noise came from. Zhackary’s face turned red in a mixture of worry and rage, desperate enough to pull away Keisha from harm’s way despite the risks.

“You are getting the both of us killed, dude! We can’t fight them with just the two of us”, he said in a whispering way and slapped Zhackary on the face. His heart was skipping beats because of how they were almost caught, thought that they almost met their doom. The slap left a mark on his cheek, swelling at the impact and made him snap out of his mini tantrum.

“I know what the fuck is up, Jeff. I just can’t watch her being ridiculed like that”, he argued, glancing in the direction where Keisha was being beaten to death. He, for quite a minute, tried to regain his composure before speaking again, “I’m… sorry. It’s just that the events are too sudden. I didn’t even know she’s coming with us. She even turned me down after that issue.”

Jeffery answered calmly to him, handing a dagger to his comrade, “Then… We follow him in a stealthy way. They’re the ones who built the first base here in the eastern part of the woods. I’m sure they are planning to enslave people to work for them.”

Inaudibly and cautiously, they headed on and tracked the path on where Iyaz and his crew were heading. Being aware of the fact that Iyaz’s men were in search of them, they doubled their pace and built some quick traps to lose them. The path led to an enormous gate that once entered, a whole utopia would be exposed. By means of a utopian dream, no one could ever bear in mind to build a town this magnificent. Whoever planned this beauty was obviously a genius. 

To describe how flabbergasting their hidden urban area was: the ramparts were not just plainly painted, but they were worked brick by brick with some serious design and patterns. The inside were full of food crop plantations perfectly arranged by their kind. Flower pots and their blossoms bloom organized in every corner. The houses — rather mansions were painted in bright different colours. Even there was an artificial stream where there were stripped women bathed in seductive bliss. Yeah, naked ladies, in an absolute literal way.

A particular lady who kissed Iyaz erotically was also unclothed while she approached him. It kind of looked like that their home base was not meant to be lived on by little kids. To be blunt, the paradise was full of immoral and hellish natures of people: by moral standards. The scene was more like a place for bunches of adults but were lived on by minors who were wrongly influenced by the nasty society. Well, the miserable reality as it was; folks now desire for an unrelenting pleasure that they’ll not even give a damn on what’s around them. And the fact that the organization was meant for children who were left alone just to survive the flag — t’was different here.

Zhackary rolled his eyes out of disappointment, “So, is this what they are bragging about these past months? Naked people?”

Jeffery grinned and chuckled, being proud to execute his plan with his friend easily, “Dude, I know what you’re pertaining to. Reality speaking, their defense mechanisms aren’t advanced yet. We can easily enter this wretched place.”

“Of course! Look how outrageous their nirvana is. They even forgot to upgrade their artillery and spent the allocated budget for this bullshit”, Zhackary exclaimed, feeling the same thing as Jeffery’s notion. 

All geared up, the both of them climbed up to the walls of Utopia; all silent with their grappling hooks and whose camouflaged suits that helped them to see where Keisha was seized.

From one roof of a house they stood by, they saw how the girl was being dragged towards a huge warehouse. Keisha was now soaking in her own blood after rolling with her ex’s punches. Afterwards, Iyaz himself grabbed her by the leg and dragged her all the way inside a large warehouse; a prison for slaves rather.

Meanwhile, Jeffery set up an instant zipline for them to get to the warehouse roof without being seen. They wouldn’t be seen by Iyaz’s men because the Utopians indeed lacked defense mechanisms nor proper dissemination of men to patrol around certain areas. So, successfully they went through the broken glass windows of the warehouse, being so lucky enough for a stealthy escape in case anything happens. From the pillars upon the ceiling where the two were hiding overheard the conversation made by the leader of Base 1 of the East alongside with the girl they had dragged. 

Iyaz held a wooden baton from a lone table nearby while he was taking his time laughing at the girl’s ruined face. 

“So, Keisha. Let’s just make this the easy way, shall we? Just answer all of my questions and you’ll not be hurt. My little doll might be getting a prize if she stayed a good girl, ya know.”

Keisha began to imitate his chuckling but scowling at him, “How would I believe such a man who’s afraid of some butt plug shoving inside his ass?”

“How about I shove you this?!”, he said then hit her right on the face. It was as if he enjoyed putting harm on her. 

Keisha spat crimson on to the ground and muttered, “Asshole. You never changed, did you?”

Iyaz hummed a tone as he walked around Keisha, swinging his baton from side to side. He breathed in to utter another word to confront Keisha. Getting to his agenda, he wasted no more time for some knick-knacks and got on with the interrogation.

“Can you pinpoint the location of your dearest little brother? Ya know, it’ll be a bit of fun. As they say, the more the merrier.”

Keisha scowled with means of murdering someone, gears inside her mind worked by the time she heard Iyaz speaking about her younger brother, “Don’t fucking involve Jaden here! If you want to kill me then just do it! But don’t you dare touch my brother.”

Iyaz took a quick swing then hit Keisha on the leg, “Wrong answer! I just told you an easy question but you managed to answer it incorrectly? I thought you were some kind of a prodigy!”

“Why the fuck would I answer you an obvious question? We just got here.” Keisha reasoned out but was ignored by the madman.

“NEXT! Whose faction are you with? Is it Base 2 or 3 of the East? North? South? West? I mean, it would be nice to build a little ‘friendly’ alliance with my precious doll.”

Keisha had nothing to answer at all but was forced to say something she didn’t know. “For the second time Iyaz, Jaden and I just got here. I’m giving you the ans-”

Iyaz then gently raised her chin with his baton, grinning from ear to ear like a rotten maniac, “I’ll give you incentives if you’ll tell me where your colleagues are. Maybe a kiss… or something MORE than that.”

“I SAID. I. DON’T. FUCKING. KNOW.”

After hearing her refusal, he hit her again with full force right on her stomach. He was so furious that he took another chance to hit her on the same spot again.

“ANOTHER WRONG ANSWER!” He whimpered followed by maniacal giggling releasing from his lungs, eyes dilating in both anger and delight.

Momentarily, he tried calming himself down. That took him a couple of minutes before he could continue his confrontation with Keisha. 

“Last question, dear. Are you still in love with me?”

…

“Are you crazy? Like the fuck?! You are a human-eating faggot, Iyaz! How can you say that I am still in love with you? YOU EVEN KISSED HILGA BACK THERE CONFIDENTLY.” Keisha exclaimed out of her disgust at Iyaz's odd questioning. “And if by chance, you could’ve given all those strippers each of their cunnilingus sessions in just one day. You’re fucking disgusting!”.

She took her chance to punch him in the face. Unfortunately, her weakness took over and it was quickly dodged that she fell right straight to the ground.

Iyaz did not want to miss the opportunity to give another blow against the girl beaten up in black and blue, he yelled, “WRONG ANSWER KEISHA! VERY WRONG ANSWER!”

The chance turned into forcefully kissing Keisha as his way to assert dominance. The helpless woman fought back yet she could not overpower the strength of the one who tried to ruin her life. Scientifically speaking, men tend to have more physical advantage than women; hence, the situation wherein they’re in right now.

“Let me go- hmph! IYAZ!”

He held her by the hair and said, “Okay then”, then threw her to the ground, producing another set of gashes on her skin.

Not yet satisfied, he even kicked Keisha right at the stomach that now made her cough blood. As someone who’s suffering from severe hemophobia, the feeling of sickness came swelling up inside her; wanting to let it out but her will didn’t want to. 

Iyaz saw the brass marker lying on the far side of the room. This gave him an idea— marking people so that he could call them as his own. Because of this idea, he ordered one of his men to heat up the metal to proceed with the forced initiation.

“Do you want things the easy way? Or the hard way?”

The girl was not able to respond to the questions anymore because of the pain she’s currently feeling. All she could do was gawk at the lunatic wrathfully. By her stares, meant that she was almost to murder that heartless being.

And so Iyaz continued on with his frank intentions, “What I mean by easy is that… You just have to sign this contract that you belong to my leadership. You won’t be our slave. But instead, you will be our queen. MY queen.”

Although Keisha was given a chance to end her suffering, she instead spat the blood from her mouth directly to Iyaz as she puffed for air, “I’d rather be dead by this instance, Iyaz, than to be your enlightenment and pleasure. And through all those times being with you filled me with nothing but regret.”

Iyaz laughed hard and cynically then confidently told her, “THAT’S WHAT I FUCKING LIKE ABOUT MY DOLL! Being a martyr who’s willing to die for love.” He then held her face with force, “You really desire me and you don’t even have to remind me of that.”

“I never regretted leaving your sadistic ass, Iyaz. Enough with your delusions! ”, Keisha replied, scoffing. She indeed noticed the metal that Iyaz was eyeing on, the fear secluded every part of her as another painful session would be again casted upon her.

Keisha, instead of crying, laughed on her dread and trauma — remembering her travail from her past coming back. And without hesitations, she pulled out her fist and gave her former guy a hard blow. This made Iyaz snap out for a while but no longer did he slapped her back, making her feel much feeble. 

She was satisfied after successfully punching him in the face; at the same time she thought of giving him hell if she survived by any chance.

“You know what to do, boys. This girl ain’t gonna follow anyone’s orders. We’ll keep her here by force”, Iyaz’s tone seemed to be upset as he realized how he failed in convincing her to join their immoral havens. 

His friends came with a heavy metal marker that was already heated up to mark Keisha’s body. They held her by force, locking her arms and raising the back of her shirt. Iyaz aimed at the very center of Keisha’s back as he held the metal in his right hand.

“You won’t sign the contract? Then we’ll make you ours.” 

The heated metal stuck to Keisha’s skin. Keisha screamed and shrieked in agony made by the scorched-out pewter. After the successful marking, he removed the metal and the name of the wretched base was now lying on her skin. 

“UTOPIA” was the scorch upon Keisha’s skin; meaning, she now belonged to this faction and under Iyaz’s sovereign. It wouldn’t be that for long though, let us not forget the duo who were just waiting to invade at the right moment.

Iyaz now let go of the metal marker he used to torture the poor woman’s skin, just scattered it as if it wouldn’t be of use in the near future. On the other hand, Keisha couldn’t manage to make a single movement after all of that tormenting she had been through. 

“Lock her up. Feed her around 6pm. She’ll be fine to help here soon.”

And indeed, they did lock her up inside the dull and dusty warehouse; all alone and bathing in her own blood, Keisha crawled to get her bag from across the place. 

Meanwhile, this was the perfect time for Zhackary and Jeffery to do their move. It had been too late to save her; however, getting themselves caught by those uncountable men would be their doom. Just as soon as Iyaz and his men left the place, they let down their ropes and got down from the pillars of the hayloft. 

All worried and unwell, Zhackary hurriedly approached the girl who kept on crawling towards her piece of luggage lying three meters away from her. She stopped when she felt someone held her gently. She knew how relieved she was to be back inside the warmth of the person she’s longing for.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to save you. I-I know I should’ve but we can’t take all those men”, Zhackary sobbed as he caressed her within his arms.

Keisha heaved continuously, resisting the pain from the bruises and wounds made by her lunatic ex, “Z-Zhack? Thank heavens you’re here. And fuck you for explaining the obvious.”

Zhackary told her, apologizing, constantly checking if there were any people around. “We’ve been here the whole time. It’s just that… we can’t fight those men.”

Keisha just forced herself to smile at him to at least give him a hint of hope, “Shhh, it’s okay. I know you two were here. I don’t want you to get harmed by him either.”

She held Zhackary’s face with her blood stained hands, her eyes tearing up out of the pain she was feeling the entire time. Then she coughed through her sentences, “I know. At l-least, I know that my brother is safe now. And…  I know that you are here. I’m happy that you’re here.”

“Just hold on, ight? We will get you outta here”, he lifted Keisha up carefully then attached the harness to her to help her climb up. He looked up to where his companion stood by and said, “Jeff? Are we all set to climb her up?”

Jeffery answered, assured that they were in the safe zone to take Keisha back to their fort, “Yeah. We gonna pull her up with this pulley system until she reaches the roof and then we’ll follow.”

Still worn out and anxious, Keisha asked about her brother’s condition. She cried as she pleaded to him.

“Zhack? Jaden got to your place safely, right? Please tell me he’s safe.”

Zhackary whispered into her ear gently to calm her down, “He’s already safe now. It’s your time to get saved, okay?”

“Really? I’m glad to hear that… Thank you.”

Not a little while she lost consciousness, her eyes slowly got drawn by an invisible force to close them. It was definitely because of the beating that that lunatic gave her. Zhackary noticed it by the time she was set to climb up the pillars of the warehouse. He shook her up a bit to wake her up but was unsuccessful. 

“Keisha? Hey, wake up. Stay with me… please. We’re coming home now...”

White noise succumbed to her entire being. What is she going to do now?