Chapter 13: Ch13: How to escape?
Waking up, Caden found his head to be loudly ringing. He hasn't had a headache as strong as now since coming to this world.
Trying to stand up, he noticed two things.
First, he isn't in the hammock which he started to enjoy.
Second, his hands are bound by something.
Unfortunately, they were behind him, so he didn't see what was shackling him, but from the feeling of it, he guessed that those were handcuffs.
'Now, why would I be in handcuffs? Did the marines put those on me or what?' He thought, before looking around.
As there was no light around, with no cracks or anything that could let the light pass through, he had to wait for a moment for his vision to adapt.
Getting to sit upright, he felt that he was sitting on a stone cold floor.
'Hmm, this isn't the floor I remember being on the ship.'
After a few minutes, his vision adapted to the low light levels. Looking around properly this time, he noticed other people around him.
They were mostly sitting by the walls, leaning on them and sleeping.
Very few of them were actually awake. Focusing some more on them all, he found that there were both adults and children laying around. Curiously, there were almost no women. The only girls there were still small children.
Near him were sleeping 4 adult men, who he noticed were the sailors that he spent the last months with. One of them was even Thomas.
Before he decided what to do now, a voice from the side started talking to him.
"Hey kid, what is today's date?" Asked a male voice, coming from a pretty big dude.
Looking over, Caden saw a bear of a man, not necessarily full of muscles, but just his posture and height are over the norm.
"Hmm, depends on how long I slept, but the last time I checked, it was around 10th of April, 1511." Answered Caden.
"Thanks." Said the man, looking more depressed than before.
"Why do you ask and by the way what is this place?" He asked.
"Come closer, I don't want to wake up the others." Said the man, pointing with his head at the free space by the wall near him.
Scooting closer, Caden sat next to him with his back on the wall. Sitting side by side, their size difference was very clear to see.
Although Caden was already tall for his age, looking close to a 15 year old, the man next to him was taller by at least 3 head than him.
"I'm Handro. We are all slaves here, or rather slaves to be. You see, I don't know how you got there, but most of us here were attacked by pirates and sold to this place." Said quietly Handro, looking at the sleeping people.
"I'm Caden and looks like I was sold too. Last I remember, I went to sleep on a merchant ship. Lo and behold, here I am now."
"I get you kid. The guy whose ship you were on probably has some deal in place with the slavers here and sold you. Small chance is that you somehow slept through the pirate attack and that's how you got here, but I wouldn't believe it."
"So what now?"
"I don't know."
After that, there was a silence between the boys, before Caden asked. "Are there only men here? I see some children, but adults are only men."
"Ah, the women are upstairs." Answered solemnly Handro.
"What are they doing there?" He asked, thinking of some other cell to separate the slaves.
"They are getting raped."
"What?!" Caden almost shouted, before stopping himself and lowering his voice as much as he could to not wake the people.
"It is as I said. The pirates who enslaved us take women and just rape them." He said, looking with a dead expression on the ground.
"That's life, kid." Said another voice from further away.
Hearing it, Caden looked over. In the corner was sitting another man, smaller in frame from Handro, but still bigger than himself. The guy walked over, trying to maneuver around those still asleep. Finding space near them, he sat on the other side of Caden and started talking.
"The pirates sail around, rob people, kill people, rape women and do whatever else they want." He said, looking at Caden from above. He was at least a head taller than him.
"I get it, but where are the marines?" He asked, although he knew mostly how some marines acted.
"Listen, I think I'm here the longest from all the other slaves. When I came here, I was the only one. From what I understood from the date you told earlier, it should be my second month here." He stared, looking over Caden at Handro.
"The big guy was in the next batch of people, he got there only around two weeks after me."
Scratching his unkempt beard on his shoulder, he continued talking.
"I think I already understand their business here. For some time they pillage around, catching people who are on the sea, before taking them here. Men are taken underground, while the women are kept in the upper part of the building, getting used for the pirate's pleasure. I don't know where exactly, but after gathering some slaves they sell us or take us somewhere else." He said, looking back at Caden.
"How did you find out so much?" Caden asked, looking curiously at him.
"Well, before getting brought here I was a businessman, had a small ship and was going around selling and buying stuff. You know, pretty basic." He said, looking a bit sadder.
"I just got the invitation to join a bigger fleet. I could make so much more money with them. But fate wanted something else, bringing me pirates while I was on the way to them."
"Wow, that's rough." He said, looking down.
"So what, are we gonna leave this place or what?" Asked Caden.
"We thought about it, but our chances seem bleak." Said Handro.
"Yes, we have a few things stopping us from leaving, for example the handcuffs, the unknown number of pirates and the like above us, the lack of a ship on our part. I could go on and list the other things, but those I think are the most important." Said the guy.
"Hmm, by the way, what's your name?"
"Oh, I forgot to introduce myself, I'm Forland."
"Good to know, now let me think for a moment."
"What do you want to think about, kid? You aren't some sort of elite marine in training are you?" Asked Forland, laughing a little.
"No, I'm not." Slowly said Caden, thinking about their situation.
'Hmm, he is right. Not knowing your opponent is mostly a death wish in a fight. I guess I could fight some of them, with all my training and the Life Return that I almost grasped before starting this journey. Damn, if only there were actually any good places to train on that ship, I would have already mastered this stuff. For now, my body is just reacting faster to my thoughts, granting me this edge in battle that I lacked before.' He thought, dissatisfied with the past 3 months.
'Let's see, I could potentially open these handcuffs with my slime, but what then? Break the door open and go one versus all with guns blazing in my face with hope of winning? No way, I don't know if my slime can repair gun wounds. I never got the chance to try it, because I feared the consequences of it not working.'
Sitting there with a troubled expression, he slowly told the men beside him. "If I could 'potentially' open these handcuffs, what could we do to escape? I'm guessing that it could help." At that he saw as they both turned to him.
"Hmm, 'potentially' we would have better chances, but still we don't know what is above us." Said Forland, looking curiously at Caden.
"I know." Said another voice.
The trio looked ahead. On the other side of the room, from a lying position slowly stood up a small man. Looking at him, he was barely higher than Caden, but much slimmer. If not for his short hair and a bear, you could mistake him for a girl.
"Bonzo, what do you mean you 'know'? Is it about the building above us or the amount of pirates?" Asked Forland, surprised by Bonzo's claim.
"I know about the building above us." He said, walking closer to them and sitting in front of Caden, since he was in the middle.
"Then why do you want to talk only now? You are here for the third week already, but you kept your mouth shut for the whole time." Said Forland, looking at him skeptically.
"Well, before now there wasn't any possibility of leaving. Now there is someone saying he can open these annoying handcuffs. Not even mentioning how in the past weeks everybody was just sitting there waiting for death or worse." He said, looking at Caden.
"If you can get them off, I will tell you guys about the layout of the building above us."
At that, all three men looked at Caden. Feeling their gazes on him, he slowly made a tendril of slime. 'Good, that training with making hair is finally useful.'
In a moment, all three guys heard a soft click and Caden put his hands in front of him, with the handcuffs swinging from his finger.
You could see the look of surprise on their faces.
Seeing this, all of them turned their backs to Caden, showing him their own ones to take off.
One by one, he took off all of them, putting them on the floor between them.
"Nice, it's the first time since forever when I can move my hands freely. Thanks kid." Said Handro, stretching them in all directions.
The other did the same, also thanking Caden, before Forland said. "That's good and all, but take them and keep them on yourselves, the slavers come here to bring us food after all, we don't want to want them of Caden's ability." He said, taking his pair and putting them in his pocket.
The other did the same, with Caden chuckling to himself. 'Heh, they have no idea that it really is an ability and not just a trick, but I should keep that to myself for now.'
"How did you learn this trick kid, you were some thief before this or what?" Asked Bonzo.
"Nah, my little sister was just really mischievous and taught me how to open these kinds of locks." He quickly answered, using Nami's nature as cover.
"Well, now since you got what you wanted Bonzo, start talking." Said Forland.
For the next few minutes, the trio sat there listening to Bonzo explaining how he was possibly the only slave that was taken here while still awake, probably because of his weak stature.
From the outside he saw 4 floors from the ground up and went 3 floors down. So 7 in total, but they only need to ascend 3 levels to be able to run away.
From his perspective, he saw at least tens of people working above ground.
The guy who brings food to them is also not always the same, there are around 4 people taking turns. Further away is also one person. Bonzo saw him sitting near the stairs on the only chair in the basement.
When some prisoners got too loud, they could hear him walking to the door for a moment before opening the hatch on it to scream at them to shut up.
From the open hatch they saw before that some lamps are there but much further away, most likely near the stairs.
Thinking through all this stuff, they came to some primary steps of The Grand Escape Plan.
First thing to do is Caden opening the locked doors. For some reason they had the key hole on the inside too. Whoever designed a prisoner's cell like this was a moron.
Then, they need to quietly go and silence the guy near the stairs.
After that is mostly a guessing game. They will have to see for themselves to be certain about how to leave this shithole alive.
Well, the plan is there. Only thing to do is somehow to implement it while not losing their lives in the process.
As they were getting ready to check if Caden could really open the door, most other slaves started getting up. Of those, the 4 men he came with also started waking up.
Looks like they need to put their plan on hold for now, since there appeared footsteps from the outside too.
~2140 words
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