NOVEL WEB Chapter 69: Ghoulish Feeding
The cold, hard cage where the water leaks, and the rays of sunshine rarely go. Multiple myriad race members slumbered, including two sisters, where one is older than the other. Right now, the younger sister was embracing the older sister as the night was cold, and the bed could not even be called a bed based on how hard it was.
Amelia, the older sister, with a sudden movement, opened her eyes. With a battered dress, she moved about, glanced from left to right, trying to scan the surroundings to look for the source of the movement or noise, if she was mistaken. Unfortunately, as her eyes wandered around, she saw that her younger sister had her hands trembling.
She stared at her younger sister's facial expression, the look of fear, concern, and ultimately of sadness and despair, all she could see. Unable to see things through, she also embraced her younger sister, during which the trembling of her hands temporarily stopped for the night. With that, the problem was resolved, and with it, she too drifted off into sleep once again.
It was not only during which another movement she was woken up, but this time along with her younger sister. By this time around, since they were taken, they were now extremely dirty, with marks of hardships already present on their body, from wounds to bruises.
Upon waking up, they immediately stood up and lined up in front of the cage along with others. After lining up for a few moments, a ghoul arrived at the other side of the gate. The ghoul looked over at them and smirked. Amelia and her younger sister Carmelia frowned at the event that transpired before them. They could practically see that the ghoul was salivating towards them.
The ghoul, after taunting them with a smirk, brought out what seemed to be a key and inserted it into a location they were not able to see, and twisted it in a direction they were not able to see. Upon twisting, a revolving mechanism started moving around in the background, during which the gate that they were lined up in started to be slowly lifted.
After the gate was lifted, the ghoul stepped aside and raised its hands, motioning for them to move. One by one, the prisoners or livestock started moving out of the cage, and the ghoul started counting from the front to the end. Once all were accounted for, the ghoul once again twisted the key, and the door fell and closed.
Once they were out, they were led outside, during which they were able to experience the rays of sunshine once again. The sun was now slightly higher in the sky, which means morning had just arrived.
They walked for a few moments, and when they finally finished, they were given bowls and a wooden spoon that the ghouls looted. Once they were given, they were ordered to line up again for their rations. They were given something white, which is sticky but also filling for them, the myriads.
Amelia looked over Carmelia, and she saw that she was very disgusted by what she was seeing. With that, she brought her hands on top of Carmelia's head and gently patted it to comfort her. With that, Carmelia was able to find comfort and finally finish her meal, albeit she was intensely disgusted by it. Partly, because she does not know what it was.
It's now been days since the ghouls had a celebration or a fiesta, which resulted in fewer livestock running out, which worked in their favor as more myriad animals alive, the less likely they are to be eaten.
After consuming the white sticky food, which seemed like oatmeal with milk, but unfortunately it was not, it was something unique to that world. With the feeding of the livestock finished, they were then lined up again, with each of them given pickaxes, hoes, and shovels.
This was not the first time this happened, as it seemed like they harvest and plant their foods. They think that or have thought it much or think that it must have been easier if the livestock grew and harvested their own food, and they would eat any livestock they want once they increase their population through breeding. That is what the ghouls must have thought when they implemented this kind of design.
Amelia, with a hoe in her hand, gripped it tightly as calluses were starting to form on her used-to-be-pristine skin. Whenever her younger sister starts to whine, she comforts her and even assists her with her tasks. They were the only family left to each other; their father and mother had died, and they would need to stay together for each other and for their mentality.
Once they finished working, they were led back and given the same white sticky food that tastes and looks disgusting. Just by nearing it is almost always a vomit-inducing experience. Even if it was, Amelia tried to force it through her throat and finish it, and if her sister Carmelia could not finish it, she herself eats it, at the very least she would have more energy.
Not only energy for herself, energy to work for the things that are needed and the energy needed to take care of her sister, which is why she would take any, even if it was anything as long as it is edible and would not make her sick, as it would be terrible and would disrupt her from taking care of her sister and would lead to her younger sister just taking care of her. Which she would not want to happen.
With that experience at hand, she would always do her best, but be low enough for them to not be noticed so that they would not be taken to be consumed as a livestock by these ghouls. All that done, once the sun starts to set once again, they were led back to their cold hard cell, where their source of water was a water leak.