There were two kinds of orphanage in Tyine, or more accurately, it could be said that there were only two orphanages in Tyine and that they were different from each other. The first was the orphanage run by the Church of Light, and it was well run and clean. The children of reasonably well off families would end up here should their parents die, and while the Church would take most of what the children were left as an offering, they would provide education and protection to their charges. No child left that orphanage without a chance to make their way in the world.

The other orphanage was apparently once a nobles pet project, and it tried to look after the poorest of the poor, those that even the Church would overlook as hopeless. The Church was not being cruel in this decision, there were only so many resources to go around and they had to make the best with what they had. They fully supported and lauded the noble as a truly wonderful and excellent man.

The problem was, politics eat kind men the same way a pack of wolves bring down a deer, and over time the nobles influence and resources waned as well.

It was the first day of spring, the birthday assigned to all orphans, even ones like Cass where the managers of the orphanage actually knew when she was born. Cass turned six today. But despite every single child in this building having survived another year, there was no celebration or congratulation. Not even an acknowledgement. Because this was three months after that noble had been forced from the city, and three months since the orphanage, which had been receiving less and less resources each year for the past decade, finally received none.

Cass had been wandering aimlessly through the dirty halls when she happened to overhear a conversation between the managers of the place.

“The hell are we going to do?” An angry man’s voice growled, Auron the adult feared because he was in charge of rules and discipline, and he was not shy about breaking a few ribs to prove a point. “I am not going back to the streets, you know no one else will hire me.”

“We are all in the same fucking boat Auron,” the exasperated voice of Kinly, the head administrator answered, the orphans rarely saw him and both parties prefered it that way. “Unless you forgot that the only reason the Church got the guards off our ass was because of our ‘service to the poor’ here.”

“We might be able to stretch it another month…”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Kinly snapped, shutting the other man down. “We either find a way to keep this place afloat or it will be torn to shreds in the next few weeks, and our ticket out of prison with it.”

Auron snarled again, but after thinking for a bit suggested, “Why don’t we just sell a few? Who would know?”

“For fucks sake man,” Kinly lost his patience entirely. “Did you replace your brain with your balls? The Church makes us record the kids we have, and the Church also sometimes buys slaves to become future acolytes, do the fucking math and figure out what happens if someone notices! And you had better not suggest grabbing them off the street, because you know damn well that the guards and gangs don’t want competition!”

“I hate those brats so much,” Auron’s voice absolutely brimmed with loathing. “I did not think that one through but…”

“This had better be good Auron.”

“There are plenty of people who might pay to visit them, if you catch my meaning…”

There was just silence, and Cass quietly walked away. Life in the orphanage had not been so kind as to let Cass be totally unaware of what those words might mean, but she was still confused and sought out one of the older girls who didn’t beat her as often.

“Tha’ wha’ you hear?” She had grabbed Cass by the hair and yanked it up violently to force Cass to look in her eyes.

“Ya, I tol’ it all!” Cass answered as her eyes teared up from the pain. “I jus’ don’ ge’ it…”

The girl laughed and pushed her up against the wall, “Tha’ mea’s this!” Still holding Cass by the hair, she reached around and grabbed Cass’s butt then ran her hand up to Cass’s chest. Cass had seen things like this before, it never looked like the person wanted it and Cass could see why not. When Cass was finally released she scrambled to put of distance between them, not that it mattered much, the older girl was taller and stronger and could chase Cass down if she wanted. She had done so before, and beaten her more for making her run.

She was the nicest of the older girls here, to be sure. Cass had actually been able to limp back after her beatings instead of laying on the ground in pain until a manager noticed her.

“Heh,” she chuckled as she watched Cass. “No’ good righ’? Be thinkin’ again, ‘cause tha’ is all tha’ awai’s us women on the street. Looking like we are goin’ be payin’ up early.”

Next week, Cass was surprised to see someone come in at night. The orphanage rarely got visitors at all, so what was this man doing here tonight in the girl’s room?

“Pick one and we’ll drag her out for you.” That was Auron…

“No need to bother,” the voice was cool and smooth and refined, and utterly empty. “It is much better for me that they get to listen to their friend tonight.”

“If that is what you want…” Auron seemed confused, but acquiesced regardless.

Cass saw the shadowy man toss something to Auron, perhaps a bag of some kind? It made a clinking sound when Auron caught it, like coins but Cass doubted it was that, a rich person would not come here after all, why would they?

“That should cover it, no?”

“Ah, of course, of course,” Auron’s tone turned agreeable but slimy as he looked inside the bag. Maybe it was money, Auron only showed this side of himself when money was involved after all…

All the kids were awake at this point, and the shadowy man walked past a few before stopping before one of the older girls. Her name was Marsha, and she had a gang of cronies who listened to her every word. In this orphanage, the only people with more power than her were the managers since the boys had not formed a group. There were rumors that Marsha had her cronies seduce some of the boys and prevent it from happening, but Cass was not quite sure what that meant.

Auron whispered a few words to Marsha and left, none of the girls slept that night as they listened to Marsha whimpering, begging, crying and at one point screaming… And the man grunting and laughing on top of her.

In the morning, Marsha was a shell of herself. She was breathing, but wouldn’t respond to anything, she didn’t even cover herself but just stared at the ceiling.

More people came the next night, though the girls were removed from the room, and more the night after until this became the new normal. Some kids tried to run, but Auron always dragged them back, many gave up like Marsha and became husks, and others turned violent themselves, turning on the weaker orphans even more cruelly than they had done before.

The boys had gotten the same visits, though the ones that visited them seemed to prefer the younger boys, or at least the meeker ones. And so the boys struggled to show themselves to be as cruel and strong as possible and for the girls who had become husks the day became just as dangerous as the night as the boys used them just as cruelly as the visitors did.

Cass had so far gone unnoticed, but she was terrified that it would not last. As more people came, men and women with stranger preferences also showed up, and some seemed to prefer the younger kids like Cass.

A man and woman pair, married apparently, had even stopped to examine Cass before choosing the girl next to her. The girl eventually died from blood loss a couple of days later, apparently the lacerations in her anus had not quite healed enough.

The boys and girls who still had enough of their minds remaining to them decided to escape, and Cass joined them. There was a gap between when the girls were sent to bed and when the visitors came, and during that gap the managers would be distracted preparing for the ‘guests,’ so it was the perfect, no, the only time to escape.

That evening, they put the plan into action, hurrying towards the back of the building and towards freedom… Only to find two familiar shadows in the corridor between them and the door.

“Oh? What do we have here?” It was the voice of the man from the first night, so cold and emotionless that it nearly broke the will of the kids right there. “Trying to escape huh? What naughty children…”

The other shadow was Marsha, still just a blank husk kneeling between the man’s legs, a man who had not even bothered to stop when the group had turned the corner.

“Perhaps it is time to teach naughty children a lesson,” the door behind him opened and Auron stepped in with a smile, holding one of the younger boys up in the air by an arm. He tossed him into the hallway and in a patch of moonlight Cass could see the abuse that been heaped on the boy, bruises, whip marks, burns… Even places where it seemed like someone had bit him… “As your ‘friend’ here told us everything after the third or fourth client, funny how he thought we would stop if he finally spoke up, though it was a pity to lose someone so popular with our few lady customers…”

The eldest boy stepped forward and spoke up, “Your ledgers are overseen by the Church, you won’t get away with this seeing how many you have let die.”

“On the contrary,” Auron’s smile turned wicked. “Our dear friend here is our new benefactor, and it only cost one insignificant little girl to get the Church off our back.”

“You know I will be taking a few more,” the still shadowed man said. “I rarely feel much of anything, but little kids in pain and humiliation before they break… Truly a wondrous experience…”

“Y- You can’t stop us all!” The elder boy didn’t seem so confident of that, but considering their fate if they didn’t try…

“Watch me.” Auron smiled.

The kids rushed the door except for Cass who quietly slipped away into the next room, opened the shutters and slid out the window and ran. She knew, even at her young age, that she had just sacrificed all the kids and everyone she knew for her own escape… But as she ran off into the night she could not imagine what else she could have done.