Triplets

[Emma, Olivia and Charlotte's point of view]

Cold.

Chilling cold.

Freezing Cold.

Try feeling cold through your sisters, amplifying it with your own. That was what we felt every day in the cage with little room space for us to move around and exercise our muscles. Apparently, slave cages were made to simulate a harsh environment to ensure that we would not have any strength or thoughts of rebelling against the merchants or making them feel like they were being saved by their owners, making them loyal to them. That was the intent and purpose of these cages. Instead, it deviated from the intended design intent, which only made the slave's resentment grow stronger. This could be seen in our case, where the cold environment simulated by the cage is affecting all three of us, which causes the biting cold to be amplified within us.

We were three babies coming out of our mother's womb one at a time in an hour, also called a triplet. This also caused our mother's death; though our father loved us dearly, we could all see something hurting him in his eyes. It was not only years later after he died that we found out that he was suffering from an immense amount of unprocessed grief, which eventually led to him being depressed. Which slowly led to his death.

Well, we believe that was not the only reason. We think that it might also be due to us.

This is because this world believes that twins represent bad luck, triplets, well though there it doesn't represent or we heard anything superstitiously bad about it, there are still many logical inherent problems about it such as only one in ten thousand pregnancies, only one in hundred thousand pregnancies are successful. Of the one in hundred thousand, most parents would give the child up for several reasons, such as the risk involved during childbirth on top of the poor medical facilities, especially when hiring priests is out of reach for most people. Secondly, the cost of living would go up exponentially with the increase in the number of mouths in the family. These two reasons are already enough to deter numerous parents throughout the ages from having a baby despite no belief of them so far not being presented in a negative light.

One could say we were incredibly blessed that our parents did not terminate us and decided to have us despite the risk, for which we have always been thankful. Sadly, happy times didn't last at the age of seven; our father committed suicide, leaving us all alone in the tiny, cramped place we once called home. If not for that incident, Old Eddie would not have found us and taken us into his group, which he has continued to do over the years. Nevertheless, it was his compassion and kindness that were what caused us to be in this situation right now.

If you ask if we hated him for it, we don't.

Why?

Well, that is because compassion and kindness are trades in this world, especially for those living in War Continent. In Addition, if it were not for those traits in him, he would have never saved us and instead turned a blind eye to our situation. So, despite knowing the fact that he was being taken advantage of, which caused our current situation, we were okay with it and hoped that he didn't hold it within him for causing our current situation. In the end, every action, trait and ability has its pros and cons, and it is only when we embrace or reflect and learn about it that we can continue to grow and become a better person.

Similarly, for our innate abilities, though we are able to share our location, learnt what each other has learned, and know each other's thoughts, there are some drawbacks like having to share one another's pain, negative emotions, and trauma. No matter how hard we try to block them, we can't because we are three and one and the same person. The only difference is that we have three bodies.

This could be seen in our current situation as time went on; fear and agony seeped into our minds as many people came and went. Despite having the willpower of three people, our minds slowly crumbled at the way buyers treated our fellow colleagues, which slowly made us sink into despair as an uncountable amount of time passed even though we were never bought. Soon, a strange force came and sparked a tremendous amount of fear within us, falling us down deeper into the abyss just as we were about to decide on killing ourselves, thinking that maybe death would be better and kinder to us, Clank!

The sound of metal being cut could be heard clearly as if those sounds came from directly in front of us, and it was our cage that was being broken apart. Curious, one of us – Emma, slowly opened my blank, hollow eyes and saw that the perfect vertical iron bars were now slanted, and there were even some cleanly cut iron bars on the floor not far from us.

"Little ones, you can come on out now. You are saved", a deep hoarse voice sounded that broke me out from my stupor, finally realising that there was someone in front of us. Strangely enough, we did not have any fear, vigilance or suspicion toward that voice and only trusted it as it felt like an angel's whisper.

When we heard the voice, we broke down in tears, knowing that all was fine now, and we would no longer be plagued by the hopelessness we once felt and enter a new age of peace and prosperity with this person.

The rest of us opened our eyes filled with hope and rejuvenation as we slowly tried to stand up, but after putting our weight on our legs, we immediately stumbled and fell into his embrace; as he caught onto us and fell asleep in his embrace as exhaustion hit us for the first time.

...