PRetty Slave Girl((AKA my crappy school project))

Pretty Slave Girl

A bead of sweat rolled down Elliot Jones' face. She straightened her back, standing upright. The hot sun was beating down on her dark skin, no trees to shade any of the other slaves in the large cotton field. Her hands were rough and calloused, tougher than rocks. She had worked in the vast green land for 5 years, ever sense she turned 13. Now she was 18, and dying to get out. She had been at the cursed place for so many years...
"Girl! Get back to work!" A rough voice called, dragging Elliot out of her thoughts. She bent down and began pulling more cotton from the spiked plants.
She thought back to when she had freedom, back in Africa, before she had been shipped through the rough trade routes and treated like a bag of flour instead of a human. Her parents had died on the trip over, so she had no one. No one but herself.

That night, as Elliot lay on her rough cot, she imagined what it would be like to be free. Free... that word was the least spoken on the plantation, and the most thought. Every slave in America dreamed of being free, having the rights of a white man... but that was completely impossible. Everything in the slave owner's life revolved around the slaves. Making money, getting food, building, exploring, and so much else. They were used as tools, as resources, not as people.
"I wonder... if we'll ever be free..." she mused aloud. As she contemplated the many aspects of freedom, her mind began wandering and dropping, and soon she was asleep.

In her dreams, she was a bird. Her large red and brown wings sent powerful gusts of wind across the land as she flew over her old home. Suddenly, ropes were flying through the air and snaring her, capturing her. She tried to cry out, but all that came out was a loud screech, like a hawk. She was dragged down, out of the sky, and she saw the same happening to other birds... only these had the faces of her friends and family. They screamed for her help, eyes wide and full of fear, but were dragged down along with her. Elliot was stuffed in a small, dark room, her clawed bird feet chained to the cement ground and her wings strapped to her feathery body. There were others there, too... but no one she knew. None of her family, none of her friends. Her and the other birds were forced to do laborious tasks. It seemed to go on forever. But after what seemed like a very long time in the dream, bird Elliot tried to flap her wings. They suddenly came free of the straps, and she rocketed high into the air, suddenly free of the small room in which she had been trapped. She flapped her wings again and soared, high over the ocean, and back to her homeland. She dove, air screeching in her ears, and suddenly she was human again, landing lightly in her home. She gave a cry of joy to see her family and friends. As she rushed to meet them, they disappeared like smoke into the air, leaving her alone and confused. Their voices remained, echoing through her village, which was suddenly empty of everyone she had grown up with. She cried out for her family, her mother and father, her friends, anyone. No response except for a single echo of many voices...
Escape... for all of us...

Elliot woke with a start, a cold sweat coating her body. She heard a loud gunshot outside, then another. Shouts filled the cool air. Wait... the air... it was still night? Another gunshot, more yelling, and suddenly a loud crash that sent splinters of wood flying everywhere. Someone had rammed through her door, someone with blonde hair and bright green eyes.
"Well, don't just sit there, girl! Move!" He cried in a pronounced British accent. Elliot gave a start and leaped up, dashing through the splintered door frame.
Her feet hardly felt the rocks jabbing into them, and she only ran, her long black hair spreading out like a black flag behind her. Elliot's pupils were dilated with fear, and part of her still thought she was dreaming. The bangs of bullets being shot through the air.
"Girl! Over here!" A voice with a pronounced English accent rang across the battlefield. The man who had saved her was waving madly, emerald eyes widened in fear. Elliot turned and stared, frozen. Her mind conflicted, natural instinct to run combating with the fact that the man looked genuinely concerned about her. She began to run towards the blond man, trusting him. Shouts filled the air as she dashed through the smoky battlefield, and she finally reached the man. He wordlessly grabbed her wrist and dashed away into the dark night, away from the raging battle.
"What... what's going on?!" Elliot looked over her shoulder, at the flashes of light and shouts that were quickly growing distant. "Where are you taking me?"
"Somewhere safe! Now shut up!" The man angrily glanced around, as if checking for people. "I'm Kirkland, Arthur Kirkland."
"E-Elliot," Elliot choked out.
"What?" A confused look replaced the anger on his face.
"My name is Elliot... Elliot Jones."
Arthur nodded and turned around, still dragging her. Elliot began to regain control over her thoughts. She tried to collect what had happened. She had woken up to this man, who was dragging her away from a battlefield, busting through her door and telling her to run out into the middle of a shoot-out, then yelled at her to come back to him and then dragged her away. She still half-believed that she was dreaming. Elliot stole a glance upwards, trying to judge what time it was. The moon was directly overhead, basking the world with an unnatural white light. Everything seemed oddly silent, save for the sound of their pounding footsteps. The sounds of battle had grown faint a while ago, and now were nonexistent.
"Mr. Kirkland, sir? Where... where are we?" Elliot asked, breaking the pressing silence.
"Somewhere safe, love. And call me Arthur."
Elliot suddenly realized that her breath was coming in gasps and that her feet were leaving bloody footprints with every step. She must have cut her feet on the rocks. Closing her eyes, she slowed to a halt, bending over. The many years of work had given her a hardened spirit and strong arms and legs, but looking up at the sky again, the moon had moved so that peeks of sun were glancing over the horizon. They had been running for hours.
"Elliot? Are you alright?" Arthur's concerned face hovered in the brightening air.
Elliot nodded, out of breath. She sat down on the dusty earth, taking slow, deep breaths, feeling lightheaded. The world started to spin around her, and she began to feel the exhaustion of running full speed for hours. The adrenaline rush she had felt when she woke up had expired long ago, leaving her running on empty. She fell onto her back, watching the fading stars swirl around like a large cooking pot. She heard Arthur's voice, and unintelligible echo buzzing around her ears. She blinked once, finding it difficult to keep her heavy eyelids open. Elliot gave up, allowing her dark eyes to be obscured by her lead weight eyelids, and felt herself falling out of consciousness.

Elliot was running through a dark hallway, panting viciously. She was barefoot and bleeding, eyes wide with fear. She was running from something. Nothing human... it was to powerful. This was pure emotion, twisted and knotted and compressed until it had a form. Rage, fear, jealousy, and more primal emotions, nameless ones that lay dormant in every human's soul. Ones that come out in the heat of war.
"Help! Someone, help me!" Elliot cried, her voice rasping
The creature was quickly approaching, its face a mix of many, shifting endlessly. It opened its mouth, but no sound came out. Instead, it's gravelly voice penetrating her mind.
"This impending war will destroy your life and rebuild it. All of your people will be saved by this Civil War, but this war is because of you. The ones who support you need you for their culture. The ones who do not need you to survive want to set you free. You have to be free to win this war, and to win this war freedom must be obtained. Without freedom you have no chance." The shadowy figure suddenly disappeared and the scene around Elliot changed, taking her back to where her last dream had ended. Her old home in Africa, where she had grown up only to be snatched away. The air that her lungs had been screaming for filled her, and she felt utterly at peace.
'This is what I need to do... I need to go home,' she thought to herself.
The scene began to change again slowly, a bright blue sky with a burning sun directly overhead. A face also swam into view, one that had a set of emerald green eyes. Elliot sat up quickly, the events of the past night hitting her like a tidal wave.
"Are you all right, Elliot? You were out for almost six hours." Seeing the panic in her eyes, he added, "We're safe, Elliot. Don't worry."
Elliot nodded, suddenly recognizing her surroundings. It was a very familiar port, bringing a sense of de ja vou. Suddenly, she realized.
"This... this is where I first came to America..." she whispered.
Arthur nodded. "And this is where you'll leave here. Go on, get up, we need to get on a ship." He helped her to her feet, steadying her carefully as she swayed, legs still weak and wobbly from the last nights running. They made their way onto a large ship.
"All aboard for the slave trip to Africa!" A man dressed in a seaman's outfit called into the crowd. Arthur steered Elliot towards the back of the boat, where they sat for an hour, more passengers gradually filling the seats around them. None of them acknowledged Elliot, only nodded to Arthur. After a while, the ship began to chug out of the port, moving slowly but surely.
Arthur and Elliot stayed on the ship for a long while, later retiring to the cabins down below. When they woke in the morning, Elliot's homeland, Africa, was on the horizon.
"Ah! Africa, my home..." Elliot was ecstatic at the sight of it.
Arthur nodded, but his eyes were a bit downcast. "Elliot... I'm so glad I got to help you."
Elliot grinned, her pearly white teeth glinting in the burning sun. "Thank you so much, for saving me from that awful place... Please... be careful. Visit me, if you can."
Arthur's eyes brightened. "I will! I promise." He took her hand. "Thank you for coming with me... for trusting me."
Elliot swallowed, a hard knot forming in her throat. She flung her arms around the British gentleman. "I hope I'll see you again soon..."
"You will."
When Elliot got off the boat, she waved until she felt that her arm would fall off, and Arthur waved back. He had promised to write as soon as he got back, and Elliot had sworn to respond. They had exchanged tearful farewells, and as the boat finally faded to a pinprick in the vast ocean, Elliot turned her back to gaze into her homeland.
"I'm home," she murmured.