Free Web NovelChapter 513: Chapter 513: Atonement
Sexual humiliation should never be a means of "punishing" women. How is such a disgusting act any different from what an aggressor would do?
Melody Summers was a woman herself. As a fellow woman, no matter how much she hated Sylvia Lancaster, she could never bring herself to do something so disgusting.
Just as Sylvia Lancaster breathed a small sigh of relief, Melody Summers spoke again. "Sylvia, I’ve never been quite sure what to do with you. At first, I wanted to just kill you. But then I realized that killing you would be letting you off too easy..."
When Melody Summers was first reborn, she had the chance to kill the Lancasters outright. By then, the Lancaster Family had already gone bankrupt and fired all their security guards. Melody could have easily used the power of her space to kill them without leaving a trace, but...
’Why should I?’
’Why should they get to die so easily?’
In the apocalypse, death was a release. That was why Melody Summers chose to let them live, to let them suffer the torment of the cataclysm.
Just as Melody Summers had expected, two years passed. The Lancasters had now lost everything they held dear—wealth, fame, and even family affection. They had nothing left.
They were starving, freezing, and displaced. They couldn’t even fill their stomachs and had turned on one another in their desperation. This was the ultimate revenge!
Melody Summers took two steps forward, bent down, and grabbed Sylvia Lancaster by the face. "Besides, you’re so special. You entered my space and came out alive... What if I kill you and you just get reborn again?"
’Sylvia Lancaster had bonded with a space, and even the space itself couldn’t kill her. Melody worried: what if Sylvia really was some so-called "Child of Destiny"? What if she was allowed to be reborn and stage a comeback?’
Under Sylvia Lancaster’s terrified gaze, Melody Summers straightened up and said with a faint smile, "So, I’ve prepared a fresh new game for you two."
With that, she pulled a vial from her pocket and shook it in front of Sylvia Lancaster and Felix Ford. "Do you know what this is?"
Sylvia Lancaster and Felix Ford, not understanding, instinctively shook their heads.
The corners of Melody Summers’s lips curled as she said calmly, "I bought this at the trading station inside my space. It’s called Work Secret Medicine."
As Sylvia Lancaster and Felix Ford stared in stunned confusion, Melody Summers explained, "Take just one of these pills, and you can work continuously for five years, without sleep or rest."
The product description for the Work Secret Medicine stated that the pill was designed specifically for manual laborers. After taking one, the user could go without food, water, or sleep for the next five years, fully immersed in their work 24 hours a day.
’When Melody had first read the description for the Work Secret Medicine, she had shaken her head in disbelief. It was a capitalist’s dream pill, turning living, breathing people into mindless work machines, no better than zombies.’
’Even slaves on a plantation need food and sleep, yet this pill stripped all of that away. The thought was chilling!’
But now, this pill was exactly what she needed.
Without another word, Melody Summers opened the vial. She leaned over, squeezed Sylvia Lancaster’s cheeks, and poured the entire bottle of pills into her mouth.
Caught completely off guard, Sylvia Lancaster swallowed the entire bottle of pills.
When she realized what had just happened, Sylvia Lancaster’s expression changed dramatically!
She instinctively tried to gag, desperate to spit the pills out, but after retching for what felt like an eternity, she couldn’t bring anything up.
"Gag—retch—"
Watching Sylvia’s display, Melody Summers sneered. "Enough. Don’t bother struggling. Once you take that medicine, there’s no spitting it back out!"
Gasping for breath, Sylvia Lancaster stared at Melody Summers, her eyes filled with terror. She asked in a trembling voice, "What... what do you want to do..."
’Why would she feed me something like this?’
’Could Melody’s idea be the same as mine was? Is she going to make me farm endlessly in her space?!’
Melody Summers didn’t answer her. Instead, she took out nine more identical vials and forced them all into Felix Ford’s mouth.
The pills were dirt cheap anyway. Back then, Melody had redeemed ten bottles at once just to meet a points quota. With 40 pills per bottle, it was more than enough to go around.
After forcing the medicine down their throats, Melody Summers found two rags to gag them with and then brought them to Odyssey Station.
Just as Sylvia Lancaster and Felix Ford were staring in shock—this space actually had an Ocean—Melody Summers had already thrown them onto the Trading Floor at Odyssey Station.
Meeting their shocked and uncomprehending stares, Melody Summers spoke slowly. "This cargo ship will soon transport you two to an Ore Star. It’s very far from the Milky Way Galaxy. If all goes according to plan, neither of you will ever be able to return to Terra..."
Melody Summers knew all of this from the "accompanying notes" for the Work Secret Medicine.
The notes explained that the Work Secret Medicine was a product "tailor-made for Ore Star workers." The Trading Floor could send anyone who had taken the medicine to an Ore Star to serve as a laborer, with the trade price determined by the individual’s work capacity.
Although the term used was "worker," they were really just slaves. Or, to be more precise, work machines.
After all, in the eyes of the Work Secret Medicine’s inventors, anyone who took the pill could no longer be considered a person.
"The Ore Star is full of mines, and in those mines, you will never see the light of day. The moment you’re sent there, you will begin the work of mining."
"You will have no rest, no sleep, no entertainment, no food, and no water. Every single minute of every single second, you will do nothing but mine."
"Supervisors will watch over you twenty-four hours a day. If you break down and can’t take it anymore, you won’t even have the option of suicide."
One bottle of Work Secret Medicine contained 40 pills. One pill meant five years of nonstop work. Sylvia Lancaster had swallowed one bottle, so she would have to work on the Ore Star, sleepless and without rest, for 200 years.
Two hundred years. That’s 73,000 days, or 1,752,000 hours.
Anyone who’s ever worked a job knows that working for eight hours straight is painful enough. Anyone who’s ever been a student can understand how eight consecutive classes can feel like it drains half your soul.
And Sylvia Lancaster would have to work continuously for 1,752,000 hours. She wouldn’t be able to stop for even a second. She couldn’t sit down for a sip of water, or even let her mind go blank for a moment.
And that didn’t even cover Felix Ford. Sylvia Lancaster had only taken one bottle, but Felix had taken nine full bottles—a total of 360 pills. He would have to work for 1,800 years.
How long is 1,800 years? He’d have to start working during the time of Julius Caesar, toil through the entire lifespan of the Roman Empire, witness the Middle Ages come and go, and keep at it until long after the Renaissance had ended.
A human lifespan is barely a hundred years. Even steel eventually corrodes and fails, let alone the body of a carbon-based organism.
Melody Summers had no idea what would become of Felix Ford and Sylvia Lancaster when the Work Secret Medicine finally wore off. She didn’t know if their flesh and bones would simply turn to ash. She just stared into the despair in their eyes and whispered, "Go now. Go and atone for everything you’ve done."
