She Embraces You.

Ember gestures for you to get lower. With some hesitation you kneel down on one leg so you are at the same height as her, without skipping a beat she throws her arms around you and hugs you saying, "John... My earliest memory that I remember was with you hugging me against your body as a damned slaver was whipping you for some dishes I accidentally dropped and broke, he lashed out towards me with his whip but you protected me with your body so that he couldn't hurt me, no matter how many times he commanded you to move you remained still sparing me the pain until he was drenched in sweat and exhausted. Growing up you were my teacher, guardian, and parent as you were the one who taught me to walk, read, write, and have manners. But with age came knowledge and I learned it came with a price... For when I realized what they were doing to you I could never stop crying everytime you were taken away for the "entertainment" sessions as all I could hear were your screams from down the corridor. I hated them so much, especially when they removed you as my caregiver, all I had to remember you by was this teddy you found for me when I was younger. Telling me that if I was ever scared to hold him tight against me to feel safer. Thanks to you I still have value for my life... Not just me but everyone here assembled, all of us value our lives because you valued us and our safety enough to always take the worst sessions upon yourself. So when you say you don't deserve anything and didn't care for us I just couldn't let you continue believing that bull crap. We know showing emotions is hard for you John, you believe showing your emotions makes you weak but in reality it's what makes you... Human... Here with us you are safe John, you don't need to hold it inside yourself anymore."

You are frozen in her arms not sure what the best course of action is for this scenario. You feel flooded with ignored emotional baggage from the years and you hate to admit it but you are afraid to confront it. Looking around you see a lot of the people here have tears in their eyes but with big somber smiles from what she said... She's right, they won't judge you and for the first time in a long time you feel safe. Knowing this you wrap your arms around her in return and let the dam of emotions you've been holding collapse, releasing all that pent up sadness and fear over the years leave your body, crying into Embers shoulder for what felt like an eternity... She never lets you go the entire time. When you remove your head from her shoulder you realize everyone is hugging each other and also crying, it seems other than the need to release pent up sexual desire a couple of weeks ago these people also needed a safe place for emotional release and decided this was the best time and place to do it. When you stand again you feel a great weight from your chest gone, your mind free of the emotional fog surrounding it making everything clear and concise. You look down at Ember and ruffle her hair thanking her, you then look at everyone else analyzing them from head to toe individually getting a feel for the emotions/hormones they're giving off and what most likely is crossing through their mind.

After about thirty seconds your analysis shows that 83.7% of them are unsure of what to do with their lives next while the remaining 16.3% are getting ready to leave the compound forever, the fear/resentment resonating off them being in this place is incredibly high but normal due to what happened to them in here. You close your eyes and think, "They are lost souls without direction they need a place to live, a job to sustain income for themselves, and most of all leadership, but how to get them these things is difficult? All of us can't go back to the "real" world because we officially don't even exist in the real world, all data on us was erased when the slavers caught us, no one knows any of us are..." Like a Glock to the face it hits you, you are in a compound filled to the brim with supplies of every sort varying from food to high quality augmentations that could house an army to create a new empire... Your empire... And the best part is you, your baby sister, and everyone in this room right now doesn't exist. As the old saying goes "You can't control a problem if you don't know it exists to begin with." Your mind set you gather everyone's attention and speak saying, "First off I want to thank each and every one of you for sticking around to see how I was after surgery and to apologize for snapping at you all earlier, like most of you I am only accustomed to pain and humiliation from others when even the slightest amount of weakness shows... It means a lot to me to no longer be in that atmosphere and to have so many care for my well being and for that I again thank you. This may be sudden and I know a great deal of us are uneasy and afraid of this place, and would love nothing more than to leave and forget all the horrors it once held, but I have a proposition for all of you who are here to grasp the chance to do something great and impactful with your lives that could shape the very future of our lives and that of the city beyond our compound. As all of us are aware we do not exist to the outside world and though that is sad and difficult to accept it's the truth. But this sad truth is also beneficial and important for the plan I have to turn this compound into the beginnings of a new empire where we are in control of what we do and how we do it. My friends... My family... I want you all to be apart of this plan because there is no one out there that I trust like I trust you. I would take a bullet for each and everyone of you, I would gladly give my life if it meant I could save any of yours from meeting an early grave and I know deep down you all feel the same way about each other. So I ask you, who among you shall join me on this path to a great prosperous future where we are the Masters of our own destiny and our own lives to live a truly free and wholesome existence!?" You were so enamored in your speech you didn't realize your antigravity legs activated causing you to be 5 feet above the ground floating. With a chuckle to yourself you bring yourself down to the ground and with a breath you didn't realize you were holding in wait for their answer.