Not Quite Humans

I was alwasy a little...bothered by the Alma. They were visually indistinguishable from humans except for their eye colours. They have yellow and orange patterend eyes, the pattern being unique for each individual. The eyes weren't what bothered me though. No, the eyes were beautiful, absolutely nothing to be bothered by. What bothered me was the slavery. The Alma are a people who, apparently, willingly become the slaves of others.

That bothers me.

Slavery is conceptually horrifying, being completely entirely bound to someone else, completely at their power. If they say jump, you jump. If they say steal, you steal. If they say kill someone you love, you try to live with the guilt of being a murderer. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, and yet people claim that the Alma wish it on themselves.

That seems so incomprehensible that I would find it absolutely impossible to believe, and I would find the practice of Alma slavery to be as abhorrent as I find the idea of human slavery but...Alma aren't humans. They aren't human, so it is entirely possible that they do not have human thought processes, it is possible that they are not as terrified by slavery as we humans are. I don't know if I believe it, but I also can't dismiss the idea. The one thing that I am sure of, is that I need to know.

I honestly don't know what happens after I find out. If the Alma genuinely are happy with their lives of servitude, well alls well that ends well I suppose. But if not? What then? Do I start some sort of underground resistance made up of only myself and whatever Alma I manage to find that would be willing to trust one of their slavers? I suppose I can file these questions under "will cross that bridge when/if I come to it". The one thing I'm worried about though, is that I might be too willing to accept the easy answer. I might be too willing to accept the same surface level lies that the Alma tell in order to not be beaten by the crueler of their masters.

I suppose there is only one way for me to find out though. I am going to have to go right to the source, speak directly to an Alma, preferably one that does not have a master to worry about, no master who will try to hurt them for being truthful.

I am going to go to am Alma distribution centre