The days were hard, but after a few years, she got used to it. She didn't know better than having this live. After sorting the rocks, she was big enough to go down the shaft to drag the rocks. Once when she was about 11 years, she was closed in the shaft. She stayed in there the whole night. Old Black lived in the shafts. It was his fault that so many kids disappeared, at least that was said among all the other kids. The whole night she stayed up, so that Old Black wouldn't catch her. The next morning, when they found her, she still had to do the day shift, even though she had stayed up all night. That was her problem the caretakers said. It was her fault that she was closed there in the first place. She wasn't fast enough to get out, when the people closed it at nightfall. She was glad she was out so she took the day shift for granted. Nothing was as bad as being with Old Black all night.
Sometimes there also came rich women, who wanted the children as servant girls in their homes. They usually took the beautiful girls, by now Kethala, or Kethy as she was called by her friends, had a lot of scars and wasn't as beautiful as she used to be, so no woman noticed her.
Between all the misery there was this hope, this faith in Sita Ram. Sita Ram lived above, she was good. All the fun was because of Sita. And she had lot of fun beside the hell she was in. The children, her roommates were nice, and good friends. She couldn't have stand up to all the bad things, if there wasn't such thing as fun.
Years went by without notice and Kethy lost track of time, days were count in day shift and sleep; after both a new day was started. And everyday was the same; Stand up, get breakfast, go down the shaft, drag buckets of rocks to the shafts, get up to have lunch, go down again, drag more rocks, get above floor, cook dinner, sleep, and then the next day started.
The worse time was when she got 15, of course she didn't know her birthday anymore, but in her 15th year, some of the caretakers got interested in her. She was getting mature so she looked nice under all that dirt and scars. They started stroking her and placing their hands on places. They knew she would fight back if they didn't catch her when she was busy doing something else, and didn't have anything to defend herself with.
They kept doing it to her for about 2 years. In that time, she kept blaming herself for all her trouble and no matter what her friends said, she still did it.
Everything went bad, she got sick, she didn't drag enough rocks so they she didn't get enough food. The caretakers said that if she let them touch her she would get more food. Dying wasn't an option so she let them do it to her. Her friends saw her drop like rock, at first she was still a bit cheerful, but after so much she didn't see the joy anymore. One day just before cooking, one caretaker said to Kethy, that she didn't get anything to eat if she didn't promise him that she would go to his room after dinner. She was really hungry and she thought he wanted to touch her again. And how awful it was she was getting used to it. She had gotten immune. So after dinner she went to his room, and waited there. After everyone slept, he came. He bound her to his bed, on her back. Then he started licking her face and was untying her shirt. He opened her shirt and started licking her breasts. Then he put out her breeches, and went down with is face. Kethy couldn't do anything about this, she was just a puppet bound tight to his bed. He stood up and lowered his breeches, and went laying on her. She wanted to scream, but he stopped her and said that if she did it, he would make sure Old Black would have her. She screamed inside when he shifted his weight so that he could lower his and her short too. Now she was as good as naked. And he went on licking her all over, as she felt an unbearable pain between her legs. She wanted to scream, but one millisecond before she remembered his threat. She screamed inside, and went on screaming, until she got back in her own room. He had said to her that she was supposed to be in his room every time after dinner, or else no food. That night there was something different in the air, she could feel it. She cried her self to sleep, but just before she fell asleep, white light touched her and everything changed.
The next morning she stood up early, if she didn't, she would be waked by a bucket of ice-cold water. She looked around. It was still dark, but she could clearly see that she was in open space, not in her room. She looked up and saw what was left of the nights beauty. Above her stars shone bright in the sky, even though the sun was almost up. She was in trance by the stars, she haven't seen them ever, or at least she didn't remember. When they were gone, it was past dawn and the sun was shining brightly. She covered her eyes. The sun was too bright. She looked around to see where she was; she was on a plaza. People were buying stuff on the market and others went by on horses, bags full of things they bought. Everyone looked at her strange and some people started staring. She wanted to know what was wrong with her, so she walked to the pond and looked in the water. There she saw a sick girl with a lot of scares and bruises all over her face. She ran away from the water and sat down on a place where no one was. She started crying again. There she was until sunset. Then a young man came to her. They started talking; he said he thought that she was beautiful, Kethy didn't believe him and pointed at her face and she said how she felt, and how sick she was. The man stood up and said that she didn't have to believe it, but all she had to do was look and she would see she was beautiful. He hold up a mirror and she looked in it. Her face was without bruises or scares. She wanted to thank the man with all her hart, but he was gone. Now she stood up and noticed she also had different clothes on. She walked around. She wasn't sick anymore. The people who were still here didn't stare at her or didn't do something strange. She remembered the light, and she was sure that it had been Sita Ram, giving her a life.
She pushed away all the memories about the mines and walked into her new life.
