The only thing Audrey felt she enjoyed about her new life was working with the animals. The only time she got a hint of praise was when she was able to milk the goat on her first try. She had grown up on a farm, and it wasn't all that different from milking a cow. She had learnt how to do that by hand, despite having a machine to do that now.
"You never know when you might have to do this the hard way," her father had said. "One day, the machine might be broken, but the cows would still need milking. We can't always depend on technology."
The memories that came flooding in as she smelled the smells from a farm was painful, but also welcome in a way she had never thought they would be again. She had needed many of her father's lessons to survive here, though he probably hadn't expected her to need them for something like this.
It seemed these people had a more permanent base somewhere, where there were more animals. They would go back there soon, to harvest various crops. There were no visitors there. They didn't want anyone to know where to find that. Now Audrey understood the huge secrecy around the visit. No one could be allowed to look too closely, to realize that for most of them, this wasn't a game. It was very real. But why had most of the people she interacted with on her first day seemed so happy and content? Were they not aware of the literal slavery that happened right under their noses? No, most of them were also theows, or had started as that, and then been promoted when they had shown their loyalty. How could they be happy though? Had she misunderstood the mood so badly?
Then the next visitor day came. Audrey didn't know what to expect but she was never even given the chance to see them. She was, for the first time, given a bed the night before. Until then, she had slept as well as she could, in a corner, fastened to the wall with a chain.
This wasn't a very comfortable bed, but she didn't complain, she was just happy to be allowed to sleep inside and in a bed of any kind. It wasn't very cold outside, but still chilly enough at night that she woke up shivering, or from her back aching, if she had any fresh wounds. She was also allowed to wash, and while it wasn't a shower, and cleaning herself up with cold water in a basin was not the most effective way, it was at least a way to get off most of the dirt and grime from having slept on the ground. She didn't notice until the morning that the beds were cages. The entire time the visitors were there, Audrey was stuck in her bed cage. There were three others who were also new and not trusted outside on visitor days yet. She heard faint sounds from the merrymaking outside, but she didn't bother trying to shout. Even if any of them had heard her, they wouldn't be able to do anything. And she would definitely be punished for it.
She had also gotten a new costume, much the same as the old one, but clean. Though they told her that if she dirtied this one too, it would be a month until she would get a new one. She cleaned her old costume herself and used it as a back-up. One of the other theows gave her the idea, so that when they had to present with clean costumes, they could change to the cleaner of the two outfits. Though neither of them were very clean after a few weeks.
The next day, when the visitors had left, there was another person in the stretch-neck. She fought and protested for far longer than Audrey had, but the result was much the same. The Lady seemed to enjoy watching her struggle.
"None of this would have happened if you had followed the rules," the Lady said as the woman struggled to get out of the pillory. "If you had just done what you were told to do and kept out of the forbidden areas, you could have gone home with the others. Now instead, you will get exactly what you wanted. You will get to see everything. But that's all you will ever get to see again. Prepare her."
As the barber once again came up and cut the new theows hair, she looked a lot more shocked about that than Audrey had been, even if her hair had been a lot shorter than hers. When they took off her gag, a virtual torrent of words spilled from the woman, none of them pleasant. She was gagged again before she was even taken to the whipping post.
"You know, I think I've already understood why no one wants to be your friend," the Lady said. That made the woman stop struggling in shock. "If this is how you go about everything, with profanities and screaming, I can absolutely understand why your husband left you. Good thing that he took the children away too. You are the kind of toxic person that people automatically shy away from. Even before the lottery placed you in the stretch-neck, the rest of the group disliked you. And you couldn't even stop yourself from spewing hate and profanities when I asked you to perform for just a moment, to be released. You are among the select few that wasn't released from that stretch-neck at once."
The woman screamed in shock and anger as the whipping started. Audrey surprisingly felt that she deserved it. If she really was how the Lady described her, maybe she needed a reality check. The Lady called her Karen. Audrey didn't know if it was her actual name, but Karen never claimed another.
Karen didn't stop talking or shouting either. She really thought that if she shouted for long enough, her situation would change. She spent over three days in the jougs, gagged unless they tried to give her some food or water. In the beginning, she refused the food and spat at the theows trying to be kind to her. But she became weaker from lack of sustenance eventually. By the fourth day, she was too weak to put up much of a fight. She was taken to the same bed cage as the rest of them, but she made so much noise that her gag became a permanent feature even there. They only removed it when she had accepted the food. Audrey resented her presence; it made it harder on everyone. Even gagged, she was constantly rattling the cages around the beds and didn't calm down for hours after they were placed there. Audrey was almost glad when the woman collapsed after only a few weeks, gasping for air. But even though the nearest churl quickly removed the gag, the theow was dead within the next day. That was the first death Audrey was witness to, but it wouldn't be the last. Not everyone was cut out for this way of life.