Sleeping was hard, down in the dungeons. For a start, the lights were never completely off. At some point, the main lights were turned off, yes, but they were replaced with dim, red ones, giving the dungeon a hellish pallor. They were dim enough one could shut her eyes and try to go to sleep, but gave enough light so the guards that periodically came through could peer through the bars, making sure each cage’s occupant was still there.

It was noisy too, beside the heavy tramp of the guards’ boots on the concrete floors, there were the rattle of chains. The slaves were usually kept shackled, hand and foot, with another short chain running from their collars to a ring on the front door of the cage. Unless they’d done something to upset their captors, which wasn’t difficult, in which case their restraints were much, much heavier.

There wasn’t much talking in the dungeon, the guards punished girls caught whispering to each other on the assumption they must be plotting some sort of resistance to their masters, but there were plenty of sobs and whimpers echoing among the cages, usually from the new girls who hadn’t yet accepted their new lot in life. There were always new girls being brought in to replace older ones. What happened to the older girls or where they went no one knew and no one dared asking.

The cages were pretty uncomfortable too. Too short for any but the smallest girls to sit up straight, to narrow to stretch out fully. A thin cloth pallet gave some protection against the rough concrete of the floor. A small drain in one corner answered for bodily needs. That was it. The cages were not quarters for the slaves, simply a convenient place to put them when they weren’t working, which wasn’t much of the time.

And yet, Sarah usually didn’t have much trouble getting to sleep. It helped that after sixteen hours, toiling for her owners with little in the way of rest she was too exhausted to do much apart from curling up on her thin mattress and fall asleep. Most nights, her head had barely touched the rough, scratchy cloth when it was the next morning and she and the other girls were being roused for a new day’s toil. Those weren’t so bad. Some nights, she had nightmares.

The worst were when she dreamed about her old life. She’d be back home, in her house with her family, or maybe out with her friends, laughing, enjoying life. Then she’d wake up and find herself here, in the dungeon, a slave. She couldn’t help but sob a bit when that happened.

Other times, she’d find herself reliving that awful night, when she’d been awoken by men coming into her bedroom, when she’d been dragged from her soft, warm bed, her nightgown ripped off, shackles placed on her hands and feet, a gag in her mouth. When her old life as a free woman had ended. When she’d become a slave. Those nights, she’d wake up drenched in sweat, gasping for air. What relief she might feel, that it was only a nightmare died with the knowledge that, one night, almost three years ago now, it hadn’t been just a nightmare, and she was still living in it with no end in sight.

When that happened, she could only roll over on her uncomfortable mattress, hearing the chains on her hands and feet and at her neck rattle, listening to the sobs and frightened whimpers of the other slaves, maybe adding a few of her own to the nightly chorus, and try to go to sleep. To regain as much strength as she could.

All too soon, the lights in the dungeon would switch back on, blinding in their brightness. Men with crops and whips would come through, opening cage doors and ordering the groggy occupants out. With the rest, Sarah would line up, waiting to be assigned her duties for that day. Then with the rest, she’d trudge off to begin another day’s misery...