Dreams were like being in limbo, surrounded by faceless shapes shrouded in mist.
Without speaking, without listening, it was just a nightmare ...
A single blonde girl is in that sea of hollow faces trying to scream but not saying anything. In a short time the figure acquires the same shape as the rest of the figures and transforms into another figure with a hollow face.
You wake up suddenly with an exhale and a racing heart.
You have only awakened from a nightmare to be ushered into an even more real one.
The day passes like the one before and the one before that, and that is how it was going to continue for the rest of your days.
The car you are tied to continues its unfortunate journey down that muddy road, pulled by you and your companions in hardships.
Rita has lost the ability to speak. She was the last other than you who had been able to retain her humanity the longest. The rest had given up over the months but still some of you still hoped for a rescue soon. A rescue that never came.
Now you only had the bitter routine of helping the man in the red jacket bring more victims to her island and end up being turned into donkeys just like you and your friends.
That night, you take a break in the corrals near the docks where the ferry picks up the boys who were going to the Island of the Games and who would return transformed into beasts of burden to be sold in the Italian markets. A lonely night awaited you, accompanied by the animal braying and without a hint of humanity from your companions.