That life of servitude was all he'd ever known. He'd been born into it, his mother (he'd never even been told her name) a prostitute working in a brothel run by the city's organized crime boss, an imposing and charismatic man named Jiro Alva. Or at least that was what he had been told, he truly didn't remember his mother. Addicted to drugs Jiro provided her, she spent all her time working in the brothel to pay him back. Carter had barely been weaned when she died of an overdose, having never even bothered to name him. According to Jiro he was only even kept alive to pay for his mother's debt, a debt that seemed to never go down.
In a situation like this most children would have grown up with stunted personalities, ignorant of how their lives were supposed to be. Yet Jiro had made a critical error in Carter, as he did not keep him ignorant. In order for him to tell packages apart and deliver them to the right places he had been taught to read, and this had opened up the world to Carter.
For Jiro could not keep him under his eye at all times, nor did he try to. Carter was utterly dependant on him after all for food and shelter. Thus in his time off Carter was able to exercise his childhood curiosity by spending time in the city's library. Very quiet by nature, the brown haired, brown-eyed child was rarely noticed, and the library, despite being in a city run by a crime lord, was in fact one of the best around thanks to wealthy donors in its earlier history.
In this way Carter learned about the world, and the injustices of his own situation. It was not an easy or quick thing, indeed a whole book could be written about the trials he had growing up without proper guidance, love or role models. Well not completely without, some of the people in Jiro's employ were decent enough and victims of circumstance like him, but they could only contribute so much to raising him. Regardless, somehow Carter reached his teens wise for his age and not utterly mentally damaged. He'd even avoided getting hooked on Jiro's drugs. Carter figured it was the one way his life had not been completely unlucky.
By his late teens Carter had realized his mother's debt was nothing but an excuse to keep him under Jiro's thumb, and that he would be the crime boss's errand boy for life if he didn't do something. Yet going to the authorities was not an option, he didn't know which ones were on Jiro's payroll or simply too afraid to stand up to him.
Running away to a better life seemed like the only answer. It certainly seemed to be something characters in many books he read did when faced with problems. Yet it was not so simple. Jiro had a notorious reputation, regarding all those he employed as his possessions. Loyalty, at least to those who weren't his slaves, was rewarded with power and wealth, but disloyalty resulted in humiliation, torture, or death. No one was exempt, from the highest to the lowest in rank. To simply leave his employ was met with dogged search parties by experienced mercenaries who seemed to never fail to eventually find their target and drag them back for punishment. It was said no one had ever left his employ without permission and gone uncaptured.
The open secret behind this were phylacteries, amulets containing a small amount of blood. Supposedly there was one for everyone in Jiro's employ, having one's blood taken and sealed in an amulet being part of the initiation. Yet Jiro was the only one who knew where the amulets were stored. Each amulet was enchanted so that the spirit energy in the blood would not dissipate, and due to the nature of magic, the energy would react and resonate when anywhere near the soul the energy had been taken from. Anyone at all sensitive to magic could sense this reaction and use it to track down their target. Jiro himself was said to have a bit of sensitivity to magic, but he mainly employed specialized mercenaries for the job of tracking.
He had once read that the technique had been invented by wizards studying the senses of monster girls. It was said that once she had fed on a man's energy a monster could track him to anywhere in the world. The phylacteries were not quite so infallible, having a range of ten miles or so, but they still amounted to a very successful tracking device.
With all this in mind, escape seemed hopeless, until changes in the world around him revealed a potential opportunity. There had always been monsters in the great forests beyond the city, but in recent years their numbers had been increasing. Perhaps it was due to populations in other areas being displaced by war, or perhaps it was preparation for an eventual invasion of the city. Perhaps it was simply the monsters breeding.
Regardless the result was that people rarely ventured into the forest anymore, and a number of those who did never returned. Their fate depended on who you asked and perhaps the monster involved. Killed, eaten, kept as a breeding slave or, in the case of women, perhaps even transformed into one of the monster's own kind, it was enough to make most fear the forest. Carter observed that even Jiro and his men were hesitant when it came to crossing monsters. They were powerful, and did not care at all about the authority of the crime boss.
Thus Carter's plan was formed, one that was reckless at best. Flee to the forest, and try to cross through it, hopefully finding a city on the other side where he could build a real life, far enough away to avoid being detected by Jiro's tracking magic. Then hope that Jiro would either regard him as not worthwhile to pursue or decide he was doomed to die in the forest.
This plan also hinged on not getting caught by monsters. He knew as a lone male he was a prime target, yet he also knew it would be easier to escape notice alone than in a group. Further, muscles toned running around the city delivering packages his whole life meant Carter's lanky body had excellent endurance. He could run for miles without rest, and the faster he passed through any given area the less chance he would have of being noticed.
It was a few days after his twentieth birthday and, after weeks of planning and hoarding small amounts of food and supplies, Carter was ready. He fled under cover of night, a pack on his back and the stars overhead. He had packed light to increase his speed but this meant less food and water, and only a single changes of clothes (not that he had much more than that anyway). He had planned to supplement what he had packed with wild fruits, nuts and berries, perhaps even wild game but books on surviving in the forests did not prove to be a substitute for actual experience, which he lacked entirely. He rapidly ran out of food.
It was now clear just how foolish the plan had been. The forest was far too immense for him to cross at speed. He had brought maps but his navigation skills outside the city were rudimentary at best, and the forest itself had never been fully mapped. He was utterly lost, even his compass had eventually stopped working.
"A pathetic ending to a pathetic life..." Carter whispered in self-loathing, resigned to dying. Sure it would take him a while yet to die of starvation or exposure, but unable to keep up his former pace there was no way a wandering monster wouldn't pick him off. In his current weakened state they'd have no use for him as breeding material and would probably just eat him.
Really, a better life had been a long shot at best. He had tried, that counted for something, right? He'd still probably wake up and wander around for as long as he could but may as well mentally prepare for death now. He felt after all his effort he could allow himself some self-pity.
He gave a bitter laugh. "At least Jiro won't ever order me around again," he said to himself as sleep took him.
---
"Ouch!"
Carter was awoken by a sharp pain in his side. Had someone just kicked him? He opened his eyes to an alien, yet beautiful sight.
Standing over him was what appeared at first glance to be a tall, curvy and toned woman, but there was much more to her than that. She was clad in strange, green armor plates over her back, shoulders and sides, long, creamy legs bare below. Extensions to the plates served to support her large, well-formed breasts, which along with her arms and torso were covered in a dark green, skin-tight material, right to the tips of her fingers. This material ended in a ragged skirt of sorts to leave her legs bare.
Each of her lower arms also had armor plates, which ended just before her knuckles and supported her most distinctive and frightening feature, a scythe, longer than the arm itself, double-edged and with large serrations on one side. The blades were currently retracted back and not pointed at him but were intimidating all the same.
