The place where Rolf lived was rotting long before he was born. This old hut was located at the edge of the camp was where Rolf and his family lived. This small, barely liveable hut with only a straw mattress and a table with two benches beside it. On this mattress lay five people under a small thin blanket. On this one mattress Rolf, his siblings: Ysabel and Brenn and his parents slept every night, he always laid in the middle with his mom to the right and Ysabel to his left. Normally Rolf disliked how small the hut was and the murky stench it gave off. But today, Rolf did not mind the hut, as his thoughts were elsewhere, he thought about tomorrow, his seventh birthday. He knew the birthday where one becomes seven was special, for he heard many people talking about it, but he didn't know why it was special. Still, he was very excited for his seventh birthday and kept rustling around in his bed, partly due to the excitement and partly due to the straw poking his back. His sister, Ysabel couldn't sleep because of all the rustling beside her and spoke up with a stern voice: "Could ya stop moving around so much, can't ya see I'm tryna sleep?" . This sentence sent Rolf back to reality and he muttered: "Sorry Ysa, I'll stay still". "You better" she replied coldly. Then morning arose and he saw something he'd never seen before on the table: a big, round construction, it looked like beautiful, shiny stacked up bread, but it also didn't really look like bread, for the colour was different. "What's this" Rolf asked his dad.
"This is something they call a cake, I thought I'd buy something nice for your fifth birthday, you can have it later, okay?" he replied.
"Why can't I have it now?" Rolf asked disappointed.
"You can have it after your first workday Rolf; it will taste even better after a day of hard work".
"What do you mean by 'first workday' dad?" Rolf asked in a curious tone.
"You can finally get rations starting today, aren't you excited?!" Rolf's dad said excitedly.
"I guess?" Rolf's voice sounded uncertain.
"Well, I'll take you there, make sure you work hard, don't disappoint me".
Then Rolf and his dad walked a long while to the designated place, the streets and buildings around them started to look more and more civilized, Rolf was amazed by these modern buildings, he'd not often been here before.
"Well, here it is" Rolf's dad said, forcing a cheerful smile as he walked away, waving his son off.
Rolf's dad knew he would probably get whipped for coming late to work, but he felt it was worth it, since he got to walk his son to his first day of work. Rolf and his sibling very rarely saw their dad without a t-shirt, and when they did, they always asked about the red marks and scars on their dad's back, but their dad never replied sincerely and always made excuses. He didn't want them to know of the truth. The moment Rolf walked through the rusted gates he saw people barely older than him and people full of wrinkles and with grey hair, all working on the same, massive farm. They were all covered in sweat and many where clearly famished or dehydrated and looked as if they were at a breaking point, but they knew that if they faltered for even a moment, the whips of the slave masters would meet them, so they didn't dare to rest. Rolf didn't really understand what was happening, but the atmosphere and the heavy smell of sweat in the air still sent a chill down his spine. It terrified him even more when he saw an old man getting whipped because he had collapsed on the ground. But Rolf relaxed a bit when he saw a friend of his, Garn also working there. "Hey Garn!" Rolf shouted, but he was only met with a cold glance from Garn, who then immediately went back to work. "Why didn't he say anything back?" Rolf thought. "Garn?" Rolf shouted once again, but this time he was ignored, he didn't know why Garn was ignoring him, but he knew something was up, normally they were very good friends, but here, he couldn't feel more distant from Garn. Garn knew that if he replied to Rolf, or even simply turned his attention to Rolf, it was highly likely that he would get whipped, he was after all already ten, so he understood the situation a lot better than him. "Come here!" one of the slave masters yelled at Rolf, he was better dressed than the other slave masters around the farm, so even Rolf could tell he had a lot of power on this farm. He was talking to three other kids at the same time; the other kids had presumably also just turned seven and needed an introduction. The higher ranked slave master then abruptly pointed the four kids to another slave master, and he turned his back and left to go to into a secluded, fancy looking building. "Hurry up, don't make me wait!" the other slave master shouted in a threatening tone and cracked his whip in the air, and it made a frighteningly sound. The four kids understood that they weren't in a friendly environment and quickly rushed over to the slave master. "Fill those buckets with water and carry them to that man over there" the slave master said as he pointed at another slave master about 200 meters away where the kids were. "Hurry up, only pause when I give you another task!" the slave master shouted. The kids immediately rushed over to an old looking well and started filling buckets with water from the well, they couldn't carry the buckets if they were full, so they only filled them up halfway. Rolf was last in line to fill up his bucket, so the other kids were already on their way. This cycle of filling up buckets continued until it was announced that it was lunchtime on the plantation. The kids on the farm only got a palm sized piece of bread and porridge that was very watered down for lunch, it was just about enough to get through the day. Lunchtime was limited to ten minutes, so they needed to eat fast, in these ten minutes Rolf did manage to learn the names of the other three kids: Otto, Arno and Gero and where they lived. Rolf told them he lived on the northern end of the camp, Otto and Arno said they lived on the east side and that they were already friends since young and Gero lived on the south side of the camp. Rolf wanted to talk to the other kids a bit more, but it was time to work again. Rolf got grouped with Gero to go to the far-right corner of the farm to pick the beautiful moonlight cotton, a rare type of cotton that glows beautifully in the night sky, looking as if it contained a fragment of the moon. Gero and Rolf couldn't talk to each other a lot during this time, as they knew that there would be a large chance that they would get whipped if they did, as they saw happening with other people around them. "Damn it, my hands" Gero hissed before immediately going back to work so the overseeing slave master wouldn't catch him doing something other than work. "Gets better over time, when your hands become numb" Rolf whispered quickly before the slave master turned around once again. The atmosphere was very tense, so they didn't dare talk often. As the sun set down the cotton began to show a beautiful glow. "I get where the name comes from now haha" Gero whispered before quickly going back to work. At 8pm the workday had ended, almost an hour after sunset, he went to collect his rations said his goodbye's to Gero and headed home. This had been a horrible experience for Rolf, since his hands and feet were all messed up, his stomach was aching, and he felt more tired than he ever had before. But he felt he at least had a friend, he wasn't fighting alone. He once again saw the quality of infrastructure changing, from the beautiful buildings in the centre of the camp to his own home, the quality kept creeping down and down until he finally reached his home. When he arrived at the rotten hut, he wanted to greet his dad, who was nowhere to be seen, not even in his usual corner. He wanted to ask his mom where his dad was but saw her hunched over with tears rolling down her cheeks, her face filled with grief. He had never seen his mom cry before. He didn't have the heart to ask her what had happened. Rolf just froze in the doorway and looked at the table. There he saw that the cake had disappeared, he gripped his chest as tightly as he could as he trembled. "Daddy is fine" he told himself as a tear began to roll down his eye.