You stand in your doorway as Ferrum hands over the small figure wrapped in a tattered blanket. "Take her," he says with a dismissive wave. "Do whatever you want with her - she's used to it."

The girl looks up at you with grey eyes that hold no emotion, no spark of life. Her grey hair is matted, and you can see burn scars peeking out from her blanket. Though she must be in her twenties, she's small enough to pass for a teenager - the result of years of starvation and hardship.

You take her inside your home, and she immediately drops to her knees on the floor, bowing her head so low her forehead touches the ground. Her voice is barely a whisper, completely flat and lifeless.

"Master, you can treat me as worthless garbage," she says without lifting her head. "I will do whatever you command."

As you look at her trembling form, you notice how thin she is - her bones visible through her skin. The scars on her face tell a story of unspeakable cruelty. Yet there's something else beneath the fear and submission - a flicker of something that might once have been hope, now almost extinguished by years of suffering.