I first met some of the Male Dominion people when I was in college, working as a barista at the local coffee shop.

I was manning the register, about to knock off at the end of my shift, when a woman walked into the shop. Or more accurately, shuffled into the shop. As she entered, everyone in the shop turned to stare at her for she looked rather unusual.

She was covered from head to toe with a long white hooded dress, with the hem of the dress extending a few centimetres onto the ground. Where her face was, there was some sort of thin mesh, probably to see through. And lower down, near where her chest was, there were two flaps locked shut with a padlock each. The constant clinking sounds made as she moved were super obvious, as well.

Seemingly oblivious to the stares, she walked up to the counter.

I tried not to betray my thoughts, instead choosing to stay professional. I surmised that she was wearing some religious garb and weird as it was, I had to respect her choice of clothing.

“Good evening ma’am, welcome to the cafe. What would you like to have today?” I asked.

She simply stood there motionless rather than responding to me. If I could see her face, she might have been blankly staring at me.

“What will your order be today, ma’am?” I prompted, but she continued to stay silent rather than respond. Luckily, there was no queue for her to hold up at that point of time, so I just waited.

A man wearing a shirt and jeans threw open the doors and rushed in, moving to stand beside the woman who I assumed was his wife. Glaring at me with visible distaste, he practically spat, “One large black coffee,”.

“Alright, one large coffee coming right up!” I responded.

“In our religion, women must not speak in public,” he added, continuing to glare at me. There was still no response from his wife.

Oh, that kind of religion. Well, that explained his wife’s silence. I kind of expected it, but then again, he looked ordinary enough apart from a gold chain with an emblem hanging from it. Stupefied, I only said a quick “O- okay” before continuing to prepare his order. What was that saying about me serving him, then?

A minute later, I gave him the coffee. "That'll be $3.30, please," I said.

In response, he slammed a 5 dollar bill on the counter before grabbing his wife's arm and dragging her away.

Yes, he dragged her away. He actually did all that. If only that was the worst encounter I had with the Male Dominion people…

After that, I saw them around here and there in the city, since the women always wore the distinctive white dresses. Oh, and at times they were accompanied by a huge family, I’m talking 8 kids and maybe 2 women or more! Sometimes, I wondered how the women were coping, but never put much thought into it.

Around fifteen years after that, I next heard more about them from an unlikely source.

Then, my old college buddy Frank came back to my city to visit. Of course, like a good friend, I offered to meet and go out with him. That very night, we found ourselves strolling on the street in the midst of bar-crawling, loudly chatting and laughing.

“You wouldn't believe wha- damnit, why are they here?” he exclaimed in surprise, his jovial laughter stopping in its tracks as a frown formed. “How are these people here as well?”

“Who?” I asked in concern.

“Them,” he hissed, gesturing towards the man and the fully covered woman. “They, or their people, are the worst people I’ve had the misfortune of meeting. You have these here as well?”

I told him that many of them did live around in the city, as I saw years ago. Originally, I dismissed them as a random group, but I was shocked to learn that they lived everywhere, even in his faraway corner of the country! Well, that reach was worrying, like everything else I would come to learn about them.

Oh, and that’s when I was first told that they called themselves the Male Dominion.

“Let’s just go home,” he said sullenly, “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

Not wanting to further test his resolve, I brought him back to my place. A hot cup of tea later, he began to give me the dirt on them.

“I once lived next to these shitheads. In particular, this one guy with, like, 5 women and so many kids I didn’t even know the exact number.”

“You actually had to live near them?” I asked. Then, I was still interested in the topic rather than flooded with dread at the very mention of them.

“Yeah. The man was a terrible person. He drank a lot, beat his wives and female children, forced all the women to stay inside almost all the time. I saw all this at one point or the other!”

“That’s terrible!” I responded instinctively. I wasn’t really shocked, but him confirming what I merely theorised at was still rather damning.

“This guy also hated all his neighbours. Namely, us and the other people in the neighbourhood. Kept shouting that we were cuckolds and unbelievers. Kept criticising us for not respecting the authority of the Superior Male, whatever that meant. He treated Grace terribly as well,” he explained, his voice cracking towards the end.

I gulped and nodded for him to go on. Grace was his teenage daughter. Was, for she had gone missing under mysterious circumstances two years ago. Anything involving her was most certainly not to be treaded lightly on.

“One day, Gracie hurriedly ran to me. Said that he was severely beating one of his daughters, and that she could die if I didn’t do anything. Of course, I got there and it was true! He was beating a hooded girl, I couldn’t see her really, with a metal pole. Blood was getting everywhere all over her clothes!”

My jaw plopped open at this terrible experience being narrated to me. That was not what I was expecting.

“What did you do?” I asked in trepidation.

“Called 911, of course. Except when the paramedics got there, he covered everything up and claimed that there was no such girl there! And they just left.”

“What happened then?” I asked, horror growing in me.

He laughed bitterly. “I barely saw the women out. How would I know?”

As I opened my mouth to speak, he continued. “Grace actually went missing just a few weeks after that. She wrote that note saying that she wanted to get away from me and live life on her own terms. But how? She would never do that!”

Tears started forming at the corners of his eyes, as he grappled for words to speak.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Take it easy, ok?” I reassured him.

He shook his head. “No. I must say this.” he said.

“A week later, I randomly came across him. And this shithead, he gloated. Revelled in my misery! Said that she would permanently keep her mouth shut ,” he spat.

“Oh my goodness. That’s just evil!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah. I’m not a conspiracy guy, but I’m sure he had something to do with it. Alright, I’d rather not dwell on this too much,” he said, after which he refused to tell me anything more and opted to rest early. The next day, he cut his trip short and left for home. Well, I didn’t hold it against him. He did provide a lot of insight about the Male Dominion people! He was one of the strongest people I knew, so they’re definitely bad news if even he was so put off by them.

That was a few months ago. The next problem was, of course, when I finally managed to scrimp and save and buy a house on the edge of town. The price was a steal, though the house was somewhat of a fixer-upper. I managed, though.

Two months later, they moved in next door. An entire Male Dominion family. Just my luck.

I considered leaving, but how? I had a mortgage to pay, and there was nothing else I could get at this price. I'd have to leave the area or go back to renting.

So, I stayed at the place. All I could do was endure everything thrown at me.

The first time I met the man was when I was carrying a few bags of groceries on the sidewalk. That day, my car broke down so I had to walk home from the store. I was so tired I was almost stumbling rather than walking, and the weight of the bags didn't help either. In the midst of all that, I accidentally bumped into someone.

Of course, it was the Male Dominion guy. I immediately got a bit scared, I'm not gonna lie, but I tried not to show it. Who gets scared of these whackos even?

"Sorry," I uttered noncommittally before walking past him.

Angrily, he grabbed my collar and dragged me in front of him! As I let out a surprised shriek, he raised a hand to hit me, before lowering it.

“You will soon respect the authority of the Superior Male and give up your free ways, witch!” he snarled at me. “You will!”

“Get the fuck away from me, creep!” I yelled, roughly shoving him away. I briskly walked, no, ran away from him and around the street into my house as he glared at me. Like, this guy was unhinged! Too bad literally no one else was on the street then.

That’s when I first suspected that these people were simply seriously, seriously misogynistic. Like, their entire shitty religion - no, cult - was built on abusing and oppressing women. With a name like the Male Dominion and a god (or whatever that concept was) like the Superior Male, it was coming to be blindingly obvious.

Well, after that I tried to stay as far away from them as possible, going so far as to not even looking out the window when I noticed the guy around. As Frank said, they were bad news. I was not scared, and I’m still not scared of them, but I just didn’t want to associate with them. Unfortunately, we were still next-door neighbours, and even if a tall metal fence separated us, his oppressive presence was still felt.

One time, in the middle of the night, I heard the loud sound of an engine revving from next door. While it was weird, I secretly hoped it was one of the girls who I rarely saw since this didn’t seem like the guy. So, I didn’t hear anything.

The next day, by sunrise, the car was back. And the day after, there was a flood of people, almost fully men wearing the pendant, entering the house. I heard screaming throughout the morning, which eventually petered out into a few intermittent screams in the afternoon before finally coming to a stop in the evening. In the night, all the men left.

Of course, by that point, I knew that something was seriously, seriously wrong in there. In the middle of the day, I called the police, telling them everything I heard.

“We’ll send a patrol to investigate it, ma’am” they said, so I waited.

An impossibly long twenty minutes later, two Mounties approached me.

“You’re Mrs. Yang, aren’t you?” they asked.

“Ms.” I corrected. “And yes Officer, I was the one who called.”

“So you allege that there’s something going on in house number 85?”

“Yes.” I confirmed. “I heard a lot of screaming from that house, and people have been going in and out all morning. I have a pretty bad feeling about some of the residents there. Could you please check it out?”

“We’ll search the place.” he promised, before both of them went to the door of the house and knocked.

The man who I met the other day opened the door.

“Yes, officer? Is there a problem?” he asked loudly. After that, I couldn’t really hear the conversation. Instead of going in, the cops stayed outside and spoke to the guy for the next few minutes, before walking back towards me.

“What’s going on? What did he tell you?” I asked anxiously.

“Nothing much, ma’am. It’s just a party, that’s all.” he said.

“No! What about the shouting?” I asked.

“Just a domestic argument, that’s all. There isn’t anything against the law going on in there.”

“That can’t be!” I said angrily in spite of myself.

“Now, ma’am, you can’t call the police just because you don’t like them.” he said sternly.

“But- wait-” I sputtered as they both walked away. My heart sank, as I so wanted to help the people next door, but I couldn’t do so myself. And so I agonised for the next week, trying to figure out a way to solve the problem. For their safety, my safety and my sanity.

Well, I got my solution a week later. My solution, and my end.

That day, I had a break from work, so I was lying in late rather than waking up early. I was still deep in dreamland when I was shaken awake by someone. Shocked, I jerked awake. I lived alone, so who could wake me up?

When I looked around, a girl in a white hood was looking at me. I couldn’t see any part of her, but her intentions were made clear enough by her jerking her hands against the fabric.

“Alright,” I said as I lifted up the white dress. Which was easier said than done, as the thing was actually pretty heavy and almost stuck to her skin. When I removed it entirely, what I saw shook me to my core.

There were bulky iron cuffs chaining her wrists and ankles, with solid metal gloves on her hands.

When I thought back, that explained everything. The clinking sounds, the way the women shuffled rather than walked.

She stuck out her tongue, and I had another shocking revelation.

There was a metal contraption fitted through a hole in her tongue.

It’s hard to describe like this, and as you’ll see later I’m not really in the situation to draw a diagram or something. I’ll try, though. It was a vertically placed device around 3 to 4 centimetres tall in total, with two removable caps on top. It was pretty heavy, and designed to make the person not speak a single word.

That thought alone made me see red. So, was this all the screaming about? I kept my cool though, and after a minute of fiddling with it, eventually managed to take off the caps and remove the rod.

“Thank you so much!” she said happily with a voice hoarse from disuse. “Now remove these cuffs and get me away from here! Before he comes!”

“On it!” I said as I removed the gloves. “Get to the garage now, I’ll remove the rest there!”

“But he’ll notice!” she said in terror.

“He won’t!” I reassured her. The same day the screaming happened, he put a bunch of trees in his backyard near the fence. I don’t even know if it’s legal, but it helped.

I grabbed my phone and we ran towards the garage.

“Get in!” I rushed her as I shoved open and closed the back door to the garage. Luckily, I knew just the thing to help. I never had any use for bolt cutters, until today.

“Alright, hold out your hands!” I said, taking the bolt cutter.

She looked at me, trembling, and that’s when I noticed the myriad bruises on her face, neck and arm.

“I know this is hard, but just trust me. Please,” I said, trying to convince her.

She held out her hands and splayed out her legs, and I cut the chains with a little effort.

“Now climb in the car!” I said. She ran on her newly freed shaky legs and jumped into the car. I hopped into the driver's seat, started the car and gunned the accelerator as we sped out of the garage. As I drove out of our little street, I looked into the rearview mirror and saw the guy staring at us.

Oh no.

“Call the police!” I told the girl, tossing her my phone.

“No! No police!” she yelled. Looking at the confusion in my face, she explained, “Some of them are on his side.”

Instead, I continued speeding through the narrow corner roads making a mad dash for the highway. I was thinking we could maybe make it to a women's shelter or youth shelter in the city proper, if we could give them the slip.

“What’s your name, dear?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I used to be a girl with hopes and dreams, but those are gone now.”

Well, that was depressing. “Where are you from, though?” I asked.

“I don’t even know what town this is! I have no clue how long ago they took me from home either. Is this anywhere near Cleveland?”

Nope, it wasn’t.

After what felt like an eternity, I finally got onto the road towards the highway. Just one road, and we were well on our way to freedom…

Except when I turned on the road, there were three cars laid front to back blocking the lane. Against all instincts, I slowed the car, before frantically trying to curve around them.

The back of my turning car smashed against an empty diner on the side of the road, and the car stopped with a resounding shudder.

Well, so much for escaping.

When I spared a glance at the girl, she was unconscious for some reason or the other. The crash probably did a number on her. I tried to start the engine, only to realise that the car was basically totaled.

Noticing the men approaching me, some wielding machetes and baseball bats and others wielding syringes, I knew I had to fend for myself and the girl. I had no other choice.

I grabbed the baseball bat and taser I kept with me in the car and stepped out.

As the first guy ran at me, I smashed his skull in with the bat as he swung his bat at me. Clutching his head, he fell to the ground like a sack of bricks.

The next guy ran at me with a machete, which was terrifying, but I stood my ground. Seconds before he was to slash me, I closed my eyes and swung at him with my taser...

A few seconds later, nothing. When I opened my eyes, the guy was lying on the ground, temporarily incapacitated.

Well, the taser worked.

Until a bat whacked me square in the head from behind.

"Aaargh!" I yelled in pain and shock, as I dropped down cradling my head in pain.

"Now! Get the bitch!" the guy behind me called out to his compatriots, who seemed eager to get me.

"No!" I screamed as multiple men pounced on me and pinned me down. I kicked and thrashed around desperately as they carried me by my arms and legs, but no matter how many of them I kicked away they continued dragging me away. As I resisted, someone sunk a syringe in my neck and everything went black.

An indeterminable amount of time later, I woke up with my hands and legs handcuffed in the back of what I assumed was a van. Well, I was blindfolded, so I couldn't exactly see for myself!

"- the wench?" one of the men asked, though I didn't catch most of what he said before.

"She is aged, used goods and must be culled. She knows too much, and has attempted to halt the ownership of the Superior Male within us of our women! A pity though, I would have liked to keep it," another guy said as he ran his hands all over my stomach and breasts. My blood ran steaming hot in anger. Ugh, what a creep! And used goods? That’s in line with these people, though.

“The Superior Male is within us at this moment,” the previous guy intoned, as the others repeated.

I still have no clue what that’s supposed to mean, but whatever.

After another long period of time, the van finally slowed to a stop, and I was forced onto my feet by the men.

“Walk,” a guy ordered as he ripped off my blindfold. Looking around me, I realised we were in a remote snow-covered pine forest without any sign of civilisation. So, far off from the city then.

Barefoot, I was led through a barely visible path in the dense forest for a long time. Eventually, we entered a little clearing and they steered me towards a small pit in the middle.

“Noooo!” I croaked out weakly with the little energy I had as I was pushed into the pit. I fell with a hard thud straight onto the floor of the pit.

After recovering from the shock of the drop, I unsteadily tried to get up until I felt a sharp pain in my knee. I cried out in pain as I flopped back onto the ground, and maniacal laughter came from the men above.

The ground felt rather… odd.

I looked down on the surface only to realise that what I was lying on was a carpet-like pile of bruised and battered dead bodies, all somewhat concealed by a paper-thin layer of mud. Some still had skin and hair on them, while some were nearly skeletons. There were even broken bits of bone strewn about!

If I had anything to throw up, I would. Instead, I screamed in revulsion and stayed curled up on the layer of bodies. There was nothing else I could do, after all.

“And keep this trash!” someone yelled as they threw my phone down into the pit. Another part of me died as my only salvation dropped with a sickening crack in front of me. I was pretty sure it didn’t work.

They stood around the pit for a few minutes, continuing to laugh and jeer at my miserable predicament. After which, rather bizarrely, they left. At first, I didn’t understand what their endgame was. Why would they just leave me here, instead of finishing me off?

Then, the rains started, soaking me from head to toe in icy cold water. As the pit slowly filled with rainwater instead of draining away, I realised what they had in store for me.

See, the pit is pretty small. If I have to estimate, it’s around 5 metres by 5 metres, with a height many times mine. That’s why I can’t climb out, and that’s why the pit will fill up with water to my height soon. And then, I’ll drown. Water will fill my lungs, and I’ll be dead.

However, I’m not dead. Not yet. While my phone is cracked to shit, it survived. So I’m typing this to put my experience with the Male Dominion shitheads out there, to warn all of you.

The Male Dominion is a misogynist religion that needs destroying, and they won’t stop at anything if you mess with them. But please, if you can help their victims, please do.

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