Paralogue
The world was dark.
Momentarily, I was confused. But when I opened my eyes again I merely saw darkness. I recall nothing to how I came here. In the distance, a light grows. I turn my head towards it, and begin to walk, curious to what it was.
I walk.
And walk.
For a long time I walk in a world as dark as ink, the only promising path in which I could see was the pinprick of light far, far away. The world hums. Quietly, but gradually the notes grow discordant, clashing against one another. But the circle of light in the distance does not grow.
I cover my ears because I can take the sound no more. The highest notes have turned into screams, and there seemed to be red tainting my vision. I blinked, and it grows redder still. Tears flow out of eyes. I wipe them away in frustration.
As my hooves come away from my face the sight of them stops me. Blood red runs down the gray fur. My tears were tears of blood. I gape at my bloodied hooves, shocked.
When I look up, I noticed the light far off had grown. I concentrate. Suddenly, I am rushing into it, and find myself falling. Flailing, I make an attempt to fly but no avail. And then the dead come.
Images swirl around. Ponies are killed, murdered. The machine swallows them all.
Suddenly, I am whisked into the mouth of the machine. I tumble down, and fall into a hard bottom. Surprisingly it does not hurt at all. I stomp on the ground, and feel nothing, only a slight numbness.
Around me souless eyes bore into my skull. A stab of guilt and pain hits me as a stream of light slowly reveals I have seen all these foals pass before me to their death. And I have done nothing to stop it.
They close in. I feel nothing, not even fear, only guilt.
Before me, their faces fade into nothingness, and I fall through the floor.
I yelp, and try to fly once more. But all around, everything has turned into a blur of gray, growing darker and darker as I fall ever faster.
Then black. The wind is gone. I float and try to remember why I regret my choice.
What choice?
The world flashes as I search my head; I find I do not remember.
Author's Note
So this is my first fanfic >.< I''m looking for an editor, so if anyone can help that would be greatly appreciated.
Anyhow, all comments and criticism are welcomed ~
Awoken
Chapter 1
~
I stared at the lever in front of me. To this day, I wasn't sure how I got a job in the Cloudsdale Weather Corporation. It started when I completed my schooling in Cloudsdale and sent a few applications for a job. A few came back; one of them was from the CWC. My degree in engineering could have gotten my a good job far away, but there was a reason I could not go far away and leave my home behind. In my mind, a beautiful face stared back at me. I saw the world in her green eyes. Even my life. That was all gone now.
A chorus of screams and other animal-like sounds jolted me out of my thoughts. The colt was caught in a series of thin chains that binded his wings and legs. He struggled, but the chains only tightened, a result of the mechanism that ensured the victim would not escape. A line of chained foals (unfortunate flight school failures) by the wall stared wide-eyed at their companion dangling by the mouth of the machine. They knew the end was coming; fear was written all over their faces. Sighing, I pull the lever down, a small blade quickly slices across a small spot just besides his throat. A needle jams into the wound and the colt's screams abruptly end with a gurgle. The bloodless body was then transported into the dark inside of the Super Filly Squeezy 8000, never to be seen again. The process was repeated 12 more times, and then I proceed into the control room for a reading on the spectra levels with the screams and wails still ringing in my ears.
I hated the ghastly way spectra was gathered. Spectra was magic that ran inside all living things and provided it with colour. The only known way to extract spectra , We were told, was to take the blood of the living. But this was not made know to us right away. Not even the lower factory workers knew; in fact, you were told once you were promoted and it was made pretty clear there was no turning back. 4 years ago, I didn't think this was much of an issue. Working in the lower factory was not as bad. The pegasi tended to snow, cloud and various other weather makings. There were also pools of spectrum, used for making rainbows. Workers milled around sturring pools of the most beautiful colours I had ever seen: red, orange yellow, and so forth. What puzzled me was that the colours were all within one pool, yet they did not mix into a unreconizable dark mush. But the dark secret of the ingredients tainted the beauty, and now all I could see was pools of deep red.
From the printer I grabbed the piece of paper with fresh ink drying on it. Glancing at it I noticed the high levels of violet spectrum in the drums. A powder blue pegasus with an odd cutiemark consisting of 6 stars and a comet that was sitting in front of the control panel turned to look at me.
"Oh, Seeder. They have high levels of purple spectrum today," Nova says, "It's probably a good thing, with the previous batch running low and all."
"Did you know if they were done with the wires in section 52 yet? Last I heard they were installing a update on the system and wanted me to check it out."
She shakes her heads slightly. "No word yet, since we're not allowed down the lower floors we just have to wait for Dr. Atmosphere to pass the news". She turns back to the panel and stares at the rows of endless buttons and switches and studies then intently before tapping a few and glancing at the screens located above her head. "I'll send a message to them." I give her my thanks and left.
The Upper Factory was dark, the interiors were slightly foggy with dark cloud walls and strips of weak lighting. The main theater room was still closed off, it had only been a few years since an incident caused Rainbow Dash to shut it down and stopped production for 2 weeks. Many more walkways were suspended above the machine and pipelines. Old caution signs covered in years of grime and muck. Walking past dangling wires, I made my way back to the panel that controlled the SFS 8000.
It was soon to be replaced by a newer, faster and more advanced version. I mentally shuddered at the thought of how many more foals would go through the machine in its lifetime, which was about 20 years of heavy use. Flight school failures were coming by more and more often- I briefly wondered how no one seemed to miss the ponies who had gone missing. I quickly slipped the sheet of paper into the machine and waited for the processing to be completed. Above, the sound of hooves echoed. Looking up, a ghostly pair of blue-ish purple eyes bored into mine. The Manager, ranking below Atmosphere but above most of us.
I whipped my head back to face the SFS 8000. No one is idle when he watches.
Awoken: Chapter 2
A dull thud echos through the room as the beige mare slams one of her hooves against the machine, her gaze sweeps around the room and lands on the three of us before her.
"I gave you one simple job. YOU ARE TO MAINTAIN THIS MACHINE AND NONE OTHER. HOW CAN YOU BE SO INSOLENT?! I understand this piece of shit isn't going to work for much longer, what with the new version, Pegasus device Beta-nine-two-seven-one-o-ten, arriving, but that happens in TWO MONTHS." She pauses for a moment and grits her teeth.
"UNTIL THEN, WE'RE STUCK WITH THIS, AND ONLY THIS, SO YOU WILL DO YOUR BEST WITH IT! DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?"
"Yes Ms. Glaze"
"Good. Then I expect the best coming from all three of you. Especially you, Seeder, I didn't promote you for nothing. Now get on with it."
She bucks the side of the Pegasus device again and leaves. Just before the door she stops and tilts her head ever so slightly, the cruel little smirk evident in even in the bleak lighting. She flips her green and beige striped mane and disappears into the maze of walkways.
The stallion next to me grumbles. "God damn her and her flocking attitude" he rumbles again as he walks to the far side of the machine, and I take my place in front of the controls.
Working in one of the control rooms, I had a few things to be grateful for. It was far and away from the few supervisors we had, since they took to abusing the workers when they could. Mostly, they hung around the lower factory, urging the ponies who managed the pools of spectra (and on occasion a blood spill) to work faster and harder.
More than once did some ponies go insane from the environment. I remember one stallion who started thrashing around one day while laughing manically. He tore his mane and broke more than a few bones falling down two flights of stairs. They finally had to put him down because no matter how many times they sedated him he just woke up and cackled again, yelling in a happily-insane way that nothing can be fixed without being broken. No amount of therapy could fix something like that.
~
Navigating through the perilous walkways, I entered the primary control room. A griffon named DoomStar stood in front of a wall of pipes, gauging the levels of spectra running through them into the vast vats and in to the mixer. I could never imagine how he'd been employed here, with his oddly unhinged smile and unusually cheerful demeanor that suggested he would have made friends with anypony whilst hacking another to death. But his sharp red eyes suggested there was more underneath his jokes, as if another personality would jump out at any moment and take over.
Walking over to Nova, I stood behind her and observed the screens. One showed the system of pipes within the factory, although none of the lights were blinking, it seemed that the system had froze yet again, by the way Nova was banging on the keyboard and her expression was bordering on suggesting violence against it.
"Froze again?" She was still frowning at the buttons, tapping repeatedly on one of them.
"Yeah, I don't know what happened. Must be the stupid wires." Her frown deepened. "I can't imagine why Ms. Dash wouldn't agree to replace them earlier this month"
Dash not agreeing to make the system better? It was odd of her. But no pony had seen her for more than 2 weeks, so I couldn't imagine what she had been doing all this time.
"Must be the budget with the upper floors and all", I nodded at her hoping I wasn't too far off again.
"Nope", a voice came from behind me. Slowly I turned around.
Up close, DoomStar was huge. He stood over half a head taller then me, with his wings stretched out and in the light his deep red eyes seemed to announce death. But instead of taking a swing like I thought he always would, he smiled and calmly pointed a talon up towards the ceiling. "they're going to build a fifth and sixth floor," He stared straight into my eyes; I was frozen in fear. "Whole new redesign, soon they ain't gonna even have the control rooms at the second floor anymore." He turned and smirked at Nova, who sat blinking at him.
"Really? I thought it was the Pegasus device and two floors" She seemed confused by the notion of it all. "Unless they're planning on taking on more weather creating machines? They suggested it but never really decided during the meeting."
DoomStar nodded. "I overheard Atmosphere, seems he's planning on telling us later, huh?"
"Doesn't seem so fair to me" I shrugged, since I had no idea about it, and was sure neither did many others.
"It isn't, but I betcha they'll have us do more and hire a few others I guess" He walks out then, presumably back to wherever he worked.
We stare after him. Minutes pass.
"Few more promotions then." I turn back to the blue Pegasus digging her hooves into the control panel in front of her. The voice did not seem like hers. "Once you get in rhythm with the machine..they take over..and then.." She giggles in a odd way. Backing away, I bump into a wall. Then I see her eyes.
I shook my head to clear everything. No, it couldn't be. It simply coul-
The sound of a tool box being knocked to the ground and the contents spilling all over the floor brings reality back. Turning around, I begin to quickly place the pieces back into the box. Then she was beside me, helping. I jump back.
"What's wrong? You're all jittery" Nova stares at me like I've grown an extra head. The pupils have dilated back to resembling normalcy.
"Nothing" I mutter. Avoiding having to look back, I escape back into the stairways.
~
I suppose insanity wasn't an uncommon thing to happen to a worker. Although we used to have more staff, we lost quite a few to accidents, Dash disposing of them, or the fact they had simply gone insane. The notion of workers seemed to be just tools to her, easily disposable if broken, with a small chance of being mended. But as workers usually had grave injuries that included more than a broken bone, I couldn't say she could be blamed. Except for the fact the safety could be improved, which judging from the fact this facility was used to kill ponies, did not matter one bit. We were all going to die anyways, at one point.
Bending down, I tapped the side of the machine, which resounded in a hollow clank. It constantly jammed now, many parts had to be replaced simply because the main gears were old and rusted. I kicked the metal shell in frustration. Two months more seemed more like a time for us to be constantly replacing all the parts inside of it. If this was how the money saved from our budget was being used, it was futile, the bits where going to waste anyway.
The rest of the day was spent going through a bunch of random ponies, wrenching into their necks with a needle and throwing their bodies like rag dolls into the bowels of the machine. At times I stop and wonder why I've built my life on the agony of others. The wretched thing did not run 24 hours a day, the processor did; yet I always heard the screams now. The constant sounds of it wore me down.
After disengaging several tanks of a vile smelling substance from under the device, I dragged them out and dumped then into the waste chute. I suppose it wasn't the best way to dispose of mysterious substances since the pipes were not designed to house liquid, but dragging them to the back door did not seem to be the best idea either. I could hear the contents splashing out below, somewhat pitying whoever was unlucky enough to be standing near the container at the bottom.
Cause and effect of gore was interesting. You got used to watching bodies fall to the floor in a red, dripping mess, but when you really got down to it, the disgust was still there. You gain pleasure from the pain, but in reality, the thing you most enjoy is the one you also most fear.
Tired, I stumbled through the dark hallways and to the 3rd landing leading to the dorms. Crashing into my rarely used room and onto the bed, I fell into a deep sleep.
Author's Note
So..sorry for the super late update. Been busy with school and other things. On that note, I am still searching for a proofreader, if you are willing to do so, please message me.
