I choose
I didn’t know what to think. I had watched the same horrific scene as every pony else and I was in shock. I stood slack jawed and stunned as the screams finally ceased. I was relieved when she stopped screaming. I was relieved it was not me that had been put through that torture. She had had her legs, wings and arms broken. There was blood everywhere. I could scarcely keep my eyes open. Her coat was of a green tint with a yellow mane and tail, but now, she was gone. Ground up to be made into spectra for rainbows.
That was all we were good for anymore. That was what Rainbow Dash told us. We were worthless as flyers and only good for harvesting spectra. Some of us would be made into that liquid and hauled off into the factory and some of us would be workers in the factory itself. I chose not to go out so easy. I wanted to live. I may have failed the flying test, only due to a sprain when I reopened my wings on the fall, but I did not want to die. Not like this. Not here. Not in the Rainbow Factory…
I caught my breath as I lunged out of the bed and shook the images of the vivid dream away. How many times now had I had this dream? Too many to count. I had even lost count of the number of ponies I had helped kill all for the sake of spectra. I got up and splashed water on my face. The rough feel of the towel as I dried my face did not phase me. I stared at my reflection for a moment. My eyes looked dull.
They used to be so bright and full of life, but now were as dull as my faded blue coat. My light purple mane was dusty and unkempt. I ran my hoof through a tangle and just brushed it off to one side of my face. I did not even care much about it anymore. I zipped up the collar on my jacket and headed out the door and onto the factory floor. My hooves clanged on the metal floor.
I could hear the heavy machines and taste the metallic tinge of blood in the air. The sounds echoed in the night as I walked down the hallway. My hooves making clanging sounds as I walked the catwalk and made my way to a meeting room. I stopped in front of the doors and then entered after a long breath.
“Your late!” came a raspy female voice from ahead of me. I knew that voice all too well. “Take a seat.” The cyan mare said as she narrowed her eyes at me. It was Rainbow Dash. The one in charge of this whole organization. Nopony would believe me if I had ever escaped here and tried to tell them that though. I sat down shakily.
Everyone was afraid of her. Afraid of being disciplined and possibly being put into the Pegasus Device. So nopony would dare speak out of line to her. “You were saying Miss Dash?” a burly stallion spoke up. He was her head of security and also my boss. I gulped and managed a small nod to him. Dash continued her speech.
“Right. Spectra is at a high volume right now and vibrant as well. So this means that we can cut back on spectra donors for a few months. So there for security must stay tight. You cannot let these ponies think that we are letting up. They have to stay afraid and under our hoof…”
She tailed off as a monitor came down and a grainy video, one that we had all seen before, began to play. It was security footage of the day of the revolt. I recalled it vividly. It was the day I had earned the rank of Orchestrater. I ended my first life that day. I had saved Dash’s. A filly of orange with a purple mane and tail was yelling at her. I remember the words as if I had spoken them myself.
“I thought you loved me!” She yelled. Tears fell from her purple eyes and her face was red from the exertion of the chase she had given. All the others that had rebelled were already subdued. She was the last. Rainbow Dash approached her.
“You failed me! You worthless whore!” Dash had known this filly from the outside world and now she was confronted with her. Scootaloo was her name if I recall correctly. As the two talked I noticed another filly that was trying to sneak up on Dash. I slammed my hooves down on hers with a sickening crunch from under them. I had smashed her hoof. A yell of pain shot from her mouth as the glass shard she was carrying clanged to the floor.
”I don’t think so, failure.” I said to her with cold eyes. She tried to get up but I bucked her in the side and herd another snap. I had broken a wing. She yelled once more. She was now crawling on her side backwards on a catwalk, right over a huge vat of red viscus liquid. Steam rose from it as it hissed.
“Why are you doing this? You have a chance to leave. And yet you wanna stay here?” The filly tried to reason with me but I was past all that by now. I had been here for five years. Three when all of this had happened. ”P-please don’t kill me!” She stuttered and I then noticed I was grinning. I wanted to kill her. I wanted to see her fall into that vat. I had saved Dash from her and now I had to save myself.
“You don’t care. You can’t care, can you?” She said again trying to tug at my heartstrings. She then realized that she was trapped and this was the end. “Oh Celestia help me!” She screamed as I loomed over her with that smug grin. “Celestia? Ha! She does not care about you. She does not care for Pegasi that can’t even pass a simple test-“I was cut off by a quick response from the dangling filly. “Neither did you!” She dared yell back at me. We were at the edge now and she hung from the rail with one foreleg and sprawling wings.
“What are you waiting for?” Came that voice again. She was watching the whole thing. She had Scootaloo restrained by two other Orchestrators and was watching me. ”Kill her already!” I heard the order and placed a hoof over the one clinging to the rail. She screamed for mercy one last time before I simply shoved her into the vat of red viscus liquid. Her screams died as fast as she did when she hit that hot liquid. I shuddered a bit but looked back up at Rainbow Dash who gave a nod of approval.
I snapped back to reality and saw where I was. Back in the meeting room. Rainbow Dash was talking about De-winging the new donors from now on and also as disciplinary action. Since the wings were a problem in the revolt. I felt my stomach drop. That was the most demoralizing act that you could do to a Pegasus. I was shocked when she gave the job to a stallion who was not much older than me. Younger in fact and he did not look too pleased with the promotion. Although he put on a brave face for her, he was screaming inside. I was. I think we all were.
But I was relieved it was not me.
I often found myself just finding ways to make it day to day. Waking every morning, eating, doing my assigned job for that day and then back to my room where I stayed. I did not socialize with the other Orchestrators. I did not want to. I preferred my solitude. So that was my routine. I could handle that. It did not require me to kill much. And I wanted it to stay like that.
But when this De-Winging thing came about I was charged with escorting ponies to and from. I remember one such incident that to this day still haunts me…
I was escorting a rebellious young colt to the De-Winging room with another Orchestrator. He was putting up a fight with the guards in the cafeteria and was sent there. So we, myself and another filly of pastel green with a light pink mane, Lily I believe, were leading him to the room. He was pleading with us not to hurt him. Lily never said anything to him except shut up. I stayed silent. “What- what are you going to do with me? A-all I did was get a little sassy with the other guard. It- it isn’t my fault he can’t take a joke-“ “I said shut up!” Lily said to him and jolted him in the head. We stopped in front of the De-Winging room. He read the words on the door. “No, no! Please don’t take my wings! I won’t do it again, ever! Please no! Oh Celestia no!”
With all this he began to panic and tried to run. I leaped onto him and collapsed his front legs under him in a hold. The stallion then exited the room aroused by all the noise. He saw me with the colt on the floor and Lily holding her side in laughter.
He walked out and smacked Lily in the face knocking her to the floor. “Nothing is funny here! Get up miss!” He said and helped me to my hooves and then took hold of the colt and dragged him into his office. My uniform was a mess now, and my Taser had fallen off my leg. I helped strap him to the operating table and then straightened up. I nodded to him and just glared at Lily who was getting up by now.
“Stay.” he said to me. “It’ll be good for you. You have not seen a De-Winging up close. Stay and you can take him immediately after. She can stay there.” He ordered and the door shut. She had a grim look on her face. Almost apologetic to me. But I could see the relief in her eyes that it was not her having to be in that room.
I took in a gasp of air and swallowed. I did not want to be in that room. But I had no choice now. I would have to see this through. And the colt who was playing around would never fly again. I just kept thinking it could be me on that table. If I mess up. Who knew if Lily would even get disciplinary action for her laughing at me. I hoped not. I would not wish this on anypony.
I watched as the little red light on his desk camera came on and all the monitors in the factory then powered up. This was being televised and I would be on it! Oh no. I was sweating now. I stood at the tool table and just watched as I was ordered to do. Orders. That was what we had to do. Follow orders or die. That was all there was to it.
“Hand me that saw please.” He pointed with his chin to the red handled saw with a small motor on it. He was about to start cutting into the colt’s wing joint.
“No please don’t do this! Oh Celestia no!” The colt was squirming to get free but to no avail. His wings where held down to the table with medical straps and they held firm. The Doctor as I called him started the saw and placed the blade to his joint on his right wing and began to slowly cut down. The colt screamed in pain and shied away from the blade.
Blood splayed all over the body of the blue colt and onto the mask of the Doctor. He did not flinch in his cutting. He was precise and finished cutting the wing off with a stomach churning rip. Once done he changed sides and paused to look at me.
“No, please, Oh Luna, it hurts so much! Stop it!” The colt begged and pleaded upon deaf ears as he wore himself tired from fighting. I looked into the eyes of Star Gazer, the Doctor, and just then he looked up to see Rainbow Dash walk into the office.
“Yes Miss Dash?” He asked. She walked up to him and took the saw and handed it to me. I was dumbfounded.
“What-“ “Finish the job!” She stated. The colt looked at me with pleading eyes and tears falling from his face. “Unless you want him to live with one wing. Finish it!” I gulped hard and took the saw and replaced the Doctor. I straddled the colt over the left wing. I had seen how he did it and put the blade to his wing joint. Could I do this? I was shaking. I paused. “Do it! Or I’ll have your wings!” Dash exclaimed. I exhaled a ragged breath and steadied my hoof. Lily was watching thru the window, slack jawed.
I would not lose my wings. Not for him, Not for her. Not for anypony. I started the saw and began to cut into the flesh and feathers. The colt screamed out again. I was doing it. I cut through the flesh and bone. I was about to gag. But I held firm. If I did not do this I would be next. So for myself I finished him off and sliced through the last bit of skin and feathers. The wing fell limp and so did the colt.
The Doctor gave him a shot and wrapped the sides with gauze where his wings once were. Now there were two bloody stumps. I handed the saw back to Dash and inhaled sharply. I was finished. I did it. I was shaking. I wanted to vomit.
That night I could not wait to get into the shower to clean his blood off of me. As I stood there with the hot water pouring on me, I felt my stomach churn and I emptied what was in it. I watched as my knees gave and my mouth was inches from the tub floor. The water turned colors and thickness. My eyes shimmered as the water draining mixed with my vomit and that colt’s blood. I wrapped my wings around me. The only comfort I felt aside from the hot steamy water pummeling my feathers and muscles as they spasemed and shook from throwing up.
At least it was over. For now…
A few days later I managed to raise from bed and go about my normal routine if you could call it that. I hoped that would never happen again. But I never let myself relax. Not in this place. This nightmare. I had learned not to feel for others being here, but when I took that colt’s wing, it did something to me. It cracked me some. But I would not let it break me.
I would not give Rainbow Dash the satisfaction. I would prove her wrong and survive. There was another time I thought for sure I would break. It happened on my shift of guarding an out of bounds area for a container leak. A new shipment of failures, or spectra donors, arrived.
There was always one or two brave ones that tried to speak out of line and act like a hero. I remember her though, very well. For I helped strap her into the chains that led to the Pegasus Device. She was red with a curly white mane. She was very arrogant. When Dash had finished explain what they were there for she became outraged.
“Are you crazy!” she shouted at Rainbow Dash as she was about to choose an unlucky victim. However she had just sealed her own fate. “You cannot sacrifice us for the mere sake of rainbows!” “I can do whatever the hell I want, young filly! You chose your fate when you failed. You are worthless as a flyer and have no place in our flock as a Pegasus. So sit there and shut up!”
But this was not stopping. She didn’t shut up. She flew up to the catwalk with Rainbow Dash and was about to rush her but was met with a Taser to the throat. She screamed in shock and fell hard to the ground, landing on her wings with a gut wrenching crack. Her wings were broke. It was a long fall.
She cried and gasped for air. “Cease her! Put her in chains now.” The cyan Pegasus ordered and then flew down as I finished clasping the chain around her wings and hoofs. I gulped.
“Now who has the smart ass remarks?” “You will not get away with this! Celestia will find out somehow!” Sugar Spice, her name, was spilled from one of her friends in the crowd, screamed in Dash’s face as she caressed it with a smooth blue hoof.
“Oh I think not. Our secret will die with you and all your little classmates. We have gotten away with this for nearly seven years now. So keep your pathetic cries to yourself. Sugar, Spice, we are anything but nice!” She rhymed and slapped her across the face.
“Ungh…help me please! You, miss. Please let me go. I-I want to live!” Sugar Spice cried and I shivered. I could not release her. I’d be put in there. “Please, Oh for Celestia’s sake! Let her go!” Came another voice from the panic stricken crowd.
“Silence all of you!” Said a guard who was across from me and reinforced the chains. The chains held and I moved forward and exhaled the breath I was holding.
The machine came to life as the red pony squirmed to get free. She was lifted into the air once more. One last time. She continued to cry and scream as the chains got tight and slowly pulled her limbs till they broke. Her wings already broken from the fall she could not flap them. She gave me one last look then passed out from the pain and was then suddenly dropped into the machine. The seven tubes hissed to life and poured out viscus liquid.
Red, blue, green, yellow, orange, indigo and violet. The colors of the rainbow. I felt my stomach churn.
The screams arose from the crowd and fell silent when they saw the bloody chains dangling where Sugar Spice was suspended only seconds ago. Rainbow Dash then released a maniacal laugh that echoed in my ears.
Just as I scanned the crowd I thought I recognized somepony. A white filly with a teal mane and tail, and a star with sun as her cutie mark, she was looking at me as if she knew me too. Then it hit me. I did know her from my childhood. I grew up in Ponyville and she had been my best friend. We shared everything and did everything together. Even got our cutie marks the same day.
Mine was a cloud with a shooting star. My love for comets, stars and anything astrology earned me my cutie mark. But she was a wonderful flyer. How did she end up here in the failures? I had to think for a moment for her name. Then it hit me. “Bright Star!” I said aloud.
The other Orchestrator herd me and looked at me. “What was that?” he asked knowing full well that I had just recognized somepony from the outside. I stuttered and shuffled my hooves looking down at them then at my Taser.
“I-I…nothing sir.” I said and cleared my throat as I now saw her looking at me with hopeful eyes.
I saw that look but could do nothing. Luckily Dash was not privy to this and simply ordered us to take them to the dorms. I would try and speak to her later.
I was in my room alone that night. Visions of my past swept over me. About my childhood and times with Bright Star. How I missed them. How I missed being a normal pony.
I would have given anything to get that back. Sometimes I would have given anything to end all the screams of horror, and the blood shed at my hooves. I began to sob and just sat there in my floor. The tears fell freely and my face was red. My eyes stung from them but I needed to cry. I wondered if Bright Star missed me too.
My cries filled the night and soaked my hooves. I did not even manage to make it to my bed that night.
A month later…
There was a sudden scuffle of ponies panicking over in the east wing by some tubes and the main violet vat. Three ponies ran by me, wings bound to their sides. “What is going on down there?” I asked loudly, grabbing a pony and skidding him to a stop. I noticed there was spilled violet all over the pony I stopped and he was burned on his face from the hot liquid. I jerked back and gasped. He yelled in pain as he ran trying to find water to get it off of his face before he was blind in one eye.
Great. A spill. Rainbow Dash would not like this. Spectra was very valuable and she did not care as to how it was spilled. She would punish somepony for it. Myself and another orchestrator went to check out the damage. There was a crack in the side near the top and the violet was leaking slowly.
I tapped another pony that was standing near me. “You, come with me to the top to check this…out.” It was Bright Star. I nodded to her and she read the fear in my eyes. She nodded back and I unstrapped her wings so she could fly with me when we got to the top of the catwalk.
I was very careful not to get any of the hot liquid on me and hovered in air looking at the crack. It was superficial but needed to be repaired. Bright Star and I fixed it and then floated down to see Rainbow Dash had shown up. Great.
“Why is her wing straps off?” She asked with hate in her eyes as she glared at me and then shoved the straps into my face. I explained and she was not enthused. “So you trusted this pony to fly freely with you for this matter? Over another orchestrator? This cannot go unpunished.” She was pacing in front of me. And more guards surrounded us. I was now the pony in question along with Bright Star.
“Miss Dash I was not going anywhere. I was f-following Wish’s orders-“ “Orders! Orders are exactly what she broke. You do not take a labor pony over a fellow guard!” My heart sank. I had done it now. I would be disciplined for this or worse.
“Miss Dash I would trust Bright Star over him any day!” I stood tall and defended my friend. The stallion I did not trust was an ash grey Pegasus with a blue spiked mane. The same one that spoke up in the meeting that day of the video.
I had just spoken back to Rainbow Dash, and felt very small now. But I was confident on my words. Bright Star then did something I did not expect. She stood in front of me as Dash approached again.
“Please don’t hurt her.” She said with tears in her eyes. I stood firm but got weak in the knees. What was she doing? “Give me whatever punishment you were going to give her. Please I beg you. Just don’t hurt her.”
Bright Star had just taken my place on the De-Winging table. But instead of the Doctor, Star Gazer, doing the procedure, Dash was making me do it. I had to de-wing my best friend. I did not know if I could do it.
That night, in the doctor’s office, I stood there staring at the camera on the desk. And then at the table with the wing and leg straps. I waited for the guards to bring Bright Star to me. And it would be televised once again. Rainbow Dash then entered the room first followed by the guards and Bright Star.
I decided against trying to reason with her. I knew it would end with me in the same boat or worse.
Better her than me was what my mind was screaming at me for reasoning. But my heart was lurching and screeching it was wrong all the way around. She came in and stood in front of the camera and began to speak when the light came on.
“As you all know we do not see you as equals. So we frown upon bonding between orchestrators and labor ponies. I want you all to bear this in mind when you watch this. These two have been friends for years and now, she will de-wing her own friend.”
I felt tears swelling up inside me. But I would not let it fall. I would not appear as weak. I would do as I was told and never look into her eyes again. I would not be able to. I would not be able to stand myself after having to cut through her wing joints and flesh.
I straddled the filly and put my weight on her chest. I put a cloth over her eyes so I would not have to look into them. The blade was pressed on her wing and I started the saw. She began to writhe and scream in pain. I choked back tears and did not let anything falter my rhythm. I wanted to get this done.
One wing done. Blood splattered my face and hooves now. It smeared into my fur and into hers as I pressed my body into the weight of cutting into bone. She resumed screaming again as I tore through her feathers and muscle.
I felt wetness on my cheek as a tear fell and mixed with blood from her wings. I completed the other wing as she fell silent. Then it happened. I broke. The saw fell to the ground making a loud clang. Bright Star was crying in pain and sadness. The cloth that was over her eyes fell to the ground. And then so did I. All I wanted now was forgiveness.
My knees buckled and my body gave out. I collapsed to the floor in a sobbing heap. “Please forgive me. I am so sorry for everything I have done. The lives I have taken, all 52 ponies I slaughtered all for the sake of fucking rainbows! I hate you Rainbow Dash! I hate myself!”
“Take her to the machine. I have only one other use for her.”
I was collected and taken to the main chamber where the machine lay in wait for it’s next victim. I was it. I did not fight anymore. I had none left in me. I managed a few words of protest but then, I could not help myself, but I also wanted to die after all those years of torture.
As I neared the chains and the humming machine I felt one thing. Relief. I wanted it to all be over. And so, they did what they were ordered and chose to do. I was strung up and placed on display for the others to see. My wings were chained. My front hooves bound and my back ones in cuffs held tight.
Rainbow Dash was on the main catwalk now watching all this. I was so weak and tired. Fresh blood stained my face and I did not care. I was ready to let it all go. It was all about to end now. And I had never been more ready to die. I had chose to. It was my choice in the end and that was all that mattered. She had not gotten all of my free will.
As I was taken into the air one last time I looked into the window to the room where Bright Star was still strapped to the table being bandaged and made to watch what was happening to me. I gave an I’m sorry look and let a lone tear fall once more. I watched it roll from my cheek and off my face to the mess of gears and blades below me.
I felt the chains get tight and my joints strain. I could tell it was about to get ugly. I screamed in pain as my limbs and wings were broken and once it was over, the chains let lose and I began my free fall into the gloomy depths below. The depths of Hell. The depths of the Rainbow Factory…
Author's Note
This was made to be an audio drama. I hope I can deliver as strong a performance in that as in here.