I feel another harsh slap to my face, and open my eyes wide in shock.
"I said, wake the hell up!" The slaver shouts, spittle flying from his lips.
"Yes, sir." I stand up on all four hooves, and walk sullenly out of my cage.
My name is Winter. I am a unicorn, and more importantly, a slave. I was taken from a life that I will never know, and from a family that I will never have.
My name sucks. Not only is it a reminder of whatever shitty past I had, but of the constant snowfall our little camp of horrors receives. And the snow we get isn't the normal white stuff you'd play in as a kid - no, this snow will melt your skin clean off if you let it.
Nobody really knows where the radiation comes from. Some say it's caused by a slow leak of an undetonated megaspell. Some say it comes from the Dream Factory... Whatever that is, anyway. Long story short, we try to avoid too much snow, and they include doses of Rad - Away with our meals. What good is a dead slave?
My owner, Pax, is one of the most disgusting and foul assholes to ever tread on this goddess - forsaken wasteland. He owns many slaves, but most don't last long under his "care." The way he treats us, I'm surprised that any of us are still alive.
Our work lies in the gemstone mines that lie deep beneath the surface, in the vast cold expanses of the Silver Caverns, where we harvest, clean, and truck load after load of the stones to the Collector, which distributes them to different processing plants that I don't care to name.
We work for tokens, which we exchange for food, so meeting our quota is what keeps us alive. If this shit can be called anything close to living. Some of the other slaves have tried to starve themselves and refuse to work, but they figured out pretty quickly that these slavers didn't give two fucks about whether or not they died. They just chose a quicker route to the fate that will befall us all eventually. The day after, there were new heads on pikes outside of the Cages. If the slavers were trying to motivate us, it did a hell of a job.
"Alright. File into line, and shut up," one of the security workers shouted with a glare. "This morning we have slop. Put your tokens in, and eat. You have five minutes."
We all line up in front of the machine. What they feed us tastes like shit, and sometimes it's made of it (I've been on slop duty before), but it keeps us alive. Or whatever this state of traumatized living nightmare is.
He turned to his fellow security workers, and continues whatever conversation he was leading before he broke to order us around like dogs. The ponies around him laugh at a joke that I can't hear - then he sets his eyes on me.
He strides over to me, looking slightly disheveled. He might just be tired, but who knows? These assholes don't have anything better to do, and most of their earnings go back to their employers through the bar next to the guard house.
I know what he's going to say, even before he finds his way over to me and opens the ugly hole in his face.
"You want some extra food?" He says with a sly grin.
"No thanks. I think I have enough dog shit as it is." I keep moving with the line, and try to pretend he's not there.
He pulls me back around. "I don't think you understand - I'm not asking." Some of the other guards walk over, with the same sick grin plastered all over their faces.
I try to run, but they have me surrounded.
I feel them grab me by my tail, mane, and whatever else they can get a grip on while I thrash wildly, and pull me off towards the security quarters. As I am dragged away, I spot my friends Sandy and Orange try to get to me to help, only to be foiled in any attempted rescue by the other guards standing watch over the other ponies.
Well, fuck.
This was going to be a long morning.
The guards do what they want with me, and then let me go. I rush over to the entrance to the mine, and quickly check the postings, trying to ignore the sticky substance nearly coating my hindlegs. I'd clean it off in the time between the shifts - this hadn't been my first time, and I wasn't going to cry about something I couldn't control.
Well, shit. Blasting duty.
I hastily don my yellow cap, and plunge into the deep expanses of the Silver Caverns. I know that even though it's not my fault that the guards had their fun earlier, I'll still pay the price if I don't get to my post in time.
Blasting duty is the most dangerous job on the list, other than expediting resources from the Dream Factory (which I have never volunteered for) that any pony has to do around here. I get to place explosives, and have about 20 seconds to get to a safe distance before they blow. I've heard that it's a pretty painful experience if I don't get clear in time.
I guess there is an upside to a normally horrible job today, though - one of my friends, Orange, has been placed on the blasting queue with me. We'll be able to chat while we work; while the proctor isn't looking, anyway. If we get caught, we could get whipped and worse, but fuck it - I'm going to talk to my friends.
"Winter!" I hear, the loud shout reverberating over the tunnel walls. "Get your ass over here and start working! I don't want to hear any excuses, just get your blast pack!"
I frantically rush over and grab my pack, trying to avoid his fierce glare. As I turn to walk down to the main atrium, his eyes catch mine, and I see something else for a split second. Then, he's back.
"What are you waiting for, an invitation? Go!" He yells, his voice making me shake. He didn't need to tell me twice - I hightailed it over to the gray stone archway and down into the bowels of the mountain.
"So, how many?" Orange asked, a cryptic grin sliding across her face.
I take out my explosives and count them, making sure that there aren't any missing. They don't work out of the caves, but there have been ugly situations in the past caused by high strung ponies with bombs in the past, and I wasn't taking any chances. I also was trying to avoid this particular conversation.
She was referring to earlier this morning, and how many I had taken before they let me free. I honestly didn't want to talk about it or even think about it, but there wasn't much to talk about anyway, so why not?
"Well, there were six guards. Two of them hit me the hard way, and the other four the other way." I shuddered, still feeling the pain of the two in my hindquarters. Life fucking sucks.
"Well, I'm sorry I couldn't do anything to help - I would have taken your place, if I could." She gave me a pained smile, and I gave her a halfhearted one in return.
"Thanks. How about we talk about something besides my rape stories?" I asked, trying for humor. It sounded more like a choking squirrel.
"Sure. Guess what I overheard the other guards talking about?" Orange asked, placing two small cap explosives at the base of the stone wall.
"What?" I ask, ready for the wall of information to hit me.
Orange is an interesting mare. She's green with a tan mane, which makes me wonder what idiot though it would be funny to name her that... Anyway, back on topic. Orange loves to eavesdrop on the guards' conversations, and she strings together theories based on what she hears. One time, she "figured out" that the proctors were actually just holograms, and received a holographic beating in response to her asking the proctor about it. At least the graphic part was right.
"I figured out what the Dream Factory is. I overheard the proctor talking to some of the guards about what some of the ponies saw up there - one of them came back with a log book with a ton of information, and it's absolutely nuts! The factory was origi - "
"Shut the hell up! I catch you talking again, and I'll send both of you to the Box!" The proctor shouted, his voice ringing clear over the din and rumble of explosions and machinery whirring to life.
The Box is basically solitary confinement on steroids. Inside, it's completely dark, and there's a quiet beeping sound that happens every few seconds. After a while, the beeping becomes painful to hear, like water torture. A drop of water, over and over for hours, can feel like a hammer to the chest. It wasn't something I wanted to go through fight now, and Orange had the same feelings.
"Yessir," we replied meekly. With that, we continued to work, and the hours bled on...
At lunch, Orange and I went on a quest to find Sandy. It wasn't that difficult (all things considered), but after we had found her, a good portion of our dining hour was gone.
"So. As I was saying," Orange continued with a grin, "The Dream Factory is where they make all of our dreams, and make sure that all of the dreams in the world are doing ok. At least, that's what I think I heard..." She trailed off into an incomprehensible mumbling mess - Sandy and I just ignored her.
"So. Did they do it again this morning?" Sandy asked, giving nothing away from her expression. She took another bite of her slop - apparently, her taste buds took shit well.
"Yeah. I dont get why it's always me. There's like, what, thirty mares here? And I'm the only one that they show any interest in. I don't remember any others getting treated the way I do. It doesn't make sense." I looked to my plate with a furrowed brow - maybe I could hold some shit too.
"I'm sorry. I wish we could do something about it. I do know why they pick you, though. " Sandy replied, lifting my face in her hoof. Our eyes met, and if I had been into mares, this would've been my cue...
Thankfully, Orange spoke up before anything could happen that I would regret.
"Are you guys going to eat that? No sense in wasting good slop!" Orange said with a hearty grin plastered across her face. With that, she took our plates and dumped the remainder into her face. I swear, she can eat anything.
"Go right ahead," Was my only reply, and we all laughed.
The rest of the day passed fairly quickly, and without another visit from the guards, to my relief.
Later on, Sandy, Orange and I went to check our job postings for tomorrow. On the board, there was a new poster that read: "Looking for brave ponies to scavenge the Dream Factory. Earn your freedom!"
"What do you think they mean, earn your freedom?" Orange said in her clueless manner.
"I don't know. But I do know that the Dream Factory is located far into the rad snows, and that most of it is contained within shadow mountain... Gettin inside would be a nightmare, and getting out would be a feat no where short of a miracle," Sandy responded, looking thoughtful.
Then, our eyes settled on the same thing at once.
"What? No!" I shouted, remembering the bodies being brought back from the other expeditions that had taken place in the earlier months of this year. Most of the bodies didn't make it - there were a few heads, a hoof... Not a single pony had made it back alive.
What had caught our eyes were the new names at the bottom of the poster, next to the words "New Scavengers."
My name was written.
