It began with a dream, just how every night ends, just how every morning begins. This one subtle as it slipped from my mind. Different from the rest as the blur came in and the memories of it slipped away. I was standing in the center of a stage. The main act I suppose. I knew it was a dream just by that fact, as a pony like me would’ve never been able to get so far. I didn’t want to wake, even though my dream was focused on my nightmares, it was still better than reality.

The sirens blared, their high pitched squeals cutting through in sequences. They were old, very old, causing the devices to sound horrid upon start. It was enough to drive anypony insane over time.

I opened my eyes, getting straight into the daily routine. The same technique and motions for getting out of bed, the same amount of time for rubbing my eyes, even if they were irritated or not, the same ponies all around me.

The room was red. Bright, flashing red as the sirens call continued into our ears. Today started the same as every other day. I expected it to end the same too. We all got out of our beds in a messy order, but all together at that. We marched ourselves towards the showers, all young fillies and colts, all wearing different masks.

These masks became us. We were given them straight from birth. Each has a number. Mine’s number Twenty Thousand, Four Hundred and Forty Three. I’ve never seen my face. Nopony has, nor their own. Mirrors were banned from Equestria long ago. I’m not even sure what a mirror is; I heard it was some sort of glass that showed us what we looked like, some sort of abomination in the eyes of our culture.

Anyways, these masks that we have are given at random. Each has a symbol, along with a number. These symbols represent our jobs later in life. There are about 6 symbols. I unfortunately got stuck with the balloons. This symbol means I must work in entertainment, which is strict to the carnival. I am forced to care for the animals. It’s not the choice I would take for a job, but I didn’t get to pick it. In this day and age, you were either good at your job or you were gone within a day or two. It had only happened a few times before to our class. Next day they were replaced with a random somepony who could do the job.

We entered the showers, each one of us still tired. The shower room was large, white, and tiled. There were no walls, no curtains, nothing to give us privacy. A window above part of the wall revealed them watching us, making sure we did nothing out of step. They wanted us to know, fearing what we would do if we thought we weren’t watched for just a second.

We lined up. Each to their own shower. Our watchers soon turned each on. letting the waters flow onto our filthy souls. It poured down, cold and uncomfortable. It was one of their many ways to keep us down. I stayed still, just like the others. We were statues for five minutes, doing nothing more than staring blankly at the wall.

The water shut off. We each walked out of the shower room in single file, each as quiet as the next. Entering a new room, the preparations room we had come to calling it whenever speaking was allowed, another totally white room with camera’s watching us. They had camera’s just about everywhere. Here were a few benches to sit down, towels to dry off, and old, rusty lockers in which we kept our personal job attire. Some split off from the line just as they had since they started. The benches and lockers were lined in rows. The room was humid, not the place you wanted to be on a warm day but we never really had a choice. The only time we had to ourselves was out in the carnival tent when the camera’s weren’t directly on us, and even then it wasn’t something we wanted to do.

It came my turn to split off, four others followed behind me for our row. I sat down at the end, right next to my locker. It was mostly rust, barely able to hold my tool belt. It was really all I needed. The animals each had a different tool so they decided it was best that I keep them near the animals instead of bundled in my locker. I opened it up, grabbing my towel and dried my body. The showers were never enough to get rid of the filth. I would always be stained with dirt.

I went for my belt. Taking it and strapping onto my body. I was always the first one done as the others had different jobs. We never really bonded much even though we were stuck together for the rest of our lives.

See, each carnival gets it’s own set of children. The carnivals move from one city to the next every year. This carnival season was coming to an end and soon we would take the train from Baltimare to Canterlot. It was spring, the time for preparing for the next season. We never switched cities during winter as the trains became difficult to transport, or so they tell us. Nopony really ever goes during winter anyways.

Back to the set. After twenty-something years they dump the carnival workers into the badlands due to reasons unknown. After that they pick up the new batch of fillies and colts who got the rare balloon marked masks. These fillies knew their parents for about one year of their life, depending on when they started being able to remember. For some it is traumatizing to be taken away, some are even killed if they can’t get over it, for others like me we just keep it bottled up only to cry about it once every few years.

At age five we are put into practice with the carnival. They randomly give us a job, which is mostly based off our race, earth ponies usually take care of the animals, pegasi are usually the daredevil acts or whatnot’s, and the unicorns are clearly for magic if they are skilled enough.

At age seven we start our first carnival. We’re given a very low budget at first. No large animals or fancy cannons to shoot ourselves from. We have to earn our equipment through impacting the audience with entertainment. Anything to keep them from rioting is what I was always lead to believe. They never let us out of the grounds so learning about the world outside was impossible. All I knew was we were afraid of falling water, there was a thing called a “sun,” and we didn’t have to keep all nature locked up to keep it safe. The world outside was scorched, burned by something. They always told us that the badlands looked like this back when we still had plants and free-roaming animals.

The last colt in my row finished. I think his number was Twenty Thousand, Four Hundred and Twenty Nine. It’s hard to remember sometimes but all the ponies in my row had the same first three digits so if we ever got in a conversation we called them by the last two. He was some sort of pegasus. His fur was a light gray and his mane looked as if it were stained by oil. He worked on the cannon that I spoke of earlier, shooting other pegasi into the air to do magnificent tricks. I don’t recall him being an original here. He just showed up one day a month ago, or maybe I hadn’t noticed him until then.

We all stood up once more, heading out of the preparation room and finally into the carnival tent. We went through a narrow hallway, unable to go side by side. I had to wait for two lines of ponies until I could go. The air became cold and dry. The ground was damp somehow. The overall area was lightened in red. Red tent, red poles, red stages, and red cages. I never understood why since all places we know outside of this carnival are white, black, or gray.

We split off in our job directions. Some to the main area, a place filled with acrobatic hula hoops, ropes, and everything else for their position. The unicorns who could do magic of an extraordinary level went off behind stage. Never knew what they did back there other than the obvious but there was always an explosion or some sort of fire started back there that we had to put out. I headed with the earth ponies towards the animal cages, along with #20429 as he was more of an engineer than an acrobat, unlike his brethren. We were the only non-earth ponies that worked in said area.

Through the open area we came to a place filled with cages that formed into a perfect square. Some of the cages were made of wood and placed on carts. These usually held large animals in abundance or the occasional lion, tiger or bear. Other cages were placed inside of the square formation, ones made of metal and dug into the ground. We weren’t allowed to know what creatures were inside of these cages, but their eyes... their eyes shine bright when they look up and into our own. And finally there was one cage, one that was outside of the formation entirely. It was placed where all could see it: above the show part of the tent. This cage was made to show whatever was in it, even though there was nothing. It was made of glass and held by magic above the tight ropes.

As soon as we entered the square we each split off individually towards our specified jobs. Which meant each earth pony went to a cage and let an animal out so they could train them somewhere else. I however had to stay and feed them.

I walked towards the lions cage first. He was a brute. His fur was filthy, never cleaned. His eyes were bloodshot, draining you of confidence. And his roar, terrible as it could possibly be for a lion. He wasn’t too big, or at least I think he wasn’t. He was the only lion I knew, he was like a pet. I grabbed the bucket near his cage, already filled with his slop for the morning, as usual, and threw it in the cage as I was terrified to even enter it. He’d snarl at me before paving his way into the blasphemous meat.

The task was done, at least for the lion. I went on to the next animal, our very own Hominem Portabitque Porcum, a tainted bear, half hairless, with the head of a pig. It stood on his hind legs when it walked around, if it ever did, most of the time it just sat in it’s cage. It wasn’t a huge audience grabber, surprisingly. Once more, I grabbed his specific bucket and attempted to throw the slop into his cage. This creature ate something awful, heavy in stench and weight. I picked it, or at least endeavored to, but I failed with one hoof. I grasped it once again, this time with both and heaved it up as high as I could, which still wasn’t enough to dump it in there. I gave myself a jump from the ground in an attempt to spill it in. The bear gave his notice towards me, turning his body my way. I could see the impatience and hunger in his eyes. Finally, I jumped with enough power that I got the bucket through and dumped his food. Unfortunately for me, the creature missed.

I screamed in pain as its claws dug into my front leg, blood climbing out of the wound, not much but more than I wanted. I couldn’t get free, his claw would rip more of my leg if I tried to get away from the cage. I was stuck there in pain. Pain and misery. This was all I could feel. I watched as my hoof went from a pristine white coat to a lambent crimson.

I could see him running towards me, #20429, dropping all his tools to help me out. That was the last I saw. Darkness faded in and that was all I could remember.

I woke up later, still delirious. My eyes opened to not a crowd, but two ponies. One was #20429, the other was a white unicorn. She was about my age from the looks of her body. She was thin, her hair was puffy and made of two colors: a light pink and purple. Her masks had no design at all, it was simply blank besides the three dead butterflies printed on the side to show her calling. Her eyes were... they weren’t even eyes. Usually we can see the color if we look closely and this filly was right up in my face. I didn’t see any color, it was pure blackness. It didn’t make any sense to me.

I looked down at my leg. It was bandaged a bit, still being bandaged by this strange, black-eyed filly. The bandages were mostly scarlet with blood. An artery or two must’ve been severed. My coat was stained, but I didn’t mind. It made me look tougher.

“Uhh...” I started, “so... hello there, miss...?” The filly gave no number. She just stared at my wound and kept working, so focused on her work as if it were her own.

“Don’t bother,” #20429 said as he sat down next to my undamaged front hoof, “she ain’t said a word since I got her over here. Dunno if she even part of the team.” He looked at the black-eyed filly with a smirk. “Ya feeling better, Forty-Three?”

It was the first time anyone had actually called me that short of my name. I liked it.“Y-yea... I think so.”

He laughed. “Good, cause ya know they ain’t letting you get a day off for this. Ya need help for tomorrow? Repairing stuff can wait a day or two, they won’t notice.”

The filly finished wrapping the wound, she grabbed scissors and cut the cloth, tying it tight against my skin.

“Thanks, I think I can handle myself though.” The filly stood up and walked away. She didn’t have any marks on her body, no filth, no scars, no nothing. It was strange.

“Best be off towards the halls. You been out for a bit. Don’t worry bout them animals, they’ve been fed already.” He got up and grabbed my good hoof to assist.

“I told you before, I don’t need your help.” He let go of my hoof and just stood there waiting on me. I got my footing back and we just continued. He stayed next to me for the whole walk. It was nice.

Finally a change in the wind. I wonder how long it’ll last.

Author's Note

I'll be getting an editor sometime to fix this chapter-along with future ones-up a bit. I just wanted to release the first edition.

I think Conelo is a latin word for beginning or something.
I have no idea.
I was planning on taking this further and posting this first chapter where it would end at a darker scene but I think I'll hit that scene in 1 or 2 more chapters anyways.