"STOP!" Scala woke up, breathing hard and sweat streaming down from her temples. Gasping for breath, she looked around her cell. The same cell she had spent the past 5 years living in...if you could call this hell hole a life. "Shh, Scala...do you know what time it is, do you want to wake them?" said the young Melcey whose cell was next to Scala's. The little thing had no name...only a number. 15678. Unlike Scala, she had been born into slavery, had known nothing but the darkness of the mills and the coldness of their Master's eyes. She had never been free, so the dreams didn't haunt her. In that way, she was lucky...she didn't have the visions that kept her spirits broken and her hopes from rising. Without an answer, Scala slowly rose, paced her cell like a lioness, and curled up again, her nose tucked close to the stump of her tail. But the floor was warmed from her body heat, not the cold that the Frost actually found quite nice, and so she was up again, walking in one rather square circle. "It was the dream again, wasn't it?" Fiffy (as Scala privately called her) said, watching the older Mel. Scala glanced at her, but said nothing and continued to pace. She looked around the relatively small room, where the 40 or so cages where laid out in nice rows. Each contained a Melcey female who slept, or tried to sleep, or laid there awake because sleep had long ago stopped coming. Scala knew she was on her way to being one of those who had given in to those horrible beasts that had imprisoned them. But Scala was stubborn by nature, and she refused to give up...if only to remain coherent. The thought of becoming a mindless drone who simply worked from sun up to sun down at those damn mills... She shuddered at the thought. "Best to think of something else..." Fiffy drowsily advised, curling up to go back to sleep herself. "Yes..." Scala finally muttered, looking up at the small window that let a few isolated beams of moonlight into the room. "Better to think of something else..." Faidia, her home world. A rather messed up place, with their Elementals very much an active part of their society and the rivalries ripping the world apart. But still...it was home. With endless places to roam free and the Tower to offer a bed to sleep in at night. And Scala's siblings, 4 other Melceys who had been her best friends and playmates since their birth. Each twinged with a little more than their fair share of insanity...after all, their mother had been a Riptide and their father had been a Chaos...but that hadn't stopped them from being close to each other. She wondered what they were up to now...had they forgotten her yet? Five years was a long time to be gone... And gone to where? She knew they would still wonder that. Scala's eyes narrowed and she almost started to growl...but Fiffy was right. Waking THEM would be no help. They were horrible beasts, each a deformed version of the creatures of Faidia. And the master of them all a terrifying Carmor mutation that towered above them, laughing horribly from his throne above the mill. He would call for more work done faster, and any who failed to do his or her job was sure to be the next meal. For each animal did have a job to do. The horse-like Chevei pulled the huge wheels that powered the whole place. Melceys did the manual jobs of crushing the stones, making sure everything ran smoothly, and packaging. Neccos, small dragon like birds, flew tools back and forth and made sure the equipment used by the Melceys was in perfect condition. Goatish Lorriams pulled the wagons that transported the finished product between the end of the machines to the loading dock where the Carmors, larger versions of the Neccos wiith their dragonic wings, brought supplies back and forth from the mill to the storage shacks. And each divison had special males and females that had proven to be the hardest workers with the least spirit...and these they turned into breeders so that more like Fiffy could be produced. They had tried to do that to Scala...to force a male upon her and get her to bare a litter. But even after they had gotten a male onto her (by tying down every paw and gagging her mouth), she would nearly kill herself, throwing herself into walls and on top of equipement, belly first. Three litters they lost to Scala's destructive nature. "I will not bring pups into this world," she spat at the doctor after that last time. "Either stop trying or kill me..." Well, they couldn't lose such a hard worker...they stopped trying to get a little out of her. Scala's job was to sift through the rocks that rolled past her on the belt, picking out those too big to be packaged and sending them back to be crushed again. She didn't know what they used the pebbles for...no one did. Though there were theroies...more factories, food for the Demon Beasts. Scala had stopped caring long ago...now she just did her work without wondering why but wondering how. How was she going to get out? She had to get back to Faidia...to get back home. To those flowing purple fields that offered her such care and comfort...the warm sun with the rolling clouds, dotting the ocean of violet before her as she relaxed upon a rock... Scala shook her head, waking herself up. She had almost fallen prey to it again...and she was sure that if she screamed out like that once more, they would wake up and punish her. She looked over at Fiffy, and sighed. "It was a good idea while it lasted..." she said, leaning her back against the bars of her cage as she waited for morning and the next work day to begin. |
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