A Parade of Indignities

Chapter 24: Of Collateral Damage and Electric Shock

Content warning: torture methods, including electric shock and drugging.

Chapter art created and owned by CozyMochi. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The week drifted on, and Dib's days very quickly molded themselves into a routine—and a rigid, impossibly tedious routine at that. He'd only been on Vort for a total of six days, and he was already wondering how some of the other prisoners had managed to tolerate the monotony for years on end without completely losing their minds.

The day always started the same way, with inmate rollcalls. As soon as the creaking of the monstrous chamber door roused him from his sleep, Dib knew the nighttime prison guards were finished with their shifts and the morning rotation of guards had arrived. It was his cue to get up out of bed and stand near the front of his cell to make his presence known.

Once the rollcall finished, though, Dib almost always retreated back into the shadows to catch five more minutes of sleep before he was brought his first meal of the day.

Then, about an hour later, he and a vast majority of the other prisoners would be escorted to various parts of the prison grounds to start their workday.

On the very first day of this new arrangement, Dib had been summoned from his cell and escorted to a large manufacturing facility that looked not unlike a sweatshop. Rows of other inmates were stationed along the production line, faces stony as they busied themselves with whatever station they'd ended up with that particular shift.

The whole factory was an enigma to him. Large metal plates soared down the conveyor, being pressed into different shapes before disappearing at the end of the line. Not one single piece elucidated what exactly was being constructed.

From what he understood, it typically took months for most prisoners to get to the point where they could leave their cells and participate in inmate labor. The guards made it feel as if it were some sort of special privilege that Dib should feel honored to have obtained.

Sure. Sitting in an overheated building and wearing his arm sore from pulling a lever was a special privilege indeed.

The other prisoners didn't seem to think of the labor as anything to be proud of, either. For the most part, they kept to themselves, doing whatever work was put in front of them with their heads ducked down.

All of this was done under the close supervision of Irken guards. It was the only time the inmates communed, and yet they scarcely acknowledged one another for fear of being abused by one of the guards standing over them.

Then, several hours later, at the end of his shift, Dib would be led back to his cell, where he could expect another tray of flavorless mush and weird purple milk to be waiting for him for supper.

Afterwards was another round of rollcall.

Then, he could bide whatever time he had left by either staring at the walls or attempting to sleep on his lumpy mattress until he heard the telltale creaking of the door that announced another day.

Rinse and repeat.

As of now, Dib was at the factory, standing in his usual spot and pulling the lever that branded each newly minted metal plate. The finished product was a crisp emblazonment of several Irken characters and the familiar one-eyed insignia. Dib guessed it was some sort of warning label, but he genuinely wasn't sure. He wasn't about to ask one of the Irken guards pacing the rows, either. He simply cranked the lever over and over and watched as it printed the strange lettering onto the metal.

Most stations involved some variation of lowering levers, sorting metal screws, or scanning random parts for perceived flaws. Seeing as Dib didn't even know what the factory was building, however, he wasn't particularly adept at the latter station. It also didn't help that his poor eyesight didn't allow for picking out little details. As a result, he typically ended up rushing to whichever station was the hardest to screw up.