Fantasy- Updates Exist Sporadically

Another Day

Trigger warning: the main character is beaten.

The Machine hummed as the Draugmae stood at their stations—the only sound in the long room aside from the thump of the Guards' batons hitting their hands. These two sounds were the entirety of the Draugmae's existence. Every day, every moment, thump, hmm, thump, hmm, thump, hmm. It was part of the Process of their lives; dreams, production, thump, hmm. Every day, every moment.

The Machine's hum vibrated in his skull; through the metal pieces in his ears, the chain connecting them, the wires attached to his temples. It was his own white noise, following him as he took his vial—filled with multi-colored dream liquid—and poured it into the Machine compartment. He watched it disappear—going to the main section of the Machine, where the Guards would analyse the dreams he'd had before it would return to him, transformed into little multi-colored pills, which he'd separate into boxes to be shipped outside somewhere, to someone who'd buy his now-forgotten dreams for themselves. And the Machine only took a small amount of time to turn his dreams into these little pills, depending on how fast the Guards were working.

Just another day.

As he waited for the Machine to create the pills he looked at the Draugmae near him, as he always did. To his left was a female Draugma with curly purple hair—that must get tangled in the chain and Machine head piece a lot, unlike his straight blue hair—and dark blue eyes. She met his gaze briefly before looking back at the Machine. He looked to his right. There was a male Draugma with green straight hair. The Draugma hadn't yet looked at him in all the time that had passed. He had no idea what color his eyes may be. He didn't know either of their names.

The Machine hissed at him, signalling the pills were coming out. He walked over to the long conveyor belt (what the Guards called it) where they would appear and he would sort them; nightmares, sad, ecstatic, happy, regular.

The multi-colored pills emerged slowly, one by one. Happy, regular, happy, regular, sad, sad, sad, happy, regular.

Nine pills from the vial. Three types of dreams. A sad dream. At least it wasn't a nightmare. He sighed and wondered when the Guards would come for him this time.

Dream pills organised, he unclipped his chain from the Machine's lead—the headpiece was never removed—and went back to one of the small rooms attached, his bedroom. It was a simple, narrow area: a cot, a pillow, a blanket. Identical to every other Draugma's. Usually when the Process was done he fell straight to sleep—he needed to have more dreams to meet Quota—but he had to wait for the Guards to come punish him for his sad dream. Those weren't needed or part of the Quota. They only wanted the regular, happy, and ecstatic dreams. Any other dreams were discouraged and caused punishment. If he fell back asleep before the Guards came all his dreams would be kept in the empty vial, but they weren't careful with punishments and may break it, on accident or on purpose. And when he didn't meet Quota later he would be punished again. So he waited.

Two Guards came in a while later—he had no way of telling time in his room—and grinned at him as he sat waiting on his bed. They didn't speak; he knew why he was being punished, unlike a child. And then it began: one dragged him onto the ground and the other kicked him in random places. The one who dragged him joined in with fists. He closed his eyes to protect them. He needed to see to be able to get to the Machine.

He was dragged from the floor by his chain—hooked to the gold hoops pierced halfway through his pointed ears—and one Guard held him upright while the other hit his face. They wouldn't break anything; that would put him out of commission and they would have to face their "Supervisor" (whatever that was) about the lesser amount of Draugmae in the Machine room. But they would give him plenty of bruises, the kind to match the ones surrounding all Draugmae's eyes—insomnia rings, his mother had once called them. He didn't understand what "insomnia" meant, but they were dark and permanent. That was the only difference between the "rings" and the Guards' bruises; the Guards' would eventually fade, the ones around his eyes would never come off, as much as he rubbed them.

The Guard holding his chain dropped him and both walked out of his room.

He dragged himself onto his bed and fell asleep; he had to meet Quota.