[Dave]

This is my first fic on the site. It's about a Mud slave named Dante. The prolougue is here ... and it may sound a tinsy bit like Abe's at the beginning ... but this isn't a take off on AO! I promise!

Prologue

I stood (dangled, rather) over a trapdoor. What lay below it I could only imagine. I felt horrified at my misfortune. The similarity to Abe’s predicament years ago was uncanny. My arms were tied up above me so I couldn’t chant or move around (oh, please, I’d be shot if I even tried). But I had screwed up … I still couldn’t stop thinking like a slave. I stood silent, not daring to even cough. I felt as if even a blink would bring instant death. I could only await the final word from the boss, Vladimir.
“Well, boss?” his slig crony grunted, “What d’ya say? Drop ‘im?”
Vladimir stood tall. He was at least seven feet high. His plum-colored suit made his shoulders jut out to violent points. I risked craning my neck upward to see what sort of expression he wore. His eyes glowing a malicious red, he shifted the butt of the cigar from the left of his mouth to the right. This was a habit of his I had come to recognize as his being in deep thought. Sure. What could he be thinking? Just another expendable mudokon; waste him.
But I found myself surprised at what he said. “Okay, maggot,” he began in his falsely soothing voice, “why don’t you tell me what you thought you were doing. In ten words or less. If you can even speak properly,” he added as an after thought. He and the slig were amused by this, and chuckled a bit.
I tried not to look shocked. In my creaky voice, and through my haphazardly sewn lips, I whispered, “I wanted to save my brothers from your wicked plans. Sir,” I quickly added, lest he order me killed for insubordination.
Vladimir raised an eyebrow (kinda; glukkons have no eyebrows) and shifted his cigar again. Those good old lungbusters; never a gluk without one. “Really? What ‘wicked plans’ are you talking about, fag? What have you heard?”
I swallowed. “I am allowed to speak freely, then, sir?”
Vladimir looked peeved, but answered. “Fine. Go on.”
I cleared my throat; some lengthy talking would be required. “I was in the stockyards of Zulag Four, feeding the flits to the slogs and friets, when a few sligs marched up to me and started to drag me off.”
“Is there a point to this, you cunt?” the glukkon spat.
I gasped and stuttered. “Y-yes, y-yes there is, s-sir. I-I j-just feel it necessary t-to tell you what h-h-happed prior to th-the incident. I-is that fine, sir?”
The glukkon looked ready to spit. “Fine.”
After trying to straighten myself out, I began again. “They … they dragged me to the room where the animals are prepared to be chopped. I thought that I was being reassigned … but it turns out I was the one being cooked. Apparently, you glukkons were looking for a money-saving way to get food for the other working mudokons. Anything to save a buck or two, of course, so—“
The slig abruptly stepped forward and smacked me across the face. I decided I shouldn’t complain about the frugality of the glukkons.
“Well, as the sligs tried to ‘sedate’ me, I felt the urge to fight back. My captors were unarmed, so I had and advantage, what with mudokons being both genetically stronger and with my frequent … heavy labor.”
I braced myself for another blow; the thought of pissing off an important glukkon in my final hours had its merits. But no blow came; they seemed to agree, and so I continued.
“I left the two guards lying on the ground, writhing, and ….”
Now I had to think. Should I got into detail about my little adventure outside? Or skip it?
Well, in either case, it is safe to tell you about it.