Carlos watched his legs stumble forward on their own accord. He sleepily mused to himself from his floating half-conscious state that he should probably be a bit worried over this loss in motor control. Yet, these worries seemed to melt away in those warm waves of comfort and tranquility that seem to wash over his incorporeal mind the way the tide ebbed and flowed in a cleansing and calming rhythm across the ocean floor.

His feet rested, finally, in a robotic wooden pose in front of a great wooden desk. Its mahogany surface was slick and shiny under a thick layer of wooden laminate, while its great sturdy legs were inlaid with intricate carvings. The carvings seemed to take on a life of their own, playing out the scenes of an intricate tragedy. The characters seemed to dance before him, ensnaring his gaze with a hypnotic trance. Carlos saw in those carvings a circle of witch-like figures standing in a semi-circle around a great unlit bonfire. Each wore a mask of a monstrous demeanor. One wore the hideous deformed visage of a fox, another a demented owl, yet another that of a terrible box turtle.

The carvings continued down the legs of the table showing the ladies dancing around the unlit bonfire. Their breasts were laid bare, the warped and uneven surface of the table gave their skin a wrinkled and elderly quality to them. In one scene the carved figures of the women carried an infant above their heads, the cloth of its swaddling billowing out around their terrible outstretched talon-like fingers. In another, they had tied the infant to the fire, their mask-covered heads and blood-soaked palms stretched skywards. Their saggy breasts were half obscured by stringy, matted locks, a detail that Carlos hadn’t thought possible to convey in simple wood carvings. In the last scene, the fire had been reduced to coals, tiny whispers of smoke escaping from the waning power of their once roaring flames. The mouths of the women’s masks were now carved to show dripping liquid as if blood seeped from obscured yet ravenous maws.

The enchantment of the table was finally broken by the sound of a smooth, honey-like voice that slowly and smoothly beckoned him back into focus. The effect of the voice felt much like the feeling of warmth of that spirit-like wave which now held total dominion over his motor functions. “henceforth, you shall be known as number 2278” it cooed.

The sound emanated from the lips of a lanky and unthreatening man. The man’s skin seemed to almost glow in the same translucent milky-white shade as that of the great ivory office door. A long and flowing waterfall of shimmering golden locks cascaded in gentle coils down and around his sleek yet muscled shoulders. His hands were slender and un-calloused. The man rested them on the surface of the table, forming a pyramid with the tips of his fingers. His posture, too, was perfect and straight; free from the cumbersome weight of poverty or hard labor that characterized most of the inhabitants of Godsprings.

“From henceforth you are purchased property of the Chloridian Corporation. You are hereby indebted in the amount of...” he reached down and thumbed through the pages of his ledger. Its yellow-aged pages crinkling and cracking with each turn until his long slender finger stopped abruptly, evidently discovering what he had been searching for. “Ah here we are 1,000,000 pontifs” he flipped a page, the sound of the crinkled page once again creaking and moaning in antiquity-laced protest. 20,000 pontifs for room and board, 30,000 for the scouting fee, and 300,000 for the uniform and mining equipment”. His fingers continued to trace a line down the page, his yellow cat-like eyes darted across the lines of the page in a determined yet somehow disinterested gaze. “oh yes and…”

The man who Carlos suspected was named Kentwood looked up now, a sadistic smile forming at the corners of his mouth. The nearly translucent skin of his face wrinkled against all odds at its impossible tautness casting a terrifying and chilling effect on Carlos’ disembodied consciousness.

Gone now was the pacifying warmth that had enveloped him while it had seized control of his motor functions. Its calming arura fled as fast as it had taken root, dissipating like the warmth of sunlight fleeing from a domineering and tyrannical Stormfront. If Carlos still had had control of his body, he would have shivered. Everything about this Kentwood man oozed malice and disdain. So strong were the feelings that they seemed palpable, emanating outward from his very being in nauseating waves. “and 650,000 in fines for public vagrancy” Kentwood continued, elongating his words through his smug sneer.

From a corner of the room, a steel door swung up from the floor with the loud clambering of steel hitting the rough wooden floor of Kentwood’s office. From out of its depths, a large burly man ascended. So covered was he in thick unruly hair that he resembled that of a ram. Much like a ram, his brow was furrowed in a permanent expression of aggression. His neck was so thick that his large round head could scarcely fit upon, it. Instead, it seemed to sink directly into the crevice between his two massive shoulders, nestled between them like some sort of boulder, wedged between the crags of two mounds.

His large ape-like arms pulled him up, past the lip of the crevice of the recess, and with a heave he propelled himself up, first sitting, with legs dangling, over the lip then swinging himself so that his legs were sprawled across the incredibly clean floorboards.

Rising to his feet, he faced Carlos. His face was incredibly expressionless, relaxed into an empty emotionless stare. His eyes, too, were blank. Those eyes were empty and lifeless, two black coals. They were dull like the remnants of a fire, inky black revealing no hint or trace of whatever fire they might have once held in his more youthful days.

In one hand he held a long silvery pole, at the end of which glowed a simmering red glow twisted in the shape of a stylized C. It twisted and turned wickedly, clearly intended as representative of the Chloridian Corporation. The brand gently seeped smoke as the heavy-set goon dragged it behind him in a lazy posture. He seemed oblivious to the burn marks he streaked across the polished wooden floor. “Ts ready” he mumbled in a low, nearly unintelligible tone.

“Pick up the brand you dolt!” Kentwood hissed, a hint of violence cracking through if only momentarily, his carefully crafted cool and calculated demeanor. “You will brand employee 2278 and return to your post-Mr. Peeves. And you WILL be wary of your brand. I will of course be deducting the cost of this indiscretion…” he eyed the blackened marks of the brand on the polished surface of the heavily polished wooden floor with disgust “from your account. Additionally, you will have one week of grog reduced from your weekly rations” he continued.

Turning his attention back to prisoner 2278 (formerly known as Carlos) Kentwood stretched out his boney translucent finger, pointing it accusatorily at him. “now I’ve had quite enough of this. It’s time to end this charade and send you to work where you belong. Whatever you once were 2278, well all of that is now gone. From this day your past, your days of vagrancy, and whatever else once characterized your past, these are now dead. You will behave and you will contribute”.

Mr. Kentwood snapped his bony fingers which produced a sharp crackling sound unlike any normal human fingers could produce. The sound seemed sharp and piercing to Carlos as his consciousness began to slowly slide its way back into his body. All his senses felt alien to him now, unnatural, cold, and jarring. The sound was painful in his ears, the sound of his blood rushing into focus. Roaring and deafening, it rushed around him, enveloping him in its deluge. Yet his faculties still alluded him. His muscles twitched in miniature spasms across his body. They were minute, unobservable to a passerby. But to Carlos’ recently returned consciousness, they felt like the pricks of a thousand needle points, stabbing and prodding him with every twitch. It felt like his entire body had fallen asleep as control, ever so slowly returned to his command. In these moments, when the spell of Mr. Kentwood had finally begun to wane, even breathing seemed difficult.

As his motor function returned, Carlos sank to his knees, suddenly aware of gravity. The weight of his own body seemed to crush him. He felt as if he were encased in a vat of oozing, tar-like molasses. Tears welled in his ducts, instinctually attempting to shield him from the pain of the light against his dry, formerly unblinking eyes. Even as his lids closed, it felt as if his eyes were ablaze. The tears streamed over his cheeks, salty and stinging in their attempt to restore his sight.

Against the blinding white of his newfound blindness, he felt the rough grasp of calloused fingers curling their way around his biceps. In his state of hypersensitivity, they felt like the embrace of a python, squeezing the life from recently captured prey.

In a moment of searing heat and overwhelming pain, he felt the brand make contact with his skin. Pain exploded from his arm, painting broad fireworks of color and stars in his vision. The pain consumed him, leaving no room for any amount of introspection or self-awareness. Only pain remained and it enveloped and entangled him in its embrace. His body, with the motor control finally now fully under his control spasmed violently as his body fought to distance itself away from the hot burning end of the company brand.

Carlos vomited. Hot chunks of porridge and scavenged leftovers spilled across the once pristine floor. He smelt the bitter sting of his bile which made him retch more. Lying there in a pool of his own waste, his vision faded to darkness.

The large brute, who had branded Carlos, stooped down grasping his legs. He flung the limp body of Carlos over his shoulder with impossible ease.

“Gah you Imbecile, you complete moron” Kentwood sputtered in unbridled rage. “get someone in here to clean this mess up at once! This is disgusting. You’ve been doing this job for how long and you still manage to botch the easiest, most straightforward job available. How am I to be expected to work in these conditions.” He spat each line out at the brute of a man who had done the branding as if his words were pure venom. “Get out! Get out! And make sure he’s properly equipped to start work tomorrow. If he’s too damaged to begin work tomorrow you will be expected to complete both yours and his duties for the week. If you fail that too, well you don’t want to see what happens then, let me tell you that now. Brutes are replaceable, they are REPLACEABLE”!

Without uttering a single word, the monster of a man disappeared down the darkness of the hatch, pulling the lid shut quickly behind him.