Another Day At The Workshop:
Cassandra's Story
Written by
It's early morning, the sky overhead glows a dark pink as the sun begins its ascent over the horizon. Only the ambient hum of chirping insects and the soft pat of lightly falling rain can be heard through the land. A white shadow cuts through the fog and walks silently through the puddles with heavy boots. Beads of rain splatter against them as she passes over the road. She pauses before two large metal doors leading to a factory. She lifts a remote from her belt and pulls a small mechanical lever. Suddenly, the doors shudder and grind open, granting access to the interior. It's musky inside, thick with the scent of various metals and tanned hides. Lips part with a sigh, the day has just begun and her work is seemingly never finished. But she looks forward to it, every day. All of her ambitions, all of her dreams and desires come to life in this cold, metallic fortress. Gold glitters on her armlet, belt and ring. She has worked hard for this life and she works harder still each day, to prove all of them wrong. The ones who hurt her. The ones who told her she was nothing. The girl who betrayed her trust and broke her heart. None of it mattered now. She would prevail in her endeavors, even if it destroyed her.
She sat down on a heavy chair, her short dress lifting up over her thigh. She crossed a leg over her knee and opened a small trinket box containing several metal screws and gears. With long, razor sharp claws she delicately plucked out tiny bits that she would be needing for today's project and placed them gently on an oil-stained rag. Once all the required parts were collected, she closed the box and set it down on a shelf full of anatomical figures. Most of the shelves in her factory held creations of her's; slender musteline mechanicals with jointed limbs and mouths. Skulls and bones took up almost as much space on an adjacent shelf; these were trophies of her past victims. If they were of no use in her engineering projects, they could at least make fine decor. They served as reminders, that none would cross her without paying dearly.
As she worked diligently to assemble an assortment of metal parts, screams echoed in her mind. Screams of the ones held beneath her, flayed and shattered as they cried out for mercy. Screams of fear, of others who had caught her in the act and were then swiftly silenced by vice-like mitts, or wire, or a tool off her belt. Screams in her own bed, awakening from nightmares, searing hot pain across her flesh. Screams coming from her very mouth, held down by her hair and beaten into submission by peers larger than her. "Oh c'mon, you can take it," the voice echoed. "You're not fooling anyone, pretty thing." The screams all melded together like toxic waste stirring in her brain. She finished winding a small screw into the back of a mechanical creature that closely resembled a mink. When she was finished, she placed it upright on her workbench.
"You're here," she whispered, "As an extension of myself, my child..." her thoughts trailed off as her pale purple eyes traced the contours of her creation as though she was studying a painting. A horrid thought blew in and out of her mind in a flash, and as she composed herself again to speak, she lifted a red crystal out from the pouch on her belt. She raised it up to the mechanical, red light reflecting across the metallic surface. "You will serve me as your sisters have served me." Her voice was as soft and wispy as her figure, deceivingly slight. An overhead light flickered as she opened a small hatch on the mechanical's shoulder. She lowered the crystal into a precisely measured socket, closed it up and took a few steps back. "You are born into this foul world, an agent of entropy and a reminder to all that I... WILL NOT be betrayed EVER. AGAIN." With the flick of a switch, electricity surges through her construct. A ruby glow emanates from the eyes. Well-oiled joints flex, the mouth gapes. It rears up onto its sturdy spring-loaded tail and, with a pop it lurches upward, gnashing its serrated teeth at the air. Cassandra's eyes shimmer with delight as she studies her creation's movements. Steam seeps out of the nose as it flips and dances wildly, with an eerily fluid movement that is not often seen in mechanicals. She closes her hands together and observes, pleased with the day's work.
As the sun dips back down below the horizon, Cassandra leaves the factory and walks home, alone. Her room is quiet, and oddly absent of any trace of her professional life. She slips out of her dress, hangs up her tool belt and crawls into a neatly made bed. As she lays down, weary and worn, the screams are silenced. The hateful voices quiet down as she drifts off into sleep. Instead, somewhere deep inside of her mind, a child cries in the dark, clutching tightly to a small stuffed animal. "I wish you were real," she chokes. "You wouldn't let them hurt me."