I was brought back to the world of the living by someone throwing a bucket of ice water in my face. Sputtering and coughing, I jerked awake. Blinking water from my eyes, I looked around, trying to get my brain working again. As I wiped water from my face with my hand, I noticed that I was no longer in the desert. While I could consider that a very good thing, my new environment was much more intimidating.

I was currently in a large, dark room that was filled with metal crates and cages. It looked like some form of shipping compartment. The ground I was lying on was metal and cold. I could feel it vibrating softly beneath my body. Whatever this place was, it was moving, and fast. I was instantly reminded of a train.

Shifting my legs underneath me, I sat up slightly. Upon doing so, I became aware of the fact that I was completely and utterly naked. My uniform was gone and I was now wearing only my birthday suit. Automatically reaching down, I covered myself with my hands, a blush spreading across my face.

Great, I go from frying outside in the desert to being buck naked in a dark, enclosed space. At least I was out of the harsh sun, even if I had no clue how I got there. I blinked as a thought entered my head, causing me to frown slightly. Am I dead? Did I die and go to some weird afterlife? Looking around at my surroundings again, my frown deepened. If that’s the case, then the Church has some major explaining to do, because this wasn’t the white fluffy happiness they promised.

“It seems to be slightly disoriented.”

“You would be too, if somepony woke you like that.” The sound of voices behind me snapped me out of my daze, and I quickly turned towards the noise. Looking around for whoever spoke, my eyes fell, not on another human being, but upon two small horses right behind me. I noticed that one had an empty bucket by its hooves. I found that extremely odd, but pushed the feeling aside.

As I looked at them, I felt my frown return. They looked almost like horses, but there was something off about them. To begin with, they weren’t very big. At first I thought that they could be foals, but they were actually full grown when I took a closer look. They stood about four feet tall, from the ground to their heads, and both of their coats were a dark, steely gray color; their manes a midnight black. They also had an image tattooed onto their flanks: one mare had a picture of a red rose with thorns, and the other a shiny pearl.

Their ‘faces’ were also off: their cold, icy blue eyes were seemingly too big for their heads. The entire structure of their face was more akin to that of a human than a horse, but they still looked equine in appearance. I couldn’t really explain it very well, it just looked... wrong, and the more they stared at me, the weirder I felt.

“He’s better looking than most of the dregs we find wandering the desert,” one of the horses said, leaning in towards the other and speaking in a hushed, feminine tone. My eyes widened in shock at that. They’re speaking… they’re actually talking! As my brain tried to process what it was seeing, the other horse replied.

“Most definitely.” As they spoke, they never took their eyes off of me. I just sat there, staring at them, agape. Talking horses. I’m sitting in a metal room with talking horses. It was official: I was dead, and this was some weird, twisted plane of limbo. I opened my mouth to say something to the freaky duo before me, but no sound came out. Instead, pain lanced through my throat, causing me to wince. Great, apparently my newfound muteness followed me into the afterlife. Just what I fucking need. As I sat there, grumbling about my misfortune, one of the horses straightened up and nickered softly.

“Alright,” she said, quickly turning and trotting towards one of the cages. “Enough standing around. Let’s get him caged up and stored with the others.” I perked up at that. What? Caged up? Others? What is she talking about? I stared at them in confusion, trying to understand what exactly was going on. My eyes widened in shock as the forehead of the mare standing by the cages started to glow. As light slowly emanated from it, I looked on in awe. Is... is that a horn?

I didn’t have long to stare, as I was quickly lifted into the air by some unknown force. Struggling in vain, my wrists were quickly bound together by thick strands of rope, and a cloth gag was shoved forcibly into my mouth before wrapping tightly around my head. Afterwards, I was deposited, none too gently, into an awaiting cage.

Still fighting off the dizziness that accompanied my sudden movement, I felt the cage being lifted into the air. As the cage moved, I tried to reorient myself into a more comfortable position, but unfortunately the cage itself was too small. I was now stuck upside down, with my ass in the air.

The cage dropped to the ground with a loud thud, which caused the entire cage to reverberate as metal hit metal. I grunted in pain as the back of my head slammed into the steel floor of the cage. Once the stars stopped dancing in my vision, I forced my head up slightly and glanced around at my new surroundings.

I was sitting at the end of a row of cages, each one with a human in it. The one right next to me contained a man. His wrists were bound, his mouth gagged, and he was naked as well. Unlike me, however, he was sitting upright. Lucky bastard. I squinted my eyes and took a closer look at him. There was something wrong with the way he looked, but I couldn’t quite put but my finger on it just yet. Something about the nose, or maybe the eyes. I didn’t really care though; at the moment it was just a relief to see another human here beside me, wherever here was.

Looking down the row of cages, I saw that each human was in the same situation: bound, gagged, and naked. Some were just sitting there, staring off into the distance, others were smashing their shoulders up against the bars of their cages, their cries muffled by their gags. It reminded me of something that a feral animal would do when trapped, not an intelligent human. What’s going on here? I could see that some of the humans were male, and others were female. Wait… female. Naked females.

Great, now I’m blushing with my ass in the air. While I was lying there, extremely bothered, another horse entered the compartment and approached the first two. By the look of its build, I would hazard a guess that this one was possibly male.

“Pearl, Rose, how is our new addition doing?” he asked, glancing over at me. Unlike the first two horses, his coat was a deep red color, and his mane was black. He stared down at me with cold, icy blue eyes that seemed to freeze my very soul. I stared back up at him, swallowing thickly through the gag. I don’t like where this is going…

“So far, so good,” one of the mares (Rose, if I’m going by the picture on their asses) said, flipping her mane out of her eyes. “He didn’t attack us on sight, so that’s a plus. In fact, he seems kind of docile.”

“He should fetch us a decent price once we reach Canterlot,” the other one, Pearl, said, leaning down to look in the cage at me. “It’ll probably help that he’s better looking than what we usually find.” I just stared up at her with a blank expression, trying to register some of what was just said. D-did she just call me good looking? I didn’t know what she was comparing me to, but a looker I ain’t. I was that anti-social kid that was getting facial hair and acne in the 5th grade, and it had followed me all the way to college. If I’m one of the better looking humans they’ve seen, then they couldn’t have been looking very hard.

My gaze drifted over to the male human next to me as I mused. I scrunched up my face as I studied his appearance. I’ll admit, he wasn’t the best looking bloke I have ever seen, but then again, I wasn’t one to go around judging others' appearances. He might be considered decent looking to someone…

…okay, I was lying through my teeth. He had a face only a mother could love. He was UGLY with a capital U-G-L-Y!

“He’s also quite muscular,” a fourth voice chimed in. “By the looks of it, his muscle tone is decent.” Tearing my gaze away from Mr. Ugly beside me, I glanced around for the source of the new voice. Another mare floated over, hovering in the air thanks to a pair of wings on her sides. I rolled my eyes and groaned slightly. She was a pegasus. You know what? I’m actually not that surprised anymore. Unicorns and magic and pegasi, oh my!

Wherever I was, it most certainly wasn’t Kansas. Or home for that matter. Hell, I didn’t even think I was on Earth anymore. As the mare approached, I craned my neck to get a good look at her. Her coat and wings were blue, almost borderline darkish in color, and her mane was yellow.

At the pegasus’s words, a round of snickers broke out among the other horses. She huffed and rolled her eyes at her companions with an annoyed expression.

“What? I like the look of his muscle structure,” she said, ruffling her feathers.

“Yeah,” the red unicorn stallion snorted. His laughter hadn't quite met his eyes. “I bet you have your eye on one particular muscle.” At that, the other two burst into laughter as the pegasus mare glared at them, blushing heavily. Her wings were starting to stiffen slightly. I, however, with all my intellect, didn’t understand what they meant. One particular muscle? What are they talking about…?

…oh

…Oh God! My face went bright red and I groaned inwardly as I realized what they were talking about.

“Anyways,” the pegasus said, flapping her wings to loosen them while she continued to glare at her companions, “I came to inform you that the conductor said we’ll be arriving at our first stop shortly.”

“Alright, let’s start getting ready then!” the stallion said, a wicked smile spreading across his muzzle. I felt an icy chill run up my spine, causing me to shiver. I have a really bad feeling about this.

It was around twenty minutes before the train came to a stop and things began to happen. At least, I think it was twenty minutes. It’s kinda hard to tell when you’re locked in a cage with your ass in the air.

During that time, several more unicorns had entered the compartment, bringing a crate of materials with them. Placing the crate on the ground, they began walking down the row of cages, taking some humans out of their cages, while leaving others alone. Mine was one of the cages they ignored, passing by without even glancing in at me. I wasn’t sure if that was a potentially good thing, or a bad thing.

Grouping the selected humans in the center of the compartment, the unicorns waited until they had all the humans they needed before beginning to herd them out of the room. Any unruly human met the end of a long stick that looked horrifyingly like a cattle prod.

When the last of the humans were escorted out of the compartment, the group of unicorns approached the cage next to mine, which contained Mr. UGLY-face. Ripping his cage open, they pulled him out with their magic and into the middle of the room. He struggled the entire way, but it was pretty much pointless. I could see no way for him to stop whatever was going to happen to him. I cast a glance at the red unicorn stallion, and I felt fear well up inside of me. I swallowed, my throat suddenly very dry. I didn’t know what was about to happen, but that look in his icy eyes told me that it wouldn’t be good.

“Alright,” he said, glancing over the other unicorns. “This last one is a special order for one Ms. Stardust.” Rose walked up out of the darkness, a clipboard held aloft in her magic.

“It says here that she wants him marked,” she said, consulting the papers on the clipboard with an uninterested air. The way she said ‘marked’ made me shiver slightly. I could feel my heart rate increase, and I tried desperately to calm myself. I watched as they lowered the poor soul to the floor. Thankfully, due to my position, coupled with the lip of the cage, I was unable to see what was going on. However, nothing prevented me from hearing it.

One of the unicorns, a green mare, lifted the lid off of the crate they had brought in. Reaching down, she pulled out a short, iron pole. There was another piece of metal attached to one end of it, shaped like some sort of hollow star. It looked almost like a branding iron. My eyes widened as I realized what they were about to do. Oh no, oh no, oh hell no! I began to struggle weakly against my bindings. Pearl shot me an amused look.

The green unicorn’s horn glowed brighter and the end of the brand began to glow white hot. Approaching the prone man just out of my field of vision, she held the branding iron high in her magic. My eyes snapped closed as she lowered the brand quickly, but I could not block out the resulting noise.

A horrible hissing noise filled the air, followed by the smell of burning flesh. A muffled cry of pain echoed around the compartment as the poor soul tried to scream through his gag. There was another hiss, followed by another scream. I cringed as I realized that they had branded him twice.

Slowly, with great trepidation, I opened my eyes. The other humans around me were silent, huddled in the corners of their cages, shivering in fear. I could hear the now branded human whimpering quietly, his body still lying just out of my field of vision.

This isn’t happening, I thought. There is no way this can be real. It has to be a dream, a nightmare, anything but reality! There is no way that this can get any worse!

“It also says here that she wants him to be neutered,” Rose said, eyes drifting to the bottom of the clipboard, a small smile touching her lips.

My last statement was not a challenge, Universe. It was not a challenge! The unicorn mare returned the branding iron to the box, before pulling out what appeared to be a small pair of garden shears. As they glinted in the low lighting, I stared in horror. There is no way in Hell those should ever be used for neutering ANYTHING!

I immediately shut my eyes again, not wanting to bear witness to the horrors that were about to take place. I was struggling hard not to vomit with the gag in my mouth.

The sounds of hooves echoed around the compartment, followed by an eerie silence. The tension in the air was so thick, you could cut it… okay, maybe that was a bad choice of words given the current situation.

The silence continued for several more seconds, accompanied by the soft sound of something moving. A small whimper echoed around the room as they moved him into a better position. The sound of metal scraping on metal could be heard as the unicorn opened the shears. I screwed up my face, trying hard to block out the sound, but to no avail. A brief pause followed, then a sudden swish and…

I didn’t see it happen. I never want to see it happen. But the sounds that echoed around the metal prison as those unicorns forever took away what made that wretched soul a man, followed by that bone chilling scream, will forever haunt my darkest nightmares.

It was in that moment that I knew that I had definitely died. Only I wasn’t in paradise, nor was I in limbo.

I had died and gone to Hell.

After they had hauled the poor soul away and finished cleaning up after the procedure, the rest of the unicorns hosed the remainder of us humans down with freezing water. I hardly noticed the temperature, however, as I was still in shock over what had happened.

Just the other day I was at work, trying to make enough money to go to college. Now I find myself in this hellish land. What could I have possibly done to deserve this fate? I mean, I didn’t live by the Bible, but that doesn’t mean I was a jackass either. I was kind, generous, and polite (only if they deserved it). I treated others with respect and loved my parents deeply.

My parents. That was another thing. If I was truly dead, I felt bad that my parents would have to deal with the funeral. No parent should ever have to bury their own child. But on the other hand, what if I hadn’t died and was just missing in this strange new land? How long would they search for me before they gave up hope? Was I stuck here? Could I ever get back home?

Home. That was another thing in an endless list of things. This was clearly not Earth, as it was made abundantly clear by the talking horses, magic, and the (from what behavior I've seen so far) stupid humans. But if this wasn’t Earth, then where was here?

All these thoughts buzzed through my head as tears slowly rolled down my face. The train lurched into motion and continued on its way.

For the next several days, the same thing would happen over and over again. The train would stop at some unknown location, then the unicorns would return and choose a handful of humans before escorting them away. It was always the same group of unicorns too. This caused me to believe that they were all probably part of a large group of horses that captured and sold humans. Some of the humans would require branding, and others were required to be neutered or spayed. I’m not even going to go into the details of that particular process, but believe me: it was not pretty. The unicorns would sometimes bring more humans on as well, stuffing them into the many empty cages that were stacked in the compartment.

It may have been luck (or not), but they never bothered me during these events. It seemed that they had other plans for me. What those plans were, I had no idea, but I was not looking forward to them.

After completing the procedure, the unicorns would then hose all the remaining humans down with a blast of frozen water and the train would be on its way again. At first I didn’t understand why they were spraying us with the icy water, but after a few days I finally understood. Let’s just say that it had something to do with the fact that there was no bathrooms in the cages. At least I had the common sense to do my business in a corner of my cage, having, thankfully, managed to right myself. Most of the other humans, however, just did their business on themselves. Each time I saw this, I shuddered and cringed in disgust. Am I really the smartest human here?

The horses fed us once a day, if we were lucky. At least, I think it was once a day. It was hard to tell when there was no accurate way to determine if it was night or day. I spent most of my time deep in thought, or sleeping, so I had long since lost sense of time. The “meal” consisted of half of a piece of slightly moldy bread, as well as a few mouthfuls of water. The lack of nutrition hit me hard. For the first couple of days my stomach swelled up due to the lack of food, and by the sixth day I was losing weight quickly.

It was after the eighth day that I began to feel extremely weak. I started having small fits of dizziness, and I would sometimes black out for short periods. I needed something to eat. My stomach was constantly growling at me, threatening to start consuming itself. It wasn’t all bad, however. At least my burns from the desert were slowly starting to heal.

The horses left us alone for the most part, outside of the feedings, and loading and unloading the humans. Even so, I only saw the first four horses I had met whenever we were moving. The others would only appear when it was time to unload the next batch of humans.

The two female unicorns (both of whom, I had learned through eavesdropping, were twin sisters) and the red unicorn stallion tended to just make sure that we were “fed” and cleaned. Other than that, they pretty much left us to our own devices. There were one or two odd instances when one of the sisters would pull a human male out of his cage and carry him off somewhere for several hours, before returning him to his cage. The human always looked exhausted afterwards, and I tried hard not to think about what was happening when they were gone. Luckily, they never showed real interest in me, or if they did, they hid it well.

The blue pegasus mare, on the other hand, seemed to take a special interest in me. Since I had first arrived, she had spent more time around me than any other human. In between feedings and the exoduses she would just rest upon the top of my cage. As she sat there, she would chat with me. The entire conversation was one-sided, but she didn’t seem to care. As she talked, she would use the same tone of voice and mannerisms as humans back home would use with a cow or horse. Not only was this slightly calming, it also pretty much confirmed that the humans on this world were no more than animals to these horses.

I also didn’t mind the conversations so much, as it gave me a chance to study her up close. Her coat was a lovely shade of blue, almost a mix of cyan and sky blue. It had a soft texture to it, very similar to horses back home, only softer. I had startled her when I had first reached through the bars to stroke her, but when she saw I wasn’t going to hurt her, she had let me run my fingers through her coat. She seemed to enjoy the feeling immensely, because it soon became routine: she would fly down onto my cage, I would reach up and give her a quick scratch, and she would talk to me about random stuff.

She also had one of those weird tattoos on both her flanks. It appeared to be a sun, hidden partly behind several wispy clouds. I had ran my fingers over it and found that it had the same texture as the other fur around it. It appeared that the only difference between the mark and the rest of her body was the color. What the tattoo signified, or how she actually got it, I had no clue but it did look kind of cool. The way it blended perfectly into the blue fur on her flank was almost hypnotic.

Her mane and tail were a bright yellow color. They both had a kind of wind-tossed look to them, tangling and swirling around her head and shoulders. In fact, it looked like she hadn’t touched a brush or comb in days. She probably didn’t mess with them much, as her mane would just become messy again the next time she was flying through the air.

Her eyes were a bright violet color and appeared to glow slightly, even in the dimmest of lights. They seemed to glimmer and sparkle as she talked, a smile on her face. All things considered, she was actually very pretty, as far as talking horses went.

It was through these “conversations” that I learned the pegasus mare’s name was Sunny Breeze, but most of her friends called her “Sunny.” She had been the one who had found me passed out in the desert when she was out scouting for more humans in the earlier hours of the morning, before the sun had risen. She had then carried me back to her “benefactors:” the red stallion and the twins.

As the days went on, I soon realized that Sunny appeared to be very taken with me, which was fine with me because she would sneak me extra pieces of bread. On rare occasions she also managed to get me small pieces of apple when no one was looking. If it wasn’t for her help, or the company she provided, I would have gone crazy aboard that horrid train.

It had been around two weeks since I was brought aboard the train by Sunny when we finally reached our final destination. I was awoken from a dreamless sleep by the sounds of doors opening and closing. I was dimly aware that the floor wasn’t vibrating anymore. It took me a second to realize that that meant the train had come to a stop somewhere. I sat up and wiped the sleep from my eyes with my bound hands. As I did so, the sound of multiple hooves drew nearer. Curious, I turned my head, searching for the source.

I watched as twenty or so unicorns entered the compartment. They were a mixture of the usual gang, with a few new faces mixed in. They began to open the cages, one by one, and herded the humans out. They were taking everyone. Most of the humans struggled against their bindings, but were quickly silenced by a prod from a taser stick. There was a small handful of humans, however, that went willingly.

When the unicorns finally reached my cage I was ready for them. They opened the door and I hurried out and joined the rest of the humans. I might not like how we were being treated, but I was not about to get shocked by the horses. I figured that if I behaved well, they shouldn't have a reason to hurt me, right?

As we waited for the other humans to join the herd, I stretched, groaning as my limbs cracked and popped. It felt good to be able to stand and walk again after spending two weeks stuck in that small cage. My hands were still bound, but at least my gag had been removed. Sunny had determined that I did not need it, and was convinced that I wasn’t going to bite anyone. I was not about to prove her wrong.

Speaking of the mare, I thought, looking around the compartment quickly. I spied her hovering near the ceiling, eyes scanning the crowd of humans as she kept a close eye on them. Her eyes fell upon me, and a small smile touched her face before her gaze moved on.

Eventually the unicorns finally gathered all the humans into the center of the compartment. They hosed us all down one last time. I shivered as the freezing water washed over me. Shaking the water off of me, I spat out some of the liquid that had gotten into my mouth. Once the unicorns were satisfied with how we looked, they hit us with a blast of warm air from their horns, drying us instantly. Once that was over, they herded us forward, out of the compartment and into the blinding light of day.