Crack!

My crusted eyes popped open to the sight of a tall, burly, black-bearded man with a cruel sneer marring his already scarred face. He stood three meters away, and given the whip in his hand, I gathered he was the one who robbed my already sleep-deprived body of its rest. While his gray leather armor caught the eye with its oddness, what surprised me most of all were the pointed, twisting ears adorning his head. The others, who I just now realized were also sleeping on the cold, gray ground, were already up and about.

Whether it was the staring or the lack of movement, the bearded man took exception to me.

Crack!

Agony lanced down my forearm, trailed by crimson rivulets of what I foggily identified as my blood. 

"Up and moving, slave. Do not make me repeat myself." - The bearded man, who I now deemed Asshole One, snarled.

Faced with the indignity of standing up when the floor was so comfortable or a repeat of my slaver's kindness, I got moving. The others, who I now identified as my fellow slaves, had already gotten up and were filing out one of the doors in the room. Since I had no idea what the fuck was going on, I followed them. 

My confusion had led me to be slower than the rest, which meant I got to enjoy the dubious honor of being at the back of the line, and the even more dubious honor of being the closest to Asshole One. He stood behind me, I am not sure how far, and I was too scared to check. His wip dragged on the floor, the noise of it makes me cringe. Each step he took made me flinch in anticipation. I was tempted to attack him, but a look at my slender arms and the memory of his burly form put that plan to rest.  Luckily, I filed out of the room without incident. 

From the room, we entered a cave illuminated by sinister, glowing mushrooms. The light revealed sword-bearing and armored individuals wearing the same uniform as Asshole One. They stood near the exit, fingers tapping their weapons and glares on their faces. My fellow slaves had already started picking mushrooms and depositing them in buckets. To avoid being identified as a non-conformist, I joined them. 

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The mushrooms seemed to be representing a sinister rainbow, given the assortment before me. Picking them up sent an odd stinging sensation through my hands, but the memory of Asshole One's ministrations kept me moving. The pain was bearable and far preferable to the whip.

After an hour, when I had just started to think this task wasn't so bad, a scream echoed through the cave. One of my fellow-slaves screeched in terror as tendrils extending from a mushroom he was about to pick dug into his flesh. His skin danced with rainbow light, and he exploded. Blood and guts and brains and gore marked where he once stood. But even that reminder was soon taken. Mushrooms grew from the flesh staining the floor, feasted on the bone, and drank the fluids. Within less than a minute, where once there was a man, there were now naught but mushrooms. 

Silence filled the cave but was soon broken by one of the slavers.

"Alright, you know the drill. Those are some quality flesh bloomers right there, and fresh as they are, they are the safest mushrooms here. Whoever collects the most gets to stop early for the day."

Despite the horror of what just occurred, despite our shared status, my fellow slaves picked the mushrooms with rapid haste. A tall, pointy-eared female who I identified as an elf picked the most and was let back into the room in which we slept. One of the slavers, this one with a hat bigger than the rest, addressed us after the door closed.

"Keep moving, your shift isn't over yet."

His fellows cracked their whips, and we got moving. 

Picking mushrooms with far more trepidation but still keeping up the pace to avoid the slavers' tender care, I observed my fellow slaves and was surprised by the diversity on display. There were little more than a hundred of us, with skin tones ranging from blue to green to red and more. Some had round ears, others pointed, and some even had horns of various shapes and colors. One of my fellows even seemed to be a tree person, with flowing roots for legs and branches for arms. His or her's or its leaves were spare and limp, while the brown bark was mostly replaced with that which was sad and dead. 

Looking upon this marvel of life brought so low, I felt crushing despair. That, and rage. Yes, the slavers were cruel. Yes, the work was lethal and painful. But it wasn't until I gazed upon the tree-person that I found my resolve.

The slavers would burn.

Making it happen would be the hard part.