The prisoners were woken by squealing air brakes, and grinding magnets. The growing sounds of other locomotives blowing their horns in scatterbrained symphony nearby signaled an approaching train station stop. The ear splitting whistle blew their early morning alarm inside the prison train car.

Ratom and Mickey stood on top of each other in a suit and tie disguise. A handy way quickly tailored to blend in with the majority of the prison population that was human, and seemed to value conformity above all else. Neither of them had slept much throughout the trip, as leprechauns needed little sleep.

Instead of idly waiting in dark on their inevitable punishments they played a game. The “Nth standard never falls” kept them busy throughout the night with a smuggled deck of cards. A game at the highest levels meant to be played with every crystal, and sometimes to the death. In this case they played with a simple bet.

The door began rolling open sideways, and creaked. The leprechauns jumped in fright almost right out of their shared disguise. The loser groaned undercover being stuck acting as disguised feet while the other stood on head.

"Hey that hurt," whispered the feet being stepped on.

"Shhh" scolded Mickey.

The door noisily slid open letting in radioactive lights. The guards shouted, and pushed them outside while they were still blind. The intense suns blasted through the fabric of the coat threatening to overexpose the pair.

Mickey shuddered above, while Ratom struggled to traverse the mud. Everyone else was corralled into a trench system while a hazmat crew cleaned out the train cars behind them placing Humpy Dumpy into industrial trash bags. There was a wave of fear that seemed to spread throughout the rest of the crowd like a game of telephone.

They kept on silently struggling forward for five more minutes until they arrived back onto solid cement ground. A fence squeaked open letting them inside a yard in front of a massive factory. A sign had been painted big and squarely onto the brick in uniform block lettering reading “Teleportation loading dock”.

Further beyond that a maze of spiked barbed wire fences defending guard towers curling a towering crystal in the open. The sprawling outdoor laboratory operation let off giant plumes of smoke into the air. There the thick copper wires covered everything in a web over the environment, and behind more thick brick walls anti air guns sat on alert guarding rows of giant coiled lines of electricity sparking from overclocked dark blue Electro-stones. All this power was directed into the grid to a massive Farc crystal glistening above the teleport pad.

The supplies, prisoners, soldiers, and sheep waited in long lines stretching over the field. The tallest and widest of the smoke stacks curved upwards beside them spitting smog byproduct into the clouds. A hand yanked the distracted leprechaun above the back undercovers of the overcoat.

“How are our fates looking mate? I would like my final moments to have my wits about me and my eyes on the street,” whined Ratom.

“They are not in your hands anymore, and you drew the short end of the stick involving a combination of both bad luck and skills at the game, I'm sorry,” said Mickey, adjusting his sleeves.

“Fine, keep me here in the dark,” hissed Ratom, stomping his feet a few times in protest.

Suddenly the guards descended onto them with the threat of raised clubs. The commanding shouts delivered by harsh voices of authority hustled them forward in line. It wasn’t long before the latest guests joined the ranks of those waiting for a teleport. The leprechauns were smashed together in the center of the bustle with two yaks flanking them like buns on a burger.

“What a rotten smelly mess we find ourselves trapped in,” muttered Mickey.

He sounded funny on account of plugging his nose from the outside world. His sense of smell had been successfully sealed. It was for the best here in his den below the torn suit jacket not yet exposing him. He had to only worry about putting one foot over another when commanded from above.

Ratom looked all around for any possible escape route by habit. The largest governing body representing humanity ruled with a crystal fist, and controlled more and more of Tenare with every hour. Their imaginations are brilliant machines at designing systems like prisons, cities, or leveling. Certainly one of humans most prized arts that many great thinkers and inventors worked on perfecting, and many others took great pride in enforcing, but there were always things to exploit. Escaping their destination came with the catch of punishment if they were caught of execution. This situation looked futile, but there was no harm in imagining a small opening somewhere the two of them could cram away into to escape certain fate.

The hours passed and no opportunities of escape ever presented themselves. The line crept forward toward the hastily constructed teleport pads far away near the tree line. The electricity surged from somewhere inside the smoke stack surging down the metal cables toward a rocky destination. The crystal rocked on its own quick schedule, becoming overcome with a burst teleporting the target. The line inched forward with every zap of power. More and more wires, cables, ropes, and spools hung from poles scattered all around the facility.

“Prisoners thank you for being so well behaved today, As you know nobody wants to work anymore so you have been hand selected to be teleported to a paradise by the Queen. That's right your crimes have been forgiven as you're sent on a top secret mission doing distinguished manual labor for national security. You are very lucky to be here, and now a bopping song to celebrate streaming exclusively from her majesty to you,” announced the loudspeakers hung on telephone poles everywhere. .

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The piercing sound of feedback from loudspeakers destroyed eardrums as the track changed. Mickey uncovered his nose to reach for his ears.

“Beep bop boo-pity bop” The beat started on a recording of the Queen's newest smash single.

“You're free today, free to build something better for you and me, free to dream of living in harmony, build for me your queen Elizabethy” she crooned.

“Hope the humans find her just as creepy as I do" wondered Mickey.

“Aye, you will get us killed, shut up,” raged Ratom, pinching as hard as he could.

“Okay ouch,” the other yelped.

The cows in front of them poofed into red mist zapped with a charge from the towering teleport crystal. Ratom’s feet resumed walking forward until being stopped by hitting the next in line.

"Hey I'm walking here...POOF!”

Whoever it was were next to be shocked, and there had been no escaping it.

“Close your eyes, and don’t think about nothing brother,” said Ratom.

Mickey nodded in acknowledgement looking down a final time.

“I’m thinking of warm beaches in paradise,” he whispered.

“Next,”.

The guards grunted at them to get on the painted X marked target. A thick mist hung around extra burnt smolder from the laser aimed directly overhead. Then the electricity loudly sparked.

“ZAAAAAAAAAAAAP!”

“Poof!”

Everything around them was a blank white canvas. Ratom swayed his arms first inspecting them in the white ether but quickly tried to correct his balance. Mickey tumbled in a panic trying to use the coat as a makeshift parachute that refused to cooperate. The pair drifted apart through an airless chasm of white. No wind, or any other clues told them where they were headed except the screaming butterflies in both stomachs. It could be nothing but a free fall.

“Smack!”

The two once together came smashing into another flying object mid fall. A freak occurrence en route to their intended destination in this phantom zone. Ratom went from white to black vision knocked unconscious from the impact. The two continued falling through a hole in the cracked sky. The cold air came stinging horribly out of nowhere. As Mickey's vision faded he angled himself towards his brother in a skydive. They tumbled together toward the white mountains below. A large ice castle cast many lights and shadows across the land in the not so far distance.

“Thud,”

The small bodies broke the fall smacking into snow. They sank deeper and deeper under the mass of white powdered quicksand. Both remained knocked cold while the snow continued pilling above. The shared coat constricted them like a predatory snake while the pressure of snow was becoming worse. A hole in the jacket had torn, springing a leak of feathers that tickled a noise.

The feet kicked thrashing on being trapped buried alive. They kicked and kicked again and broke through something on the other side. Mickey fell again, but very briefly this time. From out of a hole in the cavern roof he hit a rock below where his brother already lay knocked out.

Later on Ratom came too; he clutched his pained forehead, and inspected his surroundings. A small cavern with the whistling winds of winter blowing fair warning outside. In the far opposite corner from him he spotted two frozen outlines frozen.

Ratom sprang on guard. He began dragging Mickey and passed out, eventually hiding him behind a large stalagmite.The leprechaun crept forward in his rags. He was soon crawling the final distance to the figures. A freezer burned wizard's robe adorned one of the stiffs, while the other was nothing but a skeleton in large breast plated armor. They both looked to have been dead a decade or more.

“False alarm hah,” he sighed, before collapsing with the danger cleared.

“I'm not dead yet!” said the skeleton coming alive.

She had the raspy voice of a well smoked woman. Ratom jumped, and began to flee in a panic. He tried to fix his feet to the ice underfoot, but slipped. He crashed on his ass.

“Do you desire to eat me ghoul?” he demanded, crawling away.

His vision dimmed again from the floor.

“That's no way to talk to a lady named Nancy,” shot back the skeleton.

“What about that other icicle next to you, how come he ain’t talking?” asked Ratom.

“Oh goody, has he finally died? Well now I was just getting around to bringing him back, and when I’m done with him I'll head over and revive any friends you brought here along with you too,” announced Nancy, blindly searching across the cavern floor with hands.

Nancy ran into Ned's frozen solid body and they both fell into an extinguished fire pit together. She felt him up, then removed a fresh necromancer crystal from the many in her spiked choker. After stabbing the wrong flesh a few times by mistake she hit the bullseye into the dead wizard's frozen eye.

"Aghhh.. No I must have died, hopefully this is a bad dream,” sputtered Ned, coming to life.

“Wakey, Wakey, plaything,” said Nancy, caressing his face and straddling him.

“Woah I take back the bad part, but everything else in the statement applies,” Ned moaned.

“Later if you are a good boy now use your eyes and help me see,” she said, rolling off and climbing to her feet.

“Of course let me give you a hand,” said Ned, trying to force one part of his body to sit, and the rest to stand at attention.

Ratom sprinted towards where Mickey was in hiding. Near the caves exit the blizzard howled blowing some of the weather inside. Mickey’s eyes looked into the eye of the storm while cradling a bloody head slumping against the wall. He hit it someplace on the journey soaking it in ugly dreams while he convulsed.

“We need to find a way out quick,” Mickey yelled, running forward.

“What for?” the other groaned unable to stand.

The two zombies began slowly dragging themselves towards the only exit. Ratom bandaged the leaky head with torn fabric. He raised his lethal weapons for the final showdown.

“Stay away from us dead, I'm a player and no witches can ever mess with me” yelled the leprechaun, throwing up his fists in show of bravado.

The dead wizard with white eyes had skin turned black, blue, and stuck with frostbite. A finger was missing, while a full set of teeth revealed as he curled stiff upper lip. He continued groaning while he snapped a frozen arm into place. The armored skeleton behind him blindly felt up the wall, and used to pull herself forward.