Expressionless eyes were inspecting me, assessing me, then bringing a bolt gun to my forehead and pulling the trigger. I'm filled with unimaginable pain but I could still see, I still felt the men stringing me upside down. I felt the emotionless eyes slit my throat, with precision and practice, and then they turned their backs on me as I spasmed and struggled to breathe. The blood was filling my mouth, pouring out of my nose .. it was splashing on the floor like an open faucet and the men still had their backs turned. They were sharpening the knife in preparation for the sister, mother or son that was next in line.
I was barely born, freshly hatched. My kin surrounded me and chirped loudly, calling out for the warmth of a covering wing. We were moved fast and handled harshly. All the boys were plucked out from the sea of yellow and disappeared over a metal lip. My turn came. Emotionless eyes assessed my head and then threw me into the macerator. My flesh split around crushed bones. I got mangled, twisted and the meat that was me became indistinguishable from the meat that was my brothers.
They finally took me out of the cage. I knew I had been there for a long time. There were welts on my paws from stepping on the hardwire mesh. I was blind in one eye and if I had any control, I'd have chewed on a leg just to feel some liquid on my tongue. I was so thirsty...
They captured me with a neck pole, grabbed my tail and then they suspended me. They walked holding me like that for a long way and I managed to twist and see the rows upon rows of stacked cages, restraining circling foxes, growling wolves, injured racoons and limp, slowly dying furred creatures. They finally stopped and waved a metal rod in front of me. I was scared, I bit it and then I felt them pushing a probe into my ass. Live, the fiery current ran through me in waves. It burned and constricted my veins. It shattered my mind and locked my muscles. I could not let go of the rod. The current made me bite even harder.
Maybe they thought I was dead but the current stopped. I could still see them through my one working eye as they skinned me. Starting with my backside, they just peeled my fur off seamlessly. My nerves were fried so any additional pain just mixed in with the rest. My body was thrown on top of a pile of furless corpses. After a while, I could move my head, I could feel the numbness ebbing and the waves of agony starting to overwhelm me. Still thirsty, I quietly whined. I'd have licked the blood off my body but it didn't matter anymore. I was dying.
This vision the real me was going through would not let me skip to the next one until the fox truly died. It took a gross eternity.
As a fox, I could still see the world playing on. I watched some men come by and pick up carcasses. They sliced them up and started throwing pieces into cages to feed the other animals. As a human, I knew that the fox would end up the same.
It went on and on. Humanity and its issues was a drop of blood in a full bucket. I was in that hell for maybe two minutes. I thought about the measly hundred human deaths I had the privilege of having a front seat to. That was awful and deep and complex. Almost every one of them had thoughts racing through their heads as they died and I got to hear each and every one of them. Under the crush of over three thousand animal deaths per minute, the hundred human ones were in the end, almost forgettable.
I was made to look at it but the result was undeniable. People had accidents, they died at home, surrounded by friends and family; they died in hospitals aided by machines and medicine; and alright, some died in awful ways and conditions. Murdered, alone, sick, abandoned or by their own hand. Meaningful or ugly, they died after most had a chance to live. It couldn't be said the same about the animals.
All of them were murdered.
After a life lived in pens or cages with restricted movement, they all got killed... and I saw it.
