Veggie Vengeance

I awake in a dark room filled with others just like me. What happened?

The last thing I remember I was with my family, in our home. We were relaxing and talking when suddenly something CRASHED through the window and grabbed my parents. And then it came back for me.

It stole me away from my home. My struggles had meant nothing to it; it was too powerful to notice. Suddenly I was lifted up in the air, and I felt like it was probing me with a large glass screen. I screamed, it tossed me down into a pit. I don't remember hitting the ground.

And now I was here. I must be the youngest one here. Everyone else is fully grown. I'm nearly there, but not quite. Then it hits me. They must have left all of my little brothers and sisters alone. They'd taken me, they'd taken my parents, and left the little ones to make it on their own. I burn with rage.

I start looking for my parents. There must be dozens of people in here. Some are hurt, bruised and beaten. They too must have fought back.

I find my parents. Father is hurt badly. He needs medical attention. Mother is weeping inconsolably. I tell her I'll be back, I'm going to try to find out what's happening. She nods but doesn't stop crying.

Through the crowded room I wander, asking here and there if anyone knows what's happening. No one does.

Finally I come across an elderly fellow. We have so few. I never thought about it before, but when I saw him I drew back in surprise to see one of such age. I'm not used to it. He grimly tells me how he's been avoiding this all of his life. His parents were taken, and then his older siblings.

He grew afraid and lived alone, hidden. And so he avoided being taken, but watched on as every new generation came of age and then was harvested, stolen away, never seen again.

But he knew what was happening. He knew because one day the creatures passed by carrying these same horrible rooms as we were in now. One adolescent clung unnoticed to the side of the structure, and tumbled down to the ground when the creatures passed near to the old man.

He'd asked the adolescent what happened. The poor kid barely managed to say before he died from the beating he'd taken.

"They crush us," the old man said. "They crush us up and squeeze out all of our blood, and then they drink it."

I think he saw the disbelief in my eyes.

"It's true! He told me of terrible, noisy machines, where the others were pushed in alive, and came out in shreds and blood."

I back away and run back to my parents. I won't believe this. It cannot be true. No being, no matter how horrible, could do that to another. What's the point? There IS no point.

I don't have time to tell my parents the elder's preposterous tale.

The room is inverted and we're all dumped onto a flat surface. And there are machines here. Horrible, humming machines.

They grasp the first of us and push them, screaming, shouting, fighting, into the machines. There's a horrible grinding sound. In an empty basin blood starts to pool. I see shreds of body parts falling out of the other end of the machine.

And then it's too late. I'm lifted and heading for the machines, and screaming like the others.

"WHY!? What's WRONG with you? You don't know what you're DOING! STOP! PLEASE! STO-"

*In honor of those vegetables that give their life's blood to make sure those of us that don't like vegetables get our daily serving*