Written from the Journal of Dr. Lucille Serse.
"Those ignorant fools. They don't know what they've rejected. I could have provided them an expensive and eco-friendly work force that could have improved the lives of millions. But what do they say? 'It's unnatural.' 'It's abominable.' 'It's inhumane.' It's not inhumane if they aren't human. I wasn't even suggesting changing humans. Uplifted animals would be put to much better use. But all they do is call me a monster and throw out my ideas.
"I'll show them. I'll show them all... Perhaps I should dial back the egomania a little bit. What I really need is a quiet, secluded place where I can perfect my work. Once they see how useful my uplifted animal workers are, all nay-saying will be forgotten. And fortunately, I have found such a place. An uncharted island in the Mediterranean Sea, halfway between Greece and Italy. It's rather surprising it hasn't been found before.
"Upon arrival on the island, I find unmistakable signs this island was found before. An abandoned amusement park was within walking distance of the natural harbor. It's really quite remarkable. The rides are rusted, but seem to be functional. The generators were out of fuel, but they looked functional. Rather surprisingly, there were large stores of food still edible, though most of it is fairground fare. There were even several boxes of cigars. Was this a privately owned park? Why have I never heard of this place? Why isn't anyone here at all.
"This island also provides me with many test subjects for my experiments. After further exploration, I've found a large herd of donkeys. I notice there is a far larger amount of jacks than jennys, but there are foals as well. The donkeys also had unusual manes. Instead of just being black, they came in black, brown, yellow, red, basically all the different colors that human hair comes in. But the most disturbing part about them were the eyes. It might be my imagination playing tricks on me, but I could swear I can see a deep sorrow in their eyes. More than once, I came across a donkey that was weeping and their brays often had the sound of sobbing to them. But that's all nonsense. The words of those sentimental fools are making me project emotions onto the beasts. I'm sure they'll be much more happy when they're uplifted and putting themselves to work.
"This island does fascinate me though. It seems odd that an amusement park like this would be left to rot when it's still perfectly functional. There must more to this place. I wonder if I could start it up and lure in people to... No, no, my work should be to create workers out of animals, not out of humans. No matter how tempting it might be. It's a bit unnerving how these thoughts are coming to me. Something about this place..."