During her long sleep, Mary's dreams were invaded by sounds of shuffling, rumbling, clacking and slamming. She was too caught up in her fantasies to pay it any real attention.
She slowly came to. Her eyes were groggy. It was dark, and she felt cold. Also full. Very full. She lifted an arm to feel one of her teats and heard a metallic sound.
Mary snapped to full alertness. She wasn't in her bed anymore. Wherever this was, she was on a floor covered in straw. Dirty, muddy straw. She sat up, grunting. Those grunts reverberated in her ear several times, which told her she was in a small room with metal walls. She also heard chains rattling and something else, like a dull clanging sound. One of the chains fell across her breasts, and the chilling cold shot through her nerves.
Her eyes were adjusting to the room. In front of her she could see a figure. She shifted her weight and walked clumsily on her hands and knees toward it. Her breasts and stomach lurched as she moved, and she heard more rattling and clunking. She could see whatever it was before her moving as well, getting larger. Then she realized it was her reflection.
She squinted to see in the dim light, and as her vision became clearer, she became more and more frightened.
She was bound. Shackled. A thick collar was fastened to her neck. attached to it was a chain and a large metal cow bell. Her nose had a thick brass ring pierced in it, and on either side it was sewn into leather straps that formed a bridle on her face. It didn't go into a bite in her mouth, like it would on some horses. It looped under her chin and another loop went behind her head. Where the loops connected, just on either side of her mouth, were more metal hooks for affixing a leash to. A white plastic tracking tag on her left ear had the number "21" written on it. Her hair was matted and dirty.
Looking down at her arms, she saw her wrists tightly bound in more leather straps. They were connected by a two-foot chain that itself was connected by another short chain leading to her collar. Her ankles were attached by another chain, but this wasn't connected to anything.
She wanted to know what happened to her, but more importantly, she wanted to get the hell out of wherever she was. She raised her hands up to her collar, grasping for the buckle. The cow bell clanked noisily. Her fingers touched something that must have been the fastener, but she couldn't get a good grip. Whatever was holding it together must require tinner, human fingers, not the thick digits she currently had. The same went for her wrist braces, she discovered. They were attached by an array of tiny metal clasps much like what she had on most of her necklaces. She had a hard enough time getting those things off when she had regular fingers.
Frustrated, she pulled on her chains. Pain ripped through her throat and her nose. She knew it was useless, but she kept trying. Her bell clanged, echoing off the walls and practically deafening her. All the while, she was trying to keep the instinctual urges from coming to the front of her mind and washing her present worries away. Those urges had only two things to say: Feed. Milk. Over and over they chanted to her, but Mary didn't want to give in. She couldn't give in. She had to escape.
"Somebody! Let me out of here!" she tried to shout. But instead, all that came out of her mouth were piggish grunts and cow-like moaning. Her human voice was lost to her.
After a long time of pulling her chains, banging against the walls and mooing remorsefully, all Mary had left to do was sob. At least she still had tear ducts. As the salty drops trickled down her face, she stared at her woeful reflection in the mirror. Her eyes fell on that annoying bell, and she started to cry anew as she read its inscription:
"MARY - Property of the Taurus Project"