Anne stared forlornly already knowing there was no other option.

Slowly she closed the last box in place. Old toys pieced together from her childhood that had fallen into disuse and an endless plethora of memories carved together over the years. The fading memories of when there had been more, and they had time.

The order had come down from above that they were collecting a voluntary drive, all citizens were expected to contribute in the face of the hardships facing the planetary governor in meeting a quota set by someone who had never even touched the work they did.

The imperium needed us to give more, always more as the shifts at the factory had grown and more and more hours shaved away. As each hour demanded ever more productivity and first freedom and then even safety had been carved away in the name of duty to the Imperium.

You can always give more for the Imperium.

She hefted the box up and looked back at the bare home she was leaving behind, but there was more that was needed of her from the Imperium than living her life. The walk was long to the largest collection point, not the closest for it was smaller and it was important to be seen to give. To show in public how committed you were to the cause.

Hadn't it given them everything in the end? Safety from the invaders at the door, the threats that would tear down humanity if ever they had the chance. A roof over her head and rations to eat when so many others had less.

But every day the colour seeped away from the blocks around them as the estate they lived in together slowly caved into ruin. More friends who she'd known and laughed with for so many years seeming to wither away when they met again. Others still she never met as she passed by their empty houses, for who knew what they had done to be taken away.

Even asking could be a crime for who would have an interest in the work of traitors except more of their ilk.

Still, those that remained lived on, pouring away every last shred of who they'd been in an attempt to meet the next target, even as they became ever more unreasonable. What had once been a job she'd been ecstatic to obtain had slowly hollowed her out until it became the only thing she had left, less a human and more another cog in the great machine of the Imperium with no time for herself.

The latest drive was for fuel, a shipment somewhere had come in late and anything that could be burned needed to be given over to the hungry furnace so that the lights at work wouldn't go out for even a moment. It was a request only, that each and every one of them give only what they could spare.

But she'd seen what happened to people that didn't contribute to a voluntary drive. Disloyal, traitorous even heretical. And once heresy was mentioned it was only a matter of time until a surprise inspection found something, and they were dragged away in the middle of the night.

Because who couldn't give up something when the Imperium needed it, what answer could they possibly give?

You can always give more for the Imperium.

There was no line and that in itself was a bad sign, for people wanted to be seen contributing, needed to be seen to have contributed to stave away accusations that they hadn't. And perhaps also it meant that she was late, well not beyond the cut-off point but then no one wanted to be the last to give, the slowest at showing their loyalty.

No one wanted to be first either, lest someone suggest they had something to hide.

But as she made her way in, an expression of calm etched over the fear the reason soon made itself clear.

A mural of a person laughing at the world plastered in coloured card decorated across the wall itself, in an act of vandalism so brazen as to be considered sacrilege. To see it a crime, to stop and gawk even more so. Laughing at the Government was a crime, it showed disrespect and rebellion and heresy all in one moment and could it perhaps be said you were ungrateful for all that it did?

That it stood guard over an empty room even more so. But who would dare be the only one to give under such a mural? Wouldn't it be complicit in acknowledging you'd seen it. There should have been a guard… but the room was empty.

But how many people had to take part to make it. From admin brown painting her skin, to a flowing cleaning blue dress, scrunched up security black trails plastered as her hair, a smile of line red and packing white. And where that had overflowed the figure they'd gone on to carve a sun in white and red behind her.

A single eye gazed back in quality assured violet, a laughing mockery of their station to watch over and report any member acting out of line. For any failure was insubordination even when it wasn't meant as such. One of her own team, someone she knew stepping out and smiling back across the divide.

None of them ever smiled at work. She giggled trying to picture it their team leader trying to fit in with a rebellion, or perhaps his second staring frostily back under a banner for a rebellion and it didn't fit. She stifled the laugh, and then indulged in it. It couldn't give her a harsher punishment than just being seen.

She added the second eye, an almost complete person smiling back in a way she hadn't been able to in years.

You can indulge in yourself a little.

She'd take a brisk walk back and go to the nearer collection point. Because she was working hard and hadn't had the time of course, with how much work was demanded no one had any time to take the long route.

She'd rest and relax and find the time to catch up with old friends who were surely doing the same. Make enough noise maybe it could even get reported. That she was on the other side of the compound, that she had never gone anywhere near the main collection point.


AN: On treating oneself like a person I guess, this one obviously could have gone for a more LGBT slant as Slaanesh is often depicted in that manner but I wanted to go for rehumanising oneself in the face of a society that dehumanises everyone. So a lot of anticapitalism in this one.

So naturally I have to take the piss out of the endless supply of warhammer paints avaialble too. And from there the rebellion I wanted morphed into graffiti and this piece came to be.