"You need to keep a firm grip on 'em", was the first thing my supervisor told me when I started the job at the culling center. "Most of the ones we get are taken from middle class neighborhoods, healthy and fit, and not willing to submit to their fate without a struggle."

The processing line was occupied by four young boys. They had been hung upside down from their ankles, and lifted until their heads were chest height to us. She lowered the first boy, a pale raven haired hapa to the floor, where he wriggled uselessly, his skinny arms straining against the zipties keeping them pinned behind his back.

"Watch closely, newbie".

The supervisor knelt down on his back, her knee keeping him in place and clamped her left hand over his face. She pulled his head back, exposing his pale white throat. His big brown eyes stared at me, pleading silently.

The supervisor grabbed her knife from her belt scabbard and placed the edge of the blade against the boy's neck.

"No need to be terribly precise, just push it in with a firm shove and pull it across, it should open the jugular and carotid in one go."

The boy closed his eyes tight, his lips drawn back in a terrified grimace.
His hands balled up into fists as the knife slowly opened his neck from ear to ear, bright red arterial blood gushing forth in a pressurized spray and dripping down his bare chest in rivulets.

"NNNnnnnnguuuuh~"

A faint moan escaped from between the supervisors hand, wet and gurgling.

The supervisor relaxed her hold, and let go. The boy's head drooped forward, slackjawed.
She stood up and gestured towards the next boy in line.
I watched in fascination as blood pooled around the motionless body, animated solely by twitches as the brain shut down from oxygen starvation and bloodloss.

"Next."