A Collar

The dark morning brew tightened its grip on their uncaged minds. As the left hand switched to the right back and forth, the pull of the leash only got harsher. They bled. There was not a droplet of blood and yet they bled, deep scathed and to be scarred. Scares they should have been, but the opposite instead - ecstatic.

Upon the last black drop exchanged for the drop of the red their collars have sprung open releasing the herd into the wild.