Integration

It was hard to breathe down here, in sector X, known as dirtiest region of ‘the lowest ring’.

“HEY! YOU! PICK UP THE PACE, OR I WILL MOTIVATE YOU!” yelled one of the guards.

“YES!” we responded in unison, swinging wildly even though none of us could feel our hands anymore.

Like the rest in my immediate surroundings, I didn’t have a name.

All of us referred to as “you”, one could never be too careful around here, because the guards might address whomever and you would be the one receiving punishment, a hundred feet away… Needless to say, stopping work and turning around to check who was the actual object of scolding was not an option.

Contrary to my older peers, I was around 12-14 years old, making me the youngest out of the entire workforce in our sector. Maybe even the entire mine.

Though I’ve been alive for this long, ironically, the only thing I could remember was the last week I spent in here.

Learning quickly, it didn’t take long for me to realize that every day was the same in this cursed mine.

We would wake up before sunrise, have a piece of bread for breakfast, and start working like madmen until dusk.

Perhaps there were alternatives, but not to us slaves.

Any variety in day-to-day activities was an anomaly, and those were thoroughly eliminated.

But it wouldn’t be long until I got involved in one myself.

“Hey kid, pass me that hammer,” asked the old man I was closest to in the entire sector. It looked like he was here for a while, but regardless of his seniority, he still treated me nicely.

It made me a little happier that even though I was in such a miserable place, at least I wasn’t being ostracized by other people, suffering the same fate.

“You’ve got a lot of scars for your age… how did you get them?” he asked.

I looked at my own body, confused at what he meant.

But he was right.

I didn’t notice them myself, but there were countless scars all over me.

When did this even happen?

What was I doing these past couple of years to receive these injuries?

All types of questions raced through my mind, and I wish I could answer them, but even though I was this body’s host, I was as clueless as anyone else.

“I don’t know…” I answered in a lost tone, “…do you remember anything from before this place?”

He looked at me with his green eyes, momentarily halting his work, eventually tilting his head towards the grey sky.

“Everyone here is the same. None of us know…” he said grimly, “We all wish we did, but who is to say if we will ever get it back… I’ve been here for 20 years already… if I could remember, I think it would’ve happened a long time ago…”

I looked at him, flustered and unable to say anything.

Was I next?

“The more time I spend in here… the more I find myself believing that I never had a life outside slavery in the first place… that I was born here.”

Eyes wide, I looked down at the ground.

Would this eventually happen to me, too?

I don’t want to spend my life in here….

“…how… do I get out…”

The old man looked at me, pitifully.

“You don’t… your only hope is someone rescuing you, but the only visitors this place got in two decades were other slaves…” he said darkly.

Did I have someone who would do that for me?

Was anyone trying to find me?

Somehow, the hollowness I felt in my chest made me believe that the answer was no.

I couldn’t help feeling uneasy.

I kept doubting myself and thinking that I was leaving something behind.

That I was betraying expectations by rotting away in this place.

With things the way they currently stood, I knew I was about to spend the rest of my life as a slave...

…

Another week passed.

Being unexpectedly thrown in here with my memories gone, I was getting used to the pit.

For the first time in a while, the blazing sun that usually hid behind thick clouds was shining all the way to the bottom of the deep crater.

Though rare, even this place could have good, bright days.

Sweat covered my dirty face and arms as I was being productive first thing in the morning.

Working diligently, I kept striking my pickaxe at the designated wall, the shock of each hit reverberating throughout my body.

So why did it have to be today…

Why was it that these people who came to pick a fight with me…

Did it when the guards were conveniently supervising the other side of the lowest ring...

“Oi, kid. You sure you are doing a good job? I don’t see any progress from yesterday… UGH? Come on, say something,” one of them pestered me.

“Yeah, you better have a reason. We don’t want the guards to be on our asses because of you, so let’s hear it…” another came up into my face.

Two grown men were ganging up on me, but no one from my sector moved a muscle.

They looked at me sympathetically, gripping their pickaxes tightly, looking down at the ground.

It seems this was the custom here – whoever was new, always got a warm greeting from two or more bald, muscular idiots.

The ones that, incidentally, always did the least work yet weren’t reprimanded for it.

The legal, non-persecuted anomalies…

“WELL? Are we going to hear your answer or WHAT?”

“…why do you care… you are not even from this part of the mine…” I mumbled under my breath, looking down at my feet.

“EGHHH?! SPEAK LOUDER YOU BRAT!”

“…I —”

“…i … i…” he mocked. “TELL ME CLEARLY.”

“…I have been doing a good job…” I said despondently.

“A GOOD JOB?! YOU CALL THIS A GOOD JOB —” he took my head, driving my face into the wall.

“WELL, NOW THAT YOU HAD A CLOSER LOOK, WHAT DO YOU SAY? DO YOU REALIZE HOW STUPID YOU ARE?”

My hands desperately trying to push away from the wall, I didn’t have enough strength to resist.

My skull being crushed against sharp rock, I couldn’t breathe.

“Hey, man… don’t be that rough with him, the guards will know…” the other harasser said quickly.

“Ugh? Who’s going to teach him a lesson then?” he asked pressing my face against wall even harder. “You know yourself how out of line they can get.”

He looked back at his partner, seeing the serious look on his face.

He clicked his tongue and after a moment, he eased up.

“Whatever… dumbass kid… next time we visit, you better have a good answer… we’ll let you off the hook today…” he threw me on the floor, not even looking at my face.

I lay silently on my side, masked in, and choking on my own, dark red blood.

…

Within an hour, I would be woken up by a bucket of water.

It was one of the guards.

“Come on! On your feet! You are not dead yet, can you see what I am showing you?”

My face bruised, and eyes swollen, I could tell he was holding up his hand, but I couldn’t perceive any more than that.

It was painful. I wanted to enter an eternal sleep and forget all about it.

I didn’t want to feel even a second more of these agonizing injuries.

I cried, hiding my face within my arms.

A soft, distant voice rang loudly within my head,

…prevail …zo…

“Call a doctor,” the guard addressed another supervisor. “Hold out a little longer… we’ll get you patched up kid…”

Within minutes, a tall, slim shadow of a man appeared before me, a creepy air surrounding him.

It was the doctor.

The man sat down next to me, looked at my face, glanced around the room at the others, then proceeded to heal my wounds with magic…

Magic…

A beautiful sight so close, yet so far away…

There was a deep longing for it inside of me, but I didn’t know why.

The doctor was done. He stood up and quickly excused himself.

He worked efficiently, yet cautiously at the same time.

“Alright… now you can go back to work,” said the guard, but it seemed like something was still bugging him – enough to slightly postpone his plans of returning to the other supervisors.

“You lot must have seen it...” he said humorlessly, looking at all of them.

“…”

“Tell me… what happened here—”

“He tripped sir!” someone squealed from a corner, interrupting the guard. “He… just tripped.”

My eyes widened.

Who is that?

“Is that true?” the guard’s voice echoed somewhere far away.

I turned my murderous gaze in the direction of this lying coward.

Meeting eyes with him, he gave out a quiet yelp and quickly looked away.

Despite the guard waiting for an answer, everyone else remained silent, arching their heads toward the floor.

He sighed again, bent down towards me and whispered, “you don’t have to push yourself today… if they come again, run into the open, and we will do something about it.”

He gave everyone one last contemptuous glance, “back to work.”

I was betrayed… by the very people I thought I was the closest to in this despicable mine.

It was at this moment, two weeks in, that I decided I couldn’t trust these people anymore.

My face still in pain, and anguish overflowing, I furiously hit my pickaxe into the wall.

…

The next day, the swelling disappeared but the stinging sensations and bruises remained.

My body could use a lot of rest, but this was slavery, not a vacation.

I sluggishly swung my pickaxe, ignoring every single person in sector X.

Deciding not to speak to a single one of them ever again, I couldn’t even look them in the eye.

I willingly did what I was afraid of from the very beginning,

Isolation…

I separated myself from them, and kept to myself.

That’s when they came again, one of them ready to start the harassment and assault as usual, but the other hesitating.

“So? You got an answer for us, kid? We have been patiently waiting an entire day for this…” said the aggressive one, “I hope you douchebags kept your mouths shut, didn’t you?”

“Y-Y-YES,” squealed the same voice that concealed the truth from the guard yesterday.

“Good… how about it, kid?” he asked, approaching me. “You still haven’t done shit in your little corner. We need yet another explanation.”

“What’s it to you? …you fucking gorilla,” I said.

One of the slaves dropped their hammers on the floor. Overwhelming silence filled the room.

I know that kind guard told me to run out into the open, and they would do something about it themselves, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to personally settle the score.

This time, the one needing reanimation will be this braindead gorilla.

“Kid—” the old man attempted to speak.

“You little shit… it looks like last time wasn’t enough for you, was it?” he picked up a hammer. “Like I thought, the likes of you need to learn the hard way...”

“Hey… man… you can’t be serious… he’s a kid…” said his relatively docile partner in bullying.

“I’ll make him regret living…”

“Try me… you fucking orc…” I provoked the big gorilla.

Giving him the last spark he needed, he burst into action.

I took my own hammer, and slowly waited for the gorilla’s strike.

Sensing his bloodlust, I knew he would go for my head right away.

He cocked his arm and swung as hard as he could diagonally with a wild arch. Taking advantage of his stupidity, I reduced the gap and dodged his attack right under his own arm, simultaneously swinging my own hammer with all my strength right into his right knee and springing back up behind him.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” he yelled, dropping to the ground and his hammer slipping out of his hands.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH… AHHHH… MY KNEE…”

He started turning his head.

As it stood, he could still kill me if he wanted to. I swung my hammer at his right shoulder, shattering the bone entirely.

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

He bent down, his eyes about to leave their sockets.

“Kid… stop… that’s enough,” said one of the sector X slaves.

I flipped him onto his back, climbed on top, and began beating his face in with all the strength I could muster.

Blood splattering everywhere, I couldn’t feel my right hand anymore.

The men looked in shock, terrorized and unable to believe their eyes.

Sounds of my punches to the gorilla’s face echoed throughout the room.

Enraged, I kept punching.

I swung and swung, until the scumbag finally went stiff.

Snapping back to reality, I breathed heavily atop the gorilla.

I stood up, gasping for air, my knuckles bloody and hands trembling, and walked over to a nearby wall, putting my back against it and slipping down into a sitting position.

The gorilla’s partner approached his unconscious body, confirming that he was still alive and surprisedly glancing at me.

Of course he was.

I wasn’t going to become a murderer over something like this.

“HEY! YOU! WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!” said the guard who was kind to me yesterday, appearing from out of nowhere, and addressing the gorilla’s partner, who was kneeling before his motionless body.

“I —"

“He fell…”