I am a small boy.
Tiny, even.
I do not really know my name. If someone told me it once, I've forgotten it. No one really calls us children anything more than "boy" or "girl".
I am a slave in a deep core mine. My whole universe is an underworld of rock and dust and subterranean humanity. I live in a mining complex that is bigger than even a child's imagination, miles and miles and miles of stone and ore and darkness.
It is all I have ever known.
The images in front of me are both fuzzy and brilliantly distinct, in the way of a child slowly gaining consciousness.
The first thing I remember being conscious of is the smell.Dirt, dust, metal, machinery and sweating humanity mixed in a distinctive odor, deep and rich and pervasive, seeming to permeate the very rock itself.
The dry, empty taste of dust hangs in my nose, in my mouth, in the nutrient paste I eat every morning and evening. At least, on the days I'm able to keep the older boys from taking my paste from me.
I can smell the ore as its sent up from the depths. The scent of the mineshaft itself, dark, primeval, and eternal, the wet, warm heavy air lifting up from the depths, rising to flood into the upper levels were we children live and work.
We always work.
They tell us we work because its what God needs us to do, wants us to do.They tell us it was what we were born to do.
I feel so small.
I am always scampering underfoot from people and things bigger than me, uncaring people and things that will hurt me without thought if I'm not careful.
Everything you touch is hard here. Some of it is sharp. All of it can hurt.
What I remember next is the sounds. The sound of the machinery is everywhere, a rumble, a vibration, a deep, oppressive echo that seems to follow me, even in my dreams when I sleep.
It is a constant. Sometimes its merely a distant, almost inaudible vibration in the sleeping and eating chambers, with it rising to an overwhelming crescendo when I get near the ore processing and smelting complexes.
It is the echo of far-off, dangerous, powerful things, and I live in fear of it.
It is the sound of a monster, of the massive, foreboding, terrible enterprise that goes on all around me. It seems alive in the way children believe in monsters, the breathing of something dark and terrible. I believe with the strength of a boy's imagination that the monster watches me, that it knows me, that it sees me.
And that it does not like what it sees. In me. In any of us trapped down here, made to work because God wants us to.I strain to hear the low, dull, rhythmic noises of the mine shaft, the sounds of the monster complacent. Sometimes I hear the distant sound of mining explosives, followed by the buzz of continued mining.
As much as I fear the echo, I fear its absence more, for any easing of the echo can bring the monster’s booming thunder and the crushing weight of angry rock and ore.
I am always afraid of what lives above me.
Rising over that constant hum is the din of humanity. I always hear the sound of the overseers' words, more an animals call than actual words, but perfectly understood by those who live in the dark caverns. I can barely make our the sharp cries, yells, and exclamations of the technicians as they worked on the antediluvian gears and belts and drills.
I jump every time I hear the sharp, splashing sounds of metal on metal as the mining cars met.
And I dream almost every sleep cycle of the anguished yell of an unfortunate slave injured in an accident, her body broken, a victim of the monster’s sudden and violent displeasure. There are many such accidents in my world.
I try to listen every Tenth Day to the sound of the sermons, the only time the rumbling of the mine shaft seemed to ease. The preacher’s voice sounds alien, bizarre, foreign in dialect and accent, but with an aggressive cadence that I recognize in the overseers' barked orders.
Soon, the words become familiar, even welcomed, for they mean an easing of the monster's breathing and our burdens. We get to rest, to sit, and to eat better food sometimes. At these moments, it seems that the preacher is the messenger of something bigger, grander, more glorious, but something I am forever apart from.
They say that he is giving the voice of God.
Maybe, I whisper ever so quietly in my head, he is the voice of the monster.
The preacher seemed to have some secret, some truth that escapes me, for the preacher seems to understand my home in a way I do not. So I bow my head, and listen, and try to understand the strange words. They still confuse me every time I listen, but I try hard to understand.I always stare at preachers and the other pale skinned overseers. They look so different than us.
They call themselves Amarrians, and that God put them here to guide us, to protect us, to give us a purpose and to save our souls. They always wear a lot of clothes, even down here where it is so warm. They seem so tired all the time, we can tell they don't like being here, that it weighs them down almost. Their bodies seem fragile and small and puny, like mine.
But they walk in a way none of us miners walk, like they're not sad about who they are, or what they're doing.
And they seem so old, almost ancient to my young eyes. I've never seen an old slave, not one old person who looks like I do. It makes the Amarrians seem all the more exotic, unknowable and scary because of it.
But not all I see and hear is scary. There is laughter, there is quiet friendly words in the sleeping chambers, gossip told, and memories and stories passed on. We children play as children do everywhere, between work shifts, with makeshift toys that we make ourselves, or that a kind grown up makes for us.
We children have our very own places in our underground world, in the maintenance tunnels and shafts too small for grown ups, in secret hidden places that children are always able to find. We talk, and play, and store our extra food in such places so the bigger kids can't take it from us. We share which work details are better, which grown ups are nice, which overseers are mean when you get into trouble, and which overseers you should never, ever, be alone with.
Of all our hiding spots, one is our favorite, a small carved room filled with ancient and run-down mining equipment, walled off from the rest of the mine, accessible only through tiny maintenance shafts. It seems prehistoric to us, filled with the marks and drawings of children born generations past. It seems sacred almost, like the Chapel sometimes feels.
One day, I take one of the ancient rusted metal pieces from one of the broken-down machines in the chamber and carve my own mark onto the stone wall. I don't write my name, for I don't know how to write, and I don't know what I would write if I could anyway. But I leave a mark all my own, something that looks like a circle, spending a whole nights scratching it into the hard stone, my tongue peeking out of the side of my mouth as I concentrate.
It feels dangerous, and risky, and selfish, but exciting and profound and special.
I feel like I matter when I do it.
I touch the small mark every time I come back to the hidden room. It's the one thing I own.
Sometimes there are secret words passed on between the slaves, special ones, passed on in the quietest, darkest moments, when the din of the monster seems to be at its lowest. Those times I hear the whispers, I keep my eyes open, staring, listening, knowing they're special in some way without knowing exactly how.
I hear the words of “Republic”, of “freedom”, stories of a world without the preachers, without the deep black of the mine shaft. Of the tribes, and old stories of ancient heroes and shamans. Of battles won over golden fleets.
The stories of a world without the monster.I believed in them, in the way children believe in dreams and fairy tales.
But, always, the stories of hope fade away, to be replaced by the echoing, vibrating din, and the dark, grey dust.
Every day, new images are burned into my young mind, the kind of everyday moments that a child latches onto. I watch the corded arms of the men as they struggle to move heavy mining equipment or to clear yet another cave-in. I see forlorn looks of the women and girls as their herded off to the breeding chambers, to be stuck with needles and forced to endure another pregnancy, to bring another baby, kicking and screaming, into the monster’s embrace. I see the black, wet look of blood on a rock wall after an accident. The steam and dust rising from the depths from the far off mining drills. The orange-red flickering from the smelting chambers casting long shadows on the walls. The golden sheen of the Chapel on Tenth Day.
Other images find their way into my consciousness. A forbidden symbol etched into a rock wall in the smelting center, a symbol that sends the overseers into a rage, a symbol that had meaning before the golden, burning fleets arrived.
In a special Tenth Day service, I see my first night sky. I stare up into the breathtaking night, both alien and wondrous to my young eyes and imagination. I do my best to hide that I'm staring, the preachers would punish me if they knew I wasn't paying attention. But I stare up as much as I can, seeing these things called stars shimmering, winking, almost like they're alive, like they know I'm watching.Like they were placed there just for me to see.
There is one special time that means more to me than any other time or place, even more that the Special Hiding Place or the mark I made or seeing the Night Sky or Saints' Day where we all get extra food. It was when the serving girls occasionally came to feed and tend us children at the end of every other work period.
I remember the look of one of the girls, a smile that appears genuine even when her eyes are sad. She always brushes my hair out of my eyes. She is always kind to me, giving me an extra little bit of her food every time she could.
I know, somehow, that the moments were special, even if I didn’t know exactly how. I try to remember every detail, every moment, for reasons I couldn't exactly comprehend. In her features I see a face that mine would grow to resemble, eyes the same color of my own. My face grows wet when she leaves, even if I don’t know why. The dust would always mix with my tears, leaving muddy trails down his face, getting in my mouth, making it taste sandy and dusty.
Then, after a cave-in in the southwest tunnels, she stops coming.I still wait at the end of every work cycle, hoping to see her. Every sleep cycle I silently stare at the door where the serving girls come out of, hoping she would appear. I am scared I will never see her, but I don't know how to stop hoping to see her again.
I never remember that hope and desperation ever completely going away…
I remember being taught the basic skills rituals of my world, how to maintain the conveyor belt gears, how to smell when a machine is running too hot, how to feel when a cave-in might occur. I am taught the children’s task of moving through the small spaces that the adults could not go, for God and our Holder need us to make sure the gears and pistons and belts we crawl through and among are functioning and working and clean.
It is scary. But we do it anyway. It was what we were born to do.
I remember the high pitched yell of a little boy next to me when the boy’s arm got caught in one of the ore processors. The burst of red, then the yell, followed by a low whimper. But there was no surprise or shock in his little face, merely a resigned, pained look. Such things were always painful but never surprising when we were in the machines.
Cycle after cycle after cycle goes by. I slowly grow.
One day, there is a special gathering of all the work shifts in the main processing room. The room is so big you can barely see the ceiling, the lights of the processing equipment far above a poor imitation of the night sky I love so much.
There, the preachers tell us that we haven't been following God's words. That too many mistakes have been made, too many missed deadlines, too many heathen symbols scratched onto walls.They tell us that such things will not be accepted. That they will not allow us to fall from God's path.
They whip one out of every ten of the gathered slaves, picked at random. I am terrified that they will pick me. They don't. But I see some of the other children I know drug to the discipline posts.
Their cries echo through the massive room. I've seen punishment before, for those of us the preachers say have done bad things. This was worse.
I cry and shake and hope the priests and overseers don't see me crying.
The cycles following the disciplining, we work harder, even though I didn't think we could. I sleep a little less. Told to crawl farther into the machines and gears to find problems. We have less time to play than we did before. The work cycles grind on.
It started with a distant rumble.
I was quietly eating in the corner of one of the common rooms, my back to a corner so I could see if someone might try to take my food. I froze when I heard the sound, along with everyone else, all of us looking up at the rock above us.
The it rumbled again, louder, angrier. One of the kitchen workers came over to me, concern in her eyes as she looked up, and listened.
A group of off-cycle miners gather in the center of the room, putting their heads down, and pray. It was common to hear such whispered prayers when there was a moonquake.This time their prayers were answered by a roar.
The ground under me beings quake and rumble, dust falling from the ceiling, the sound of peoples yells and screams join the growing crescendo coming up from the depths. Sirens and alarms soon join the cacophony, and red lights begin flashing around us.
The kitchen worker instinctively puts her body over mine, trying to shield me from the groaning ceiling. The woman holds my hand, guiding me to an area near a support, a place we are taught to go during the common moonquakes that shake our home.
But this doesn't sound like a common moonquake. I've never met her before, but both of us cling to each other as we run out the door. We look down one of the access tunnels that leads to the central shaft. We're staring into an image of hell, fire erupting from the shaft, sending flickering, long shadows down the hall toward us.
We flee, running the other way, the dust and dirt falling from the ceiling turning into rocks and boulders.
She tells me to run, and I do. She's holding my small hand in hers. She tells me to keep running, to not stop. And I don't, even when she lets go of my hand. I somehow hear my own terrified breathing over the sound of the mine as it starts to die around me, mixed in with my own sobs and whimpers. I look over my shoulder, and I see nothing save rock and dust and fury. The woman is gone.
I run to a maintenance shaft I know, flames rushing down a side tunnel ahead of me. Out of habit and instinct, I dip into one of the tiny access tunnels, the one that leads to the only safe place I know, to the small chambers me and the other children sneak to. I frantically crawl through the small tunnels, the stone tearing at my knees and hands as I scramble as fast as I can.
I finally reach the small chamber that me and the under children called ours. The whole world shakes around me, and I hear frightening sounds echoing down the tunnels. I crawl under an ancient metal ore container, curled up into a ball as the world rages around me.
I whisper all the prayers I know, praying to a God whom I know is displeased with me, with all of us trapped in this place.
I tell Him Im sorry, over and over again. It becomes my prayer, my chant, hoping that He knows how I wish we weren't down here, that I whatever we did, we will try to make it better.
Finally, the violent sounds of the mine dying ebbs away, to be replaced by an equally oppressive silence. Soon, all I hear are my own whispered prayers and my sobs.
I do not know how long I stay in that spot. It seems like I stay curled up for what has to be an entire work shift, my ears straining to ear something, anything. I desperately hope to hear the sound of one of the other children, hoping one of my friends would come here to be safe too. The red emergency lighting that the children sneaked into this room is the only light in my entire world, and that light itself flickering and dim, threatening to go out at any moment.
I watch and listen for so long, peering down the black tunnels, hoping to hear the sounds of my friends, of another child coming up the access tunnel. No one comes. I wonder whats happened to everyone, but I'm too scared to go look. I curl up in my hiding spot and wait, for what has to be many more work cycles.
I finally look inside our hidden food stores, where we put the food so the bigger kids cant take it. I take the food that's mine, the packs of nutrient paste, and put it in one pile, and put all the other food in the other corner for my friends when they get back.
It was the one rule of this place.
You never take someone's food. Ever.
And I tell myself they will be coming back. They will need it.
I ration my food gradually, for I am already practiced in such things. And I wait. And I listen. For the sound of the mine. For the sound of the monster's breathing. It never comes.
It is thirst, not hunger, that drives me from my refuge, my mouth dry and filled with dust. I slowly make my way through pitch-black tunnels, tunnels I know my heart, but they've taken on a sinister and alien presence since the accident. I run into caved-in rock twice, making me have to double back twice, find new ways around. I wont let myself think that I am trapped with no way out, trapped in this eternal blackness. That would be too scary.
Finally I see red emergency lighting up ahead, a red square seeming far off in the distance. I all but cry in relief. When I reach the exit, I slowly look outside of the tiny maintenance tunnel I find myself in, seeing the greater mining complex itself. In the wane red light, I make out an image of rumble, devastation, and the twisted and tangled metal of what used to be mining and processing gear. The chamber itself is frightening quiet.
I slowly explore my new world, trying to find anything I remember to use as a landmark. I move quietly, staying hidden in the way little boys do. I creep along shattered mine shafts, down shattered maintenance hallways, marking along the walls with chalk rock every few steps as I was taught by the older miners.
I don't see anyone. I'm not sure if I'm more scared of finding someone, or of not finding someone. But I know I'm scared. I'm too small, and I'm a slave and I'm stupid and I make mistakes like the preachers tell us.I don't know what to do.
I finally hear the echo of what sounds like water dripping into a pool. I creep, excitement and caution struggling within me as I slowly try to find the source of the water. I track the echoes through the dark, red emergency-light tinted tunnels until I find the source of the echo.
Water slowly drips from a shattered mining machine into a large pool, it's steam compressors crushed until falling stone. I drink from the dark pool and stream as much as I can. The water is dark and dirty looking. It tastes bad, and it makes my stomach hurt, but Im too thirsty to care. I mark the way with more chalk rock, and hope that the water doesnt go away.I find hidden treasures among the rubble. Two ancient but working glowsticks. An old blanket, dust covered but warm. I even find a miner's discarded canteen, and I whisper a prayer in thanks as I drink the warm, stale water inside. I dont find any food, but I know that food has always been scarce even before the cave in.
For the next couple days, I slowly expand the edges of my shattered universe, exploring a little bit more from my tiny refuge. It seems so quiet. I hear the echo of every piece of falling pebble dislodged as the tunnels moan and creak.I finally find my first person. Or at least, what used to be a person. He is laying in an empty control room. He looks like an overseer. He doesn't look like the cave-in killed him. There is a metal spike sticking out of his chest. I quickly search the room for someone I can use, then run away as fast as I can. I cant bring myself to search his body, but I wonder irrationally if maybe he had food as I'm scrambling away.
My food is slowly dwindling. Ive tried to save some, but Im always so hungry. I look longingly at the other pile of nutrient paste packets. At my friends' food.
No. That is for them, when they get here. To take their food is wrong.
But Im so hungry.
Work cycle after work cycle must go by. I dont know how many.I find a side tunnel that eventually makes it way to the main shaft. Everything is dark, with the slowly fading red emergency lighting casting everything in a flickering red glow, like a fire. It strikes me that it looks a lot like how some of the Tenth Day preachers describe Hell.
I am slowly padding my way down a concrete walkway, moving from shadow to shadow. There are piles of stone and twisted metal everywhere. I see what looks like a mine tech's bag, half buried in the dust. I pull it out slowly, not wanting to cause more dirt to fall down, then open it, looking through it with a thoroughness taught to me by so many cycles down here. I find a small nutrient bar under some tools. Its a priceless treasure.
As Im reaching for it, I see something move in the darkness out of the corner of my eye. I freeze, then slowly move as close as I can to the rocks.
The darkness moves again, slowly gaining definition in the weak red light. Three shapes move out of the shadows, hunkered down like I always am, but with a coiled, waiting kind of stance.
They look like they were once miners, all of them men, but they're covered in dust and grime. And they dont move like people. They're lean and desperate looking.
They move like animals hunting.
They have makeshift weapons in their hands, sharp and cruel and jagged-edged.
Some instinct in me screams for me to stay down, to not move, to not be seen. That they will hurt me if they see me. I'm trembling, shaking, as I watch them move down the tunnel, my breath coming out in tiny bursts, my jaw open wide in fear.
They stop in front of me, on the other side of the rubble. I hear them muttering to each other, more animalistic grunts rather than words.
I am so scared I wet myself. Im trembling so hard I'm afraid they will hear the rocks shake around me. Finally, they move their way down the tunnel, moving with a predators gait.
As soon as they're gone, I run. As fast as I can. I dive into one of my tiny access tunnels, and crawl as fast as I can to my chamber. I curl up in my dusty blanket, pulling it over my head. And I stay there for what feels like a whole cycle, trembling.
When I finally crawl out from my hiding spot under the ore container, I find something sharp to carry with me, a piece of jagged metal from one of the ancient mining machines. It looks so little in my small hand. But it makes me feel better. Almost.
My stomach hurts so much. Im so hungry. I wanted to find more food, but Im afraid of running into those things in the shape of people again.
I look over at my friends food, stare at it. I cant. Its theirs. But Im so hungry.
And I dont know if I can find anymore food any time soon. And I might be found....by them.
I keep waking up from my sleep with my stomach hurting. I cant do it anymore.
I cry as I eat one of my friends packets. I devour it with tears in my eyes. I shouldnt do it.
Its theirs. Its my friends. But theyre not coming back. Theyre all gone.
For the first time since the cave in, I cry. Loudly and unceasingly, my little body wracked by my sobs. The sound of me crying echoes in the chamber, down the tunnels, all around me. It sounds like there are dozens of little boys crying. But its not. Its just me.
Im all alone.
It takes me along time to want to do anything again. I mostly lay in my blanket. But Im running out of water again. And my friends' food wont last forever.
Stepping out of one of the tiny maintenence tunnels into the main tunnel is the hardest thing I have ever done. I am shaking as I look around, my little hand gripping my puny makeshift knife in my hand.
I have to find more water. More food.
I slowly make my way through the shattered tunnels. I can still see my chalk marks on the walls. I hope no one else does. Im moving so carefully, quietly, and I stop when I ear something, feel something through the stone. At first I think its my imagination, or the start of another cave in. But its not. I can hear it.
Its the sound of mining, of machines, echoing through the tunnels, through the very stone itself. The monster's breath. I follow the echoes and the rumbles. Im scared. But the sound of mining means the sound of miners. As much as I dislike it, it is the sound of my home.I look into one of the main chambers, one of the few that didn't collaspe.
In one of the corners, a group of people and machines labor. They've got bright lights set up. Its the first time Ive seen white light in untold cycles. It hurts my eyes. I move to the people, nervous and cautious.
These people don't look like the ones I found in the deep tunnels. They move like people. The people are light skinned, like the Amarrians, but they look different. I move closer to them. I want to see what they're doing. I want to see if they have food and water.
I hide in one of the shadows, being very careful. I can hear their voices, sometimes speaking in a language I don't understand, other times in the Lord's language. Some of them are on the edge, holding something that looks like a gun. They have visors on, visors that glow a deep red. The others are mining, clearing away rumble from one of the tunnels. I move even closer.
One of the ones with the red visors turns right to me, and I hear his voice. "Got another one on infrared, looks like...a child?" He sounds surprised.
They move to me. I dont know how they saw me. I was so careful. My heartbeat echoes in my ears. I have to get away. I try to turn to run, but there is one of them standing in front of me, the red light from his visor beaming down at me.
"I got him!" He yells, his gloved hand grabbing my wrist. I whimper and twist and turn, trying to get away, and finally my free hand with my makeshift knife lashes out. He lets go, recoiling in surprise more than pain."Ow! Ancestors choke, little bastard cut me!"
I try to run past him, another one is there. I hear shouts in a language I dont understand. More of them circle me, running me down. Ive got no where to go. My back is literally against a wall.
I hold out my puny knife in front of me. It shakes in my hand.
"Fuck it, just tase him. Salvage is less on a child anyway."
One of them lifts his gun, and everything suddenly hurts, the pain beyond intense, and then everything suddenly goes black.
I wake up in a storage room.
There are clear tubes that are leading from a hanging clear bag to my wrist. For the first time in a long, long time, I'm not hungry or thirsty. I am laying in a bed. It's nicer than the cot I slept on before the cave-in. There are numerous empty beds next to mine. The room is stacked with various things I can tell are taken from the mine, metal, ore, machinery positioned all around the large storage room. Each stack and each bed has its own marking of some kind. I cant read them, but I know they're all different.
One of the strange miners is working at a desk near the bed, in the center of the room. She looks up when I move. She stands up, walking over to me. Her face is hard, but she gives me a smile that seems real.
"So, youre awake." Her words are weird sounding, her accent alien. She frowns when she sees me backing away from her in my bed.
"Well that makes sense, I guess you've never seen a Caldari before now, and the first one you saw tased you." She looks at me a moment. "It's amazing you're still alive. How did you do it?"
She looks down at me expectantly. I just stare up at her.
"Can you speak?" She finally says. I nod my head yes.
She snorts. "Well, say something then."
"I can speak." My words sound shaky and unsure. I realize its been untold work cycles since Ive said anything.
"Do you have a name?" She asks me, pleased I said something. I shake my head no.
"You dont know your own name?", she sounds incredulous.
"No." I say again, quietly, cringing as I do. I hope shes not angry.
She frowns again. "Well, my name is Delina, I'm one of the Salvage techs for the recovery operation. We've been trying to get back into that mine for weeks now." "
So you really don't know your name huh?" She peers at me a moment. "Must be traumatic stress." She doesn't seem to be speaking to me.
She stops, looks down at the words written on a sign at the base of my bed. "Lets see, Salvage Code says you were found in Area G, section zero, sub-level TT mark II. Thats pretty deep in the mines."
She shrugs. "I guess for now "Gottii" will have to do, at least until the priests get here."
She looks down at me for a moment longer. She finally speaks. "There is a man with them. He will give you a name and a purpose. Until then, get some rest"
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