◇_ _
The days blurred together, marked only by the ringing of hammers and the groans of the dying. Where once a village had stood—fields golden with grain, children laughing in the breeze—there was now only a labor camp. The homes had been cleared to make room for trenches, pits, and wooden scaffolds. The earth split open like wounded flesh, peeled back under whip and chain in search of something buried.
The slavers hadn't moved the captives. They'd turned the ruins into a prison—a wound in the forest, raw and festering.
Guards patrolled the perimeter, armor mismatched, faces hidden behind rusted helms. In the center: command tents, an armory, and pens for those too weak to work. Beside them, a pit yawned open. The sick and dying were thrown into it. No one ever came back out.
Lothar stood at the edge of a trench, shovel in blistered hands. His body ached from constant labor. The sun beat down by day.
All around him, dozens of others dug—men, women, even children—moving like ghosts. Overseers barked orders. Whips cracked across backs.
"We're close," a foreman muttered.
"The last crew found fragments—bone, metal."
"They say the artifact's buried under the roots," another whispered, glancing toward the forest.
"Bound in chains older than time."
Lothar filed the words away.
Artifact. Chains. Power.
So this was what they were searching for . These guys were cruel and they were willing to bleed the earth dry to find what they came for.
◇_ _
Lothar was now a master of survival, he had to.
The first lesson of survival was to watch.
He learned quickly—not out of fear, but instinct. He kept his head low, not to disappear, but to understand. The guards barked and lashed out at random, but there were patterns beneath the chaos. Some favored cruelty. Others just wanted to be done with the day. He watched how they moved, when they got tired, which ones argued with each other.
He wasn't trying to escape—not yet. Not really. He still believed someone would come. That the storm would pass.
He tried to help where he could. When a girl dropped her basket, he picked it up. When an old man stumbled, Lothar took his arm without thinking. It earned him bruises more than once. The overseers didn't like kindness. But this was his nature.
He kept smiling, even when it hurt.
In the evenings, he whispered stories to the younger kids in the pens. He talked about the forest, the river, the treehouse he and Corin had half-built the summer before. He made them laugh, sometimes. That felt like a victory.
Still, he was paying attention. Always. He counted how many guards watched the southern fence. Noted which shovels had stronger handles. Listened for whispers about the artifact, about what they were digging for.
Not because he wanted revenge.
Because he wanted to be ready.
Because one day—when the guards slipped up, when the right door opened—he'd take Corin and the others, and they'd run.
He believed that, even then.
Even when no one else did. Well, unfortunately,his mindset was soon going to change.
◇_ _
At the edge of the pit, staring down into the dark,stood Lothar. The stench clung to everything—rot, sweat, sickness. Below, the dying murmured and moaned, or worse, didn't make a sound at all. The pit didn't just swallow bodies. It swallowed names, memories, everything. Lost in his thoughts, he stood there.
He remembered exactly how it started.
Harl had dropped his basket again. The old man's hands barely worked anymore—bones swollen, joints stiff from cold and beatings. The guard closest to them noticed right away.
"You think this is rest time?" the man snarled, storming toward them.
Lothar stepped in without thinking. He crouched, grabbed the basket, tried to lift it.
"I've got it," he said quickly, "He's just tired."
The guard didn't slow.
"Not your job to speak."
Then came the blow; fast, hard, across Lothar's face. He hit the dirt. Dust filled his mouth which soon was filled by a metallic scent. Pain rang through his skull. Before he could rise, the guard slammed a boot down on his back and kicked the basket aside.
"You work. He dies," the guard hissed. "You want his punishment?"
Lothar gasped, coughing. Around him, no one moved.
He lifted his eyes. The others had stopped digging. Dozens of them. But none stepped forward.
No one said a word.
A few looked away. Some stared, blank-faced. Not one of them helped.
Except Corin.
"Leave him alone!" Corin's voice cracked through the silence like a whip.
The guard paused.
Everyone turned.
Corin stepped forward—tall despite the dirt and hunger, fists clenched, fire in his eyes.
"He was helping. You beat him for that?"
The guard looked him over, slow and mocking:"You got a mouth on you. Here, I do what I want. You want a fight?"
Corin growled.
"Pick on someone who'll swing back."
For a second, it looked like the guard might laugh.
Instead, he drew his blade.
Alarmed,Lothar pushed himself up. "Corin—don't—"
Driven by anger, Corin did not even cast him a glance, he charged.
It wasn't even a fight. The slaver sidestepped as Corin's punch missed and drove the blade deep into the boy's s gut.
The camp went silent again. The mercenary, as if disgusted,pushed him on the ground. Without even cleaning his blade,he sheathed it and turned his back, going to his affairs.
Corin gasped, stumbling into Lothar's arms. Blood gushed hot and fast between them.
"Corin," Lothar choked. "Stay with me. Please—"
Corin's lips moved. His voice was barely a breath:"Don't let them… break you…"
Then he was gone.
The crowd stayed frozen.
Not a word. Not a sound.
The slaver captain arrived, his expression blank. "Throw that one in the pit," he said, nodding toward Lothar.
"Let him learn what defiance earns.", "Helping other" he scoffed, " Can't even help himself." He spat on the ground.
The guards obeyed.
No one stopped them.
As they dragged Lothar's away, shocked, Lothar looked around,just once.
The faces of the others were the same: hollow, empty, silent.
Not one had stood for him.
Only Corin.
They threw him into the pit.
◇_ _
Mourning and remembering what happened that day, he did not the person that approached him.
He hadn't spoken to anyone since they pulled him out.
He hadn't screamed down there. Not once.
But he hadn't slept, either.
The sounds still lived in his bones. The low rasp of breath. The slow drag of bodies trying to move. The ones who whispered in dreams, or to nothing at all. And the cold—deep and wet, like the ground wanted to take you whole.
Corin had died standing up.
Lothar had lived by lying low.
He didn't know what to do with that.
"Stare too long at that thing," came a voice behind him,
"and it'll start staring back."
Lothar turned, already knowing who it was.
Mira crouched beside him, arms resting on her knees. She looked rough—dirt-caked skin, eyes sunken from too many sleepless nights—but she still held herself like someone who hadn't been broken. Not yet.
"I'm not afraid of it," Lothar said quietly.
"You should be," she replied. "That's where hope goes to die."
He didn't argue. They both knew the truth.
For a while, neither of them spoke. The air buzzed with flies and distant shouting. Somewhere, a whip cracked.
"They're digging for something," Lothar said eventually. "Something buried."
"I've heard the guards talking," Mira said. "They call it a relic. A priceless thing."
Lothar's hands clenched around the handle of his shovel. "They'll kill every last one of us to get it."
She didn't flinch. Just nodded.
But in the quiet between them, something passed. Not a plan. Not yet.
Just a thought.
What if we find it first?
They both stood there,each one in their head, in this comforting and relative peace and silence, time flew. Later that night, while the camp settled ,Lothar sat with his back against a splintered post, knees drawn to his chest. Mira sat across from him, arms wrapped around herself, eyes closed but not asleep.
Neither spoke. They didn't have to.
In the distance, someone laughed. A slaver, drunk. Somewhere else, a cough turned into a ragged wheeze, then faded.
Lothar glanced at the trench. Just a black scar in the dirt now. But it pulled at him, always.
He thought of Corin.
Don't let them break you.
He wouldn't. He couldn't.
But he also couldn't shake the feeling that something was changing. Something beneath them. A pressure in the ground. A hum in the bones. He'd felt it before—briefly, in the pit, like the world itself had exhaled and hadn't inhaled since.
He looked at Mira. "Do you feel it?" he asked.
She opened her eyes slowly. "Yeah," she said. "Something's coming."
Neither of them knew what it was.
Here against the unknown, they waited.