JAXON
Days had passed, or maybe weeks. But I had stopped keeping count a long time ago. Down in the mines, time stopped meaning anything. It did not exist in hours or mornings. It existed in pain, thirst, hunger, and in the slow grind of pickaxes striking stone until your arms trembled so badly you could barely lift them again.
I swung my pickaxe again, and dust burst into the air and settled over my skin, sticking to the sweat that soaked through the thin shirt clinging to my back.
My shoulders burned. My palms had long since torn open. Blisters had formed, burst, and hardened into thick, cracked calluses. Even then, the handle of the pickaxe still managed to find new ways to rip the skin. I could barely stand. My legs shook beneath me as if they belonged to someone twice my age. Every muscle in my body screamed for rest, but rest didn't exist here.
The only thing that existed was work. Here we worked until you dropped. And if you dropped, you were never getting back up.
