The question—"Who am I?"—stuck in his throat, drowned out by the constant clink of chains as he shuffled forward in line.
His bare feet dragged over cold, uneven stone, and slick in spots from earlier leaks.
The corridor felt narrower, rough walls pressing dangerously close, damp with condensation that dripped now and then onto his head and shoulder.
Dim torchlight sputtered from every bracket, casting jittery shadows that made the guards at each end look even menacing.
The guards stood motionless, arms attached onto his sharp spear. One chewed something slow, spitting brown juice onto the floor.
Their vine whips dangled from belts, thick cords glowing a faint green pulse, like they were alive, waiting to lash out.
He kept his eyes down, avoiding their stares like a criminal that committed an atrocious crime.
The line inched ahead, as boys ahead of him hunched forward, bowls clutched tight onto his chests.
Up front, a stocky kitchen worker named Kurt Aguirre , ladled slop from the massive iron pot over a low fire.
He was short and broad, built like a stump, with thick arms straining a faded shirt patched at the elbows.
His shaved head gleamed with sweat under the torchlight, gray stubble creeping back around scarred ears.
A stained apron hung double-tied over his gut, crusted with an old gruel.
And a small, squinting eyes flicked over the line as he gripped the long wooden ladle in swollen, cracked knuckles—scoop, pour, shove, no pauses.
"Ye! Move faster you dimmwits!" He shouted loudly with curses at slow boys, accompanied with breath sour with yesterday's meal.
Gray steam rose in his thin wisps from the bubbling pot, carrying a smell of sour milk and spoiled grain that mixed with the corridors' heavy wet-earth smell and faint tang of rust from the walls.
Aguirre plunged the ladle deep, scraping the pot's blackened bottom for the last bits, then slopped the grey mess into dented tins, some were even leaking at the seams, while others scratched deep from years of use.
He passes them down the line with rough shoves and hands never stopping.
As horrible as this meal was brought onto their throat, no complaints were heard.
As the horn's echo still buzzed sharp in his ears like a headache, urging the whole line to speed up before the shift whistle blew once again.
Tiko, the big-eared kid from the bunk, was two spots ahead in line. His ears stuck out like handles under greasy hair clumped with mine dusts and sweats.
He grabbed his bowl without looking up, with callused fingers scooping a thick handful of gruel right there.
He shoved it in his mouth, chewing so loud and sloppy that bits dripped down his chin onto his rag shirt.
"Move it, idiot," he shouted over his shoulder without turning as his yellow teeth flashing in a quick smirk wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
Just as his turn came abruptly, the line jolted him forward as the boy ahead shuffled off.
Aguirre, accustomed on these occasions, thrust the warm, dented tin into his callused palms—metal grip-scalding from the pots heat, rim bent and jagged only enough to snag his skin if he gripped wrong.
Without a word or even lifting his eyes, Aguirre is already twisting his bulk back to plunge the ladle into the churning gray slop for the next boy in line.
Though a dribble escaped over the edge, hitting his thumb with a brief sting before cooling sticky.
For the gray gruel that is sloshed inside the bowl, thin and restless, threatening to spill more with even a slightest movement in chain-rattled step.
The gruel was thin as dirty water run-off from the tunnels, barely viscous enough to coat the tin, with pale bitter leaves, wilted weeds or cabbage scraps, and tougher, stringy bits bobbing on the surface like bloated animal corpses that are caught in a flood after days of rain.
Grayish lumps floated half-sunk underneath, maybe rotting potato rinds, cartilage from bones, or unnameable scraps boiled too long, all mashed together to form into the watery base.
He froze for a beat, staring down at it, a wave of nausea hitting hard.
He who had even lost his memories—name, age, birth, relationships—knew that he had never seen food this wretched before in his life, nothing even close in the blurred scraps of memory he could grasp.
It wasn't as good as the pig slop from back-alley scraps he remembered faintly from...
Or maybe he had eaten this kind of food before?
Like in the lost past, some half-forgotten street life with overflowing bins and feral dogs snapping at heels, the taste almost nostalgic now by comparison.
His stomach clawed at him regardless, a vicious, empty hunger that cramped low in his gut, sent tremors through his legs, and made his mouth water despite himself.
Since hunger overrode all disgust in that moment, as any primal and unyielding, drowning out the revulsion as his body screamed for fuel.
As there is no spoon in sight, he forcefully scooped the gruel up with his callused fingers, dipping in knuckle-deep, nails short-broken and caked with earlier mine dirt.
The sludge clung cold and viscous, pulling away any sticky strands that stretched and snapped between his nails.
Shoving it all was the last thing he can be thankful for, before he may drop dead at some random canals.
It hit his tongue heavy and wrong: felt like chilled mud dragged from a ditch, coating thick and slow to slide; tasted of wet dirt packed fresh from the deepest shafts, sour rot like meat left to fester in damp corners, overlaid with a faint metallic tang underneath it all like licking rusted chains or biting a copper vein, sharp and lingering on his teeth.
He chewed once,
twice,
thrice,
until the leaves were fibrous and bitter-crisp, then forced the lump down his tight throat, gagging dry as it burned halfway.
The aftertaste bloomed foul, settling in his sinuses, but he wiped his dripping hand on his threadbare pants, smearing more stains, and gripped the bowl tighter, shuffling on with the line as his gut churned disgracefully.
Tiko squatted a few spots down the line from him, knees bent wide on the damp stone, and the tin bowl balanced steadily on one thigh despite the chains tugging at his ankles.
Unlike him, Tiko seemed alright with this kind of food as he wolfed his portion down with quick, efficient bites like his fingers scooping double-handfuls, jaw working fast like a machine, barely chewing before swallowing loud, gray dribbles streaking his chin and staining the collar around his neck.
He glanced back toward the runt between every few mouthfuls, yellow teeth flashing in a smirk, big ears twitching under the crust of unwashed mine dust that never fully rinsed off.
There are no words that come out from his mouth yet, just that mocking stare, waiting for a chance to chomp one's weaknesses.
The boy's face—the runt Tiko eyed—held a certain sharpness to it, gaunt from months of this slop.
His cheekbones jutted too prominent under stretched skin, shadowed purple from bruises old and new.
His eyes narrowed with constant wariness at everything around him—the guards' whips, the line's shuffle, even the steam from the pot—like he expected a fight to happen at any second.
There was tiredness there too, however, bone-deep exhaustion that dragged at him.
It showed in the slight slump of his narrow shoulders, bones poking through the thin rag shirt.
It showed in the way he wiped his mouth on a ragged sleeve after each bite, fabric already stiff with dried spit and grime, leaving smears across his knuckles.
However before the tension could even reach its peak, the meal ended abruptly without warning, no bell or call, just the kitchen worker slamming the pot lid and turning away.
Bowls were then collected roughly by a passing slave boy. Some licked the gruel smears clean from the tin first like their tongues scraping metal desperate for every calorie, faces blank as they handed them over empty.
Tiko tossed him with a clatter, already standing.
After the meal was done, overseers barked orders from the walkway's end, their gravel voices carrying easily over the shuffle of feet and rattling chains.
"Mine! Move now!" A guard shouted at one of the boys still desperately licking his tin, tongue scraping frantically over the dented metal for the last smears of gruel.
"No..! Give me some MORE!" The boy wailed, voice cracking high, dropping to his knees with the empty bowl clutched to his chest like a shield. His face twisted wild, eyes bulging from hollow sockets, ribs stark under his rag shirt as hunger overrode all fear.
"This crazy bastard! You must have liked that garbage very much, huh?!" The guard snarled, stomping forward in heavy boots that ground gravel underfoot.
A twisted grin split his scarred face, eyes lighting up manic as he yanked his vine whip free, the cord humming green and eager. "Oh, yeah! Enjoy every bit for me, runt!"
The guard swung low—crack!—the whip slicing air before lashing the boy's back.
"Get up! Or I'll peel you raw!" Another lash landed, blood welling quick through the rags.
Fabric tore with a sharp rip; skin split open with a wet snap, blood beading instant along the fresh welt.
Yet, strangely, the kid screamed for more slashes.
Voice that is raw and hoarse, cracking into a desperate plea:
"Again! Hit me again! Please!"
As if the whip's force wasn't enough and needed a fire that could burn out the deeper ache of hunger twisting his gut, or maybe numb the endless grind altogether.
As the situation unfolds, he can't understand this situation at all.
His heart hammered uneven in his chest, iron collar suddenly tighter around his throat.
He just stared at the boy suffering, transfixed, mouth hanging slack, his own dented bowl heavy and forgotten in his callused grip, gruel cooling untouched inside.
Why beg for pain?
Was this place madness, seeping into bones until hurt felt better than empty?
Flashes then hit him...
A faint memories of his own life before, screams that weren't for whips, but nothing clear.
His legs locked in place amid the frozen line, ankle chain taut, and breath shallow as nausea churned fresh from the slop still coating his tongue.
Eyes look unimpressed as he watches the blood trickle, dark against pale skin, pooling slowly on the stone.
"..."
The boy's bowl clattered away across the gravel, spinning to a stop near his feet as he curled the fetal on the stone, body shuddering, and rags dark with spreading red.
"Enough!" A lead overseer barked from the walkway's end, striding up fast in polished boots, face hard under his peaked cap.
He grabbed the guard's whip arm mid-swing, yanking it down.
"Save the fun later for slackers in the shafts. We need their bodies for digging, not bleeding out before quota."
The guard's grin faltered, shoulders slumping as he coiled the whip with a mutter.
The overseer shoved past, grabbing the boy's collar chain himself, hauling him upright like a sack of ore.
"Move, worm. The mine couldn't wait anymore."
The line jerked forward again, steps quicker now, the fresh whimpers blending into chain clinks as they descended the steps into deeper corridor.