I wake up tired.
Not the kind of tired that sleep can fix. I got enough rest—seven hours, maybe eight. But when I open my eyes, there's this heaviness that sits deeper than my bones, like it's part of me now. My fingers don't want to move at first. My legs feel like they belong to someone else.
The ceiling stares back at me. Same thin crack running from the corner toward the middle. I've been looking at that crack for months now. I count my breaths while I stare at it. In for four seconds. Hold. Out for six. If I breathe faster, my chest gets tight later, and I can't afford that during work.
I sit up, slow and careful.
My shoulders complain immediately—not pain exactly, more like pressure. Like someone stacked bricks on them yesterday and forgot to take them off. I roll my shoulders once, testing. Nothing pops. Nothing hurts sharp enough to worry about. Good enough.
The floor is cold against my bare feet. I stand and wait for my body to catch up with my brain. There's always this delay now, this moment where I want to move but my legs haven't gotten the message yet. After a few seconds, everything connects. I get dressed without looking in the mirror. Shirt, work pants, boots laced just tight enough. Too loose and I'll trip. Too tight and my feet go numb by afternoon.
Jonric is still asleep on his cot across the room. He's snoring softly, one arm flung over his chest like he doesn't have a care in the world. He works the evening shift at the docks, so his tired is different from mine. I don't wake him. What's the point?
I splash cold water on my face from the basin. It doesn't wake me up—never has. But it clears my head, strips away the fog until I can think straight. That's what I need.
Outside, the working district is already moving. Doors creak and slam. Someone down the street is coughing, deep and wet. Someone else swears about something. The air smells like damp stone and old smoke, the kind that gets into everything and never leaves. I breathe it in and start walking toward the job site.
The site sits near the edge of the main trade road, where merchants unload cargo the city needs. Today there are stone blocks and iron-bound crates stacked everywhere. Yesterday it was grain sacks. Tomorrow it'll be something else heavy. It's always something heavy.
The foreman is already yelling at a merchant when I arrive, something about damaged goods and who's paying for what. I don't wait for him to notice me. I grab a pair of work gloves from the supply crate and head to the nearest cart. Nobody stops me. They know I'll work until the job's done or I drop, whichever comes first.
The first lift is always the easiest.
My hands find the edges of the crate. I bend my knees, grip tight, and lift. The weight settles into my arms and shoulders right where it should. My breathing stays shallow and controlled. This is the part people talk about when they say your body "gets used to" hard work, like it's learning something.
I know better.
By the fourth trip from cart to stack, my shoulders start to warm up. By the seventh, I'm breathing harder. By the tenth, my forearms shake just a little when I set each crate down. It's subtle—nobody watching would notice. But I notice.
I adjust my grip. Hands closer together. Less strain on my fingers, more on my palms. It'll hurt worse later, but it buys me time now. That's the trade.
Around me, the others work at their own pace. Some of them talk while they haul cargo, joking about last night or making plans for after shift. Some stop every few trips to stretch their backs or lean against the carts. Their bodies bounce back fast enough that they don't have to think about it. They'll do this again tomorrow without counting every movement.
I can't afford to work that way.
By mid-morning, the work stops feeling like work and starts feeling like survival. My movements get smaller, more precise. I stop using any muscle I don't absolutely need. No wasted motion. No extra breath. Every single action gets measured against what it'll cost me in an hour, not what it costs right now.
"Hey, Raven."
I look over. Dalen is standing near the cart with a crate balanced on one shoulder like it weighs nothing. He looks comfortable, relaxed. Like this is just a casual workout for him.
"You seriously still going?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.
I nod once. "Still working."
He laughs, shaking his head. "Man, you really don't know when to quit, do you?"
I set my crate down and straighten up slowly, feeling the tightness spread across my upper back like a net pulling tight. "I know exactly when I stop. When the work's done."
That makes him grin. "If you say so, brother." He shrugs and walks off, already forgetting about me. That's how it usually goes. No judgment, no respect, just a comment he'll forget by lunch.
We break when the sun climbs high enough that even the foreman stops pretending we can keep up this pace. I sit in the shade with my back against the stone wall and peel off my gloves slowly. My hands ache deep now, the kind of ache that promises stiffness later. I stretch each finger one at a time, working out the tension.
I do my mental check.
Breathing: steady, but taking longer to recover than yesterday.
Legs: stable enough, but heavier with each step.
Grip: still functional, but if the crates get any heavier this afternoon, I'll have trouble.
I wait for something else. Some sign that today is different from yesterday. That all this effort is actually changing something. Building something.
Nothing comes.
Nearby, a couple of the younger workers are talking about training halls. Proper gyms with instructors who know what they're doing, who can measure your progress and push you the right way. One guy mentions his cousin who trained for six months and came back bigger, stronger, moving different. Moving better.
I don't look over at them. I've heard versions of this story a hundred times. They always end the same way—limited slots, high fees, poor workers scraping together coins and trying their luck. Most come back to the loading docks a few weeks later, a little poorer, still doing the same work.
The afternoon drags on forever. The fatigue isn't sharp anymore—it's settled deep, like sediment sinking to the bottom of a river. By the time the foreman finally calls it, my shoulders feel packed solid, like there's no space left inside them. I flex my hands. The tremor is more obvious now. I make a mental note and keep moving.
The walk home feels twice as long, not because the distance changed, but because my body did. Each step sends dull signals up through my legs. Not pain exactly. Just reminders that I've used everything up for today. I keep my pace steady anyway. Slowing down too much makes tomorrow worse.
The district is loud now. Kids running between market stalls. Merchants shouting their final prices of the day. Someone arguing with someone else about something that won't matter tomorrow. I walk through it all, focused on my breathing, on keeping my posture from collapsing inward.
By the time I reach our door, I don't feel stronger than I did this morning.
I don't feel weaker either.
That's the part that bothers me most.
I step inside and close the door quietly. Jonric isn't back yet. The room feels smaller when it's just me. I sit on the edge of my bed and unlace my boots carefully, not rushing. If I move too fast now, my calves will cramp up later tonight.
Effort in. Wear out. No change.
I try to tell myself this is normal. That improvement takes time. That if I'm patient enough, tomorrow will feel different. Next week will feel different. The thought doesn't stick. It just slides away, refusing to take root.
If this is all effort ever does for me—if every day costs the same and gives back nothing—then what am I actually doing?
This isn't persistence. This isn't building toward something.
This is just payment. Payment for the right to wake up tomorrow and do it again.
And I don't know what happens when I can't afford to pay anymore.
I lean back on the bed and stare at that same crack in the ceiling. My breathing is still controlled. In for four. Out for six. The rhythm steadies me, even when nothing else does.
Tomorrow I'll wake up tired again. I'll do the same work. I'll measure the same small failures in my grip, my breath, my shoulders.
And somewhere in the back of my mind, a question I don't want to ask keeps getting louder.
What if this is all there is?