Trapped

With a heft in his soar voice, the metal tip of the pick slammed into the rock before him. Keelan stopped for only a brief moment, lowering his body and panting against the cold stone.

"Get to work-!" He could hear one of the guards shout out from the higher level behind him. A slight echo resonated throughout the chamber, and his voice directed towards the ceiling above.

With that knowledge, Keelan had known it wasn't a message to him directly — though he still took it as a personal warning.

Steadily did he raise himself, wiping off a smidge of sweat from his brow before caressing his tool into his rough hands.

For the past two to three hours or so, this had been his brutal reality.

The walk from when they left the room wasn't a long one, only a few hundred meters from their cells being the very mining chamber he currently stood in.

Since that time, he of course managed to learn a semblance of the interior layout; The cells lining the hall being squeezed between the first chamber and the main enterance.

For the actual contents of the mine, four separate sites exist for mining, with one giant cafeteria carved out near the facility's center. He hadn't been here long, yet it was clear to see this was an operation of a far bigger scale than he initially imagined.

By his rough estimate, there could be well over two hundred prisoners being held up in the mines.

Throughout his laborious shift, he's tried his best to stay focused and calm, though it was instantly made apparent that that was nigh impossible. Disregarding the labor itself, there was an unsettling level of heat building up in the cave, little by little trying to force him into submission by billowing its radiance upon him.

Of course, he was also fighting tooth and nail to try and stabilize his rapid breath, energy barely able to lift his own arms without the five-pound pickaxe in hand.

Frankly, he was tired. He felt he was on the verge of death, as if its demonic skeletal hand was actively choking the air from his lungs.

It was for the same reason why when they called the shifts to end — almost four hours since it initially began — he was just on the brink of collapsing.

"Shift's over!" The guard boomed, hands sternly wrapped around the wooden banister above, "Hour of rest!"

As soon as those words hit his ears, never before had his hands loosed with such speed. The tool placed in his grip was quick to collapse and bash against the floor, nearly slipping its tip into one of the ventilation gates below.

After some time here, he learned that in this place, everything was far from naturally occurring; The reason for the scorching interior being caused by the very system mentioned below.

If cold air was to sink and hot air was to rise, then it was only intelligent to give a large secondary chamber lining underneath the entire prison. Not only that, but another slim section sat in the ceiling to clear the black smoke rising from the torches.

In truth, the complex was something akin to the likes of a tunnel — a protected gateway near the front where prisoners and supplies are shipped in, and a sparsely watched passage through the back.

This wasn't much of a secret, however. Every prisoner knew the layout of the prison because the guards would dance the facts in front of their heads. It'd be insane for released convicts to exit down the mountainous slope, so the back exit acts as a direct shot to freedom.

They don't need to guard it, either, as it's located directly within the rear end of the guard barracks. No one gets in or out without them noticing.

With this much general knowledge, it was enough of the basics to begin the semblances of a plan. Of course, in his current tarnished state, that was near impossible.

And it would only get worse from here on.

The qualms of daily labor would mean, slowly but surely, every last remaining bit of energy would be squeezed out from his body as if water leaving a damp rag.

Once it was over, he knew he'd be nothing but a shriveled bit of cloth.

Hesitantly, Keelan decided to put an escape attempt on hold. First, he needed to find ways to conserve his energy wherever he could. He needed to get stronger.

From where he was now, lurking his way towards the cafeteria while still drenched in sweat, the thought of Benaya and the other prisoners came to his mind. It was clear that they were accustomed to this life — no doubt still tiring, though notably less so than him. Over time, he knew it was likely he'd get accustomed as well.

There's no telling how long that will take or guarantee he'll even last to that point, however.

By the time he managed to enter the gargantuan central chamber, he was too exhausted to even grab a tray of slop served at the front counter. Instead, he slumped his body against the rough back wall and fell against the floor in exhaustion.

With a tired expression, he groggily wiped the sweat from his face, a look of defeat permeating in his glance.

It was with the knowledge that, even with all this information and hard labor he was subject to, he had still yet to learn anything of what he was sent here to retrieve.

By all means, he was fed up. In his mind, he started to question if keeping his life was even worth all of this.

Before his mind turned to depression, however, a voice began to call out to him.

It was the system.