Like an old hound set in its ways I found myself heading towards my team's tunnel, soon realizing I had no idea what time it was. No idea if our shift had started or not. I arrived to find the tunnel deserted. Instead of turning away, I moved further in. A lantern hanging from the wall bounced light off something wet near the end. Something dark and shiny. I knew it was blood. I knew it! But I had to see it. No matter how much my gut twisted and I wanted to turn and run, I had to see it. I had to know what my defiance had cost. And who had paid the price.
I don't know how long I spent staring down at the pool of blood on the tunnel floor. It was fresh. Still wet. It hadn't been there the day before. The day I stood up to Prig. The day I put a blade in his fat fucking neck. I didn't know whose blood it was, but I knew whose fault it was. I had done this, and it turned all my little victories the day before to ash. Prig could no longer take his anger out on me, but Deko's protection didn't extend far. Just like any bully when robbed of one victim, he took his frustration out on another. There is no give in a bully like Prig, no quit, no words you can say that will reveal some hidden good within them. He was a hateful, spiteful waste of shit, and that was all he was. All he would ever be. It's easy to believe that everyone can be redeemed if only given a chance. It's shit. There are people in this world who are beyond redemption, beyond compassion, and beyond fucking reason. I had fought my way free of Prig, and the bastard had murdered someone to make himself feel better, even if only for a moment. People like that don't even deserve a chance to redeem themselves. Bastards like Prig only deserve death, preferably by the most painful fucking method possible.
I wondered if the blood was Hardt's or Isen's. Which of my two friends were dead? There was no surviving losing that much blood. A new tightness formed in my chest, coiling its way around my heart. One of them was dead and it was my fault. Prig might have wielded the weapon, but I pushed him into it. A traitorous part of me hoped it wasn't Isen, and I hated that part. To wish it wasn't one, was to hope that it was the other. An impossible situation, an impossible choice, but of course my foolish young heart lurched towards the brother I was attracted to.
There was a pick nearby, a length of wood with a metal spike fixed to the end. There was blood on the pick, dried into a rusty-brown smear. I wasn't thinking clearly. It was against the rules to steal tools from a tunnel. But I no longer cared. I grabbed hold of the pick and limped from the tunnel, dragging its point along the floor behind me.
I passed a scab on the way out, an older woman grey of hair and missing most of her teeth. She didn't even seem to notice I was carrying a pick. She stared at me with a smile and nodded as I passed. I didn't know it then, but I was now infamous down in the Pit. The tale of how I walked into the Hill and stood up to Deko was spreading like a plague. No matter how untrue it might be, it was spreading. Rumours are like water spilt onto a flat surface. The more they spread, the bigger they get, and the thinner they become. Before long the other scabs were talking about my epic fight with Horralain and how I knocked him down to get to Deko. I did better in the rumours of that fight than I did with both our subsequent encounters. Despite it all, I can't hate Horralain. I have too much respect for the evil fucker.
After appropriating a lantern from a wall, I made my way back to the crack. Tamura was still nowhere to be seen. I placed both the pick and the lantern at the far end of the tunnel, blew out the lantern and covered them both with Tamura's blanket. After that, I groped my way from the tunnel and set my feet towards the main cavern. I had no idea if it was feeding time or not, but there would be food for the winning over dice, chips, or cards, and I needed to eat. My stomach was a churning voice of aches and pain.
Feeding time was almost over at the Trough. I heard the whispers as I approached and saw faces turn my way. At the time, I wondered how beaten up I looked. I wondered how it could be any worse than the previous day. But I didn't care. All the staring from all the scabs in the world wouldn't have kept me from my meagre rations of bread and gruel. My stomach rumbled and clenched at the thought of food and I limped forward, not even bothering to wonder why the scant crowd was parting before me.
The captain serving food to the scabs more than made up for my lack of interest in the attitude of the others. He looked at me in disgust, one eyebrow raised and a small smile tugging at his lips. I still didn't care. I reached up, accepted my food, and turned toward the tables.
Isen was standing in front of me, staring at me. In that moment I forgot everything, no longer caring we were standing in line at the Trough or even that every scab in the cavern was watching. I stepped forward and put my arms around him, leaning my head against his chest and holding him tight.
I honestly can't recall which of us pulled away from that embrace, only that I felt Isen begin to stiffen against my hip and then we were apart. He flushed red, and then so did I. I tried to hide my embarrassment by walking past him, as much to get away from the stares and whispers than anything else.
My mouth was already full of stale bread as I sat down at a table across from Hardt. My happiness at seeing both brothers alive was not diminished by the need to devour my rations, but hunger can put even the most powerful of emotions at the back of the mind, and once I had food in front of me I found I couldn't stop. It did not take long to demolish the bread and scoop every last drop of gruel into my mouth. I was still hungry. Always hungry.
The brothers just watched me as I ate. I think Isen was still embarrassed from our embrace. Hardt was clearly impressed with how quickly I could eat when I really wanted to.
"We were worried you might be… gone," Hardt said as I washed down the gruel with a cup of water.
"Dead?" I asked with a shake of my head. "I thought you..." I looked from Hardt to Isen and felt a fresh wave of relief wash over me. Guilt followed quickly, as it usually does. Someone had died in our tunnel. Someone had paid my price. "What happened in our tunnel?"
"You saw the blood?" Hardt asked. I nodded, not willing to tell anyone about the pick just yet.
Try as I might, I can't remember the man's name. Sometimes I think I feel guiltier over that than his death. He died in my place, a vent for Prig's impotent frustration, and I can't even remember his name, nor what he looked like. I can't remember a thing about him other than the fact that Prig, in a fit of rage at my defiance, put the pick through the man's back. Hardt told me he took a while to die, bleeding out on the tunnel floor. Prig made the others work on, despite the man dying at their feet. I honestly can't decide if that death is on my conscience or Prig's. Actually, I don't think Prig ever had a conscience so I suppose I'll shoulder that burden as well. Just one more skull paving the road behind me. I sometimes wonder if anyone in the history of Orran or Terrelan has ever been responsible for half as much death as I am.
There was grief etched plain on the lines of Hardt's face. As sociable as the big man was, he knew everyone on our team and considered them comrades, or friends. It was clear he was hurting, though I believe he placed the blame for the death solely at the feet of Prig. Hardt has always found excuses to not blame me. Sometimes I think he still views me as an innocent little girl, but I left innocence behind long before my time in the Pit.
"Josef was distraught," Isen said, though he wasn't looking at me. I think maybe it was an issue of age that made him so embarrassed. I was just fifteen, barely old enough to call myself a woman. Isen was older. Despite that, there was something between us. I longed to see him naked, to feel his arms around me, run my hands over his skin. Attraction is a dangerous thing for a young girl.