Steel Ethereal

Ch. 23 The Ruin of Bastion

            

Rob

            With all the strength my body can muster, I plunge the hoe into the dirt to till. No longer would it remain stagnant, but turned. The hardened earth proved difficult to move and merely cracked at my first few swipes. After some effort, I managed. If not for me being physically fit in the first place I would have long lost my job.

I felt a minor twinge of disappointment at having to act like a refugee for my first mission, but it proved to be easy work. Though I hoped in the future I'd be doing more.

Around me were malnourished men and women with broken bones, burns, and various other ailments. One man struggled to move a plow with only one arm. Another woman stumbled around after having lost an eye. There were no extra doctors around leaving many wounds to fester. I later discovered that there were only three doctors assigned for every two thousand refugees.

Our living conditions were harsh, but Luciana was right to assume that many of the other families with multiple more family members had it rougher.

Refugees were told to remain in the district we were assigned to. Of course, Tyson, Sam, and Luciana left the agriculture district together every morning. Gatherings were also off limits due to a fear of uprisings against the sordid conditions.

"Jeezum, boy, you work like there isn't a tomorrow," Janeiro cracks. He leans on his shovel, resting for the eighteenth time that hour.

"Maybe I was. Maybe there isn't a tomorrow." I say cryptically. I swing another flurry of strikes toward the ground, further disturbing it.

Before, there were machines doing the job of the thousands around me. But these devices required gasoline and required training no one alive still had. Oil and gas were commodities reserved for those of a higher class, further into Bastion.

The thought upset me and made me work harder.

Three hours later, I walked with Janeiro for the five miles back to our shack.

Over the past week or so, the only company I felt comfortable conversing with was Janeiro. He had a smart mouth and usually cracked a rude joke here or there. But he meant well. He kept an eye out for me when several shady characters thought it'd be a good idea to break my tools. He thrashed them and gave me their tools so I wouldn't be the one to get into trouble for broken equipment.

We stacked our equipment on our backs and headed home. The fellow refugees gave off a similar atmosphere of exhaustion. People who could sweat no more, people barely dragging their tools through the mud and dirt. Many of these people had never lifted a finger for hard labor before.

Some managed to keep up with the twelve-hour work day, but they were all younger men and women and the occasional teenager. They all trumped the older generation that struggled with geriatric problems.

Several hardy girls seemed to admire my working spirit and I suppose my fit body helped as well. A few whistled at me, thinking me cut from the same cloth as them. They didn't know that a week before I had slept in a clean bed and ate warm, full meals.

Our shack door dragged open, scraping along the still fresh wood of the floor.

Sam and Luciana had arrived already and looked tired. Sam had various cuts and scratches on her hands and arms while Luciana's hands couldn't seem to stop shaking.

"Here," I say gently as I hand them my half-full water canteen. Sam takes it first but loses her balance and falls on her butt. Thankfully the canteen is closed still.