Chapter 2: Pressblood!
The press rim still held Garron’s blood. Pressure rain ticked on the chains.
The trench did not close around Garron’s corpse like a grave. It held the body open in the rain, making every worker look at what Kael had done while press-blood steamed into the mud.
The first enforcers who answered the alarm were not monsters. That made them worse. They wore human mouths, human knuckles, and pit-bought cruelty, so every blow promised to land where memory lived.
A woman near the ore trough tried to swallow a prayer and failed.
GULP!
The sound made three workers flinch toward their assigned lines. The prayer was quiet; fear had become a trained reflex here, and even throats tried to clock in before dying.
The old stink hit Kael through blood and rain. Burned bone, wet iron, worker sweat, and Garron’s opened skull made the trench feel less like a workplace than the inside of a mouth: black mud for tongue, press chains for teeth, workers standing where food should stand.
Furnace Sink Nine gave the corpse no ceremony.
Garron Voss stayed dead as this was a major turning point.
That was the first thing Furnace Sink Nine had to accept. His body lay crooked beside the furnace bone, red coat torn open, one boot twitching in the mud because nerves did not understand command had ended. His head was no longer a shape anyone could salute. The press rim held pieces of him. The rain softened them into streaks that ran between Kael’s bare feet.
No worker moved.
Kael stood over the corpse and tried to breathe without folding.
His ribs clicked.
Each breath had to fight its way through meat that did not trust itself. His left shoulder hung low. One eye was full of blood. His right hand pulsed with heat from the impossible thing inside him, the black root that had opened in his skull and named him like the pit had no say in the matter.
THE FIRST OUTLIER.
The words kept floating behind his eyes.
He hated them already.
Names drew knives.
The boy with the broken fingers crawled until his back struck a cart wheel. He stared at Kael with his wounded hand tucked under his chin.
Kael looked at him.
The boy flinched.
That small movement hurt worse than the press.
Kael had broken Garron with his hands, and still the first thing his victory made was distance. The pit had taught them to fear whoever stood closest to power, even when that power was bleeding barefoot in mud. If fear was all he had given them, then Garron had won one last time from the ground.
"Get up," Kael said.
His voice came out rough, almost wet.
The boy shook his head.
Kael took one step toward him.
The whole trench recoiled.
Boots slid in mud. A woman dropped the basket of pressure ore she had been carrying. Two men grabbed each other without meaning to. Nobody ran. Running was a confession of thought.
Kael stopped.
The truth settled in his gut.
They did not see a worker who had refused Garron. They saw whatever crawled out from under the gravity press after a man should have become paste.
Alarm chains screamed above them.
BZZZZ!
From the upper rail, a horn answered.
BOOOOM!
Then another.
BOOOOM!
The sound rolled through Furnace Sink Nine and shook dust out of the walls. Far above, gates began to lock. The deep clanks came one after another, spreading outward through iron lanes and worker pens.
Kael turned toward the press guards.
One was still breathing.
The man whose chest had caved under Kael’s palm lay against the lever box, mouth opening and closing around blood bubbles. His eyes rolled until they found Garron’s body, then Kael.
"Vorr," he whispered.
Kael crouched beside him.
Pain tore through his side. He almost fell onto the man.
"How many?" Kael asked.
The guard coughed red foam.
"What?"
"How many come when those horns sound?"
The guard tried to laugh. It became a choking sound.
"Enough."
Kael put one hand on the lever box and forced himself upright. Enough meant the pit had teeth behind the first teeth. Workers began to back away from Garron now. Not toward freedom. Toward their assigned lines, as if obedience could separate them from what Kael had done.
An old woman with copper scars along her jaw whispered, "We did not see." Another worker answered too fast. "We saw nothing." A third looked at Kael with hatred born from fear. "You killed us."
Kael had no answer.
Because the man might be right.
He limped to the furnace bone and tore a strip from Garron’s red coat. The cloth was thick, water resistant, expensive by pit standards. He wrapped it around his broken forearm and pulled until the bone stopped shifting so loosely under the skin.
White flashed across his vision.
He bit down.
No scream.
Not for them.
Not for the dead man.
Behind his eyes, the register pulsed again.
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ KINETIC FRICTION DETECTED: POST PRESS BIOLOGICAL FAILURE
≫ EXISTENTIAL SHARDS EXTRACTED: 1
--------------------------------------------------------------------
▶ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND: NONE GIVEN
▶ UPDATE COMPLETE: UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS → 10
[!] SYSTEM NOTICE: Host Body Remains Structurally Compromised.
====================================================================
Kael blinked hard.
The thing had counted pain from standing, from stress, from a body refusing to fold.
Work and obedience had nothing to do with it.
Damage.
Pressure that should have ended him and failed.
"Vorr!"
The shout came from the upper catwalk.
Three enforcement men appeared above the trench, black wraps tight over their mouths, pressure rods in hand. Their helmets were cheap iron shells with eye slits cut too narrow. They had not seen Garron die, but they saw the body now.
One of them froze.
The second lifted his rod.
The third shouted into the alarm tube, "Overseer down! Press yard breach! Worker anomaly confirmed!"
Anomaly.
Kael hated that too.
The first rod bolt hit the mud beside him.
BANG!
Mud and hot water sprayed across his legs.
Workers screamed and scattered at last.
The second bolt struck a cart and turned its wheel into flying splinters.
CRACK!
Kael moved.
Not fast enough to look strong. Fast enough to live. He grabbed the boy by the back of his shirt and dragged him behind the furnace bone as another bolt snapped across the trench. The boy screamed when Kael’s grip jolted his broken hand.
"Quiet," Kael said.
"You killed Garron," the boy sobbed.
"I noticed."
"They will kill everyone."
Kael looked over the furnace bone.
The enforcement men were climbing down the side ladder now. More boots thundered behind them. The horn kept calling. Gates kept locking.
The pit was sealing itself around him.
"What is your name?" Kael asked.
The boy blinked through tears. "Renn."
"Renn. Can you run?"
"My hand."
"I asked about your legs."
Renn stared at him, then nodded once. Kael looked toward the lower drain mouths along the west wall. Three were barred. One had broken teeth where old metal had rusted away. A worker could fit through if he did not care about skin.
Kael cared less than he had yesterday.
The first enforcement man reached the mud.
"On your face!" the man shouted. "All workers down! Vorr, hands visible!"
Kael almost laughed.
His hands were covered in Garron.
He lifted the furnace bone instead.
It took both arms. Pain brightened until the world narrowed. The bone was too heavy for him. It had been too heavy before the press. Under fresh blood and alarm, it felt like the pit had tied chains to both ends.
He swung anyway.
The enforcement man raised his rod.
Too late.
BANGG!
The furnace bone smashed into the rod and drove it back into the man’s helmet. Iron bent inward. The man’s nose disappeared under the metal with a wet crunch. He hit the mud flat on his back, legs kicking.
Kael stumbled after the swing.
The second enforcer rushed him.
Renn threw a handful of mud.
It struck the man’s eye slit.
The enforcer cursed.
Kael dropped the furnace bone and rammed his shoulder into the man’s chest. His broken ribs screamed. The man fell backward into the press bed. Kael followed with his elbow, driving it down into the throat gap under the helmet.
CRACK!
The man stopped moving right.
The man stopped moving right, but he still lived.
Usefulness had left him.
The third enforcer backed away and raised both hands around his rod.
Kael saw fear reach the man.
He also saw calculation.
The enforcer did not need to win. He only needed to delay until enough arrived. Kael grabbed Renn and shoved him toward the west drain.
"Run."
Renn did.
Kael followed, limping, bleeding, feeling every step try to unmake him. A pressure bolt struck his back before he reached the drain.
BANG!
He crashed into the wall. Stone tore skin from his cheek. The black root inside him flexed, hungry and cold.
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ KINETIC FRICTION DETECTED: PRESSURE ROD IMPACT
≫ EXISTENTIAL SHARDS EXTRACTED: 2
--------------------------------------------------------------------
▶ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND: NONE GIVEN
▶ UPDATE COMPLETE: UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS → 12
====================================================================
Kael spat blood onto the stone.
Later, if he survived.
He did not understand allocation. He did not have time to learn while men with rods boxed him in. He grabbed the rusted drain teeth and pulled.
Metal bit his palms.
He pulled harder.
The old bolts screamed.
RIP!
One bar tore loose.
Renn squeezed through first, crying without sound now.
Kael turned once before following.
The trench had become chaos. Workers on their faces. Enforcers shouting. Garron spread across the mud like a warning no one wanted to read. Above it all, more men gathered on the catwalks. One wore a black collar with a gray pressure seal.
The man was not Malrec.
Too low for that, but high enough to matter.
The man pointed at Kael.
"Alive! The Warden will want him alive!"
That was worse.
Kael shoved himself into the drain.
Rust opened his shoulder. Stone scraped his ribs. Renn crawled ahead through black water and old heat. Behind them, rods struck the wall.
BANG!
Kael pulled the loose bar inward and jammed it across the gap.
It would not hold long.
It only had to hold for one breath more than his enemies expected. Behind the bar, the third enforcer slammed shoulder first into the iron and cursed when it did not give. Another rod struck. Rust dust fell over Kael’s hair. Renn crawled ahead with one broken hand dragging through black water, making a small hurt sound every time stone touched the wrong finger.
HAAH!
The boy bit the sound in half. Kael heard the effort and moved faster.
The drain swallowed him into dark.
Kael did not look back. Looking back was another way to kneel. Behind him, Furnace Sink Nine kept screaming.
Pressblood made the walls wait like they had already chosen a body.