Red

The insides of the mine suffocated Nolan. It was not a good place to be with the dust falling from the ceiling, and he could not help but feel trapped there, as if the tunnel walls were slowly closing in.

'I hate this place,' cursed Nolan, internally. It was a hatred not only he had, but almost everyone who worked there had it too. Nolan passed by a miner who was swinging his pickaxe on a blue ore while muttering, "I hope this fucking mine falls down and ends our miserable lives. When the barriers run out of fuel, then the higher-ups will start acknowledging our work!"

Nolan passed by the bearded middle-aged man and said, "This place sucks, but imagine getting two shifts? I am working fucking thirty hours straight in this hole."

The man stopped swinging his pickaxe and turned his head around to face Nolan. After seeing his youthful face, the man said, "Really? Man, this place traps even the youth. I feel sorry for you, lad. I hope things go well in the future for ya."

"I hope the same for you, my friend."

That was a common interaction between the miners. All of them liked each other. Why wouldn't they? They were all in the same shitty place, and one of the few ways to keep moving forward was to have friends to share a drink at the local tavern and talk about how shitty their lives were.

Humans were like that, even after society fell and the world changed forever.

With slow steps, Nolan made his way through the underground mines, passing by various miners who were doing the same thing he was about to do. He even saw a few miners on sleeping bags.

'Extended shifts like myself…'

It was a pity. The miners and the mine itself were frowned upon by almost every soul who lived in Phoenix Crest. For them, working there was trash, and it was meant for the trash.

But oh boy, how wrong they were! The only reason the toxic mist from the outside did not kill all the unawakened inside Phoenix Crest was because of the miners!

They were the brave men and women who were constantly gathering the mana stones, the fuel for the barrier. If the mines collapsed like the man just said to Nolan, then everyone would suffer. Everyone would die.

Deep down, people knew that. They understood the importance of the miners and the mine, but none of them cared. Why would they? They preferred to ignore their existence and treat the miners poorly.

One might ask, then why don't the miners stop working there? First and foremost, they had no choice. For most who worked there — Nolan included — the only way inside Phoenix Crest for them to earn some money to eat was through mining. No one else would hire them, and stealing things without being awakened would mean certain death. The guards did not spare the lives of the criminals.

Feeling as low as he did, Nolan picked a random tunnel inside the mines and started swinging his pickaxe, collecting the blue ore and putting its pieces inside a leather bag to bring back to the higher-ups. The same pattern of movement for 15 hours. It wasn't a straight 15 hours, as Nolan had some time to rest, but no time to sleep, as some guards were constantly walking through the mines, checking if the workers were doing their job.

A miner in a tunnel right beside Nolan was resting more than he should, and one of the guards yelled loud enough that Nolan heard it from his tunnel, "Why are you resting for so long, trash? I will teach you a lesson!"

The sounds of the miner getting beat up resonated through the tunnels, entering the ears of many miners. Nolan wanted to go there and help the poor man, but he knew he did not have the means to do it.

'Fuck! If all guards were like Henry.'

Henry was the only decent guard who used his words and not brute force to torture the miners. Among all guards, he was the only one Nolan liked, and he knew it was the same for many other miners.

Nolan tried to ignore the screams of pain coming from the tunnel and focus only on mining. The guard, after beating up the poor miner, passed by Nolan's tunnel, seeing him swing his pickaxe.

"Keep doing like that, boy, or I will teach you a lesson too."

The guard who said that was Marcos, a guard known for his cruelty. Nolan wanted to kill that bastard because it was not the first time he did something like that to a poor miner, but there was nothing he could do about it, only accept it.

Nothing happened during the first 8 hours of Nolan's second shift. He collected the mana ores, rested a few times, drank water, and ate the same stone bread.

His body was having a hard time swinging the pickaxe. It was just too demanding for a young man like him who did not have enough food to sustain himself. All miners felt the same. Life was cruel. Nolan had to go back during the eighth hour of work to give the leather bags with mana ores to the miner's supervisor. He had one bag on each shoulder. Nolan could barely move with all the weight.

'This is so fucking bad for my back. I think I will be on a bed before thirties.'

That's when he noticed something strange coming from one of the tunnels close to the one he had been digging at. It was a type of red energy.

'Red? The ores in here only have blue color. What's this?' Nolan thought to himself.

The curiosity was just too much, so he decided to move to the tunnel to check the red light. The closer he got, the faster his heart beat, and a feeling of dread washed over him.