Page 8 of Dark Possession

“Thank you,” he said quietly, his shoulders slumped in defeat. He was so hungry. He was so tired. Everything hurt.

He just sat there for a while in the dark and watched Toran fill and empty bucket after bucket into the car. His stomach felt like it was trying to turn itself out. His mouth was parched. Even though he had the fabric tied over his face, he had gotten the coal dust into it. He could taste it- chalky and metallic on his tongue.

Toran did not work ceaselessly. He stopped sometimes as though he were looking for something. Sometimes before emptying the bins, he would root around in them. Occasionally, he would pull something out and brush it off and put it in his pocket. Jesse wondered what he was doing, but he didn’t ask. He was too tired and too hungry to work up any kind of conversation. There was a panicked desperation rising in him, for the hopelessness of his situation was finally beginning to overtake him. His throat felt tight. He needed to fill nine more bins to buy one meal. He was so very hungry.

And he was only going to get hungrier.

Jesse stood and returned to his work, but his determination was no match for the stone walls around him. He continued to be ineffectual at knocking the coal loose himself, but he noticed that while Toran was very good at it, he was sometimes too good. The coal would come tumbling down, overfilling the buckets or missing them entirely. The ground was covered with big chunks of coal. He got down on his hands and knees.

“May I?”

He wasn’t certain how Toran would feel about him stealing his scraps. The big man shrugged before swinging his axe again. Jesse was careful to keep out of his way and the rocks as they tumbled down. He filled his tiny hands with the big chunks of coal and dumped them into the bin. He filled two more buckets that way. Toran was kind enough to lift them for him.

He lost all track of time down there in the dark, but it didn’t matter because their time down there was not measured in minutes but rather in coal. When the coal car was full, Jesse watched in amazement as Toran hitched himself to it. In that moment, he looked every bit the Bull the other man called him. His tremendous muscles bulged. His massive thighs strained, his chest heaved and the one-ton mine car creaked into motion. Jesse watched open-mouthed as he hauled it singlehandedly from the bottom of the shaft. The display of strength seemed almost superhuman, even for a man of Toran’s immense size.

He walked behind it until Toran chastened him with a horrifying scenario. “What if my foot slips?” was all he said and Jesse imagined Toran loosing control, the minecart rolling backwards and right over him. His small body would hardly be a speed bump to slow it down. The boy moved to walk beside the cart.

The trek up the steep shaft made his calves throb. His eyes burned in the sunshine when they reached the mouth. His head spun from his hunger, especially when the smell of meat cooking hit it. He knew he hadn’t earned enough to buy anything for lunch. He would have to wait until dinner. If he earned enough credits to buy dinner.

When Toran checked in the mine cart, he declared thirty-five bins for himself and five for Jesse. It was a generous lie. Jesse had only contributed three bins and that was mostly made of scraps from Toran’s digging. The credits were transferred through a scanner to their shackles. For a moment, the number five was lit up in red on it. Jesse stole a peek at Toran’s when he scanned it, but all he saw was three zeros. He guessed that meant the number was so large, the band couldn’t display it. Five wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, curling his finger into Toran’s sleeve as he passed and then regretting it immediately. He pulled his hand back.

Toran stared at it without blinking. Finally he responded, “It's enough to buy some hot broth. Or you can wait until tonight and get something more substantial.”

He didn’t take his eyes off Jesse’s hand until the boy hid it inside his long sleeve. His dark gaze then snapped up. “There’s clean water from the pump. I’m going to get something to eat. You can come with me, or stay by the cart with the equipment. The others will say things, but as long as they think you’re under my protection, they won’t touch you.”

The smell was already tormenting him from a hundred yards away. Jesse knew it would drive him mad if he were to go any closer. He knew he only had to ask and Toran would buy him whatever he wanted. But the price was too high. Not measured in coal bins or credits, but still, too high.

“I’ll stay here,” Jesse said.

“Don’t wander.”

It sounded like a joke, but it probably wasn’t. Jesse waited until Toran was out of earshot before he muttered, “Where else would I go?”

He did go to the pump, drinking as much as his shrunken belly could stand. He started to use the fresh water to clean himself off a bit, but thought better about it. Right now, he looked like everyone else- tired, stooped and filthy. All the other miners walking about were so caked in black coal dust that the only differentiating features were the occasional glint of white teeth or red, irritated eyes. He looked down at his grime-covered fingers and rubbed the pads together. They were so dirty, he could not even expose pink skin beneath the black. He decided that, for now, he looked better this way. He re-tied the now-black handkerchief over his face. He suspected nothing stayed clean in this place for very long.

No one bothered him. In what seemed to be an impossibly short time, Toran returned. It was easy to watch his approach. He towered over all the other inmates.

“You ate quickly,” Jesse observed rather stupidly.

“Didn’t enjoy the company.”

He changed out their lights, traded Jesse’s pickaxe for a flat blade shovel and then they went back down. The afternoon was even harder than the morning. It was, in short, a misery.

The shovel was better than crawling about on his knees to scrape up the coal with his hands, but it was hard on his back. His ribcage felt as constrictive as a corset and he kept finding new ways to hurt himself. His arm was a constant throb and he wondered if the wound was infected now. It felt hot to touch. He wanted to look at it, but he didn’t want to roll up his sleeve and get coal dust in it. The blisters from the morning’s labor were starting to rise on his fingers and palms. The shovel was better, but not much. He filled two buckets before collapsing to sit on the floor with his head in his hands.

Toran was like a locomotive. He barely stopped except for the occasional pause to pick something out of the coal bin.

“What is it?” Jesse asked tiredly.

He held out his hand over Jesse’s. Jesse opened his palm and caught what he dropped into it. It was a filthy rock, but it was not coal. It was greyish, translucent...clear, if it had been clean. It was a raw diamond. Jesse wanted to laugh.

“Is it worth anything?”

“Not to you or me.”

“Do they know there are diamonds in the mine?”