The Island of Slaves
Bones poked through the nearly translucent skin of their faces and knobby fingers protruded from their joints. Their eyes were glazed and they stumbled aimlessly around.
The slave colony was a bleak and miserable place, with people barely surviving on the meager resources available to them. The soil was harsh and acidic and the water was polluted and almost undrinkable. The slaves were weak and malnourished, with little hope for survival.
This colony was small, with about a thousand people, and was surrounded by an electrified fence. No-one was allowed out; no-one came in. The town was situated on a hill, and looked out over a barren plain of rocks and dust that stretched as far as the eye could see. Thick irrigation canals scarred the land and twisted over brown earth to feed artificial lakes built in the middle of the plain. The ground was rough, and the buildings were made from cheap concrete. People went about their day in silence and desperation, bowing their heads in prayer while they worked.
The soil was a dull yellow, burned by the harsh sun, and no matter how hard they worked, every day the slaves fell a bit more behind. Their hands were blistered and bleeding from trying to break the soil open, but still they kept piling dirt onto the backs of carts. They worked until they collapsed, too tired to feel hunger. For many months, the carts that carried their heavy loads were mere useless implements. The wheels had been stripped of their spokes and the frames had been broken. People pushed the carts along with their shoulders, their bones grinding. Every day people went to work and brought back less of themselves.
People began to die. They died of dehydration, of starvation, of illness. The bit of medicine was too weak to cure them.
Many diseases, it is believed, are caused by unknown gases and vapors emanating from the earth's interior. These gases mix with air and water and are breathed in by workers each day as they dig their resources from below the surface.
They mainly mine vital resources. The slaves were pathetically like little children, their bellies distended and burning, bellies empty except for the terror of starvation. They were a network of veins and tumors, a circulatory system with no blood. But they were still digging, searching with stamp and drill, scarred fingers driven like trowels through rock, skinless hands that smeared blood across walls and fed it to the seething shafts.
The miners are covered in a thin layer of soot that clings to their skin and clothes. The oppressive heat and humidity are almost unbearable and the air is thick with noxious fumes. Dust particles, some of them glittering with tiny flecks of minerals, hang in the air.
The scent of burning coal and sulfur mix with the smell of sweat, fear, and death to create an almost tangible presence within the mine. There is a constant reminder of the danger that lurks within its depths, as workers toil for hours in the dark recesses with little respite from the oppressive conditions.
Every day as they worked, a black film would be removed from the bodies so that each night when they returned to the surface and poured water into their tubs, a piece of their porous flesh would come away, a piece of the color that cloaked their skin like a funeral shroud.
In some sections of the mine, the cages are stacked three high, so that the workers are forced to stand all day long or lay on their sides instead of sitting or lying down; this helps keep them awake. The food is a disgusting slop that they are forced to eat while they work. It is a foul-smelling, grey mush that they are forced to eat with their hands. It is all they get to eat, and it is all that keeps them alive.
As they eat their disgusting slop, they look up at the low ceiling of the cage and see the black film that is slowly consuming the ceiling. They can feel the heat of the layer of gas that blankets the ceiling and coats their skin. It is a suffocating heat. Every day the slaves pray that they won't turn black like the ceiling.
They lay in their cages, spilling their slop onto the ground, as the film slowly consumes the ceiling of the mine. They are covered in the grimy black film, unable to keep it from coating them. They pray they won't turn black and fall. The ceiling is black and glistening, and even though it is coated with the black film, it is too hot to touch; the heat of it sears their skin. The slaves pray that their end will be swift and painless, that they will be spared the final indignity of turning black.
Outside, the rain had stopped, but the sky was still dark and heavy with moisture. There was no light, no sound. No hope.
The skin of the slaves had started to glisten. They could feel their skin turning. They tried to pull it off in chunks, but it was as though it were coming from the inside. Their bodies were covered in a layer of shadow, a black film that was slowly consuming them. They were falling, falling into darkness.
The slaves' skin is dull and grey, mottled with a sticky film. They shudder in fear as they feel the film slowly coating their skin, turning it darker and darker. Their eyes are wide in terror as they imagine themselves turning black and falling into the abyss, consumed by the inky darkness.
The gas-covered mines are a deep and dark abyss, barely illuminated by the flickering lights in the distance. It tastes like acid, burning their throats and leaving a bitter aftertaste. Everywhere the slaves look is a murky and dangerous darkness, edging closer and closer to them with each breath they take.
Today is no different. The slaves pray for relief, for some salvation from the suffocating darkness, but there is none. They can feel their skin turning, the black film slowly consuming them, their lives slipping away as they fall into the darkness. The mines are almost impossible to navigate, and they are almost completely shrouded in this endless darkness.