The caverns were filled with a symphony of rattling chains and pickaxes striking stone as miners dug into the walls.

Ch-chink, TING! . . . Ch-chink, TING! . . . Ch-chink, TING! . . .

Every swing of the miner’s picks took every bit of what little strength they had. They only worked through their exhaustion and fatigue because they feared what the Tall Ones would do if they didn’t work.

The Tall Ones would always yell at the miners if they didn’t work hard enough. Sometimes they would also strike the miners. On some occasions the Tall Ones would even take one of them away and they would never be seen again.

Ch-chink, . . . Thud.

Exhaustion finally overtook one of the miners and they collapsed to the ground.

“0705202116”

When the fallen miner didn’t get up after the Tall One shouted, he began to converge on the miner with another Tall One. He pulled the miner up and threw him back against the wall, but he immediately fell back to his knees. Then the Tall Ones started to kick him.

Ch-chink, TING! . . . Ch-chink, TING! . . . Ch-chink, TING! . . .

The miner cried out in pain, but the others drowned his cries with the sound of their work. If they did help him then they would be hurt the same as him. So they continued to work and tried to drown out his cries. But the miner working right beside him still heard his cries very clearly.

“GAAAH! AAAH! HUUH!”

SMACK!

Chancing a sideways glance, out of the corner of her eye the miner could see that the Tall Ones were now punching the miner. She knew that they wouldn’t stop until the miner got back to work or died. This was the way the things were for them.

SMACK! SMACK! CHOMP!

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!”

Pain radiated through the Tall One’s arm as the miner who’d been watching them bit into his arm. He released the miner he’d been beating and redirected his punches to the one biting down on him.

SMACK! . . . SMACK!

After two punches, the miner released the Tall One’s arm and bent down over the fallen one.