16-12-2024, 08:04 PM
Kundrati, February 5585
Quote:Work, or die.
It was a simple mantra. Three simple words. Words that Leon repeated to himself each day as he awoke at dawn to work the arms factory, along with two dozen other workers who had been conscripted. Some of his friends in the lumber field had protested. They were lumberjacks, not assembly workers. They knew nothing about the trade. A few had been subsequently shot, two rounds in the forehead. They weren’t worth torturing and putting back into the work lines.
Work, or die.
The labor was backbreaking in a different way than he was used to. He had cut trees for a living, and even he was exhausted. The land around the factory would be beautiful, had he not found people passed out or dead on the concrete floor or lines. He couldn’t stop working though. Legionary overseers patrolled, and the unproductive were culled. There were always more who took their place.
Work, or die.
Some days he worked at the open air tank lots, inside that blot on the idyllic countryside. One where the armored vehicles were repurposed and refitted. You had to be careful not to lose hands or fingers, like many workers did. But even then you could not stop. Wrap a cloth around the stump and keep working, because otherwise you would vanish.
Work, or die.
He woke up before sunrise, and he returned after sunset. He fell unconscious besides a wife he’d not spoken to in days, having barely earned enough money to feed her for the day. Yet he couldn’t stop, because if he stopped, he would die, and so would she. So he repeated the mantra, again and again, because he had no choice.