Pits

As the guard walked, so did he. That was his only resolve for walking forward. If there had not been someone there with one arm latched between his tied wrists, he would have allowed gravity to have its way with him and fallen to the ground.

'Stand up, slave,' the guard barked.

That was impossible. His skin felt like lead, while inside was air. No bones, no blood, no muscle, just a void, and it wanted to go down. The guard shifted his grip, catching Magan's upper arm, forcing him upright. He groaned as his leadened body straightened, but the guard just shook him into silence.

He squinted open his eyes, causing his soul to fill with such a dread that even his organs turned to heavy metal, and he slipped from the guard's grip, hitting the dirty concrete. Mud, grease, perhaps some blood. The evidence of a thousand feet that had walked this way before. But he couldn't stay here. He twisted his head as best as he could to look up at the guard. He was staring back down at him, his top lip peeled up in disgust, and in his black gloved hands, he was readying a shock-stick. Normally, the sight of that was enough to make him leap to his feet, but now, as he eyed the rod, its end fizzing with blue sparks, he knew he wanted it.

The guard pressed it to his side. Magan convulsed. It hurt. Somewhere, he recognised he was experiencing pain, that this scratching sharpness that filled his flesh was pain, but he could not feel it. He was on the outside, floating somewhere above his sad body, absent from all empathy. And then the lights dimmed, the dirty concrete vanished, and all went to blissful black.

A steel-toed boot connected with his stomach. He reared his head back and gasped, consciousness and flesh made one again. A black-gloved hand reached down and picked him up by the bicep, searing whiteness filling his muscles. He could feel it all now, and he longed to return his hollow form.

'Move,' the guard barked, pushing Magan forwards towards his inevitability.

It was the warehouse he had seen from the outside, jutting out the back, massive, and yet so uninteresting compared to the glitzy showroom at the front that it had faded into the background. The high corrugated ceiling was patched with squares of fusty plastic, dulled from years of rain and grime of the docklands, creating only shadows of light on the surface below, which stretched out in all directions for an eternity, the distance determined by specks on far walls, the doors to the warehouse. An escape he would never experience. If he kept his eyes high, the reality of his future did not seem so daunting. At this angle, the warehouse appeared to be filled with miles of intersecting walkways, each protected by metal fences, forming a grid pattern. Every direction he looked, there the walkways extended out to. But he had little chance to indulge in this fantasy. The guard pushed him along the walkway, and in doing so, Magan was forced to look down.

Beneath his feet was a pit, the kind he used to associate with his mechanic, with smooth concrete sides. But this was deeper, and there was no ladder. He tilted his head further, as far as the guard's grip would allow him, and only then could he see the bottom, or so he thought. There was no light down there. Only darkness. Solid darkness. And the stench of sweat and filth of the person inside. Every square formed by a walkway was a pit, their metal barriers amalgamating into solid shimmering masses, the number incomprehensible, and he was going down, he was going to be part of this endless horror. His bare feet slipped uneasily against the sharp surface of the metal grate. The guard hoisted him upright again.

The passed pit after pit. Sometimes he would see faces, buried in the gloom, pale-skinned, sunken-eyed, staring up at him, thin parched lips opening hungrily. This would be him. He would be one of these faces.

The guard stopped. It was time. He took out his shock-stick again, pressing it against Magan's chest. Another pair of hands touched his. He jolted his head around to realise there was another guard,

'Head forwards, eyes down,' his guard ordered.

The one behind released his cuffs, then grabbed his neck and pushed him down to the ground, positioning him so his back was to the pit. Behind him, there was the sound of a heavy crunch and grind, and then it stopped. The guard pushed the stick against his chest again. 'Put your foot in,' he ordered. 'You'll feel a step.'

Magan glanced behind him. There was nothing there. The guard pushed him harder with the stick, repeating the order at his usual barking volume.

He gulped and extended one leg out and down, gingerly touching the wall with little taps of his toes, until he indeed felt a step. He reached out his other foot to join until he could sliver off the platform and onto the step cut into the wall beneath him, but his legs turned to jelly, free of the lead, and they shook, trembling, and he gripped the walkway hard with his fingertips, trapped between the endless pit and the two guards reaching out their shock-sticks towards him.

'Faster, slave, or I'll drop you,' the guard smirked.

He found the step and continued down, faster now as he got into a rhythm. He reached the ground. The sides loomed up above him, smooth and featureless, aside from the steps cut into the wall before him, and then with the same whirling crunch as before, they too disappeared. He placed one hand against the concrete in their absence and cranked his neck back to look all the way up. The guard's round, warm faces, cheered with good food and comfort, began to fade, leaving nothing but the sounds of their heavy footsteps rattling the walkways.

Magan turned around and slid down the wall to the ground, pressing his hands to his head.