Dante in the coal mines

this story is on other websites as well.

Chapter 1. The past

The mine was a safe haven for homeless people who wandered the streets of Olta. No matter the age of the person, be it a child or an adult, they accepted laborers of all kinds as long as they were physically capable.

Dante had been living on the streets since he was five, he could not remember any details of his whereabouts, so he assumed he was abandoned by his family, or they died early from illness. In Olta the majority of children would not survive till the age of three, adults would die before they reached twenty-five from unknown illnesses or murder.

It was a miracle for Dante to survive past five years of age. He worked under two grouchy couples who would make use of him in any means necessary and only fed him twice a day to repay him. He would do odd jobs from polishing the stains of people’s shoes to painting the nails of women who were too idle to do anything else. He would mop the floors of the little restaurant and deliver food to the lousy customers who only came to drink and cause a ruckus.

For Dante, being able to eat twice a day was a luxury on its own. There were plenty of kids on the streets who’d die for a piece of bread and a loaf of bread with some water he had every living day. Dante was ever so grateful, and treated the couple who took him in with respect no matter how badly he was treated.

One day a kind elderly woman, pitying the poor boy who’d spent his birthday without food, gave him a single chocolate cookie. He was delighted, he cried as he took the cookie from the lady’s hand and held onto it tightly, as if it was his most treasured item. He never had chocolate before, he wanted to eat the chocolate in the little cottage he shared with the cows. He thanked the generous woman profusely and ran back to his cottage to eat the cookie in peace, away from prying eyes. He stopped on his tracks at the entrance of the little bar he served, he could hear the middle aged couple whom he served quarreling loudly by the right hand side of the window. His heart dropped, he felt it in his bones he would get a beating today. His muscles trembled still remembering the last time he got punished for breaking a teacup Marville loved dearly. He wanted to pass by the front yard quietly, hoping not to be seen. He crawled down on the ground, getting on his hands and legs, passed by the window unseen, all he had to do now was pass by the open doors and ran to his dear cottage. Maybe the cows would give some milk for him to eat the cookie with it.

Just as he ran past the door, a shoe came flying towards his direction and landed on his head harshly. Knocking him down in an instant, Rodrico fumed when he saw the slave boy not in bed, wondering about his bar unsupervised late into the night, though for the worse.

‘Is that a chocolate cookie in his hand?’ his wife Marville pointed at the bakery Dante tried to hide. Rodrico turned red with anger, his eyebrows creased and his lips turned, his hands balled up into fists. He marched towards the boy who laid on the ground frightened, unable to move.

‘You ungrateful vermin, where did you get those cookies from?! You’ve been stealing from my home now?’ he barked, stomping in Dante’s direction. Rodrico dragged him by the neck and threw him to the ground, kicking him while holding fist full of hair as he dragged Dante across the lawn.

‘I did not steal’ Dante yelled exasperatedly; it was of no use as he continued beating the poor child while spewing a series of insults. Dante got up several times to run away, yet it was a futile attempt as Rodrico caught him instantly. Tears streamed down Dante’s face as he begged Rodrico to stop. Rodrico was not in his right mind as he was only taking out his frustration from the boy, Dante’s tattered shirt ripped in half as he tried to flee once more. Eventually Dante was able to break free when he was thrown across the field. Dante ran as fast as his legs were able to and settled underneath an abandoned church. His cookie was shattered in small pieces yet he ate it, thinking what a blessing in disguise this cookie was. He was able to run away from the people who had tormented him needlessly.

Dante did not know what to do from now on, life seemed meaningless, he had no way to survive other than begging people for food on the streets or stealing. If theft was an option, he would do it in a heartbeat. But there were laws in this country, anyone who stole would have their hands cut off. He’d rather keep his hands than steal and commit a crime. He did not want to think about tomorrow, he did not want to think about his survival. Just for tonight, he wanted to sleep.

Dante opened his eyes to muffled screams, strong arms wrapped around his limbs, one hand covering his mouth. Dante’s heart was by his throat, he knew what this was, he knew who was kidnapping him and where they would possibly take him. By this point, crying was of no use. It felt as if all his emotions were drained out of him; he no longer had any reason to continue living. Why must his body be ridiculously healthy? Not once had he gotten sick, he questioned why he should live. Death would be less demanding than attempting to survive in this pitiless world.

He could hear shrieks and cries for help from the children surrounding him.

He was thrown in an old buggy that barely covered the top, the sky was still as dark as when he had fallen asleep. He was not aware how long he was asleep for, but it felt like he closed his eyes for only a moment. There were three more children occupying the same carriage as him, two kids who looked to be Dante’s age, one had silver blonde hair, pale skin and a button nose, he was clean. His gown appeared to be made from silk. A fabric only the nobles of Olta may procure. The other one was wearing a plain white tee, coupled with green coloured pants. He had ashy brown hair and bulbous nose, covered in freckles, tall and thin. Dante could tell the brown haired one was a commoner; he was snarling his eyes out, attempting to shout and cry through the fabric secured in his mouth. They were unable to talk, their hands and feet were tied down by rope.

It felt like we were in the carriage traveling a long distance, the night was quiet. I could only hear soft little sobs and two grown adults chatting quietly leading the carriage. I could hear bits and pieces of their conversation. Something along the lines of ‘captain needing young bastards’ ‘good for nothing’ ‘they’re all so skinny’ ‘they’re useless’ ‘better sell them as slaves’ I remained calm throughout the trip and devoured any information I could from listening into their conversation. After what seemed like a two hour ride in the carriage, it finally came to a halt. I heard the adults getting stepped down, I was anxious and felt as if the world had ended. I wondered what they were going to do to the three young boys? Isn’t the answer obvious, I’ll be sold as a slave. So this is my fate.

‘Gobble, get the rats out, we’re here.’ I heard one of them speak, I braced myself. His voice is deep, dangerous, and predatory.

‘Come on you lot, welcome to hell’ the short, pudgy adult covered in body hair opened the curtains. He seemed humorous, his tone light and cheerful as if he had not a worry in the world. My breath hitched as I took in my surroundings, they brought us to the sea and right across from me stood a gigantic metal boat, swarms of people were rushing in and out of the ship. Carriages similar to ours were bringing more children in. They freed our feet so we could walk, but placed shackles so we wouldn’t run away. One of the taller men stepped forward, he had dark hair like the sky, shoulders as broad as mountains and dark hooded eyes that seemed to read my mind. He was the one accompanying Gobbles.

‘Listen here you morons, how you act from now on will decide your fate. If you think you can run away at this point, a bullet will go through your head. So I suggest you obey and do as you’re told.’ He examined our reactions, no one said a word. Everyone was too afraid to speak. I was tempted, I wanted to run away, I was done with this hellish life. Death seemed too inviting.

‘You will shut your mouth, and march straight inside the ship, Gobble will be following you behind and I will take the lead. If you want to live, you better walk’ it looked like there were about 6 carriages, between three to four children in each carriage. All of them shackled from the feet and mouth covered with a piece of fabric. I noticed that all the kids that were kidnapped were boys. What could this mean? Going against my initial suicidal thought, I wanted to find out what this was about. A large ship in the border of Olta would not go unnoticed, unless the ship was registered. If it is registered, then there is something suspicious happening in Olta that the government knows and approves of. Could this be an experiment? What kind of experiment? Are they testing new drugs?

We were pulled one by one by our shackles and began marching towards the ship. I looked above and saw men casually watching us. Bringing in a bunch of boys certainly didn’t seem any news to them, few men snickered and whistled. I heard one of them say ‘fresh meat’ and my thoughts were immediately disturbed. As we entered inside, there seemed to be a big open space, it was dark and quiet. We continued walking in darkness led by the muscled man whose name I have yet to hear. I saw an opening, I had to squint my eyes as the atmosphere suddenly became bright. The place was crowded with men of all color and ages, they all stood six feet tall, strong and wore no expression. They watched us and made their way as we continued to walk what looked like the middle of the hall. There seated a woman, so beautiful almost like a fairytale. Her hair white as snow, skin so pale and lips soft pink, she did not look much older than twenty. Yet she had an intimidating aura.

‘Welcome’ she spoke in an almost frightening tone.

The woman introduced herself as Erina and she would be taking care of us from now onwards. She spoke softly and made gentle hand gestures as she spoke, she never left her seat or made any excessive movements. She asked her men to untie the fabric securing our lips. Once the gags were out, one boy standing two rows behind me cried out loudly.

‘ You dare kidnap the son of Hopkins? Do you have a death wish woman? Have you any idea who I am?’ He looked a little older than I; maybe eight or nine years of age, dressed in fabric so expensive. He looked scared, yet his tone was cocky and arrogant, he trembled in fear yet tried to show confidence. We all anticipated what would happen next, Erina asked him to step forward and he did so.

‘That’s right, if you let me go unscathed right now. I’ll let you live’ almost like a taunt, his nose was high in the air. I could see Erina was not bothered slightest, she showed little emotion, her forefinger tapped lightly in rhythm on the arms of the cream coloured wingback chair.

‘What is your name child?’ She asked

‘Derrick the youngest son of Adam Hopkins the third’ he replied courtly

’It does not matter who you are or where you’re from, what matters now is how you’ll behave. I’ll give you a chance to prove your worth. You will stand by the dart board motionless, if you so much as blink while the dart is thrown at you I will place you as a worker in the coal mines. If you pass without fear, I shall let you go unscathed as you wish, she proposed, referring to the dart board on the left side of the hall where a group of men who were previously gaming stopped when they noticed the attention shift.

Derrick was visibly in fear. Though he could not utter a word, he hesitated. He had no other choice, he provoked Erina with what seemed to be high status of his which did not phase her at all, as well as threatening her resulting in his life being in danger. He might walk out of there with one eye blind, not too big of an injury and spend the rest of his days working in the coal mines like a slave. Or he could try and survive this test without blinking or flinching, which would take a tremendous amount of effort. He held his head high and slowly made his way to the dart board.

‘I’m ready’ he announced, his hands curled up in a fist, holding his pants for dear life as if it provided some sort of comfort. His shoulder length brown hair was braided behind him , his physique slim build and he had golden tanned skin.

‘Bay’ she called out one of her man, a ginger haired slender teenage boy jumped down through the ropes that were tied to the ceiling. He wore tweed gray pants and black plain collared tee that had two ripped stripes in the mid of his chest across his packs. His hair cascading past his left eye while the other half clean shaved. He took three pairs of darts from his pocket, smirking at the trembling derrick without a warning he threw the dart across the room and it landed with a soft thud right above Derricks hair. Derrick broke the rules, he flinch and haunched down cowering. Hiding his face behind his arms and weeping uncontrollably. The men in the room broke out in fits of uncontrollable laughter mocking the poor boy.

‘Take him to the coal mines’ two older guys held Derrick and dragged him out by his arms as he wailed asking for forgiveness, and to be given one more chance. Erina was having none of it, she felt no pity or sympathy towards the whimpering child that was being dragged away. This demonstrated that we were helpless in front of this woman, we shouldn’t expect mercy.

Erina did not say anything else, she only sat quietly and let one of the men take over. It was the guy who kidnapped me. He stepped forward and asked everyone to settle down so we could hear what he had to say. He introduced himself as Flin, he was one of the trainers here who oversaw the new arrivals. He did not say anything more about himself which left me curious, he looked more than let on, this guy was mysterious.

‘You will all be tested, physically and mentally. On this ship only the strongest survive. Everyone here will start from the bottom, we will be observing you day and night, depending on how you pass each test, you will be moved a level up.’ he talked with an outlandish accent, stopping here and there seeing if all the boys are listening in. He had a round pointed, silver gun hanging from his belt buckle. He wore a green coloured, short sleeved button up shirt that revealed his chiseled chest, and plain knee length shorts with dark ankle boots. He looked like any other ordinary commoner.

‘Gobble, accompany them to the mines.’ he ordered, Gobble saluted in response who was watching everything from behind us, keeping guard in case any of the boys tried something funny.

‘The coal mines are your starting point boys, there’s no limit to how much time you’ll spend there. We had newcomers that were brought in a year ago and they’re still grinding the coals.’

Accompanied by Gobble and a few other men, we were led through the ship down at the very bottom. We passed by three floors before we finally entered the coal mines inside the ship. As soon as we went inside, I was engulfed with burning coal flames, smoke filling the air around making it incredibly difficult to breathe, the temperature of the room heated my cheeks thousand fold. There looked to be about fifty workers, all of them men ranging from as young as ten year old children to men in their early twenties. Children carry coal in small buckets and bring them over to older kids, while they refuel the steamships non-stop.

‘Like I said boys, ’ Gobble snickered smirking down on us ‘welcome to hell’ he winked. He lifts up his wrist closer to his beefy neck and checks the time on his watch.

’If you want to have dinner tonight, you must earn it. Dinner is going to be at two am in the morning, you have an hour to start working. Children under the age of twelve will follow Trinkle, a dark skinned man who looked around seventeen approached with a shovel in his hand. He gathered all the younger kids and left with two other guys helping him.

‘The rest of you, will be tending to Marfusha’ a slightly overweight white man drinking something that is definitely not water strolled in from our rear.

‘You brought more pests I see’ he blurted between gulps, his hair all falling off only leaving a little patch right in the middle of his head, he had tooth gaps in between his fatty lips and only wore a black stained white singlet with brown shorts. I could smell the awful stench of alcohol five feet away.

‘You will be training them’ Gobble covered his nose in disgust and moved towards the door.

‘Good luck then’ he left swiftly, shutting the metal iron door with a loud bang.I heard a click of a key meaning we were locked up in here with this awful looking man.

Marfusha scanned the nine teenage boys standing before him, looking down on us as if we’re nasty insects he had no choice but to touch. He yawned, drinking more of his ‘water’ , wiped his lips with his forearm and did a “follow me” motion with his fingers. I could see the boys were visibly nervous, scared even. No one dared to make a noise or even ask questions, we did not know whether we were even allowed. Marfusha led us through the narrow hallways of the coal ship into a bigger room with better air quality. It looked like it was a lounge room, one metal table in the middle with chairs around it. Large brown sofa in the corner, it had scratches and the leg was broken as it was tilting sideways. He opened a door across the launcher room and it had a series of small lockers inside.

“You will be provided with clothes suitable to work in the mines inside the lockers, get changed and come out to the lounge room. I expect you to finish changing in five minute” he shut the door behind and left us in the changing room.

“We need to get out of here” the silver haired boy who shared the same carriage as I spoke first.

’Yeah? And how do you suppose we get out of a ship crowded with six feet tall, serial killer men surrounding us? “ a brown skinned foreigner with an accent argued, it looked like he had already accepted his fate.

‘My father is the prime minister of Olta, he will be sending out search parties to look for me. All we have to do is get to the border of Olta’

‘You’re Philip? Philip Rocini?’ Pale, overweight red headed teenage boy asked, pushing through the crowd.

‘Yes. I am he,’ he answered.

‘I’m Prince Shahbad of Delada,’ the foreign boy introduced himself.

How did such high ranking people of our continent get kidnapped by these men? I know for sure nobles like them are always surrounded by guards. It makes me laugh that the security of our country has become so weak. As if reading my thoughts, Philip asked Shahbad the same question.

‘My car was attacked on Bilgram road while I was trying to attend the Marquis Fidel’s funeral’

‘I attended the same funeral, though I was attacked while heading back home,’ Philip added

‘Who are you guys?’ Shahbad asked, eyeing the rest of us.

‘Let’s leave the introduction for later, we need to get changed and head out in 3 minutes’ an Asian looking kid with black coloured bold square shaped glasses informed. We immediately began changing, since I did not have a shirt on, I only changed my tattered shorts into the long wide black shirt and white undershirt they had provided. The smell of clean clothes hit my nostrils, and for a moment, I thought maybe living here wouldn’t be so bad. As soon as we were done changing, Philip gathered everyone last time before we headed and asked us to memorize whatever section we’d be assigned to, so that we’ll be able to escape later on.

We walked into the lounge room once we were done, Marfusha was eating biscuits with milk green tea, dipping his biscuits into the tea and then devouring the biscuit. I wonder if it tastes as good as it looks, it made my stomach growl with hunger. My insides churned and it felt as if there was a lump on my throat I couldn’t swallow until I tried that biscuit.

“Laddie” he called out, a boy no older than eighteen walked inside the room. He had dirty blonde hair and his face was covered in freckles. He was tall and skinny, yet he seemed to carry a bit of an arrogant aura around him. He looked haughty and mischievous, I couldn’t tell whether he’d be a friend or a foe.

‘From now on you will answer him, you will follow whatever he says. If I hear one complaint, you’ll be punished’ Marfusha nodded at Laddie to take over, he grabbed his small plate of biscuit and cup of tea and walked out the room.

‘All right guys, welcome. I know you must be devastated but it’ll all be over before you know it. There is some good stuff going on here too, think of it as an adventure away from your family’ he seemed awfully cheerful, I knew he was trying to lift the mood but it wasn’t working. Especially when we didn’t even know why we were kidnapped except from being enslaved.

‘Surely you jest’ one of the commoner kids retorted at his ludicrous behavior.

‘Fancy words coming from a commoner’ if looks could kill, the commoner would be ten feet below ground. He bore the expression of a lunatic, his eyes looked incredibly scary as they looked upon the commoner without blinking.

‘Laddie, we appreciate you trying to lift the mood but I think It’d be better if we moved along and did our job. No one is in the mood for a talk at the moment.’ Prince Shahbad tried to lighten the environment by seemingly being appreciative of a complete stranger who’s trying to sympathize with us. Of course he must’ve been in the same situation as us before, but he’d know what not to do to a frightened, kidnapped couple of teenagers. Yet he did the exact opposite, almost laughing to our face.

‘You’re right, sorry about that. Let’s get moving,’ he led us out the hall back to the warm coal mine continuing his speech as we pass by a narrow hall with several doors

‘You will be sharing the rooms here with other boys, we can usually fit three or four boys in one room.’ He opened the door with a number 78 on it. It was a small cramped room with blankets and pillows scattered all over the floor, it was clean as I saw no insects. He closed the door and continued leading us through the narrow hallways into the heating coal mine of the ship, the low buzz of people chatting with each other as they worked filled my ears

’working here is pretty simple. You’ll be loading and unloading coal inside the machines, don’t stand too close to it or you might catch flame” Laddie flashed a smile to the boys as he said those words, Dante thought maybe someone did get caught up in flames. Once he thought about it, he couldn’t shake off the image of a person burning alive. Dante couldn’t imagine the pain the person must’ve gone through.

“I will need you all to write down your names and age in this paper, I will collect in two minutes so please hurry up, we want to finish work so we can sit down and have dinner” he handed us a parchment with a quilt. The boys began noting down their names on the paper, Dante stood far behind the line feeling embarrassed. He was illiterate, he never learned how to read and write, this task would be difficult. It would be humiliating to ask one of the boys to write his name for him. But did he have any other choice? Seemed like there was, maybe he didn’t need to write his name there. All the boys knew how to write, even the commoners. Which was worthy of a praise.

“Did everyone write their name?” Philip asked, picking up the piece of paper, running his eyes over the names and ages of the boys he’d be working with for who knows however long.

Otto 17

Atticus 14

Jude 16

Silas 16

Philip 15

Shahbad 16

Arthur 17

Ezekiel 14

“There’s one person missing here, who did we miss?” Philip asked scanning the boys as they only looked at one another searching for a face that wasn’t included, one teenage boy shorter than everyone else in the room with hair as dark as coal shrinked behind Shahbad without saying a word. It was common in Olta for many children to not know how to read and write, perhaps he felt embarrassed he was the only one who was illiterate.

“What’s your name boy” Philip questioned tilting his head quizzically to the side to get better view of the boy, Shahbad seemed confused at first until he stepped aside and saw the young child hiding behind him; by now everyone’s focus was on Dante and he despised having so many eyes peering down on him, judging him. He lowered his eyes to the floor and mumbled his name which wasn’t very audible.

“Pardon me, could you say that again?” Shahbad asked putting an arm on his shoulder, the boy was so timid and shy, Shahbad pondered how could a man be so cowardly. It was only right for kids their age to learn adequately and act their age, yet this boy was tarnishing the reputation of all men and Shahbad did not associate himself with such figures.

‘Dante. My name is Dante’ the boy finally spoke. Philip did not waste a second and noted down his name and age. Dante was also sixteen. How peculiar was this boy he thought. Laddie came back in exactly two minutes, and read out the names of all the boys. He assigned each boy a job judging from their physique. Otto, Jude and Silas who were taller and looked stronger were assigned for coal delivery, they’d be carrying bags of coal, throwing it in the cart and pushing it up towards the guys who poured coal into the steams. Philip, Shahbad and Ezekiel were would be working with the other guys as coal passers shoveling coal while Atticus and I would be working as a firemen. Their job was to move the fire to one side of the furnace and clean out the coal ash from the other side. They were also responsible for keeping the coal evenly distributed wherever it was burning, because the coal had to be burned quickly and evenly. Once these tasks were assigned and job descriptions were given, Laddie put them to work for the next hour until it was time for dinner.

None of the boys had ever worked in coal steaming ships, they had much harder time then the rest of the men, it seemed the two noble men from esteemed families, Shahbad and Philip were especially working with much difficulty. They never had to lift a finger when they lived in the mansion, sure they had assigned duties as the heir of their respective families, though labor was an arduous task for them. They got tired very quickly, their muscles burned and they couldn’t get used to the smell of burning coal nor the heat it distributed. Their cheeks flushed red, they were covered in coal and dirt, and they couldn’t even get a proper bath. This was an absolute nightmare to those two.