This was not it, Zach, on first arriving at the factory, thought to himself. Surely, there were other jobs that weren't as laborious as this.
This refers to the very, very heavy lifting and moving of large objects that were apparently shipped to other warehouses as parts of whatever those companies made.
Zach had only been on the floor working for a little over an hour, and his arms were already aching and sore. His thin and worn-out tunic shirt clung to his back, and sweat pooled at the seams like a waterfall. A gross and sticky waterfall. It dripped straight to his burlap pants, making the itchy fabric stick even more to his skin.
Zach was breathing heavily and roughly. They almost had to take a puff of air each time, but that was also another problem since there was a large brick kiln and forgery ovens burning in the middle of the factory, and black smoke came out of them, contaminating the air with so much pollution.
"Ugh, how is everyone breathing this shit fine?" Zach said to no one in particular, and most were too busy to mind him and answer.
"It's a roof over our heads and food for our mouths; if not this, then we have nothing, " a man in his thirties answered with a careful, pensive smile.
Zach looked towards him and nodded a simple nod. Okay, that got depressive.
So, without saying anything else, Zach worked for a few more hours without complaint. At least out loud, but in his head, he whined about this and that.
When they had worked what Zach estimated to be at least six hours, he looked at the men still at it, moving about without stopping.
Zach spotted Dreja from the corner of his eye. Zach looked around for the man who had been walking around supervising the floor and giving orders like a general, and when he didn't spot him, he walked over to where Dreja was.
"How long do you reckon we've been working since we started?" Zach asked, huffing like he was out of breath. Which he was, since his new body was frail and yet surprisingly also durable.
"What-" Dreja looked surprised and yapped out, "What are you doing here? Go back to your station!!"
When Zach made no move to go, Dreja started to push him away, looking around at the people whose attention they had started to garner.
"Uh, wait, wait-" Zach said, holding his arm out as if to surrender. "I just wanted to know how long until break!"
"Huh?" Dreja asked, confused.
"Ya'know, a lunch break or an afternoon break, or whatever, as long as I can sit for a moment and ya know to catch my breath and get a little something to eat-" Zach stopped pushing the cart full of metal steel pipes as he spoke. "Surely there's a cafeteria here or somewhere close by."
When Zach finished talking, the men around him started to laugh out loud, first initiated by Dreja's loud belly laughs.
"Oh, you're a funny little man, you!" someone exclaimed as they wiped tears that pooled at the corners of their eyes.
"Yeah, what a hoot!" Dreja chimed in.
Zach looked around at the laughing men, a thin line forming on his lips. His eyes bulged open when the realisation hit. There was no such thing as a lunch break. They came in the early hours of the day and left when the sun had set and more. A strange memory flashed. They were both familiar and yet unfamiliar, but Zach was too busy and hungry to notice.
"We only get the one dinner break at quarter past five, but you already knew that," Dreja said, shaking his head.
"You're serious?!" Zach was horrified that he'd be breaking his back for another six or perhaps even more hours.
"You lot, get back to work! You're not paid to gossip like some old hags," the lanky supervisor yelled out in a ridiculous-looking top hat.
His face held a grim expression of displeasure. He tsk away as he walked off to another group of people and complained about how poorly they were doing their jobs, and as he did, he slapped a long cane against his palm, nodding his head here and there, when there was something he did approve, which weren't many.
You can go and shove that stick up your ass, Zach nearly said out loud, almost like reflex since the man so reminded him of his boss, but he refrained from doing so after Dreja gave him a stern look and nodded his head to the job in front of him.
Zach's lips curled downwards. He was exhausted from all the heavy lifting and was also fatigued by the lack of sleep. He was thinking about how anyone could be expected to work nonstop for over eleven hours straight with no food and barely enough water, then do another few more hours.
He never thought he would say it, but there it was; he was submitting to it probably for the fifth time now that day. He missed his old job and would give just about anything to have that instead of this. He knew complaining would not do anything but exhaust him further, but with the heat and the pain in his back, it was hard not to.
Another few hours passed by, and Zach's resolution was on its last leg; he knew he needed a distraction. "Oi!" he rudely beckoned Dreja's attention with a whisper.
Dreja focused on his work and didn't seem to have heard him; it was that, or he was pretending to ignore Zach.
"Dreja," Zach persistently tried again.
"What do ya want!" Dreja, who was evidently ignoring Zach, finally snapped, hissing at the disruptive young boy.
Zach looked left, then right, and when he saw no sight of the supervisor, he proceeded to come over to where Dreja was working.
"Ya know that we are only paid if we meet our quotas", Dreja reminded him.
"Yes, yes-" Zach said dismissively. He was almost up to his quota and only needed to fill a few more crates, "I remember what you said out on our walk to work."
"Ergh-" Dreja, confused, gave him a slight shake of the head to indicate so before asking, "What exactly did I say to ya?"
"Oh, you know about the car and how it runs on magic!" Zach's tone was high, and his eyes glowed brightly and wide-eyed as he waited for answers.
"Ah, that!" Dreja said, nodding as he remembered, "Have ye been living under a rock?"
Zach's brows furrowed in query.
"I mean, was that ye first time seein' a car, boy?" Dreja asked him
"Well, no, of course, I have seen cars before-"Zach was speaking, his gestures animated and excited as he whispered the rest like it was a secret, "but you know only ones that run on fuel like petrol and diesel, never ones that run on magic." The last word was emphasised as if it held magic itself.
"Hmm", the Dreja stopped loading his crate and rubbed at his chin in wonder, "I didn't know they could run on anythin' but magic-" he said in amazement, like magic being used as fuel wasn't as impressive as the other.
"Unless this pet-roll and dee-sel you speak of is what those fancy mages call them from the academies and towers," he added.
"No, no, nothing magical about fossil fuel", Zach started to explain.
"Actually, I guess there's magic in the fact that millions of years ago, dinosaurs had to have gone extinct for us to now use their oils." He stated more for himself than Dreja.
Suddenly, he thought of an important question to ask and wanted an answer as soon as possible, "Wait, Dreja, can anyone, I mean, can all the people here use magic?"
"I guess, yes and no, there are many that can, but most not at all. And even those who can have trouble doing more than just the basic, ye know," Dreja explained.
"How come ye don't know much about anything, huh?" This time, it was Dreja who had questions.
"Erm, well-" Zach said while scratching his head for a reasonable excuse and came up with "Ah, you know I'm an orphan, yeah, that and ya know we don't have the luxuries of learning anything." He came up with what he thought was a believable lie and waited for Dreja to take a bite while looking around awkwardly.
Dreja studied Zach's face seriously first, then hummed a solemn "Hmm."
Before nodding his head, his eyes showed sympathy while his mouth formed a thin line. He seemed to have found some truth in what Zach had said and reflected on how sad life as an orphan must be.
"Anyways, how does one know you're a magic user?" Zach started his onslaught of questions again.
"Why do you wanna know?" Dreja answered with a question.
Zach groaned. "Because I wanna know if I'm one", he whispered in frustration as if it should have been obvious for the other man to know what he thought.
"Ha! If you were one, then do ye think they the towers would have let ye not attend one of their academies-" Dreja scoffed "-and that's orphaned or not!"
"Yes, alright, then. How and where do you go to one of these towers?" Zach asked, feeling a mixture of excitement and hopefulness. Maybe it was magic that brought him to this world, and it will be magic that helps him leave.
"You don't go to them. They come to you, " Dreja said, "-wait, have they never tested you? I know they come to the orphanage once a year and take those who possess or even show what they call it, umm... ah-an affiliation."
"Affiliation? What's that? Is that part of being a magician?" Zach asked consecutively without a pause.
"The fact that you don't know about affiliation tells me that you're probably not a mage. Also, it's not called bein' a magician, mage, that's what they call them", Dreja explained.
"What if I am and I haven't been tested before, like you said?" Zach asked.
"Hmmm, I suppose ye could request to be tested, but yer how old now? 13? 14? " Dreja asked.
Zach shrugged his shoulders, not knowing the age of his new body. "Something like that."
Dreja looked at him with the same sympathetic eyes and said, "Well, if that's the case, then they might not want ye even if you are a mage since you are far too old for them to mould." Dreja noticed Zach's expression go from excitement to gloom and felt a tinge bad, so he added, "But it doesn't hurt to go and get checked! But ye shouldn't get yer hopes up." He quickly reminded Zach of the last part.
"Okay, so where can I find one of these towers?" Zach asked with a little too much enthusiasm that he flushed with embarrassment.
"I don't know the exact location, but I guess there'll be one in the city centre," Dreja answered thoughtfully; not wanting to burst Zach's bubble, he did not add that it was unlikely that they would take in his request.
Besides, if this were the young boy's only source of hope, then it wouldn't be him who would crush it. The world itself will do so already.
"Alright, I'll go on our day off and see one of these people. Wait, we do get days off, right? Because if not, then I don't know if I can stand to come back and work for a company like this-" Zach was rumbling like a fool enamoured by the possibilities of being a mage in this world. This could be his way out and back to his simple life.
"Huh?" Dreja huffed out, lost in the rambles of Zach before he shook his head and said, "Never mind, if that's all, then we'd best get back to work" Dreja stated, done entertaining Zach and his many strange questions.
"But I have more questions-" Zach protested.
"Sh", Dreja, with his index finger placed atop his lips, motioned for Zach to get back to his station and pointed at the supervisor making his way from aisle to aisle, who seemed to have come out of an office.
Zach had no choice but to comply and work some more. It was never-ending, but the thought of magic made something in him flare with passion. It ignited something in him he couldn't quite understand, but one thing was clear: he didn't know how he knew, but he did, and it was the fact that he knew that this boy's body that he now inhabited was a mage.
He had to be; otherwise, why else would he be here? That had to be an explanation of some sort. At least, he hoped he was; if not, then he was truly lost without a hope of getting out.