A young man grunted, the heavy canvas sack chafing against the raw skin of his shoulder as he carried it from the docks toward the warehouse.
Reaching six feet in height with tan, dark brown skin from being exposed to the harsh sun before the smog, Silas Auden was a youth in his late teenage years. His black hair, thick and unruly by nature, was tightly secured in a practical ponytail.
He coughed, the sound rough and dry. Each sack held fifty pounds of powdered clay, and the fine dust, a pale contrast to the pervasive black soot of the Backlund Smog, worked its way into his lungs. This was easily his eightieth sack, yet his wiry, thin figure betrayed an almost unnatural endurance.
Sweat, thick and unpleasant, dripped from his forehead, creating lines through the grime of his cheek. He had no free hand to wipe it away, and his intense brown eyes, usually blank, were momentarily focused only on the muddy planks before his worn leather boots.
Everyone had always been amazed at his strength and his stamina. Where others faltered after carrying half the load, Silas was still up and moving. Yet, many mocked him. He was paid a fixed rate, and laboring beyond the standard quota meant he would not receive a single Penny more for his effort.
He did not mind, though. To be honest, for the last three months he had lived on standby, with no real friends or family. He had no memory of them or of anyone before. Three months ago, he had just woken up, stood up from the filthy floor where it seemed he had lain for days, perhaps even a week, and just walked around until his muscles ceased to move one more inch.
That was when an old lady, running a dilapidated relief center, had helped him. He truly believed her to be a goddess at the time, feeding him stew and even clothing him, since all he had was old, torn pants and a shirt with more holes than a wheel of dried, aged Intis cheese. She had introduced him to this backbreaking work, loading clay for the factories, for the money to repay her and keep his meager place in the East Borough lodging house.
You could say he was a blank slate, one of the many surviving the prevailing sorrow of East Borough, just another forgettable one.
It was late afternoon.
The time when the smog thickened after the morning burning of coal seemed to bring a thick haze of soot back down, like a black cloud over the district. Many whose lungs were weak began to cough violently as the air carried a metallic scent and the coppery tang brought about by the constant movement of giant machines; this, however, seemed to become noticeably worse over the last weeks.
Silas, however, didn't care or mind this; he never complained, not even as his hands became slightly numb or his shoulders seemed ready to pop out of their sockets.
He finished with his one hundred sacks for the first half of the day and was told to report his work and be able to take his half-hour meal time.
This was probably the only thing during his long working hours that made him change his usual stoic expression. He walked towards the large factory building and into the small room where he had to check out to be able to pick up his packed meal, one that old lady Marisa made for him daily as thanks for the money he gave her for the relief center.
Today the noise inside the factory was particularly loud, as man and machine worked nonstop to ready the clay for the pottery makers. The pounding of the steam engines and the cries of those that dumped the fine clay in large containers made Silas cover his mouth while working.
The dust here was particularly heavy, but that did not stop him from reaching the small room, the only place that was strangely out of place. It was clean and spotless. Inside, a woman comfortably sat while two other women constantly cleaned the room.
As he got closer, the red-haired woman whose striking beauty did not fit the grime of the factory stopped him, holding up a gloved hand and not wanting him to get closer.
"State your name from afar as always. Why do I keep having to repeat that to you all?" she said, her voice sharp and refined, cutting through the heavy machinery noise.
Silas stopped behind the fabric mesh that divided the outside dust from entering inside.
"Silas Auden, reporting 100 sacks and ready to ask for my lunch break."
The woman frowned, barely glancing at the tally sheet. "Go on, get your food and leave. And like always, keep your waste from the water supply. We keep telling you workers that the debris keeps causing the machines to clog."
Silas nodded blankly; he did not understand why she kept telling him the obvious, but he did know of workers that did that out of spite, not that he was going to tell on them; he had no need or care for either side.
He quickly went to grab his food and left, hearing those in the background speak about the woman, supposedly the factory owner's lover, who was given that job and even treated as a queen within the premises.
Silas shrugged, though; he was more focused on his food at the moment. The only problem was that, as always, he would have to eat it cold.
Not that it mattered, it was going to help him get through the day with a full stomach and that was what he treasured.
As he went outside, he looked for a place to sit and spotted a wooden crate that he could use; he quickly sat down and began taking out the contents of his box lunch. The container was metallic with various dishes inside that caused him to breathe in even knowing that he was taking in a great deal of smog, but he couldn't help it; he just loved the smell of Marisa's home-cooked meals.
The old lady always showed her love harshly; her mouth spat more curse words than a revolver could in a second, but her actions always showed another intent.
He began with a bread, dipping it into the small mug of stew ever so often until he heard a noise behind him interrupt him.
Silas quickly turned around only to spot two kids who tripped on a bucket while trying to get closer to him.
The three locked eyes for a while before Silas placed the fine slice of bread in his mouth.
He noticed the eyes of the two kids staring at his actions, particularly his hands, the bread, his mouth, and his throat as he gulped.
Silas sighed; he knew what they wanted and why they stopped in their tracks, just a few meters behind him.
The two were clearly going to try to rob him, probably check his pockets while he was eating, and yet they wouldn't get what they were looking for. Silas had nothing in his pockets but an old handkerchief used to cover his mouth.
"Say… mister, you wouldn't happen to have a spare Penny?" one of the kids asked; he looked just a little older than the other. The two were clearly siblings.
Silas just shook his head but lifted his hand towards the two. He hated to do this but within his outstretched fingers the bread he was eating was being offered to the clearly orphaned kids.
The two did not wait a second to jump up and grab it, fighting among themselves to see who would be able to eat.
Silas watched them while picking up his mug to take in the rest of the cold soup, not intending to share it.
As he finished his meal, a foreman barked his name again.
"Auden! Forget the rest period. Report to the back lot, third shed. We've got another batch of those 'fever victims,' and the regular crew won't touch 'em. We need you to haul them over to the temporary morgue."
Silas took one more look at the kids, who were now in a full-out fist brawl and picked them up from the thin rags that acted as their shirts.
"Stop, here, one of you gets the bread, the other gets this piece of pie."
The young man hated to give the only sweet Marisa put in his lunch but he wouldn't have the time to fully enjoy it, and just scoffing it down to him was a sin; he'd rather just give it away if he wouldn't fully enjoy it.
The two kids seemed like they were going to fight for the pie but Silas suddenly stuffed the younger boy's mouth with the pie; the older one clearly ate half of the bread already.
Without another word or action, Silas grabbed his box and began heading back to work. It seemed like today was going to be particularly rough, but at least he was going to get more money from moving bodies than by moving sacks.
He was probably the only one told to do so, though; he had at first volunteered for the job back when he started, and since he clearly made it out of the job without getting sick, they kept telling him to keep doing it almost daily.
As for the constant death, he really didn't care or mind; they were no one to him and if getting more money out of it helped him, he was going to do it without caring as always.
It was just part of who he was right now, someone who had no memories of his past, who he really was or why he could only remember his name. Many avoided him because of this, but like everything in his current life, he ignored it, not clearly minding it.
As he got closer to where the bodies of the sick were, he began picking them up, one by one, treating them as the sacks of clay he had to move early in the morning.
Some of them still seemed to have life to them, but the doctor who visited the factory clearly knew they were long past the point of help.
Each and every day more and more of these victims were happening. Many seemed healthy just weeks before, but there seemed to be something more to all of this, and yet Silas did not ponder more on it; even if he could somehow feel this, he had no power to do more.
Everything was going by fast as he moved the bodies to and from the factory to the small morgue, until one of them called out to him.
It was strange but the one he had on his back, an old woman, was clearly dead; her body was limp, or so he believed, as he had clearly felt that she had not breathed in during the time he had moved her.
A cold, clear whisper came directly into his ear, utterly clear despite the pounding of the steam engines and the suffocating smog.
"21 Docks End, Basement..."
Silas froze, his knees slightly buckling under the weight. The body on his back was limp, utterly motionless, its limbs cold. He hadn't felt a breath since he lifted her. Yet, the voice that was more like a wail was hoarse, dry, and from someone that was undeniably dead.
"What...?" Silas managed, his voice barely a croak against the mental pressure that caused him to suddenly toss her from his back.
The voice didn't answer. Instead, it seemed to sigh, a wet, rattling sound. "Remember who you are…" The words were cryptic, causing all the hairs on his back to stand at once.
The dead woman suddenly convulsed before turning into what seemed to be black smoke, vanishing from the spot.
With a desperate heave, Silas's eyes widen, looking at the only proof that he had brought the old lady, the black smoke that dispersed around him until nothing was left.
The corpse was gone, evaporated into the smog.
There was just something that kept spinning in his usually empty head: the words of the strange corpse: "21 Docks End, Basement."
He had to get there. He reached out his dark, calloused fingers towards an object on the floor, a single silver ornament that upon closer look seemed to have a strange shape.
It wasn't anything special, just a tarnished silver ring.
He grasped the ring, seeking a way to silence the terrible, conflicting emotions roaring in his brain. His fingers closed around the metal.