His eyes are still open, filmed with red. Blood still spreading. Dead.
"Fuck," someone whispers.
Markov's face twitches. "Drag him to the side. Keep moving."
Two workers - the older woman and one of the men - scrunch their noses involuntarily and grab the body by the fingers. Pull it to the edge of the chamber, leaving a wide streak. They drop it and step back, wiping their hands on their clothes. The blood doesn't come off.
"Jace always touched shit too fast," someone mutters.
A giggle. Brief. Then quiet.
The fuck?
Markov's face twitches again. "Keep moving."
They keep moving.
Del has to step over the blood trail. The artifact that killed the worker beautiful and pulsing.
Del was reaching for it before the worker touched it. His hand was out.
But something made him stop - a sound. Just a frequency change in the hum. The artifact's pulse shifted and something in him registered wrong.
He stretched his back straight and towards the ceiling.
Markov is watching him. "You heard it?"
Del turns. "Heard what?"
"The shift." Markov's eyes narrow slightly. "Most people don't."
Del doesn't answer.
Markov nods slowly. "Good."
---
They continue working. Markov points out artifacts. "That one - yellow glow, steady pulse. Safe to handle." One of the workers picks it up carefully. No reaction. Still alive.
"That one - red, irregular pulse. Leave it."
They work through the chamber. Three safe artifacts identified and collected. The dangerous ones left untouched. The dead worker's body is still visible at the edge.
Nobody looks at it directly. It's not their job. Someone will pick it up and take it to shore.
The woman Del noticed earlier is working near him. She picks up an artifact - small, cylindrical, pale green glow. Her hands shake slightly. Her head turns to face him.
"First week?" she asks, voice quiet.
"First day."
"Shit." She manages a small smile. "Gets easier."
"Does it?"
"No. But you get used to pretending it does."
She carries the artifact back to the collection point. There's something about the way she moves - careful but not fearful. Present.
Different.
---
They finish. Four artifacts total. One body.
They head back to the surface. The climb is harder with everyone tired having carried artifacts, and the reminder of the dead worker left behind in the dark.
Del's hands won't stop shaking. Not from exertion. From the memory of almost-touching, of being one second away from being the body in the chamber.
They emerge into daylight. The overseer is waiting.
"Four artifacts. One casualty." Markov hands them over. "Section F lower chamber cleared."
The overseer examines the artifacts, nods. He scans the group and his eyes briefly rest on Del's face.
"Good work. Rations in the warehouse. Next crew - "
Del stops listening. The woman is walking toward the warehouse with the others. He follows at a distance.
She glances back once, catches him looking, looks away.
---
Inside they're given rations. Soft bread. Dried meat. Water that's cleaner.
Where do they get it from?
Del eats slowly, making it last. The food tastes real.
Workers gather in small groups, talking quietly, sprawled across the ground. Voices murmur - conversations about nothing, everything. Someone cackles.
In a corner, alone, one worker sits with their ration. Eating mechanically. Silent tears running down their face. They don't wipe them away.
Nobody looks at them.
The woman is sitting across the warehouse. There's a man next to her now - older, maybe thirty, muscular despite everything. His hand is on her shoulder.
Possessive.
She's not leaning into him. Just sitting there. She tears off a piece of her bread and hands it to him. He takes it without looking at her.
Del watches. The man says something. She nods. Her face is blank now. The alive-ness from earlier is gone.
Her eyes meet Del's across the warehouse. Hold for a moment.
Then she looks away.
The man notices Del watching. Glares.
Del looks down at his food.
Right.
He finishes eating, stands, then leaves to his place.
---
He passes the square with the well. More bodies now.
Nobody's moved them yet.
The same person as yesterday sleeps against the same body, using it as a pillow.
That night he dreams of artifacts glowing in the dark and a voice screaming without words and brown eyes that are alive then dead then alive then dead.
Wakes up before dawn. Body aching. Hungry already. The rations from yesterday aren't enough.
Gets up.
Time to work again.
---
Third day with the crew and Markov assigns him to carry.
Section E - mid-level, a bit further from the warehouse to the north.
It's not as deep as F but dark enough that artifact glow is the main light. Three pieces identified. Two are small enough for bags. One isn't.
"Del," Markov says. "You're carrying that one."
His finger points to the right and Del's head turns with it.
An artifact the size of a human head. Irregular shape - not quite spherical, not rectangular. Metallic surface covered in symbols or corrosion, hard to tell. Glowing faint blue from cracks that encroach to it's center.
Del looks at it. Then at Markov who is already watching him.
"Why me?"
"You're new. Newer carriers don't get sick as fast."
The older woman from yesterday snorts.
"Sick?"
"Exposure sickness. Carry active artifacts too long, you feel it. Just keep moving. Forty meters to surface. You can handle forty meters."
It's like he's describing weather.
Del crouches. He squints then reaches.
The moment begore his hands touches it he feels the wrongness, the hum is wrong, so wrong.
And then he touches it.
His body knows this thing shouldn't be touched.
He lifts it. Heavy. Maybe thirty pounds. Warm despite being underground. The warmth spreads up his arms.
Pressure builds in his skull. Sudden. Like something pressing from inside.
"Keep moving," Markov says.
---
Ten steps and nausea hits. His stomach lurches. Taste of copper floods his mouth - sharp, metallic.
Twenty steps. Pressure increasing. His brain swelling against bone. Vision blurs at the edges. Blinking doesn't help.
"Keep moving."
Thirty steps. His legs feel wrong. Heavy and light simultaneously. Each step conscious effort. The artifact getting warmer. Or his hands. Can't tell.
Halfway. The passage seems longer than forty meters. Vision tunneling - only straight ahead visible, everything else gray static.
Forward. Forward.
"Keep moving."
The woman waits at collection point. She's distant, wavering like heat shimmer. Saying something he can't hear.
Three-quarters. Blood taste intensifies. Not copper - actual blood. His nose bleeding. Didn't notice when it started. Blood drips off his chin. One drop hits the artifact surface.
Sizzles.
His legs nearly give. Catches himself. The artifact slips - grabs it tighter. Can't drop it. Workers who drop artifacts get death sites.
Vision almost gone. Small circle of clarity ahead. Everything else darkness and static and pressure building until his skull will split.
The woman closer now. Reaching - for the artifact. Palms spread out.
"Just - little - more - "
Her voice underwater.
Another step. Another. Legs shaking. Artifact burning his hands. Actual burning. Smell of cooking flesh.
One more step.
Reaches her. She pries his fingers off, locked in place, and takes it.
The moment it leaves his grip, pressure releases slightly.
He collapses.
Face-first. Doesn't catch himself. Arms don't work.
Vomits blood. Some bile. Body convulsing, trying to purge the wrongness. Tastes like copper and metal and something chemical.
"Fuck," the woman says. "Markov, he's - "
"He's fine. He made it. Rest five minutes, Del."
Five minutes. Lying in his own blood and vomit on stone.
"Can you sit up?"
He pushes to sitting. Everything spins. His hands red - burned where he held it. Blisters forming. Nose still bleeding. Vision widening slowly.
The woman crouches next to him, brown concerned eyes reflect his face hazily.
That's me?
She's pretty.
The thoughts surface through the pain. Random. His brain grasping for something normal.
"First carry?" she asks.
He nods. Can't speak.
"Gets worse." Glances at Markov. "They always test new people with carries first."
"Can you handle it, Del?" Markov asks.
Del wipes blood from his face, looks at his burned hands, at the artifact still glowing faintly at collection point.
"Yeah."
"Good. Two more runs today."
The woman's face shifts. Sympathy maybe. She stands, steps back.
Nothing she can do.
Five minutes pass.
"Up."
Del stands. Legs barely hold. Vision mostly clear. Nausea manageable.
The next artifact is smaller. It is rectangular and flat and thin as paper but rigid. Black coats it's cracked surface, cracked, symbols visible through cracks - patterns shifting like living things.
"Del. Carry this."
He picks it up.
Different wrongness. Not pressure.
Cold.
Deep cold spreading from hands up arms. Fingers going numb.
"Move."
Twenty meters in and he can't feel the artifact anymore. Just trusts he's holding it.
His breath comes out as vapor. Ice forming on his arms - actual ice, crystallizing in patterns like the symbols.
Makes it. Drops it. Hands blue. Frost on his fingers.
"Good. One more."
---
Third artifact.
Cylinder. Size of his forearm. Smooth metal with rectangular face showing numbers: 73/100. Then 72/100. Then 71/100. Counting down. Next to numbers, a symbol - looks like a heart. Pulsing the same way it glows.
He picks it up.
Immediate vertigo. World tilts. His heartbeat changes - matches the symbol's pulse. Not his choice.
Speeds up. Slows down. Speeds up. Arrhythmic.
Can't breathe right. Too deep or too shallow. Lungs won't obey.
Numbers counting: 70/100, 69/100, 68/100.
"Move. NOW."
Urgency in Markov's voice. First time.
Del moves. Stumbles. Catches himself. World tilting, heart wrong, lungs wrong.
Twenty meters feels like two hundred.
Drops it. Heart racing - too fast, painful. Collapses. Clutches chest.
The woman there. Hands on his shoulders. "Breathe. Slow. In. Out. Match me."
Breathing deliberately. He tries. Can't. Body won't listen.
Numbers on artifact stabilize: 65/100. Stop.
Heart symbol's pulse slows.
His heartbeat slows with it. Painful but normal.
Shaking. Can't stop.
"Done," Markov says. "That's your three. Surface. Rations."
---
The climb up is agony. The woman helps - not obvious, just stays close, catches him when he stumbles.
At the surface, gray daylight assaults after darkness. His eyes water.
Warehouse. Rations. He eats mechanically. Just fuel. Hands shake so badly he drops bread twice.
Woman sits across. Man from yesterday there. Hand on her shoulder.
She's looking at Del. Eyes reflecting. Then glances at the man. Eyes dull. Concern dies.
Man leans in, says something. She nods. They stand, leave together.
Doesn't look back.
Del sits alone. Shaking. Blood dried on face. Hands burned and frozen. Heart still wrong.
---
Returns to sleeping corner. Other workers there.
A child in the shadows looks on with forever-wide eyes; he sees him shaking, the blood, the burns.
Some workers glance at the source of the shivering. Nobody says anything. They know.
Every time he closes his eyes - pressure, cold, wrong heartbeat. Body won't relax.
When he finally sleeps his mind encodes the memories. Artifacts glowing in darkness. Numbers counting down. Heart symbol pulsing. His own heart trying to match it and failing.
He wakes dizzy and his calluses burning but he can't tell if it feels like ice or fire.
Dawn comes too fast.