Chapter 1: Number 069

There are things in life that people often take needlessly for granted. The woman who birthed him always warned against such folly. But back in the days before misfortune showed its ghastly fangs, Number 069 once took great efforts to rile against what had seemed a tad bit like pointless advice back then. On bad days when he had time to recall, he especially regretted days past when he ate his food absentmindedly, forgetting to savor every precious morsel.

At the moment, Number 069 was lining up, standing at the tail-end of what seemed to be an endless assemblage of all the world's most hopeless people. He was waiting for his turn to receive half a bowl of tasteless gruel.

He was terribly hungry beyond the point where one's stomach stopped announcing the slight discomfort of a missed couple of meals and eventually gave way to a dissolute silence. He was hungry to the point where every morsel of bread or drop of gruel was a heavenly gift. He felt like one possessed, feeling that if hunger could be considered an evil spirit, he would readily and eagerly consume it to escape his torment.

Number 069 kept his head bowed as the bottomless monster that was starvation ground away at his insides. His eyes were downcast to draw as little attention to himself as possible while observing the surroundings illuminated by the dim mining lamps hanging on the walls around the caves.

The line was moving slowly that day, and it would be a while before he was at the top. But he didn't care, as the poor excuse of the meal served would still not sate him. So, he relaxed and remained patient as he waited for his turn.

Ahead of Number 069 was a plethora of haggard and leathery despondent faces. Everyone else's frame was as thin and gangling as his, though he stood a few inches shorter than most men in the lineup.

Once again, Number 069 cursed his lineage and his father's potent bloodline. It seemed that in spite of the terrible living conditions, his body was already on course to inherit his father's tall and big-boned structure.

But that was not all. Number 069 had already ascertained that he had his father's stubborn and bull-headed attitude, the same attitude that had landed his father in the turbulence that had cascaded down to his family.

Part of Number 069 wished he hadn't stood up for the ratty-faced boy, Number 057, who always blustered about with bravado but silently cried himself to sleep every night right next to the straw pallet Number 069 had claimed as his own. Number 069 couldn't help but feel a measure of protectiveness towards the boy — after all, they had both arrived on the same transport into this hellhole.

The boy had made it a point to stick by his side from the moment they entered the camp, and when one of the older boys kept intimidating Number 057 into giving up his share of the meals, Number 069 vowed to mind his own business but kept slipping Number 057 portions of his own food. The injustice persisted for about a month until the other boy went too far with a supposed lesson, heavily beating up Number 057 and leaving him on the verge of death.

When Number 069 found 057 practically crawling his way to the straw pallet at bedtime, he literally lost it. He was like a raging berserker. He couldn't clearly remember what exactly transpired after that. But by the time he returned to his senses, he had just punched one of the guards trying to pull him off the other boy.

The other boy's face had been a messy lump of flesh and blood, though surprisingly, he was still breathing. At the time, the other boys had already distanced themselves from the affair, obviously trying their best to be as far—removed from the confrontation as possible. And that was when about four more guards had come into their sleeping quarters to deal with the growing commotion.

One particular guard, who Number 069 later learned was captain of the guard, instructed the other two guards to carry him out to the men's sleeping quarters after idly inspecting him. He seemed amused when he commented, "This one has too much energy to spare. Let's see if we can help him expend it." And now here he was, three months later, living and working with the adult male slaves.

His previous work included carrying as many baskets containing the mineral as he could to the appointed collection centers and loading them onto the transports working in concert with the other child slaves around. But now, he had to go deep down into the belly of the earth and dig through the rock with the tiny pick axes supplied to them by the guards.

Before joining the adult miners, Number 069 had never felt desperate, even when he realized that he would probably never see his parents again on this side of life. However, of late, after experiencing life deep in the mines, his tenacity was slowly wearing thin.

Number 069 could not help but feel his hope begin to dim every time he had to go down those tunnels with those dim lamps and that overwhelming suffocating feeling of being surrounded by earth on all sides. His perseverance was slowly failing as he always had a feeling that the tunnels could collapse over him at any moment.

Number 069 had been in constant contemplation of his imminent death. Any day he went down to the tunnels could be the day he probably died. He knew it, and all the other men working with him knew it.

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That was why several slaves seemed to be living corpses. They were living in an eternal night; the only thing they could possibly look forward to was their next meal which wasn't even anything to talk about.

There was nary a person left with a sparkle in the slave miners, as the depth of the earth seemed to drain it out of them. It was as if the hope that lit their souls had been—sapped out of them in exchange for those precious stones they would never benefit from.

Number 069 was finally at a point where he understood why some of the other slaves didn't seem to want to live anymore. In fact, one or two appeared to give up everything and deflate every once a week. They would lay down their mining tools and refuse to move until one of the guards beat them to death.

Number 069 wished he had something to keep him moving forward, something to look forward to instead of his present reality. He felt himself drawing closer to a ledge day after day. And he well knew that once he fell off that ledge, there would be no coming back for him.

He had already laid aside his past, as he knew well that his present had no room for his past. He had already given up all of his past ambitions, though sometimes he still dreamed of a fantastical future — in an alternate twist of reality where he could have the power to get revenge.

Mining was never something he considered during his younger years. Though now, he sometimes dreamt of owning this mine and making his jailors and tormentors take turns digging for shiny rocks in the tunnels on empty stomachs.

He would have never considered such notions before misfortune struck. In the distant past, when he lay about drowsily basking in the warmth emanating from his mother's lap, right in front of the fireplace after the evening meal, all he could imagine was becoming someone like his father. He used to want to stay up, waiting with his mother for his father's return, but he never seemed to have the perseverance to keep his eyes open.

His mother would gently—run a brush through his glorious mane of black hair as she retold his favorite ancestors' stories. Those were the best memories of his childhood; sitting in a warm hearth, his mother's firm but gentle hand running through his hair, as her voice slowly lulled him to sleep. It wasn't just about the simple but idyllic setup. It was more to do with the feelings of warmth, safety, and satisfaction that were the continual experience of the first ten years of his life.

Everything was perfect, and he had never known the hardships associated with life until that fateful morning seven years ago when he woke up to an eerie emptiness in their home. His mother was busy setting up the table for the morning meal. She acted as if nothing was amiss, greeting him with her usual morning cheer. But for some reason, he wasn't reassured at all. There was a gnawing sense of inevitability pressing against his mind, a void in a place within him that he couldn't quite understand. Then he noticed that the table was—only set with two servings that morning. His father's prominent mug was absent. He felt his heart skip a beat.

'Mother?' He had asked as he approached the kitchen table where she was in the middle of finalizing the breakfast preparations. 'What about father's mug? Is he not eating with us?'

Her back had been turned to him. But he didn't miss the slight tension in her back when she responded that he had to leave earlier than usual that morning because of some business he hadn't completed the previous evening. Number 069 didn't press any further, knowing there would be time to get more answers later in the day. He assured himself not to worry as he sat on one end of their small dining table, facing his father's then-empty seat.

The next three days were the most peculiar he had had in his life up to that moment.

His mother could not keep up with her affected cheerful attitude that day, and soon enough, he caught her staring out in the distance, lost in thought. She was unusually subdued that day.

The next day she quickly told him the same story while they had their morning meal. She once again claimed that his father had to leave early that morning.

After breakfast, a few of her bosom friends came to see her. They sent him out to play in the fields after criticizing him for always sticking by his mother's skirts. He lost time following his favorite trails and playing with a stray dog that liked to follow him whenever he was out and about. By the time he got home that day, the sun was close to setting.

She was sitting alone at the dining table and seemingly lost in deep thought to the extent that he had to call out a greeting thrice before she was roused out of that state of deep contemplation. He kept talking nonstop about his explorations that day throughout the evening meal and then pretended to be thoroughly exhausted afterward in order to head straight for his bed. He, of course, hadn't failed to notice how red and swollen her eyes were during the entire evening. She had clearly been crying while he was having fun, exploring, and having adventures with that mutt of a dog that everyone ironically called Dog.

And then the day that irrevocably changed the course of his life arrived unexpectedly. He woke to the sound of their front door crashing in, followed by aggressive male voices interspersed by his mother's calm voice. He was afraid to get up, and he immediately thought of jumping through the window and going out to get help or hiding in the ceiling space that his father once showed him. And then he had a loud smack, skin ricocheting against the skin, and a thud followed by a sob which he realized belonged to his mother. He knew he wouldn't leave.

He rushed out of his room, determined to save his mother. As if possessed, he came screaming, ready to attack with every ounce of his entire being. His mother was lying face down on the floor, sobbing. And there was blood on the floor. He saw red.

He jumped onto the back of the nearest man and bit into his neck while risking everything to scratch up the man's head. Before long, someone attempted to subdue him, and then he was being shaken like a limp ragdoll.

In his peripheral view, he saw his mother crying, trying to hold on to the leg of one of her tormentors, but he wasn't paying attention. 'Good,' he thought to himself. 'Their focus isn't on her anymore.' And that was the last thing that ran through his mind before a sharp pain ran through his skull. He never got to see his mother again.

The next time he woke up, he was on one of those prisoners' transports he had seen a time a two crossing through the countryside. It was a wagon with metallic bars — onto which the prisoners were kept in place using chains and manacles.

In fact, his face was painfully sore, and his body felt terribly bruised. He had been sleeping in an awkwardly twisted position. He couldn't see clearly in one eye, but from the little he could see, he imagined that the wagon cage was jam-packed with as many children as possible. There was no room for turning and no space for even taking in a breath of fresh air. And that was how he began the journey that led him to his current station as a slave working in the mines.