The rusted, claustrophobia-inducing machine will be your world of every day for your entire life. Its location remains a mystery, and its inhabitants are human - or at least, what is left of humanity. Without thought they move through their endless tasks with hollow eyes, trembling hands, and skin so pale it never felt the warmth of sunlight. Everything is cramped, suffocating, filled with wires and gears. Almost every "open space" seems as if it was never meant for people to live here, but there are exiting purely to work. The coal hole mines lie on the lowest levels, where everyone spends their workday for eighteen hours. They all believe this place, this machine, protects them from what lies beyond. Their purpose is clear: to feed the hunger of the tarnished beast they live inside and if they don't, the very walls of the place they call home will devour them alive.

  We can’t say we understand what day or night means, but there’s a hum we know well. It starts the moment we wake, dragging us out of sleep and pushing us toward the awaiting work. It vibrates through the walls and reverberates through the entire complex, a sound fills the space with its restless pulse, echoing between endless gears. Twice it comes - at the same interval, once to mark the beginning of another cycle we call a work day, and again when we’re granted a fleeting hour of salt freedom, just before sleep comes to claim us once more for a fraction of time, only to rise again, offering ourselves again to the machine.

  Most of us wake up in a compartment no larger than 4 square meters—one meter by three. There is nothing, besides the small metal bed, the door, a small hole in the floor for answering nature’s call, and in front of it a hanging table, on which a tube spills out our food. We don't even know what other things we could put in our mouths can taste like. This odorless, moist, half-solid mass, with a color nearly indistinguishable from flesh, has stripped everyone of their sense of taste. Some even resort to using their sweat, hoping it might give them a taste of something, but over time, even sweat has lost its flavor.

  So, after four hours of sleep, we rise to do what our ancestors once called work.

  Stepping out of the room, we immediately swept into the flow of bodies. The narrow corridors between the chambers felt even more cramped, with sparkling wires and moving gears dangling overhead like the innards of a living thing. People shuffled along in a crouch to avoid the hazards above, their movements awkward and strained. Perhaps that’s why so many suffer from constant back pain — the result of years spent perpetually hunched in this manner.

  And so, in the middle of this river of sweaty bodies named people, a young person called Reg moved forward, half-bent, alongside the endless procession. He has not yet lost energy and mind, so he is still able to think and his thoughts lead him outside of the claustrophobic, metal enclosure. The air reeked of sweat and rust, and the metallic walls closed around him like a suffocating grip. Each day, he longs to escape this place, unable to even fathom what the outside might be like. Step by step, surrounded by the groaning iron and the murmurs of weary voices of tired souls, he trudged through that same grim corridor—a thirty-minute journey he repeated every single day, all the way down to the mines.

  Descending to the lower level, a mineshaft of endless length appears before him. It stretches into a direction so far you can’t see the end of it. Reaching Reg’s workstation would take at least another fifteen minutes. Walking by, gazing at the perpetual stone walls pockmarked with hundreds of jagged man-made openings. These tunnels were our doing, carved out inch by agonizing inch as we crawled on our stomachs, digging with barely functional, rusty portable drills that were slower than our morning journey, their spiral cone drill crawling through the rock like a sword that tries to cut water. As Reg digs, Barry trails closely behind, swiftly collecting the precious chunks of coal the young blood has unearthed. It was the job of people like Barry to pass me a battery when my drill ran out of energy or to collect coal, stone, or bodies—if it came to that—back to the mineshaft’s stone corridor where people would pass the rocks to the garbage section and bodies with the coal to place where the machine will devour them.

  Everyone looks tired, and exhausted, not having any life in them, but when you ask anybody about the struggles of this life and just the idea or even a hint at the possibility of trying to break outside, you hear something like what Barry told Reg earlier today when, out of boredom, he tried to strike up a conversation. Going outside? Are you crazy, pal? Reg, there’s nothing better you can do than mine. Your parents died in one of those mines, which is far more honorable than starving to death. So don’t ruin this for yourself, okay?

  Behaviors like this are what made Reg’s young blood boil the most. Most times, he’d just clench his teeth and swallow his questions. But today, he pressed on. Why are we doing this? What do you mean by starvation? I’ve never seen any proof that if we stop mining, something bad will happen. Nobody talks or thinks about what could exist outside of our tiny world. Maybe It's only a myth, passed down through the generations. I need answers! Am I asking too much? One time, when I was in my room, I threw my drill at the wall and the sound of their clash suggested it wasn’t too wide…

  Barry grabbed Reg’s leg. Stop babbling nonsense. How do you think everything is working here, huh? Kiddo, if you don’t work or try to do something against the machine, it will find out about it, I dare you, it will. I know you don’t believe me, so I have a story for you… A long time ago, I had a friend of mine who got too tired of working, so he decided to take some time off. One day was enough for him to be found dead in his compartment. The machine stopped pouring food the moment he decided to stop working. Maybe you would last a little longer due to your, for now, energetic body, but who knows what might happen if somebody tries to do something more dangerous than just not doing his job?

  Okay, I understood Barry. Can’t be free on an empty stomach, can we? Reg said, his smile stretching wide but thin, like a crack in old leather. Now let’s mine some more before the end of the work day. Finally, lad! You are acting more pliable than my creaking door when I try to close it. While acting so, Reg does believe the machine doesn’t want people to get out and he wants to know why. He turned on the drill with the cord handle and moved on deeper into the rocks.

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  Another eternity has passed till the moment of freedom hum has reached us. Slowly, like mushrooms after the rain, people began to crawl out of the holes and proceeded in line toward the exit ladder.

  Reg’s free time was spent at the mineshaft layer. It was the least rusty place he knew and so he frequently felt compelled to stay in there, walking in this enormous stone corridor. Going near the opposite of the hole-filled side his hand holds the drill swaying from left to right, striking cold stone with the decayed tip of his instrument. Each touch left a small brown-orange mark and each touch created a distinct high-pitched screech of metal scraping against stone.

  These moments between agonizing work and restless sleep are the only times when I feel - alive. Being here, completely alone with my thoughts is much better than wasting time up there. I do not go with them, because people's free time here consists of pure winnings, sex, and pointless talking. How much did you dig today? Who died again? Who fucked who? But as I age, I start to less blame and more understanding. Maybe we indeed are trapped here forever with no…

  An alien clang returned Reg from his thoughts. It was as weird as hearing a machine engine in the middle of the forest. This mineshaft only contains rocks and coal, nothing more. A spark of pure curiosity began its life in his mind. The only thing he wanted right now was to find what could produce this sound. And so, he began to dig. Piece by piece, rocks fell opening a view to the unbelievable object. It was a tip of the drill, but not like the one Reg had. No, it was as clean as it could be. No sign of rust or decay - only pure metal covered in stone dust. If only it will fit - were the most important question. The boy took out his old tip and put in the new one. Stunned, Reg barely could keep his voice from rising and his tears from falling. If fits perfectly.

  Now, I can at least attempt to drill a hole to the outside. If there is an outside…

  But this would not be easy or safe. Nevertheless, Reg took his upgraded portable drill, his old, rusty tip, and went to the ladder. It was already minutes before the sleep time, so not many people were in the corridors and even the ones who still weren’t in their rooms had half-open eyes from exhaustion. Swiftly as Reg could, he entered his compartment. Putting on the floor both upgraded drill and old drill tip, sitting on the cold piece of rectangular metal called a bed, Reg felt a slight surge of hunger in him. By this time, the machine would dispatch a portion of food. There were none on his table. The machine already knew Reg’s plans. He had little time and he must act quickly. Being still young will allow him to hold out longer, but not nearly enough for the morning hum. All he could do was go full into drilling. An unfunny joke of fate was an absence of power left in the drill. Reg had all his right to start panicking until he remembered Barry. Due to his work as a driller's assistant, he always has some batteries with him.

  Taking a deep breath Reg left his room. Walking slowly, trying to not make unnecessary noise, he soon reached the target’s place of living. The door opened without a hiccup, while the real problem was somehow acquiring batteries from Barry’s pocket. Like a snake creeping towards the prey, Reg’s hand landed fully on the so-needed source of energy. Quickly returning from the depths of the sleeping man’s pockets, he happily put the battery, now in his pocket, and was on his way to leaving. Closing the door was a mistake. A horrendous creak diminished all hope for a peaceful conclusion as Barry opened his eyes. What are you doing? He said, but subconsciously already knowing what had happened as he couldn’t grasp missing objects in his pocket.

  Reg slammed the door and ran as fast as he ever had. A voice, never to be heard, so alien, so unalive and commanding began its talking.

  Capture. Reg. Danger. Capture. At. Any. Cost.

  Not looking back, the boy could only hear the confused sounds of people waking up, doors opening, and the beginning of the chase. And here there was his room.

  Reg ran in, closed the door, and smashed his old rusty drill tip into the valve-like handle. He could see a mob of people growing in front of his shelter through the window. Left with no way of going back - only forwards. Reg sat in front of the wall, put a new battery into the drill, and began to dig. His hands, arms, and entire body trembled, but did not give up, digging for an hour, the first layer of metal was cracked. Judging by the sound upon knocking, intuition suggested at least two more layers. The trial of real persistence was Reg’s final challenge. His stomach craved food and his mind for sleep, unaware that there would not be life unless Reg succeeded. Fighting his own body, he digs and digs the damned wall. An unknown amount of hours had passed before he finally drilled through the shell of his world. Upon doing so, half of his room’s wall collapsed and fell.

  Outside, an endless giant of rust stretched into the fog, a colossal wall filled with countless mechanical boxes like the one he has been living, clinging like barnacles to some ancient leviathan. Gears, vast as skyscrapers, groaned and turned in the haze, their teeth grinding producing the earth-shaking sound. Beyond, moving shadowy mountains formed in the fog — they were the legs of a machine so vast it defied comprehension.

  Reg, looking at his rusty prison “humanity” had been living in - had unfolded itself as just a flickering pimple on the skin of a god he could not begin to understand, striking him with a feeling of true and inconceivable dread. Thoughts couldn’t continue flowing as he wanted for the first time in his life to go back to his small and “safe” compartment.

  But the door, the bed, and the table were gone. In their place, at the other end of the room, a mechanical wall stood menacingly. Not leaving him a moment to think, the wall began its movement towards Reg. Second, by second, getting closer, eyes of pure fear were glazing at their inevitable doom. The only thing left is to jump. Reg accepted his fate the moment he picked up that drill, maybe even much earlier, but he never thought it would end up like this. He jumped into the fog, not knowing what would happen. But he knew another thing. This place wasn’t protecting them from the outside’s dangers. It was indeed, only digesting them and his death at least wouldn’t feed this beast.