Letter to Marcel

To my dear Marcel,

It has been a long time since I last wrote to you, and I'm not even sure if this letter will ever reach you... After all, the Blackstone Legion's surveillance grows stricter by the day.
Still, I must write. If there is even the slightest chance, it's worth trying.
Life down in the mines isn't good, but I suppose it isn't utterly unbearable either. At least the canteen serves meatballs once a week—though they're as hard as rocks, and the soup is so thin it might as well be rinse water from the cooking pot.

The Squad is as strict as ever. Their faces all look like they were carved from the same mold... No—each of them truly feels like a copy of the same template: identical boots, identical faces, identical whips. Even their footsteps have the same rhythm. Black boots striking stone—clack, clack, clack.

These days, even wiping sweat earns us the lash. It's as if we're not people, just pickaxes that move on their own. Starsoul Flasks are almost nowhere to be found, and every day someone collapses... yet no one ever cares.
Thinking about it carefully, I realize it has been a long time since I last saw Commander Klaus' stern face. He used to frown a lot, yes, but at least he followed some rules—he made sure we got medicine, and he distributed Starsoul Flasks regularly.
Now there isn't a single proper officer left in charge—just a bunch of loudmouths. One of them, named Carl, makes the loudest footsteps of all. He struts around arrogantly, caring only about production and never about our well-being. He loves dressing in black—black boots, black clothes, a black whip. I suspect even his heart is black.
Sometimes I can't help but wonder: Have even the stones down here been stained by the blackness of their boots?

I hope this letter reaches you. Don't write back—you know... the way here shifts quickly. All I wish is that I can live long enough to return to the surface, and that the sunlight up there is still the way I remember it.

Your old friend
From Sislesa Mine, Pit 1