Days melded grey in the factory’s wake, its hum a renewed. Elias returned, hands moving rote amidst steel’s g—the protest’s e, a spark snuffed swift by iron’s tread. He shuhe others, their faces a mirror to his stand—frail, fleeting, now dust.

  The maes ed, blind to their pause—a beast unbroken, its growl a jeer he’d not outrun. Each piece he shaped bore no mark of care, only haste—a theft of hands orue. His father’s curse lingered, a low pulse in his skull—not s now, but a weight of loss he’d borne beside him.

  He felt the d’s bloodied curse too—raw, sharp—a sting from that day’s fray, a o steel could mute. Was this their price—to toil in hush, souls ground to ash? Elias’s chest tightened, dread a stohin—not for craft’s fade, but for men he’d stood with, now bent.

  The the spuless—a thief of breath, of will. His hands shook, scarred by steel they’d fought, now bound. Thomas passed, grim and silent—a tether from the gates, a bond unbowed yet frayed. Could he face him, this shell he’d bee—a man who’d strud stilled?

  The hum pressed, a foe he’d not felled—an iron shroud over hope. Elias saw his father’s eyes, fier death—a fire he’d shared, now dim. The d’s hammer y cold somewhere—its fall a mark he’d not erase. Silenore than blood—it stole their fight, their worth.

  Shift’s end dragged him out, legs leaden, spirit cracked. The chisel weighed his pocket, its edge a vow—not of craft’s old fme, but of hands it might yet rouse. Thomas’s shadow loomed, a spark Elias g to—men bound by scars, not words, a stand crushed but not killed.

  Night cloaked the yard, mute and heavy. Elias stood, the hum a he’d not yet snapped—for the d, for Thomas, a fight liill, frail as breath against steel.