On what Hari assumed to be the third day since his little accident, his nails began to glow. It wasn't the kind of glow you'd expect salt to have, but the kind of faint glow moonlight, or whatever they could see of it, seemed to have. He tried his best to keep his hands hidden, wrapped them in pieces of his robe's fabric, folded them into his armpits every time a Watcher passed him by, and once, straight up chucked them between his thighs when the usual round of whippings went about.
He knew he was supposed to have turned himself in, to the Watchers, the moment he cut himself with the salt, but he also knew what they did to people who made mistakes like these.
They had their heads sawn off.
There should be a way to escape, he took a glimpse of his glowing fingernails and resisted the urge to rip them away. What a pain.
He was also fairly sure that the salt they were mining - cool white rocks sunk onto the walls and cubby holes of the Trishanku Caves - was more than just salt. It was salt that made your nails glow if it sank into your blood, and most importantly, he wasn't sure if the salt would kill him first or the Watchers would.
I need to run.
But where?
He had been mining the salt in these caves for the last seven years, from being on the threshold of becoming a man to becoming one. These caves had stripped away his childhood and what little warmth he remembered from before turning him into one of the cogs that did nothing but mine, mine, and mine.
His memories from before had already become uncomfortably blurry.
He vaguely remembered glimpses of a small cottage surrounded by huge four-legged animals that were called - horses - on grassy plains. But he had already forgotten the names and faces of the people who were raising him.
Where is that place? He almost sighed.
He wished he knew how to get himself to that place again. Maybe there would be someone waiting for him there. Someone who would tell him how he landed up in these mines.
I need to run.
"Byo," a voice whispered that night when the slaves laid on their poorly woven meshed sheets inside the fence. Hari's little space was between a much younger boy of sixteen to Hari's lush twenty and a skinny man well into his forties - a miracle he was still alive - and this address was by the younger boy whose name he had never asked for, and who always addressed him as Byo, the few times he had wanted to talk the in the last few months.
Hari slightly turned, the sheet under him was wearing down badly and he tucked his hands under him.
"They are sending some of us away." the boy whispered.
The older man on the other side turned slightly with a bit of interest.
"Where?" Hari mouthed.
"Somewhere north." the boy whispered, "They decide tomorrow, byo."
The older man turned away, possibly to pass on this fresh news. A small murmur rose from the people huddled and the Watchers around the fence, stomped their long weapons, hushing them down.
His fingers were starting to grow numb.
I need to run.
He wondered if risking his life tomorrow would be worth something. It wasn't as if he had anything but his life, that would lose.
But he would die anyway.
He took a peek at his fingers.
There was no telling how long he would be able to keep his hands hidden after all. The Watchers would only need to take a glimpse before they send him to his death.
It is death either way.
There would be no sleep tonight.