RUMINA EXPOSURE EVALUATION
SUBJECT: Kit [Surname Redacted]
OCCUPATION: Ore Extraction Laborer, Lower Slum Sector
EXPOSURE CLASSIFICATION: Advanced
RECOMMENDATION: Immediate treatment advised
STATUS: Deferred
Visible crystallization observed along cervical region, left arm, and left leg. Growths exhibit opacity inconsistent with early-stage contamination. Subject reports persistent pain, dizziness, and intermittent loss of motor control.
Continued labor is not advised.
Treatment cost exceeds subject's recorded income bracket. Subsidized care denied under current municipal provisions. Subject has been informed of risks and has acknowledged them.
---
The mine did not pause for the diagnosis.
Rumina dust clung to everything, skin, lungs, the back of the throat. The ore had a color similar to obsidian but it was somehow more beautiful, more useful and far more dangerous.
Ding!
It rang dissonantly when cut. Although the sound was not listed as hazardous, several workers reported lingering echoes and hearing voices after long shifts ended.
Kit learned to keep his head down. To breathe shallowly and to cover himself properly. But it was not enough.
When the crystals first appeared, no one stopped him from working.
When the pain worsened, no one slowed the drills.
But soon, he would be able to leave this place.
The hours of the day passed until the work day finally ended.
***
Don't go outside when it's dark.
Huff huff
A youth limped through the slum alleyways. His face was pale, and filled with pain, breath rasping in uneven bursts. Dark opaque crystals clang to his neck, left arm and left leg. A symptom of advanced rumina contamination.
It was a condition often found in rumina ore miners or unfortunate souls who couldn't keep up with the times. Expensive to treat. Especially for people from the slums like him. Feeling dizziness and pain, Kit instinctively reached for a pill bottle in his pocket. He gave it a quick shake only to confirm what he already knew. It was empty.
He exhaled a thin breath.
"Huff, why do I even carry this?"
With effort, he tilted his head upward. The sky was already dimming, but the sun had not yet vanished. There was still time.
"Guess I can rest here…" he muttered. "Just a minute…"
Huff huff
His back met the wall, and then the ground. The stone was cold even through his clothes. He closed his eyes, only for a moment.
But the moment stretched.
When he woke again, the light had changed. Twilight bled into the alleys, staining the walls with long, creeping shadows. His heart tightened.
Don't go outside when it's dark.
Gritting his teeth, Kit dragged himself upright, using the wall for support. Pain flared through the contaminated limb, sharp and insistent. He still felt terribly dizzy and tired. He cursed quietly as whatever rest he had taken seemed to have done nothing.
His breath hitched and his heart felt cold.
Huff huff
"I can still make it" A faint smile crept its way toward his lips. It lingered as he began moving again.
He limped forward, step by dragging step through the alleyways corridor that seemed to stretch forward. Every step carried more urgency than the last. His pulse thudded in his ears heavy, like something counting down. He had to go faster.
"I am very close" He whispered. He had been saving for an inner city permit. He had already passed the preliminary test. He just needed the money.
The inner city. Clean air. Real work. No mines.
His body was full of pain but the soft smile didn't leave his face.
Shadows stretched farther with every passing second.
"I will then quit the mines," he went on, breath scraping his lungs. "I will get a job up there. Do things properly."
Blood seeped from the crystal growths as he forced his pace.
"The meds cost too much tho," he said, the smile still faintly there. "It's hard to save anything because I have to keep buying more"
"So I thought that maybe, I could be just a little more frugal, buy less medication… Withstand the pain, and then I could save just a little bit more… "
The sun slipped fully away.
Raising his gaze one last time, his tired eyes saw the faint glow of dusk. Clinging weakly in the distance. He slowed, then stopped in place. For a moment, he stood very still.
In the whole world, it seemed as if only him remained.
Maybe—
Maybe if he hadn't tried to save, he would've taken the pills like always, and he would've made it home, like always.
Don't go outside when it's dark.
His smile twisted, brittle now. His lips were cracked, dry. Heat radiated from his body while his heart grew cold.
His leg buckled.
He reached for the wall and missed. Tumbling down against the hard stone.
His breath echoed inside his skull. Ragged, uneven, loud in the sudden quiet.
The world seemed to stop in place
The shadows lengthened unnaturally, spilling from the horizon and pouring into the streets. Lamps flickered once before dying. The afterglow of dusk vanished without resistance.
A sharp cold sank into his body, stabbing his bones like needles.
The dark advanced like a tide, bringing with itself the terror of the unknown.
The stars did not dare shine.
The moon did not dare shine.
Then, he saw it.
At the far end of the alley, darkness fell like a curtain.
No sound accompanied its arrival. Only a profound wrongness, a sense that everything it touched was being quietly unmade.
And then…
it consumed him.
It felt like he had fallen into a deep abyss.
Darkness embraced everything as time seemed to come to an end.
***
…
…
…
He dreamt of a ruined world.
A world that had already ended a millennia ago.
Chants rose over shattered plains as armies marched beneath a sickened sky. Then, above the firmament, something vast seemed to shift behind the stars and all sanity fractured in its wake.
The sun burned, but gave no warmth. Its light was pale, thinned, as though something unseen had already fed upon it.
Then there was nothing.
[Welcome to the dream]
The words greeted him as he opened his eyes once more.