The Factory: The Factory Saga, #1

By Antonio Melonio

I awoke in darkness, bound in chains of iron — had I always been a prisoner?

 

Soldiers came. They led us to the Factory, an eternal place of toil and suffering. Slender shadows in perfect suits put us to work, and then... we worked. There was no light, no rest, and no food to be had; there were only the machines, the smoke, the rats, the dirt, and the useless products we made — forever. Above loomed the Tower. None of us had ever entered. We watched as it grew taller and taller, fueled by our collective misery.

 

Then, a gesture of kindness. It changed everything. The hammers in our hands felt different. One by one, we began lifting them. Not for work, not this time, but for freedom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baltic Books
• Release date: Mar 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9798215651049

Antonio Melonio

Writing about things that matter (to me).

Book preview

The Factory

Revolution's Call

Antonio Melonio

Copyright © 2023 Antonio Melonio

All rights reserved.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Independently published.

To the workers of this world.

1

I heaved as I opened my eyes to the pure absence of light. Buried in an impenetrable void with not a sound stirring the still air, my eyes strained to pick out… something, anything, please! But, instead, I retreated further into the blackness with nothing to anchor me. Floating away in meaningless space, dissolving, melting, becoming one with eternity…

With effort, I pulled myself together.

My breath grew shallower as I tried to move and discovered I couldn’t. I was paralyzed. The terror became palpable, then, seeping into every corner of my being, leaving me trembling and shaking.

I could feel the cold sweat dripping down my forehead, my heart racing, my body tensing up as I struggled to keep control. Breathe. I tried to calm myself by inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly, but each breath seemed more futile, more unsatisfying than the last. My chest burned as if someone had lit a fire in my lungs; my mind was frantic.

I was falling apart, I realized.

Where was I?

What happened?

I struggled harder against my invisible bonds, but nothing moved. I was so very cold. With nothing to see and nothing to hear, my senses rendered useless, all that remained was the icy grip of fear.

Is this what it feels like to be born?

The oppressive blackness squeezed me tight like an invisible force. An indeterminable, sinister substance that had taken me over. For a few moments, I almost welcomed it, hoping it would swallow me and just end this torment. But no such luck.

I looked around, and could not discern any kind of shape or geometry — not even a trace. The only thing that gave meaning to this world, the only thing that confirmed to me that, yes, I was alive in some grotesque way, were my body’s useless exertions. Endless breaths.

Minutes passed, perhaps hours; it could have been days or weeks, for all I know. Still, I fought the void.

I struggled to remember how I had ended up here, grasping for any shreds of memory from before. Yet, no matter how hard I tried, my mind remained stubbornly blank. Time seemed to have stopped altogether; a slithering fog, with tendrils made of clay and cotton. Seconds, minutes, hours; it was all the same to me. I was trapped, suspended here, with neither a way to escape nor mark the passage of time.

Without warning, a feeble spark of light from above; flickering into existence, winking from the darkness. It appeared an infinitely long distance away, soothing and warm, yet so very frail. A cloud of sharp particles on my skin, smashing violently into each other, each collision yielding more of the precious warmth. It was not much, this light, but enough to awaken me. Bit by bit, I observed as the world around me emerged from pure blackness. And me with it.

I looked down and saw my silhouette now, my weak body enveloped in filthy, colorless rags I had never seen before. Placed on an iron chair, bound in thick chains as imposing and absolute as the void had been. As I struggled against them, I could feel the cold metal biting into my skin. They encircled my torso, wrapping tightly around my arms. Yet despite their relentless grip, they were wound loose enough to allow my body’s heavy breaths to escape.

Sweat formed on my forehead as I fought against the chains, over and over, desperation fueling my strength. They would not yield.

The chair that pressed against me, I realized, was fixed and unmovable, its heavy iron legs molded into the grey concrete floor. Yet despite the futility, the utter senselessness, invigorated by the warmth from above, I tried to shift my weight in a foolish attempt to topple the chair, straining against the chains that cut into my arms and torso. I tried, again and again, to no avail.

The tides of panic returned as I realized the light’s false hope. With each attempt to move, I was reminded of my plight and the bleakness of the situation. There was nothing I could do. This was it.

I felt myself slipping, my breaths unable to keep up, the numbness taking over until I was nothing but a helpless vessel, swaying in oblivion. I dreamed of the void’s return.

How long I slept, then, I cannot tell you. There seemed to be no progression in