Chapter 2

The rope is scraggly. I pull outward, slowly descending a rigid entrance of a long mined cave. Pak is below me, gripping the worn string tightly, studying this new terrain. 

“You're going to feel a small lurch in about three seconds, but do not fear Pak, it’s normal!” I shout. I can already hear the clanking of pickaxes hitting the pointed edges of rock.

Faster, I pull us both down. Going up will be much harder, so I use this master force of gravity, easing my muscles enough to where the soreness won’t be so direct today.

As I say, the rope lurches far downward, much farther than I intend.

I hear the boy whimper, yes, even over the high cries of men’s curses. I quickly untie the tight knot I’ve created.

Pray to Allah I haven’t hurt my boy. Finally, the knot surrenders to my grasp, and I fall about a foot down to the filth factored floor. My side aches, yet still, I crawl the distance to Pak. 

For a moment, I’m embarrassed that I’ve raised such a weak son, but if Allah gave him to me, then he’s strong.

My poor boy, my skinny little tenderling, why have I brought you here just to suffer alongside brothers. For they weren't your’s and still aren’t, not until you’ve fought this monster’s core as hard as we have.

Pak curls into a ball, looking like a dog licking his wounds. I sit on my knees, looking around for fear that we are being seen from all around the cavern. But the sound of steady hacking and crumbling still sounds in the cave. So I give back my attention to Pak, still lying on the hell-glazed floor.

I pick him up and turn him so that he faces me. I open my mouth to say something about what I said earlier, but I can’t, his eyes are too innocent of burden. So I just held him, just like the baby I seemed to have lost to time. But there he is, that same tiny child, crying for his mother.

“Papa,” he sniffs, “If I shall die today, won’t you tell our people of my weaknesses?”

My eyes are like flood-gates, about to break loose. “No my son, only of your sacrifice.”

He nods, scuffs the faces of his knees yellow with his raw hands, and gently pushes me away. 

I put him down, my son, growing into acceptance. He reminds me of myself, young and sad. Except now, I’m old and scared. For my life every single day since my seventeenth year, and now, because of me, my dear little son should now worry for his, at the same age.