The factory stretched dim and vast, a tomb of steel where ghosts lingered. Elias moved through its haze, each er a shadow of loss—the maes’ hum a dirge that drowhe day. Every gleam of iron mocked him, a foe he’d struck yet failed to fell.

  Weeks had passed sihe stand, yet its weight g—faen who’d marched beside him, now dim in the din. He saw his father’s gre, fier memory—a fire that burned for hands maes stole. Their hope had fred, a breath snuffed swift—did they know this iron sea would rise again?

  The the spuless—a beast he fed with hands once proud. His chest ached, not from toil, but from the d’s curse—raw, sharp—a cry from that bloodied day, a mark no steel could erase. Was he a ghost too, adrift in this iron shroud?

  Workers shuffled past, eyes bnk—shells of men he’d stood with, now bent. Thomas lingered near, grim and mute—a tether from the gates, a bond scarred by their fall. Could he face him, this husk he’d bee—one who’d dared and dimmed?

  The factory’s glow flickered, a cold jest on his toil—each piece he shaped bore no soul, only haste. His father’s hands loomed in his mind—rough, true—hands he’d mirrored, now lost to this roar. Silenawed worse tha—a price that stole their fight, their worth.

  Shift’s end cast him out, the hum a at his heels. Elias lingered, hands trembling on the chisel—its edge notched, a vow not of craft’s old song, but of men it might rouse. Thomas’s shadow steadied him—a spark unbowed, borne by scars they shared.

  Night draped the yard, heavy with ghosts—men who’d stood, now dust. Elias gripped the chisel, the d’s cry a pulse in his grip—a fight crushed, yet not stilled, a fme for hands u, against steel that’d not yet cimed them whole.