Lilianne leads them through the streets and back to their home. 'She seems to know the way.. Has she been here before.' Blue wonders.
Blue gathers the courage to ask. "So, have you been outside before?"
"I prefer not to answer that." Lilianne remarks. She continues as if nothing happened.
Thomas laughs. "You're really curious to all our secrets. It's none of your business."
"Exactly." Lilianne agrees.
No one talks for the rest of the trip. They reach Lilianne's window and Lilianne opens it. "They'll never notice we've gone out." She adds
Thomas jumps in and runs off to his own room.
Blue follows them in and Lilianne closes the window after her. "Now, it's bedtime." Lilianne orders.
Sighing, Blue slowly heads to her closet to get her pyjama. She changes and jumps into her bed. 'It's my first time going to bed, does that mean that no day has passed here?' She falls asleep with that thought.
"WAKE UP YOU LAZY BRATS!" A voice shouts.
It startles Blue, and she's awake right away.
She checks on the others and sees she's not the only one. Somehow Eve didn't get startled. Julie seems to be fine as well. 'How did they do it?' Blue wonders.
Blue decides to look at the source of the sound. A guard stands in front of the gate. He has a simple outfit, no armor or anything. His outfit does have a sword and a flintlock attached to it.
The guard glances around and sees everyone pays attention to him. He steps back and coughs. With that the man who caught them steps in.
The man smiles at every one of them. "Your first days of work will start now. Isn't that exciting? I'm definitely excited."
He looks around to see the response. He's met with a lot of hostility from most of the kids. "I can see that all of you can't wait. I won't hold you back any longer. Guards, get them out and lead the way.
The single guard on duty raises an eyebrow at the guards comment. He doesn't dare to complain however and just does what he's told.
The kids get tied up again as he leads them outside.
Blue follows outside as they follow some narrow road. The road isn't anything special, it's probably made by people walking over it.
It goes up some hill, or maybe it's a mountain? Blue can't really see what it is. 'It's a waste of time to even try.' Thinking that, she changes to staring at the ground.
As they stop, Blue almost bumps into Ray, the person in front of her. She looks up and sees some sort of cave. 'Why would they bring us here?'
The guard unties them and points at a box. "Grab the tools and head in."
Blue tries to find the man from before, but he doesn't seem to be there. Instead another guard joined them.
"Mining? Really?" Julie complains.
The first guard hits her with the hilt of his sword. "You are a slave, you do as we say. Now get to work, I don't want to hear any complaining!"
"Fine…" Julie sighs.
The guard hits her again. "I said no complaining!"
Julie quickly grabs a pickaxe and heads in. Blue can see Julie roll her eyes with her back to the guard.
Blue gets pushed by something and stumbles to regain her balance. She looks behind her and sees the other guard looking pissed. "What are you standing around for?" The guard snarls.
Blue quickly runs towards the box and grabs a pickaxe. She enters the cave and sees a tunnel heading down. There's torches on the wall, but they stop pretty much right after the entrance.
Blue turns back to check on the others. Everyone, except the guards, has already arrived.
"So, now what?" Natasha complains.
"We follow the tunnels. They won't let us stand here all day." Julie sighs. She's the first one that enters the tunnel.
The rest head in after her. It's silent as the tunnel goes darker and darker, until they can't even see their own hands.
"I can't see anything!" Natasha is the first to complain.
"Just wait for your eyes to adjust…" Julie remarks. She stops the group to give them time.
Vince is hopping around, he doesn't look troubled by the darkness. "This is a great place for hide and seek!"
"Vince, where is your pickaxe?" Julie tilts her head. 'How can she even see that?' Blue wonders.
"Oh, I left it cause it was heavy! It's bad for hide and seek!" Vince happily says.
"Of course you did." Julie sighs. "Now don't run off, this place is dangerous."
"Okay, can we play hide and seek now?" Vince asks.
Julie ignores his question. Instead she looks around the tunnel.
Eve stands near something. "I'm guessing this is what they need us for." Blue can't see what she's referring to.
Julie walks over to Eve and curiously looks. She's silent for a bit. "It's a coal mine… We better get started, I don't want to find out what they'll do if we don't."
Eve nods and starts hitting the wall with her pickaxe.
"Since Vince threw away his pickaxe, how about we let him carry this?" April suggests.
Julie laughs. "One by one, huh? Vince you better get started." She grabs something of the floor and hands it to Vince.
Vince curiously accepts it. Then he stares at Julie. "What am I supposed to do with this…?"
"Run towards the entrance and drop this in the box." Julie explains.
"Why?" Vince tilts his head.
"Just try to get as many in the box as you can. I'm sure you can't get to 100 pieces." Julie answers.
"Of course I can! Just wait and see!" Vince excitedly runs off.
Julie stares at his back as he runs. "That was easy…" She looks back at the rest of the group. "Now what are you waiting for? Get to work, it won't happen by doing nothing."
"I'm not doing this! It's disgusting!" Natasha shouts.
"Remember what the merchant did to you, back when you didn't listen? He'll finish it if you continue this." Julie snarls.
Natasha turns pale and quietly starts working. Blue also starts hitting the wall with a pickaxe, not sure what else to do.
Vince runs in and starts shouting. "The men outside, they told me to tell you to go outside!"
They quietly grab the remaining coal ores before heading out. At this point almost everyone is breathing loudly. Eve however is fine.
'I can't ask her, it's none of my business' Blue thinks.
Soon they get to the entrance. The guards stand there impatiently. "Drop all that in the box." One of them coldy says.
Blue quickly dumps everything in. She looks around and sees the sun setting. Vince excitedly counts. "One, two, three, four, wait what comes after four? Is it 100 yet?"
The guards tie them together and then tie the box to them.
"This box doesn't even have wheels, how are we supposed to pull that?" Julie sighs.
"No complaining." The guard says. They aren't bothering with actions or longer sentences anymore.
The kids movement has slowed down a lot with the box attached to them. It becomes dark soon and they haven't even made it halfway.
One of the guards starts shouting. "What? How?"
The other guard follows. "It's snowing? It hasn't been snowing in like six years?!"
White specks fall out of the sky. 'Snow? What's that?' Blue wonders.
"Stop standing still! You still have to get back." One of the guards shouts.
Blue looks around and sees that everyone has indeed stopped to look. Julie has a bittersweet smile while staring at the snow.
"I said stop standing still!" The guard repeats. This time they actually respond by moving.
It starts snowing harder and harder. Soon everything is covered in a layer of white. It's cold enough to see everyone have breathing clouds.
'My hands are going to freeze off like this.' Blue thinks. They continue moving through the cold snow.
Finally arriving at the building, they let out a small smile. The coal gets taken away by some other guards and they are taken inside.
A guard unties them and puts them back in the cage. Another one gives them a bowl of porridge.
"Finally, I'm starving." Julie says.
Blue isn't as hungry as she was before. She ignored the feeling for a long time so she doesn't feel it anymore. But the moment she takes a sip the feeling comes back.
They finish their meal and lie down to sleep. "It's sad they don't have any blankets here. It's cold here." April murmurs.
Vince jumps on top of April. "I can be your blanket!"
"At least lie still then, blankets don't move!" April jokes.
Exhausted from working, sleep quickly takes Blue.
Blue wakes up in the middle of the night. Everyone else is still asleep. 'Maybe I can try and see Julie's dream too!' Blue gets eager to try it out.
She closes her eyes, and when she opens them she's in a street.
There's a white layer around her. Footsteps are the only thing preventing it from being completely white.
Blue is surprised by some extreme high buildings around her. 'These are so high, how do they manage to get there? It reaches the clouds!'
"Sis, I'm cold." A voice quietly says next to her.
"I know. Just keep going, we'll have to wait until spring comes." A voice, probably Julie's, says.
She looks at the person next to her, a little boy with black hair. He's shivering quite a lot.
The dream fast forwards to another day. This time the boy isn't shivering anymore. "Sis, can we get something to eat?" The boy says.
"You just had something to eat." 'Julie' says.
"Really? But I'm still hungry!" The boy says while frowning.
"There's nothing else." Julie states.
Again the dream fast forwards.
"Sis, I can feel that spring is here!" The boy happily says.
"But it isn't here yet?" 'Julie' says with clear confusion in her voice.
"Really? But it isn't cold anymore! That means spring is here, right?" The boy insists.
"I'm glad you're doing fine, but it isn't spring yet." Julie sighs.
"Hey there, are you two okay?" A female voice says.
'Julie' looks at the newcomer. It's a woman with long, black hair in a twin tail. She's wearing a white blouse over a simple pair of jeans.
Surprised, Blue thinks 'That's me again?'
