Elias stood in the dim-lit room, rebellion’s burden a stone upon his heart. Their defiance had grown bold, yet the foe swelled fiercer—guards turned hounds, machines a deafening roar over their frail hope. Doubt shadowed him, a specter he could not shake, yet a spark endured, frail as a candle in the gale. The storm loomed; no path led back.

  Thomas paced, his eyes pits of worry. “The masters clench their grip,” he said, voice taut as wire. “We’ve no time—strike now, or we’re dust.”

  Elias nodded, hands trembling as he traced the chisel’s edge—its notches a map of their fight. The factory had left his craft, warped his days into this iron mire. He felt the weight of faces lost—ds crushed beneath steel, their silence louder than the din. Could he lead more to that end?

  “We hit their core,” Thomas pressed, low and fierce. “Tear the engines—break their root.”

  Elias met his gaze, a fire kindling amidst his dread. The machines mocked them, grinding hope to ash—he’d not let them stand. “I’ll do it,” he said, words falling heavy as lead. “We all will.”

  The pn took form—swift, dire. In days, they’d storm the beast’s ir, stake all to rip its heart. Failure’s shadow stretched vast—not just their doom, but the flicker afar, lit by hands they’d ne’er seen. Elias gripped the chisel tighter, its heft a tether to the men beside him, their breaths a shared vow.

  Thomas cpped his shoulder, grim resolve in his touch. “Now or never,” he said, a prophet in the gloom. The air thrummed with menace, the storm’s howl a summons Elias felt in his bones. His knees ached from kneeling over wrecks, yet he stood taller—heart torn ‘twixt fear and will—for comrades bound by blood and ruin.

  The machines would quake, even if he fell beneath them. No voice from the past spurred him now—only the silence of the lost, and the faint pulse of a hope yet uncrushed.