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

  Weeks had passed since the stand, yet its weight clung—faces of men who’d marched beside him, now dim in the din. He saw his father’s glare, fierce in memory—a fire that burned for hands machines stole. Their hope had flared, a breath snuffed swift—did they know this iron sea would rise again?

  The lathe spun, relentless—a beast he fed with hands once proud. His chest ached, not from toil, but from the lad’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?

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  Workers shuffled past, eyes blank—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 become—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. Silence gnawed worse than defeat—a price that stole their fight, their worth.

  Shift’s end cast him out, the hum a chain 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 lad’s cry a pulse in his grip—a fight crushed, yet not stilled, a flame for hands unbent, against steel that’d not yet claimed them whole.