The factory morphed to a field of strife, air thick with smoke and blood’s sharp tang. Elias pressed on, limbs aching for reprieve, each step a stand against the ruin round him. Comrades fought—some staunch, others stilled, their faces pale, wounds raw as open graves. The earth drank their cost, red and deep.

  A scream cut through—a young lad, scarce a man, fell writhing, then lay quiet, his hammer dropped. Elias’s chest clenched, a knot of grief, but he could not halt; soldiers loomed, rifles cold, their eyes blank as stone. “We can’t hold!” a voice cracked, wild with despair, yet Elias pushed forward, the chisel heavy in his hand.

  One by one, they dropped, rebellion crumbling like leaves in a gale. His breath rasped, arms leaden from blows, till he stumbled, knees buckling, sight dimming at its edge. A soldier rose over him, rifle poised—a shadow of death, sure and near. Elias braced, lungs tight, the roar of battle a fading hum.

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  No shot rang. A shout broke the haze—Thomas, blood-streaked, led a ragged throng, crashing through the foe with hammers high. The soldiers reeled, their steel breached by this desperate rush. Elias hauled himself up, pain a dull pulse, a faint spark flaring in his ribs—not of triumph, but of the men who’d not yield.

  He gripped the chisel, slick with grime, and joined them. The tide held, frail as a thread—too broken to win, too stubborn to break. The fallen sprawled round, their silence a weight he bore, each face a mirror to the lad’s still form. This was no rise, yet no surrender—only a fight clinging to breath.

  The clamor ebbed, soldiers’ boots a distant drum. Elias stood, trembling, Thomas at his flank, their band a flicker amidst the wreck. They’d not fallen—not yet. He fought not for craft’s ghost, but for the pulse beside him, a will to endure till the last light failed.