There was something deeply humiliating about waking up to the smell of Vicks, cat urine, and boiled cabbage.
Especially when you were thirty-three years old, broke, and still living in your grandmother's basement like a sitcom character whose laugh track had long since been shut off.
Mason Clay blinked into the musty darkness of his little corner of hell and let the ceiling leaks remind him just how far he'd fallen.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The patch job above his head had given out again. Great.
"Mason!" his grandmother's voice sliced through the air like a wet towel snap. "You left the laundry in the washer again! That mildew smell's gonna haunt my dreams."
Mason groaned and rolled over. "Tell it to the ghosts, Grandma. Maybe they'll do the laundry next time."
"You think this is funny? Thirty-three, still in my basement, sleeping past six like some kind of raccoon! Get up, boy!"
This was Mason's life. No job security. No girlfriend. No degree. A former dream of being a mechanical engineer buried under a mountain of unpaid tuition and arrest records that involved trespassing, fireworks, and an unfortunate incident with a gas station soda fountain.
He used to be clever. Funny. Sharp. The kind of kid teachers said had "potential."
Now?
He was a miner. A shift grunt with a busted truck and a mouth that got him in trouble more than it saved him.
"Coming, Grandma," Mason muttered as he swung his legs over the bed. The floor was cold, like the universe wanted to remind him just how unwelcoming the world really was.
By the time he emerged upstairs, his grandmother—an eighty-two-year-old force of nature named Jean Clay—was standing in her robe, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. Her snow-white curls gave her the look of an old war general who'd been dragged into retirement kicking and screaming.
"You forgot your lunch yesterday. Again," she said, sliding a brown paper bag across the counter.
"I like to live dangerously."
"You like to live stupidly," she snapped, then pointed a crooked finger. "And don't think I didn't hear about the union fight last week. You keep mouthing off at your supervisors, and you'll be unemployed before that mine buries you."
Mason grabbed the bag and kissed her on the cheek. "You'd miss me too much if I wasn't around."
Jean shook her head. "What I miss is peace and quiet."
...
The ride to Shale Ridge Mining Co. was thirty minutes of silence, rust, and existential despair. Mason's truck, The Beast, rattled like it was trying to escape its own bolts. The radio only played gospel static and country songs sung by men who'd lost their dogs, their wives, and their pickup trucks.
Pulling into the dirt lot, Mason parked next to the same guys he always did.
There was Manny, the ex-boxer with a crooked jaw and more tattoos than common sense.
Dev, the overworked father of four who smiled too much and prayed between shifts.
And Rico, the site joker who once glued a wrench to the foreman's boot and still hadn't been caught.
"Look who's alive," Rico said as Mason stepped out. "Thought your grandma finally smothered you with a pillow."
"Not yet," Mason replied. "She's waiting till I disappoint her one last time."
"Better make it count," Dev added, tossing him a protein bar. "You've only got one warning left."
Mason cracked it open, took a bite. "One more than I need."
...
Pit 7 was a scar in the earth's skin, wide and jagged like something had tried to claw its way out of hell and only half-finished the job. A yawning wound in the rocky landscape of Shale Ridge, it stretched nearly two football fields long and bled dust and heat into the air like a slow, open fever. Mason had always thought it looked more like a crater than a mine shaft—like something that wasn't supposed to be here.
The air was thick with the acrid bite of burning oil and iron. Even the sun seemed hesitant to hang too long above Pit 7, casting a pale, smog-filtered glow over the place. The hum of drills echoed off rusted scaffolding, mixing with the rhythmic clank of metal on stone and the occasional angry sputter of overworked machinery coughing up smoke like an old man choking on his own history.
Mason stood at the edge of the descent ramp, hardhat on, safety goggles askew, and watched a flock of vultures circle high overhead. Even they know something's off, he thought.
He took one last breath of semi-clean air before descending into the pit's gaping mouth.
He hated it.
The oppressive heat. The layers of filth that clung to his skin like wet cement. The hollow ache in his joints at the end of every shift, and the black muck he coughed up in the shower. But most of all, he hated how small it made him feel—how each day chipped away another piece of whoever he used to be.
But it paid.
Barely.
And when your resume read more like a rap sheet than a career path, the options were limited.
So Mason clocked in, scanned his ID badge with a flick that spoke of routine and resignation, and made his way to Drill Sector C. He grabbed his gear from the storage container—hardhat, gloves, belt harness, and a shoulder-slung pneumatic drill that weighed more than his dignity—and fell into rhythm beside the other workers.
...
The pit came alive around him in a chaotic orchestra of motion and noise.
Engines roared. Sparks flew. Men cursed over broken machinery and joked loudly between ear-splitting booms. The air was a haze of dust and diesel, and beneath it all was a thrum—deep, almost imperceptible—that pulsed like a heartbeat. Mason sometimes swore he could feel it under his boots, as if the ground itself were angry.
Rico shouted something crude across the blast zone. Manny flipped him off while juggling a vibrating jackhammer like it was a toy. Dev leaned over to Mason and said, "If I die today, I want you to tell my kids I was working hard and not...y'know, hiding behind the crane eating beef jerky."
Mason cracked a grin. "Deal. But only if you do the same for me."
They shook on it.
...
The morning bled into afternoon. Shifts rotated. Sweat poured. The heat intensified.
And then—it happened.
...
At exactly 1:37 p.m., the sky cracked.
Not metaphorically. Not a distant rumble of thunder or the groan of shifting equipment.
It cracked—a sharp, tearing sound that silenced the entire pit in a single, dreadful heartbeat. Every worker froze. The air, once hot and churning, turned still. The light changed. Shadows stretched in unnatural directions.
Then came the noise.
High-pitched, metallic, like steel shearing through glass, yet wet, like bone splitting beneath a surgeon's saw. It made Mason's molars ache. A few men dropped their tools and clutched their ears.
Then—the flash.
A sudden green burst of light, so bright it seared across the backs of their eyes. It wasn't lightning. It wasn't fire. It wasn't any damn thing Mason had ever seen on Earth.
It was...alive.
A boiling, twisting energy that churned in the clouds before screaming toward the earth.
"Everyone down!" someone shouted.
Too late.
The impact struck like God slamming a hammer into the planet's skull. The ground jumped. Air collapsed into a vacuum. A pressure wave blasted outward, flinging men like rag dolls.
Mason felt his legs lift from under him. He slammed into a steel cart, the edge cracking against his ribs. A flash of pain. Then spinning. The world lost shape.
Around him, the pit became a battlefield.
Drills exploded. Trucks flipped. Rock split open like eggshells. Green flames erupted from the point of impact, licking across stone and steel with hungry, unnatural heat. They didn't burn red. They burned wrong.
Manny's screams were cut short by a collapsing scaffold. Rico vanished behind a plume of emerald fire. Dev was still reaching out when the wave swallowed him.
Then—
Mason saw it.
Through the smoke and flame, a shard—long, jagged, glowing like molten crystal—hovered, just for a second. It hummed with energy, spinning slowly in the air, dripping trails of green fire.
And then—it chose him.
Like a meteor with a purpose, it plummeted straight toward his chest.
No time to scream. No time to run.
It struck.
The world folded inward. Pain went nova. Every nerve in his body screamed in unison—and then, silence.
As if the universe had taken one sharp breath and held it.
And then—blackness.
Total, consuming blackness.
Mason Clay was gone.