Pacha thought more and more about whether there was a way to escape as time went on. She hadn’t seen Vallabhadev since she had entered the mine, but she hadn’t forgotten about the red-hot metal fence around the mine entrance. She confronted Elizabeth about it; someone must have tried to escape.

“Why doesn’t anyone try to escape?” She had asked.

“They have.” Elizabeth had replied and Pacha had listened intently. “When the lift is pulled up to the surface to collect the stone we’ve mined, people have gone up on it. But each time the lift has come back down with their corpses on it, and we have to keep filling it up with stones crushing what remains of them. Once, a strong woman armed with a pickaxe had climbed into the shaft with the supply boxes as it had gone back up to the surface. The next thing we knew, there were screams and the shaft was coming back down. Vallabhadev appeared holding a gas light, which blinded us because it was so bright. A moment later someone attacked him with a pickaxe, and in the blink of an eye Vallabhadev had broken the weapon as well as the man’s arm. He took the slave up out of the mine with him and we never saw them again.”

“The slave who tried attacking Vallabhadev in the mine. What was he like?” Pacha had inquired.

“Strong. He was well built, the kind of man who would brag about his muscles in a tavern. He was not weak nor one to shy away from an opportunity but he was also loyal and kind. We could have gotten out of here that day but Vallabhadev is too strong.”

The next time Pacha had slept she had thought about this incident and it was starting to dawn on her that she was stuck here. Forever.