Stone
The small bits of hardened gray stone flew from beneath his chisel. The shards of earthen rock glanced off his scarred tensed arms. The chisel was ground deeper into the face of solid rock with every massive blow of the ponderous iron mallet. He felt the coldness of the chisel in his calloused left hand and the worn wood of the mallet handle. The wood of the sledge handle had become deeply pitted beneath his tight grip so much that his hand had become one with the handle. His hairy arm swung again and again in a ponderous unremittent rhythm. The eerie clank of iron on iron echoed in the cavern. His arm drew back as muscle and sinew grew tight. Aggravated veins and tendons stuck out of his forearm as the iron head was pulled forth in power and accuracy. Waves of warm muscle rippled in strain as the massive block of iron was brought crashing into the head of the chisel. Hot angry sparks flew through the air singeing the mottled hair on his arm. His beady squinted eyes glared in cold determination. The tufts of hair above his eyes were oily and black from dried sweat. His face was nothing more than a worn cloth of flesh hung loosely over a gaunt misshaped skull. His ragged breath wheezed through two swollen blood-choked lips. His oily strands of wiry hair lay tangled about his head with strings hanging over his face in a filthy veil. His naked breast was straggled with fibrous, black hairs knotted beyond belief and intermixed with coal, dust, and his own saliva. His back, bent with travail, was lacerated with deep festering sores and slashes running horizontally. Dried blood coagulated into thick lumpy scabs painted his back in black and crimson. Wide sturdy muscles jutted out of his sides as he reared the hammer back. Scarred, worn feet with hairy toes shuffled backwards and forwards on the uneven rough hewn floor along with rhythm of the ringing metal. The toenails had long since been torn off and his heels and ankles had bloated or ruptured purple blisters strewn about them. The embedded white scar marks about his ankles were the singular part of his body which did not have rough hair tufts upon it because of the many layers of rotten flesh worn from them. The massive time-strengthened arms bulged fleshy knotted muscles and dark, filthy, sweat-stained hairs. The forearms were littered with long deep white scars and singed hair. Fingernails thoroughly caked in and out with sweat, stone bits, and dust were fractured and jagged. The swollen hand that held the chisel was long-numbed and senseless to the violent jarrings of the hammer. Stained with reddish rust and black stone, his hands still gripped strongly to the hammer and chisel with despotic determination. The intense glare at the stone promised leviathan resolve. Each strike against the chisel struck it deeper into living earth and pronounced his willpower. The constant pressure of an iron resolution impelled massive gray mounts of rock fall from beneath his chisel. With all concentration he struck the hammer harder and steadily harder down upon solid immovable stone. Larger masses fell from the way and toppled behind him into the shadow shrouded passage. In a colossal swing muscle tore against stone and upon impact the chisel flew through hard cruel stone and into free gasping air. The slightest twitch of garbled emotion flashed across his face as he gradually and thoughtfully withdrew the slender iron projectile. A diminutive circular hole was left gushing pure fresh air. The sweetness of it entered his lungs and healed his spirit once more. Muscles, strengthened in steel determination, jutted from his jaws as he recommitted. His arm trunk reeled back in awesome contortion and his frame creaked with strain. He brought his body straight raining the iron hammer upon the newly positioned chisel. It dove deep into the stone and into air in a single wheeling stroke. The chisel dropped from his grasp and fell through the hole. The intense expression upon his countenance did not change shade. He grasped the hammer with both muscle bound hands and drew back with the hammer over his head. His torso elongated and mounds of pensive muscles rippled and knotted. With a strong lunge forward and and instant of eternity the hammer glinted down and exploded into a blast of glimmering sparks. The entirety of his face and bulging figure was bombarded with the fiery shards and he was blinded. Hands bleeding from stress and scalded with fire lost no moment. Feeling the jagged stone wall for the dropped hammer hardened skin only felt sharp slivers from a shorn handle. A gaping serrated impression in the wall sat where the iron had struck. The bulky head laid between his feet. The tip of the head was deeply dented and scarred. A frayed mess of slivered wood protruded from the center of the head. Wearily he grasped the iron object and hefted it to shoulders height. With much of his strength sapped from the previous blow he breathed deeply. A soft cough developed into a violent one and he expectorated bits of lung and blood. Finally in a manner so absolute in concentrated determination a bright flame of passion crept into his eyes. His breathing became low and rasping. The warped maimed form in the passage straightened in posture slightly. The slab of iron will was raised above his head and his beaten hands grasped it so tight as to squeeze blood trickling slowly down his hairy arm and down his back. He reared back as a God to strike his altar. His muscles flamed into power and with the very last ounce of strength he possessed he sprang in a ludicrous arc thrusting the iron head into the wall. The force threw his weakened frame into the stone. Hot fleshy bones of his hands shattered upon impact and his shaggy head was thrown roughly into gray stone. Hot sticky blood flowed over his forehead. Mingling with his eyebrows it flowed through his eyes and over his fleshy cheeks. White flashes blocked his mind. He felt his wasted form spinning and wheeling as it plummeted. He next knew grass. In his nose it penetrated. It was soft and cool. He next knew wind. A exhilarating coolness rushed through him. Pain evaporated into night. His maimed hands had no feeling but numb. His legs lay in the gaping hole of the tunnel and his face lay buried in tall grass. Long swollen muscles in his back twisted as his frame slowly twitched into life. Rolling his shoulders he turned to face up. He felt the cool of night wrap around him. The blood on his face crept down it's side and onto the free green grass. He felt released. The coolness of the grass calmed his burning sores. Wind caressed him and carried away his pain. He sucked in his first breath of free air and then through smiling lips exhaled his last.
Afternote: I am completely exhausted.
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