Beneath the earth, puppets dwell, carrying out their daily task of coloring pages with mysterious shards of coal. But one puppet, weary of the endless repetition, begins to question the purpose of it all. Driven by an insatiable curiosity, he sets out on a daring journey to confront The Scientist, determined to uncover the truth behind their existence.
My hand glided over the thin stone-like paper, the shards of colored-ore heaped in piles on the workshop desk. The page I was filling was almost complete. I’d used brown to fill in the bean-like shape and added stripes across the tail and to the face, darkening one eye.
A racoon. I’d read about them in a book.
Light spilled from overhead; it was the best part of the day when the midmorning sun illuminated the dark coal mines. Forbidden to leave, it was the only sunlight we experienced. We couldn’t leave yet we had free rein inside the mines, including the library, which contained information about the vast world beyond this place.
“Don’t you think it’s strange?” I asked, looking up from my coloring to another creature like me. ‘Puppet’ is what I called us. There had been a book that showed an object spun from yarn and controlled by someone else defined as such.
He spoke through a heavy breath. “What is it now?”
“We’re allowed to know what’s out there, yet we’re not allowed to experience it? Doesn’t that bother you? And why are we doing these daily pages anyway?”
Thistle picked up a red shard. “This is what we do. It’s as simple as that.”
“Have you tried looking into that library of yours?” One of the other puppets, Lenox, walked over, leaning his forearms on the table. He grinned. The fuzzy strands of his form shimmered as he moved. “I thought it contained answers to everything.”
A few of the others laughed.
They mocked me for my curiosity, but I never let it get to me.
When I didn’t react, he asked, “Have you ever seen the Scientist?”
I couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or not. “I haven’t.”
“Watch your lines,” Thistle said, reaching across the table and tapping the white space on my paper where the black ore had marked outside the lines.
“That little will be fine. Look,” I said, scribbling away from the nose. “These are whiskers.”
“I don’t care what they’re called. We’re supposed to keep everything inside the lines.”
Lenox held out a smooth cylinder. “Try adding this to the eyes.”
“What is it?”
“Something to make your racoon come to life.” He turned and waved. “Use it or don’t. It doesn’t matter to me.”
Thistle had gone back to coloring his page.
I inspected the strange—marker?—between my thumb and forefinger, studying the side where L.E.T was written. Undoubtedly, something was wrong with it, but a highlight to the eye would make it appear more lifelike.
Pressing the tip to the paper, I drew two small circles on each eye. Then I set the pen down, admiring my handiwork. The eye shimmered, seeming to shift on the page. I blinked. It blinked.
I pushed away from the table, taking slow steps back.
That couldn’t be.
I ran, losing my footing and stumbling, catching myself before hitting the ground. The library, that’s where he would be.
Throwing the doors open, I walked along rows of books, expecting Lenox with his dumb smile to be there. My shoulders slumped when he wasn’t. There was, however, a book out of place, laying on the chair set in the middle of the room.
Like all the others, someone had handwritten the pages, but this one seemed to have a different binding with a string threaded between sections.
When I flipped the first page, dust wafted out.
1/2/0001
I’ve finally extracted the energy in the fissure. The mission is a success.
1/23/0001
Strange holes have appeared in Lucille’s arms. She’s become sick.
2/1/0001
Lucielle’s condition has worsened. I’ve made a terrible mistake. I should never have agreed to come here and experiment with something so dangerous. This is all my fault.
Page after page, I flipped through, the handwriting becoming less legible and more frantic. Someone had died? And by the sounds of it, the person penning the journal had been the cause.
There were also entries about energy, pioneering research, and other things I didn’t understand, but something caught my eye near the last pages—
3/45/0001
My misdeeds have been rectified. These puppets combine the energy from the fissure with fiber technology. I’ve tasked them with completing daily pages. It will take time, but if we keep at it, we can—
I dropped the book, raising my hands to look at the yarn-like strands. Was that way we were? I had always jokingly referred to us as puppets, but—I paused. Just like the journal pages, someone had placed the books about puppets in my purview.
He knew.
All this time, Lenox was aware of what we were.
“Is it what you expected?” The voice came from the back of the library. Lenox gestured around. “I’ve been compiling these every night, when the Scientist sleeps, copying the letters as closely to hers as I can. At first, I was angry at learning that we eased this person’s guilt. But then I realized, why should I be? If this is why we exist, to neutralize the fissure and to mitigate the energy crisis beyond this mine, why should I be upset? We all need purpose.”
“Others died during our creation!”
Lenox stared at me. “Does that matter?”
“I’m going to speak to the Scientist.”
The only one who ever had talked to the Scientist was Thistle. Long ago, long before my creation, when we were assigned to color pages and given our boundaries.
Lenox pointed down a tunnel. The dankness of the area, while always chilling, seemed to become even more so now that I knew the truth. How many had exactly died before our creation?
The other workshop was not unlike our own. Built into the stone of the caves, it was cool and damp, with a warm amber glow that emanated from lanterns hanging from iron rods. I turned the corner, my fingers pressing into a stalagmite. Strings draped across the ceiling where metal bars melded into rocks, creating rafters to hang odds and ends.
Sudden screeching came from within, sending a chill down my spine. Hunch over a slab of wood was the Scientist. A human. Next to her, a pile of the stone paper rested. What was she doing?
Stepping into the workshop, I tilted my head, peering up at the table that loomed far above me. Compared to her, I was the size of her hand.
Her tool scraped against rock, a sizable chunk breaking off. It landed at my feet, and the Scientist turned and reached to retrieve it.
She paused.
I froze.
“I haven’t seen one of you in a while,” she said.
I pushed my shoulders back, trying not to tremble. “What are you doing with the daily papers?”
She moved the magnifying glass resting in front of her and slid off the stool. “Look for yourself.”
I climbed onto the chair, and the Scientist adjusted the light. It was the page I’d just finished. The raccoon’s eyes swiveled to meet mine. Its body had been half chiseled around the outline. The rest seemed trapped by the marks I’d scribbled.
So that was why we were not supposed to color outside the lines.
“When it’s not done properly, it becomes more difficult to extract.”
The creature wailed.
She placed her hand over the paper, cupping it so that a shadow fell over its eyes. “Shhh. Be still. Sleep while you can.”
“This is because of L.E.T?”
“Life Energy Transfer. My life’s work.” The Scientist walked around the table, crossing her arms over her chest before leaning against the wall. “I was the first to pioneer this method and use the energy from the fissure you’ve now seen at the bottom of the ravine.”
My eyes snapped to her. She knew that I’d gone there not a day ago?
“There’s not much left, thankfully. Lennox already knew what to do if my body succumbs to the sickness.”
“Sickness?”
The Scientist pushed up the sleeve of her arm. Her skin looked like mesh. It glowed, liked the fissure, not unlike the shimmer that emanated from me.
She reached up to the rafters and removed a square of paper, staring at it for a moment before setting it down. “There’s a cost to mining this energy. I warned them when we began, but they didn’t listen.”
There were two people in the photograph. One was the Scientist, the other was a girl that had the same features.
“My daughter.”
I’d read it in the journal, but I still asked, “What happened to her?”
“She died. From the same ill-effects I will.”
“What are we supposed to do?”
She laughed. It was an unpleasant sound.
“I’m afraid that’s not something I can answer. In all my years, I still ask myself that very question. It is one of life’s greatest mysteries.“
My original intention had been to come here and return with ideas to better our lives. But with what I knew—
“I’m sorry for burdening you,” the Scientist said. “I’ve made sure my documented process is incomplete and riddled with flaws. With my death, the technique will disappear from human knowledge.”
“No more will be made?”
“There is only enough energy left for one. There’s nothing to be upset about,” the Scientist said. “You are the master of your own life now. It’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?”
It had been my dream, to leave these mines, and to do more than the daily page. The others didn’t seem to care as much, but for me—“Are you sure that’s okay?”
“Yes. There may come a day when people find the truth of what happened here. Your lives will be in danger then, as the energy that’s in your veins could change the entire world—so be thankful for each day that you get.” She returned to the table with the half-formed racoon, picking up a small metal rod. “I’ll finish all the papers tonight. Tomorrow I will take you and the others to the surface.”
The Scientist bent over her table, adjusted the light and the magnifying glass, and set to work. For some time I watched her; the slight movements of her hand, the gentle cooing she made when the sounds from the paper were bleak…
I closed my eyes, intent on going back, but when I opened my eyes next, the light in the workshop had changed. The chiming that signaled midday’s break echoed throughout the shop.
The Scientist was still bent over the desk.
I crept over, climbing on the stool and clambering up to stand on the desk. The extraction was nearly complete. What once had been a half-formed creature now lay in full volume, as if it had always existed that way. The rise and fall of its chest was rhythmic, slow—calm even.
“She’ll rest for a while,” the Scientist said. “In the meantime, we will prepare.”
On the table, a small canvas bag lay, packed to the brim with supplies. It looked as if she had already prepared while I had slept.
Not long after, we left. The Scientist stood in the workshop I’d spent my life in. The others gathered around. Lenox smirked. They followed me, and I followed the Scientist to the door that led outside.
The voices of the others grew quiet as they stepped hesitantly into the sunlight.
I stayed back and gazed up at the Scientist. “What about the remaining energy and the ‘last one’?”
The Scientist raised her arm, shielding her eyes from the sun. “For now, forget about this place. Explore. Live and experience all that life has to offer. We may not get to choose our circumstances but everyone must take life into their own hands.” She knelt and bent over, handing me a small white marker. “Unlike the daily pages, try not to color too much inside the lines.”