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1461 Words
The factory seemed to exhale all at once—steam venting in sharp bursts, gears winding down, voices choking off in fear.
Bootsteps echoed across the metal catwalks, crisp and synchronized, growing louder with each passing second. The Iron Inquisition didn’t run. They didn’t shout. They didn’t need to.
Elias lay half-upright against the pillar, vision swimming, his left arm throbbing with a mechanical hum that felt almost alive beneath the shredded flesh.
Kira crouched beside him, fingers trembling at her sides.
“Stay down,” she whispered. “Don’t move. Don’t breathe wrong.”
Easy for her to say. His lungs felt like they were full of powdered slag.
The captain descended the stairs with the calm assurance of a man who had never once been told ‘no’. His coat—black leather reinforced with armored plating—hung heavy around him. The Inquisition’s emblem gleamed on his chestplate: a single metallic eye with a vertical slit, watching the world without blinking.
And he did not look confused.
Or surprised.
Or searching.
No—he looked expectant.
Like he already knew exactly why he was here.
Elias’s skin crawled.
Kira edged closer, subtly placing her body between him and the approaching soldiers.
The captain came to a stop five feet away and removed his gloves with unhurried precision. His eyes were a pale, icy grey—like someone had drained the color out of them intentionally.
“Which one of you is Elias Thorne?” he asked.
The words dropped like iron weights.
Every worker on the floor went still.
Kira’s breath hitched. Hargan stiffened. Jax took a half-step back, eyes flicking nervously between Elias and the captain.
Elias swallowed.
He had two options:
Stay silent and hope they passed him over.
Admit it and pray they didn’t kill him on the spot.
Both choices had a good chance of ending with a bullet.
Kira leaned closer and whispered, “Say nothing. Let them guess wrong.”
But the captain’s eyes had already shifted to Elias’s bleeding—no, leaking—arm.
A thin trail of silver was dripping steadily from between torn skin and metal, pooling onto the steel floor. Each drop hissed softly. Each drop warped the metal it touched.
The captain watched the distortion with scientific interest, not fear.
“I see,” he murmured. “So you’ve awakened.”
Elias’s heart stuttered.
Awakened?
What did that mean?
The captain motioned with two fingers.
Four Inquisition soldiers raised their rifles in perfect unison, targeting Elias’s head, chest, and legs.
Kira sucked in a sharp breath.
Hargan muttered a curse.
Workers began edging away, careful not to draw attention.
The captain took a step closer.
“Elias Thorne,” he said, voice low but clear, “by decree of Emperor Valeus, you are hereby taken into custody under suspicion of being Forgeblood.”
A murmur rippled through the workers.
Forgeblood.
The word hit harder now than it had when Kira joked about it earlier.
A myth.
A ghost story.
A reason the Inquisition executed entire families decades ago.
Kira whispered urgently, “Don’t let them take you. Elias—listen to me—don’t go with them.”
The captain’s gaze snapped to her.
“You. Step away from him.”
Kira froze.
“I said,” the captain repeated, “step. Away.”
He didn’t raise his voice.
He didn’t need to.
His tone carried the weight of a death order.
Kira slowly lifted her hands and backed away—until she was standing beside Hargan, jaw clenched, eyes burning with helpless fury.
The captain turned back to Elias.
“You’re in pain,” he said, almost gently. “Your injuries will be treated. You will be transported to the Imperial Spire for examination. If you are innocent, you will be released.”
Elias stared up at him.
Everyone knew what “examination” meant.
Forgeblood suspects didn’t return.
They didn’t get graves, either.
Bodies with metal in them didn’t burn properly.
“I’m not—” Elias rasped. “I’m not whatever you think I am.”
The captain crouched, expression calm, analytical.
“You are bleeding silver,” he said simply. “Your arm is not human. And the metal around you is warping in reaction to your blood.”
He reached forward.
Elias flinched.
The captain paused, hand inches from Elias’s exposed arm.
“Does it hurt?” he asked softly. “The metal under your skin? The gears? The core?”
Core?
Elias didn’t understand—
The captain continued, “They aren’t fully awakened yet. They’re confused. They don’t know whether to repair your arm or reshape it into a weapon.”
Elias stared, horrified.
He didn’t know whether to call it madness or truth.
“Don’t touch me,” Elias whispered.
The captain smiled faintly.
“So it speaks.”
He reached again.
Kira couldn’t take it anymore.
“Leave him alone!” she shouted, stepping forward.
The rifles swung toward her instantly.
“Kira!” Hargan snapped, grabbing her arm. “No!”
She didn’t stop.
“He’s not dangerous—he saved Jax, he—he’s just a worker! He’s not—”
The captain raised a hand, halting the soldiers.
His cold grey eyes slid from Kira… to Elias.
“You saved someone?” he asked Elias, voice neutral.
Elias blinked, confused by the question.
“Yes,” he said. “Why—”
“Interesting,” the captain murmured. “Some Forgeblood prototypes were designed for combat rescue functions before the purge. We’ll have to run diagnostics.”
Elias didn’t know what that meant, but the look in the captain’s eyes made his stomach twist.
He was a specimen.
A machine to be opened.
Studied.
Exploited.
The captain signaled forward.
Two soldiers holstered their rifles and advanced to seize Elias by the shoulders.
Kira struggled against Hargan’s grip.
“Do something!” she hissed at him.
Hargan’s jaw was clenched, face grey with fear.
“You can’t fight the Inquisition,” he muttered. “You can’t.”
“But—”
“Kira,” Hargan said grimly, “if they take him, he’s gone.
If you resist, you’re gone.”
Kira’s breath hitched.
Her eyes flicked to Elias’s.
She mouthed one word:
Run.
As if he had a choice.
The soldiers grabbed Elias’s arms.
Pain exploded through his left side.
His vision flickered black.
The captain stood, straightening his coat.
“Bring him.”
The soldiers began lifting Elias—
And his arm reacted.
The metal inside it moved.
Not subtly.
Not quietly.
It unfolded.
Gears slid beneath his skin.
Silver veins pulsed.
Mechanical parts shifted like waking muscles.
A low mechanical growl vibrated up his forearm.
“What—?!” one soldier recoiled. “His arm—!”
“Hold him!” the captain snapped.
But it was too late.
Elias’s arm transformed reflexively—defensively—into something sharp.
A blade.
A shimmering mechanical blade burst from his wrist, extending in a flash of silver, slicing through the restraints and scraping across the floor.
Everyone froze.
Elias stared at his own arm, horrified.
“I—I didn’t—” he breathed, voice shaking. “I didn’t mean to—”
The captain’s expression hardened.
“Kill him.”
The order hit like a physical blow.
Kira screamed.
Hargan cursed.
Jax stumbled backward.
Rifles rose.
Time slowed.
And Elias’s heart kicked once—hard.
Something deep in his chest pulsed, sending a wave of heat and cold through his veins simultaneously.
The metal in his arm flexed again.
The gears inside him screamed to life.
Not fear.
Instinct.
Run.
The world snapped back into motion.
Elias rolled, pain blinding him. Rifle shots cracked, ricocheting off the pillar. Sparks exploded. Steam vented from ruptured pipes.
Kira darted forward—too fast, too reckless.
Hargan grabbed her again, saving her from a bullet.
“Go!” she shouted. “Elias, GO!”
Elias staggered to his feet, nearly slipping on the silver droplets on the floor.
The captain shouted, “SEAL THE YARD!”
Alarms blared.
Steel shutters began dropping over the exits.
Elias ran.
Every step burned.
His vision warred between clarity and haze.
His arm, half-human and half-machine, vibrated violently, the blade retracting and extending in frantic spasms.
Behind him, soldiers chased, rifles cracking, boots hammering on metal.
Kira’s voice echoed behind him, shrill and desperate:
“ELIAS! DON’T STOP!”
He didn’t intend to.
He just didn’t know how far his legs—or his humanity—could take him now.
But he ran anyway.
Because the alternative was capture.
And capture meant dissection.
Or worse—
Learning exactly what he really was.
And Elias Thorne wasn’t ready for that.
Not yet.
- Writer
