The rope burned before it hurt.
TSUF felt it slide across his palm, rough fibers catching skin already softened by sweat. He adjusted his grip without stopping. Stopping meant shouting. Shouting meant losing rhythm. Losing rhythm meant losing the spot.
The ship's hold yawned dark and damp. Grain sacks came up one by one, each heavier than the last even though they all weighed the same. Someone tied the knots wrong. Someone always did.
"Move," a voice snapped behind him.
TSUF leaned forward and pulled. The rope dug in deeper, heat blooming along his hand. He welcomed it, in a dull way. Pain was easier than thinking about how many sacks were still waiting below.
Wood groaned. Chains rattled overhead. The dock smelled worse as the sun climbed—old water warming, rot waking up. Sweat ran down his spine and pooled at the small of his back. His shoulder protested every time a sack shifted wrong.
He adjusted again. Too slow.
"Faster," the same voice said. No anger. Just habit.
"I am," TSUF muttered.
Didn't matter if it was true.
A splinter caught his thumb. He sucked in air through his teeth, shook his hand once, and kept going. Blood would come later. Right now it was just a sting, sharp enough to keep him awake.
The rope slipped. Bit again.
By midmorning his fingers had gone half-numb. He noticed it only when he fumbled a knot and had to redo it twice. The third try held. Barely.
Someone laughed nearby. Not at him. At nothing. Laughter carried weird out here—too loud, then gone.
"Careful," another laborer said, passing close. "That rope's hungry."
TSUF huffed. Might've been a laugh. Might've been breath.
The foreman paced the dock like a bored dog, eyes flicking from back to back. Every so often he barked a number. No one answered. Counting was internal. Always was.
TSUF hauled. Lowered. Hauled again.
His sandal slipped on a damp board and his knee knocked hard against the wood. The impact shot up his leg, white and sudden. He froze for half a second—long enough to imagine falling, sacks spilling, shouting.
Nothing happened.
He straightened and kept moving. Knee throbbing now, adding itself to the list.
The rope burned worse on the return pull. The skin there felt raw, peeled thin. He shifted the load to his other hand and felt the same bite start there too.
Fair enough, he thought. Spread it around.
He became aware of the watching again without looking up. That prickle between the shoulders. The sense of space being occupied by something that wasn't working.
He ignored it.
By the time the last sack from that hold came up, his arms felt heavier than the grain. He tied off, stepped back, and let the rope go slack. It slapped the dock wetly.
TSUF flexed his fingers. They didn't want to.
He shook his hands once, twice. Sensation crawled back in slow pins and needles. He hissed through his teeth and waited for it to pass.
Work didn't stop. It just shifted.
He bent, lifted, turned. The rope marks on his palms darkened, already swelling. He rubbed them against his waistcloth without thinking, then regretted it.
When the bell rang for a short break, he sat where he stood. The wood was damp. He didn't care.
He looked at his hands. Red. Angry. Small damage, already paid for.
The rope lay coiled nearby, innocent now.
TSUF wiped his palms on his thighs and pushed himself back up.
The day wasn't done biting yet.