Luminescence

Three.

Pushing buttons in the same pattern for hours was like a lullaby as the pattern was like hypnosis for my brain. As I struggled to keep my eyes open for the rest of my time, I looked over to Alex who was struggling as well. He and a few other young men were working the compressing process of the metal, which requires a lot of strength.

You'd think as modernized as our planet is now, that we'd have better working conditions than ever. Wrong.

In order to compress the metal into a cube, three people have to push heavy walls simultaneously around the lump of metal in order to shape it. The walls would eventually start compacting the metal on its own with gears and momentum. But as old as the machine was, it needed some rebooting at times.

Suddenly, I was snapped out of my button-pushing trance as loud shouts began to come from the spot I had just been staring at. Commotion was beginning to rise in the factory as others dropped what they were doing in order to see what was happening — including myself.

They weren't excited screams though. Screams of pain came from one of the belts, as more calls came from the people around them for help. Someone was in danger, and I couldn't see enough around the taller men to figure out what was happening.

Pushing my way through the crowd, I saw a boy no older than the age of thirteen, trapped inside of the conveyor belt with burning pieces of metal right next to him. Tears were flowing down his eyes as he realized that this might be the end for him.

Nothing but a glass wall separated the machine from our standing point, and I was determined to help this boy survive — even if it meant getting crushed into a literal cube.

I stared at myself in the reflection of the glass. Inhaling deeply, I clenched my fist into a tight ball, drawing my arm back. And with all of the strength I could muster, I punched the glass.

And as my hand came in contact with it, it shattered into a million pieces, yet didn't fall. Again I punched it, and the wall had each piece had fallen to the ground with a loud crash. The best part? My hand was perfectly fine without a single scratch. I look down in awe as a shaky breath escaped my lips, as my brain finally refocused on the main task.

That glass wall was created to protect us from stray metal parts flying at unreasonable speeds. And I had just broke it. 

"What the hell is this girl doing?" Questioned an older man behind me, but I ignored all his comments as I stared at the machine. Its conveyor belt had a pattern to it. The hot metal pieces came every half second, leaving just enough room for a human to fit between. Except the belt was moving at too fast of speed to simply grab the boy off of.

With each passing millisecond the boy was becoming closer, almost being lurched off of the conveyor belt into hot scraps of metal multiple times. I began to time my approach, planning to hop onto the conveyor belt with him dodging metals of all type, then eventually hopping off after with him in my arms. It sounded like an idiotic plan, but hey. It was better than having a cube of mushed guts in our factory.

"Girl!" A man shouts. "The kid is dead already! Let him go!"

But I wasn't about to give up.

Without a second thought, I jumped onto the conveyor belt. Immediately my head lurched forward from the quick momentum of the belt, and soft cries were heard next to me as we were rapidly approaching the hot compressor.

"Let's get you off of here, buddy." Taking him into my arms, I began to stand and prepared my legs to take impact, when suddenly the conveyor belt began to move quicker. Someone was manually controlling it, and clearly whoever it was is a lunatic!

I lost my balance as the conveyor belt sped up with unreasonable force. The compressing walls were now just twenty, ten yards away as adrenaline spiked in me. The safety walls were too high around the conveyor belt for me to jump. It was the endgame now.

We both closed our eyes watching the pieces of metal stop one by one until they were compressed into cubes. But something within me told me to keep pushing.

Don't give up.

I immediately released the kid from my arms, and laid down on my back with my arms sticking up. And in a split second, the compressors were above us. Gears whirred and hisses came from the machine, as I waited for the deadly impact that never came.

That never came?

As I reopen my eyes in shock, I see my arms in front of me somehow pushing the compressor from above us. My shoulders and legs were working together so that the compressors on the sides couldn't crush us either.

Holy moly.

This machine was made to crush literal tons of steel, yet here I was pushing all three walls back with all of my might.

"Are you kidding me?" I shout to the men watching with wide eyes. One even looked as if they were going to pass out. "Don't just stand there like nincompoops! Turn off the machine!" I shout as the pressure only increased. My eyes narrow, channeling an inner strength I never knew I had.

As Alex runs over to the position where I was sitting just moments ago, the machine finally comes to a halt. Yet even after the emergency shut off was activated, a sound reverberated from the machine that sounded like it was under extreme pressure.

Two men run over to the boy and take him from my arms, as well as helping me down from the machine with cautious eyes. They treated me like I was some kind of rabid dog, and I truly did feel like it at the moment.

I was a mutant — there was no denying it.

As I stare down at my blistering red hands, I was oblivious to the machine behind me that now was literally bursting its screws off.

"Get back, she's gonna explode!" One of the men shouts, and for a second I could've sworn they were talking about me. But before I could react, a massive explosion comes from behind me as I'm sent flying into the air, all the way across the small factory.

And as my back hits the wall, my first instinct is to weakly grasp onto the necklace around my neck. The one thing that gave me hope just failed me, as my brain quickly spirals into a state of unconsciousness.