Codex - Scratchers

Section 1
"Scratchers (A grubby notebook)" "The Goners have nothing to cover their faces. The air stings, and they scar. Every day someone makes a break for it it - better to die trying than not to try at all." "Scratching Atlas did it - it's in the air down here. If there were ten of us, nine would be dead. Of those nine, seven had the sickness. Goners went blue, their skin blistered, they choked. But I've not got it. I'm just glad I've not got it." "You'll be leaving, soon now that we're spent. Well, I tell you, its no relief at all. Is the dead mouse relieved, when the cat lets its dead body alone?" "You'll tell us to pack and go home." "But we've got no home, Darat is fallen." "Lower us down a new shaft, and we'll scratch it with the puny tools you've given us. And the Goners will get the sickness, and we'll mourn them. As long as we do you work, we can pity you. If you leave, we won't even have that." "And the penitents still wash by the riverbank. Shame on them. Shame on their shame."