By evening, Kamaskh transformed.

  Lanterns glowed across the village like captured fireflies. Colored cloth banners stretched between trees. Music rose from drums and stringed instruments carved from dark wood. The air smelled of roasted meat, wild herbs, and baked grain.

  It wasn’t just a banquet.

  It was a festival.

  Children ran through the square laughing, painted with tribal colors. Food stalls lined the open paths — honey cakes, smoked roots, spiced broth, roasted forest fruit. Elders sat telling stories while young warriors performed mock combat demonstrations.

  Life.

  Unbroken life.

  Samye walked beside Kayal through the crowd, absorbing everything quietly. The joy around him felt unfamiliar — almost unreal — after everything he had lived through.

  “You look like someone visiting another world,” Kayal said lightly.

  “Feels like it,” Samye replied.

  They stopped near a food table. Kayal handed him a wooden plate.

  “You’re supposed to be resting,” Kayal added, studying his face more closely. “Instead you collapsed and woke up in the clinic. What happened in that room?”

  Samye kept his tone neutral.

  “Nightmares.”

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  Kayal didn’t look convinced.

  “What kind?”

  Samye shook his head slightly. “I don’t know.”

  A half-truth.

  Kayal exhaled slowly.

  “I’m pretty sure you carry some nasty memories,” he said. “Men with eyes like yours usually do.”

  Samye said nothing.

  Kayal continued, voice calmer now:

  “You should learn to set some of them down. If you keep carrying all of it… you won’t live long enough to see what the future might hold for you.”

  The words landed deeper than Kayal intended.

  Samye gave a small nod. “Maybe.”

  But inside, he knew:

  Forgetting is not the same as healing.

  Music swelled. Laughter rose. Fire sparks drifted upward into the dark canopy.

  And then—

  The scene shifted.

  Far away.

  Deep in the ruins of the destroyed government facility.

  A shadowed figure stepped through a broken security gate.

  Boots echoed across concrete.

  He moved cautiously, weapon drawn, flashlight cutting through dust-filled air.

  “Command… this is Recon Unit Seven,” the man whispered into a dead radio. “I’ve reached the site. No resistance.”

  Static answered him.

  He advanced deeper inside.

  Machines were still running.

  Lights still on.

  Conveyor belts still moving.

  But—

  No people.

  No guards.

  No prisoners.

  No bodies.

  Not even blood trails.

  Tools lay mid-use. Papers half-signed. Coffee cups still full. A chair slowly spun as if someone had just stood up moments ago.

  “…What the hell…”

  The man’s breathing grew uneven.

  “This place didn’t shut down,” he whispered. “It was… abandoned mid-second.”

  He turned a corner—

  —and saw the CCTV control wall.

  Every monitor frozen on empty corridors.

  Except one.

  A playback window glitched.

  Time-stamp distortion.

  Frame tearing.

  A black sphere flash.

  The screen died.

  The recon officer stepped back slowly.

  “…This isn’t an attack site,” he said under his breath.

  “This is a disappearance.”

  The music returned.

  Laughter returned.

  Lantern light returned.

  Back in Kamaskh, Samye sat alone at the edge of the banquet area, eating quietly while watching the celebration from a distance.

  Peaceful.

  Contained.

  For now.

  He didn’t see the storm forming far away.

  But somewhere beyond the forest—

  people had begun asking a dangerous question:

  Where did the facility go?

  And soon—

  they would start looking for the answer.