The first light of dawn had barely touched the hideout's walls when Shihab found Zayn already awake, sitting on the edge of his cot, his posture taut with anticipation. The boy’s eyes were fixed on the door, as if willing it to open. He looked up as Shihab entered, the unspoken question hanging between them.Shihab didn't smile. His expression was serious, that of a teacher on the first day of a difficult lesson. "Your answer is yes," he said, his voice low. "But it does not start with a gun. It starts with you. Get dressed. Meet me at the field in five minutes."The training was grueling. Under the cool, grey sky, Shihab led Zayn on a run around the perimeter of Fadil's fields. At first, the boy tried to match his pace, but Shihab was relentless. "It's not a race," Shihab called back, his own breathing steady. "It's endurance. You need to be able to run farther than they can. Your life, and your sister's, may depend on it."Next came basic calisthenics. Push-ups on the hard, damp ear

The sun beat down on the makeshift market, a vibrant, chaotic sprawl of life stubbornly blooming in the ruins. It was a calculated risk, this trip, but a necessary one for morale and for acquiring tools that couldn't be scavenged. Shihab moved with a relaxed alertness he rarely afforded himself, a small bag of salvaged screws and bolts in one hand. Beside him, Zayn carried a sack of dried beans, his eyes wide as he took in the bustling scene—the bartering, the laughter, the sheer normalcy of it all. For a moment, the oppressive weight of their world felt a little lighter."It's busy today," Zayn remarked, a note of cautious optimism in his voice."People are trying to live, they are not just surviving," Shihab replied, his gaze scanning the crowd out of habit. "It's a good sign." He was about to point out a stall selling hand-stitched clothing, thinking of Layan, when the first scream cut through the market's din.It didn't start as a roar, but as a ripple of confusion that swiftly

The ten-minute approach was a silent, gut-twisting crawl through a world of echoing groans. Shihab, Karam, and Jalal moved like ghosts through the skeletal ruins of buildings adjacent to the school. They reached the south wall, a blank expanse of graffiti-covered concrete. Just as Shihab remembered, a section of the wall near the ground was not brick, but a large, rusted metal access panel, camouflaged by decades of grime."Here," Shihab whispered, his fingers finding the hidden latch. It groaned in protest, but yielded. Beyond was darkness and the smell of dusty velvet and old wood—the back of the school's stage. They slipped inside, sealing the panel behind them, the sounds of the dead muffled to a distant murmur.Ibtihal's voice crackled in their earpieces, a model of technical precision. "Diversion deployment in thirty seconds. Mark."The trio didn't wait. Using the faint light from Jalal's shielded penlight, they found the rope ladder leading up to the fly space—a cavernous area

The northern reservoir mission had been more than a success; it had been a fusion. The clean water flowing into the hideout's storage tanks symbolized something purer than hydration, it was the lifeblood of a newly unified community. No longer the "Peace Seekers" and "Team X," they were now one entity, with a shared purpose that demanded a monumental new task: not just defending a hideout, but securing a future.Standing on the roof of their headquarters, now buzzing with coordinated activity, Shihab addressed the assembled group. Over a hundred faces looked back at him, seasoned fighters, brilliant engineers, hardened scavengers, and hopeful newcomers. The scale of what he was about to propose was written in the weary but determined lines of their faces."We have water," Shihab began, his voice carrying easily in the quiet morning air. "We have food growing. We have skills, and now, we have true strength in numbers. But we are still just an island in a sea of chaos. The hordes grow,

The decision was made, the contract rejected. Yet, like a ghost, it lingered. It haunted Shihab in the quiet moments. As he walked the rising wall at dawn, the rhythmic clink of trowels on stone seemed to whisper a thousand, a thousand, a thousand. When he reviewed their ledgers with Ibtihal in the evenings, the columns of scarcity screamed for a solution the gold mine promised.He began a silent, obsessive study. He pored over their inventory lists—ammunition counts, fuel reserves, medical supplies dwindling faster than they could scavenge. He listened intently to the reports from the port traders, men who sailed between fledgling sanctuaries on Al Noor Island and elsewhere. They spoke of a new economy emerging from the ruins, one running on bullets, antibiotics, fuel, and precious metals. A single gold coin, one trader claimed with a glint in his eye, could buy a crate of penicillin or a ton of seed grain from the agricultural communes springing up in the south.He watched the child