The air no longer behaved the way air should.
Heat rolled sideways through the broken terminal, carrying dust that smelled of metal and burned concrete. The sky above Lonia was split by a wound that refused to close — not glowing, not shining, only there, stretching across the clouds like the world had been torn and forgotten.
Beyond it, another land could be seen faintly. Different colors. Different wind.
No one spoke about it anymore.
Soldiers moved between temporary barriers, boots crunching against shattered tiles. Medical teams checked pulse scanners and wrote names on paper instead of screens — electronics failed too often now to be trusted. Somewhere farther down the runway, something heavy cried out, distant and unfamiliar, followed by silence.
Lusia sat against a collapsed wall near the emergency zone.
Her breathing was shallow. Her skin pale beneath the dust. She kept one hand pressed against her stomach, not in pain — just instinct — while the other rested in her sister's grasp.
Lia sat close beside her, small fingers wrapped tightly around Lusia's hand. In her other palm she held a single glove, worn and stained. It had belonged to their brother. She hadn't let go of it since the night he didn't return.
A woman from the relief group crouched nearby.
"You shouldn't blame yourself," she said gently. "He went back to help others. It wasn't because of you."
Lusia's head lifted at once.
"Please," she said quietly. "Not in front of her."
The woman fell silent.
Wind swept through the terminal again, hotter this time, rattling the hanging lights. Lia didn't look up. She only tightened her grip.
Lusia closed her eyes.
She remembered her brother turning back into the smoke, waving once as if nothing was wrong.
She remembered promising Lia that everything would be fine.
Her phone vibrated weakly in her hand.
A single message glowed on the cracked screen.
I'm coming to pick you.
She read it twice.
Then once more.
Lusia leaned back against the wall and exhaled slowly, holding onto the words as if they were the only thing still keeping her upright — unaware that the world she waited in would not remain the same by the time he arrived.