The light of dawn hadn't fully woken when they emerged from the pipe. Mist hung like torn cotton batting beneath the dome of the abandoned pump station. Samira stepped onto solid ground with Karim on her back, her shoes crunching the thin frost. Ilyas slotted the spare battery into the signal jammer's casing. A *snap*, a green light flared—the Shadowhunters' low-altitude drone swarm, ten kilometers out, dropped offline like severed kites.
Before them stretched a dry irrigation ditch, its bed littered with broken concrete and brittle reeds. Opposite, a concrete bridge spanned it, faded blue letters on its railing: CAMP 14—the number of an old refugee camp, now just a wind-scoured shell. On the far side, deep within the morning fog, a row of abandoned shipping containers loomed like flotsam stranded by a tide. Karim's fingers twitched against the back of Samira's neck, his voice thinned by fever: "Sis… that bridge… Mama walked it."
Samira's heart clenched. She looked at the bridge. Tiny white flowers pushed through cracks in the concrete, blazing unnaturally bright in the gloom. Ilyas murmured, "A culvert runs under it, straight to the north market of the town. But they'll recalibrate in thirty minutes. We cross before they double back."
Their feet touched the bridge. An engine's roar ripped through the air—two black vans surged from the fog, headlights like four white blades cleaving the dawn. Samira clutched Karim tighter. The pinpoint below her collarbone blazed, not just illuminating now, but vibrating like a taut wire, setting her teeth on edge.
Ilyas cranked the jammer to max. Its indicator light flickered madly, then died—battery drained. The drone blackout window slammed shut early; the Shadowhunters knew. The bridge offered no cover, only the wind's lament. Samira heard her heartbeat sync with Karim's breathing, a single drum beaten by two hands.
"Run," Ilyas said.
They ran. The bridge trembled underfoot. White flowers in the cracks were crushed, releasing a bitter-sweet scent. The headlights closed in, pinning their elongated shadows to the concrete like arrows. Suddenly, the pinpoint detached from Samira's skin. It streaked across the bridge, a thin line of fire, coalescing in the center into a translucent orange wall—not flame, but concentrated echoes: the silhouette of their mother moving in the kitchen one last time, Karim's laughter, all the unextinguished lights of the camp. The wall rose soundlessly. The headlights struck it, shattering into a shower of refracted light, an inverted meteor shower.
The Shadowhunters slammed on brakes, tires screeching through the fog. Samira plunged through the wall of light, Ilyas at her heels. The fire-line vanished behind them, the orange light snapping back into Samira's chest, leaving a searing brand. Karim trembled lightly on her back, his fingers twisting a strand of her hair like a lifeline.
Among the containers at the bridge's end, a rusted door stood ajar. Ilyas pushed it; dust rained down. Inside, piled high with abandoned medical carts and empty vials, sat an old diesel generator in the corner, half a liter of murky fuel still in its tank. Ilyas turned the key. The machine coughed, sputtered, then rumbled to life with a low growl. A dim bulb flickered on, illuminating red paint on the wall: SILENCE IS A BRIDGE.
Samira laid Karim on a cart, wrapping him tightly in a blanket. The boy's forehead was still warm, but his eyes were open, gazing past the bulb's halo to the red mark on his sister's collarbone. "Mama's voice," he whispered, "came from the other side of the bridge."
Samira took his hand. The feverish heat was gone. Ilyas crouched by the generator, sprinkling the last pinch of ashes into the fuel tank. The flame licked the metal with soft *pops*, like distant applause.
"Bridges collapse," Ilyas said softly. "Echoes don't."
Outside the window, the mist began to thin. The outline of the abandoned market emerged in the dawn light—corrugated iron roofs, broken signs, tarps flapping in the wind. Further still, a real river glittered under the sun, like a reconnected vein. Samira looked towards the river. Karim began to hum the lullaby their mother used to sing, softly but clearly, in her arms. It sounded as if it came from the other end of the bridge, or rose from the depths of her own chest.
She looked down. The red mark below her collarbone had faded to a soft pink, like a healing scar. The pinpoint no longer pulsed. It rested there, quiet, like a star that had finally found its place.