The tires slammed against the runway with a sharp, grinding thud, jolting John Creasy out of a shallow, muddled sleep. A smattering of applause rippled through the cabin—another safe landing, another collective sigh of relief. His eyelids flickered before he finally opened them fully, revealing the kind of exhaustion that clings to the soul, laced with an instinctive alertness etched too deep to ever fade.
Outside the window stretched a haze-draped skyline, endless terminals, and the muted gray of an Eastern metropolis. No longer the boundless, blistering deserts of Iraq. The roar of reverse thrusters rattled the fuselage, yet what unsettled him most was the strange calm that followed—a silence too sterile, too unfamiliar. The air no longer reeked of cordite, dust, and faint blood. Instead, it carried the faint tang of recycled air and disinfectant.
Three years. Over a thousand nights spent rolling in hell's fire. He tilted his head until his neck cracked softly. The fatigues he wore were old but clean, still pressed into shape, his posture rigid and out of place among the T-shirted travelers around him.
He moved with the flow—passport control, customs. A border officer glanced at the battered Iraq visa page, then at his weathered face, but asked nothing. At baggage claim, he collected only one item: a massive military rucksack with frayed corners and scarred canvas. When he lifted it, the muffled clank of metal rang out—heavy, unyielding.
No one knew he was back. Not the date, not the hour. He wanted to surprise Lily. At the thought of his daughter, the ice lodged in his chest softened just a fraction. He could almost see it—her eyes curving like her mother's, her little body barreling into him, arms locked tight around his waist, laughing as she cried "Daddy!" That image had kept him alive through firefights that should have killed him.
Stepping outside the terminal, a wall of humid heat pressed against him, thick with exhaust, dust, and the distant aroma of fried food. He narrowed his eyes against the afternoon glare. Taxis lined the curb, drivers calling halfheartedly for fares.
He climbed into a green cab. The driver was talkative, complaining about weather and fuel prices. Creasy mostly answered with grunts, eyes fixed on the blur of passing streets. The city had grown—taller towers, brighter billboards—but beneath the gloss, it seemed both unchanged and utterly foreign.
"Just got back, boss?" the driver asked through the rearview mirror.
"Yeah," Creasy said.
"Work trip? Don't look like a tourist."
"…Something like that."
The car rolled into familiar neighborhoods: aging apartment blocks, corner shops, banyan trees shading the sidewalks. His pulse quickened. That strange mix of anticipation and dread swelled in his chest. Was Lily home? And Martha? Had the money he left been enough?
"Stop at that building ahead," he instructed.
The taxi halted. He paid, slung the rucksack over his shoulder, its straps biting into hardened muscle.
At the foot of the apartment building, he drew a deep breath, tamping down the storm inside. The stairwell smelled of mildew and frying oil, just as he remembered. He climbed slowly, boots whispering against stained concrete steps, walls plastered with peeling flyers and handbills.
Finally—her door. Dark green, scarred with new scratches.
From his breast pocket, he pulled a nearly rusted key. The cold bite of the metal steadied him. He slid it into the lock, turned.
No resistance. The bolt slid back too smoothly.
His gut clenched.
He pushed the door open.
The air that rushed out wasn't lived-in. It was dust—stale, stagnant—and beneath it, the cloying aftertaste of expensive perfume. An intruder's scent, lingering like a violation.
"Lily?" His voice cracked slightly, tentative, roughened by smoke and years of sand. "Martha?"
Silence answered.
The living room was a mausoleum. Furniture shrouded in white sheets stood like ghosts, still and accusing. Thin beams of sunlight struggled through drawn blinds, slicing across motes of dust that swirled in silence.
He lowered the rucksack to the floor with a heavy thud, the sound unnaturally loud in the hush.
He checked room by room. Kitchen cold, stove untouched. Bathroom clean, towels dry.
Then Lily's room.
Empty.
The small bed was made tight, untouched. Her beloved stuffed rabbit slumped on the pillow, one ear drooping, fur veiled in gray dust. The desk lay bare—no open notebooks, no colored pencils, no sketches. The walls, once plastered with childish doodles and stickered praise, were stripped clean.
Panic bloomed deep in his gut, thick and suffocating, worse than the stillness before a sniper's shot. His breath shortened. Limbs stiffened.
His eyes swept the apartment, finally landing on the coffee table.
Not the welcome note he imagined. Not Lily's drawings.
But a polished silver folder, gleaming unnaturally in the gloom. Beside it, a crumpled sheet of printer paper, smoothed flat beneath an empty jam jar, its rim still sticky with dried sweetness.
John Creasy's heart plummeted into the abyss.