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Chapter 40 - The Child’s Cry

I woke to the sound of weeping.

My eyes fluttered open, and for a moment, I thought I was still falling through the void. But instead of darkness, I saw cracked plaster above me, stained with damp patches. The air reeked of mildew, sweat, and something sour.

Small bodies shifted in the shadows. Rows of iron-framed beds lined the walls, each filled with children no older than ten. Thin, pale, hollow-eyed. Their breathing rasped in the silence, broken only by the occasional sob muffled into a pillow.

And then I realized—I was one of them.

My arms were shorter. My skin is smooth. My voice, when I gasped, was high and fragile.

The memory of Elias Ward, the soldier, was already fading into the fog. But a new truth settled in my bones. I wasn't a captain anymore. I wasn't a man at war.

I was a boy.

Alone.

Unwanted.

And the crying I heard was my own.

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