The next morning carried no comfort. A pale light seeped reluctantly through the clouds, painting the camp in shades of gray that mirrored the exhaustion and unease of its inhabitants. Breakfast was sparse, the soup gone and replaced by dry, crumbly bread. Hands shook as survivors tore off small pieces, eyes darting to one another, calculating who would take more, who would get less. The camp hummed with a fragile rhythm, a thin veneer of order barely holding back the undercurrent of anxiety.
Soufiane volunteered for perimeter watch, moving with quiet authority to the makeshift tower—a wobbly platform of stacked pallets and rusted sheet metal. From this vantage point, the flat, empty fields stretched outward, yet his instincts screamed that nothing was truly empty. Shadows moved in places where none should have been. The stillness itself felt wrong. Every rustle of grass or distant thud was amplified, each one a potential threat.
Behind him, life in the camp carried on with fragile determination. Amal knelt beside a small basin, washing Meriem's clothes, her soft humming cutting through the tension like a fragile lullaby. Soufiane felt himself listening, the tune stirring memories of nights in Casablanca, when her voice had been his only lifeline against despair. Even here, in a world of decay and suspicion, she fought to make the unbearable bearable.
"You're staring again," came Abderrazak's lazy voice, climbing the ladder with his usual ease. He handed Soufiane a dented tin cup half-filled with water. "Drink. Won't change much, but better than dust."
Soufiane accepted it silently, eyes still scanning the horizon. "Do you feel it?" he asked.
Abderrazak leaned on the railing, expression unreadable. "I feel it's a balloon. And the world loves sharp things."
Soufiane frowned. "Always the pessimist."
"Always the realist," Abderrazak corrected, voice cool and deliberate. "These people think they've built a fortress. But wood burns, fences fall, and hope… hope dies first."
Before Soufiane could respond, a sudden commotion erupted from the far side of the camp. Shouts carried across the thin air, followed by a heavy, splintering crash. He hurried down, Abderrazak trailing, his smirk replaced with a rare glint of concern.
At the northern barricade, a group of survivors struggled to stabilize a section where the wood had broken. Marks of deep rams, jagged and raw, scarred the perimeter—no longer just scratches from testing; these were serious breaches. Fear threaded through their movements.
"They were testing it," one guard muttered, pale and shaking. "Not just scratching. Testing."
The camp leader arrived, barking orders with desperation that barely disguised his uncertainty. Sandbags were piled, planks hammered, improvised reinforcements jammed into every weak spot. Amal appeared too, clutching Meriem's hand, her eyes wide with fear that she tried to mask with stiff resolve.
Soufiane stepped forward, placing his hand against the broken wood. He felt the instability, the trembling foundation beneath their so-called safety. Turning to the assembled group, he said firmly, "We can't stay here long. If they're testing the walls, it's only a matter of time before they push harder."
Voices rose immediately. Some shouted that leaving would be suicide; others demanded they prepare to fight. The leader's words, once authoritative, cracked and faltered under pressure, his tone thin and brittle like old glass.
As night descended, tension thickened into a nearly tangible force. Torches were lit earlier than usual, casting flickering shadows across anxious, sleepless faces. Amal huddled close to Soufiane, Meriem pressed against her side. Abderrazak leaned nearby, the faint smirk on his lips hinting he had anticipated the moment the camp's fragile order would fracture.
"You see it now, don't you?" he whispered to Soufiane. "This isn't a camp. It's a waiting room. Sooner or later, the door is going to open."
Soufiane's eyes stayed fixed on the horizon, where a shape flickered briefly—too far to make out, too close to ignore. The air seemed to hold its breath.
The fracture line had been drawn. The camp's walls, both literal and metaphorical, were cracking. And deep in Soufiane's chest, a cold certainty settled: when the fracture widened, nothing—no barricade, no hope, no resolve—would be able to hold back what was coming.
The night grew darker. Somewhere beyond the torches, the faint, low growl of something waiting, unseen, began to echo across the fields—a harbinger of the storm that had yet to fully arrive.