The compound was still. There were no sirens. No gunfire. Only the hum of a fan somewhere and the soft crackle of paper as Laila sorted the files across her mother's wooden desk. Light poured through the slatted windows, golden and warm; the sort that used to catch Mira in the midst of a sentence and make her smile for purely no reason whatsoever. Laila paused, too. The case files were closed. Obasi was arrested. Testimonies were recorded, verified, and stored on several secure servers. His shadow web that had run for years was being dismantled, piece by piece, name by dirty name. It should have been sweeter than triumph. What Laila had instead was. Peace. A small, quiet kind of. Not the deafening crescendo of retribution, not even the rush of staying alive. Just. Space. To breathe. To begin. Cassian entered, holding two mugs. She accepted hers with a soft smile. "You're up early," he said. "Couldn't sleep," she replied. "Too many ghosts in here." He nodded, sitting beside her. "They're quieter now." She sipped the coffee. "You think it's over?" "No," he said without hesitation. "But it has started." They were silent for a while. Then Laila reached into the drawer and pulled out the locket, her mother's, now repaired and polished. Inside, the old photograph still sat. Mira, smiling. Laila is a baby in her arms. "She'd be proud of you," Cassian said. Laila nodded. "She'd be proud of us." Downstairs, Kemi was organizing legal aid for new whistleblowers. Kaima had joined full-time, doing outreach. Tobi was somewhere between writing encryption patches and sneaking in extra chin-chin from the kitchen. They were building something. It had no name, no slick website. Just a mission, and the scars to show for it. That evening, Laila was on the rooftop of the compound as the sun dipped below the horizon. She drew her phone from her pocket and created a new post. "This fight was never just mine. It was every voice silenced. Every truth stolen. Every name forgotten. We found each other in the silence. We rose in the flames. Now we build. "She hit "Send." The post went up virtually as soon as it was ready. Comments, shares, tacit thank-yous. Cassian was beside her at the ledge behind her. "What now?" he said. She didn't answer right away. Instead, she looked up at the sky; wide, limitless, and finally, hers. Then she whispered, almost to herself, "Now we write the future." Not in secrecy or in terror, but with resolve. The veil had been rent; the names recorded; the silence broken. Laila walked on the balcony of the rebuilt compound, a soft evening breeze brushing against her cheek. Torches billowed below in the meeting chambers where new soldiers were being drilled; young, fearless, and no longer fearful. Cassian was at her side, his presence steady as always. "You think it's enough?" he asked. She did not answer immediately. Her hand was on the letter Mira had left behind; worn, wrinkled, but never tossed. "It's a beginning," she said. "And this time, we get to see it through together." In the background, Kemi ran updates on the network's encryption codes. Kaima was on the phone with international allies. Tobi screened the next set of testimonies. Their fight was no longer for survival. It was rebuilding; deliberate, untamed, and unrelenting. As the stars awakened, shimmering, Laila breathed, "Mum, we did not vanish. We rose." And in that rising, they became the future.
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THE END