The turboprop lifted off in absolute blackness. Selim maintained an airspeed calculated precisely to match the earth's rotational velocity and curvature, keeping them permanently within a two-hour safety buffer of the deadly terminator line. The instrument panel's dim, filtered glow was the only concession to light in the cockpit.
Below them, the cities of the Mediterranean coast were voids—monuments to a suddenly impossible life. No streetlights, no glow of domesticity. The darkness was profound, save for the occasional, distant thermal flare of spontaneous combustion or a desperate act of arson.
Their fuel stops became exercises in hyper-efficient risk. They landed on abandoned Spanish runways, Firas utilizing night-vision equipment to manage the high-octane transfer. Every second on the ground was a second ceded to the inexorable rotation.
During a stop in an empty port town, the kitten—a creature named Umbra by Hind—slipped from the harness and darted beneath a concrete apron. Hind's quiet, broken sound of distress shattered Selim's concentration. He was a commander of logistics, but the sight of his daughter's raw grief was a momentary systemic overload.
"Firas, keep the pumps active. Maintain contact with the sky. I have four minutes," Selim stated, his precision a desperate attempt to contain the lapse.
He located the shivering animal beneath a dry jasmine bush. As he returned, pulling himself back onto the wing, he succumbed to a deep, rasping cough. The subsequent, swift movement to wipe the smear of blood from his lips did not escape Firas, who had turned away just enough to witness it in the faint moonlight.
Firas sealed the door without comment. The knowledge of Selim's fragility now tightened the air inside the cockpit, transforming the shared space into a pressurized vault of dread.
The mechanical strain increased as they moved over the open ocean. The turboprop, designed for local commutes, protested the sustained, high-speed flight. A fuel pump failed mid-flight, forcing an emergency landing on a disused island military base in the Azores. The landing gear was irrevocably damaged, collapsing the starboard wing.
They had crossed nearly a third of the globe in three relentless nights. They were shattered, running on nerve impulse.
The long-haul westward journey was now on foot, a forced retreat into primordial survival. They found an abandoned vehicle, but its gasoline ran dry in the desolate foothills of the Atlas Mountains. The fourth dawn was imminent, announced by a stillness in the air and a radiating, unnatural heat. The cold, logical panic Selim had suppressed for days finally broke. He was losing the race.
"There," he choked out, his throat raw. Ahead, built into the high, shaded gradient of the hill, was a structure of ancient, impenetrable stone. They sprinted the last distance, their shadows shrinking rapidly as the horizon line began to brighten with a fatal, irreversible luminescence.