The sun was a smoldering ember on the edge of the Atlantic, casting long shadows across the old city walls of Casablanca. From the ruins of the customs station to the ash-caked rooftops of Derb Sultan, the city felt scorched by something more than fire. It was grief—and revolution.
Yassin stood on the lighthouse cliff, hands stained with soot, eyes hollow. Below him, the waves battered the rocks as if mourning. The crates they'd salvaged from the supply run were hidden in the cave beneath El Hank, but Khalid had not returned.
"Still no word?" Samira's voice came from behind, low, weathered.
Yassin shook his head. "Not a whisper."
They both watched the horizon, silent.
Embers Among the Stones
The safehouse now sat in a converted hammam, the steam pipes long rusted. It smelled of lye, mold, and burning resolve. Abbas, wounded but recovering, led a hushed meeting under candlelight. The resistance had lost two men at the harbor and Khalid was presumed dead—or worse, captured.
Yassin sat with Samira, Nour, and Hakim. The others looked to him now—not just as the man from the future with strange ideas, but as the one who had executed Khalid's final mission.
Abbas spoke. "The supplies change things. We can hit a French convoy, disable their fuel reserves, and finally cut the chain on this city."
"And Khalid?" Samira asked. "We leave him to De Lassalle's prisons?"
A long silence.
"He knew the risk," Abbas said finally.
But Yassin stood. "Then we do both. Hit the convoy—and free Khalid."
Voices in the Smoke
That night, Yassin couldn't sleep. The pocket watch on the crate beside him ticked unnaturally loud, its glow subtle beneath the cloth he had wrapped it in. He opened it.
Images flickered in his mind—Casablanca in flame, French troops dragging prisoners, Khalid bloodied but alive, held in a fortified cell beneath the military court. Then... an explosion. A scream. Echoes.
The watch pulsed.
Samira found him standing in the courtyard, eyes distant.
"You saw something," she said.
"A prison beneath the tribunal building. Khalid's there. But... something's wrong. I think this timeline is unstable."
"What does that mean?"
Yassin hesitated. "I don't know. But we have to act fast. Or we lose more than him."
Firebrands and Phantoms
The resistance split into two cells.
Samira, Nour, and Hakim would target the fuel depot on the outskirts, planting explosives along the convoy route.
Yassin would lead the prison infiltration—with Idris, who had recovered, and a wiry mechanic named Lamine who once worked maintenance for the French command.
Yassin studied the military court's blueprint by lanternlight. "There's a tunnel, sealed after the last uprising. Lamine says it connects to the lower cells. We blast it open."
"Won't that alert the guards?" Idris asked.
Yassin smiled grimly. "We'll time it with Samira's fire."
Conflagration
Dawn crept over the city like smoke.
At the fuel depot, Samira's cell moved like shadows. Hakim disabled the security lights. Nour rigged the charges. Samira watched the convoy's approach from a rooftop through binoculars.
"Now," she whispered.
The explosion sent fire curling into the sky. Trucks flipped. Screams followed. French soldiers scattered.
At that exact moment, beneath the tribunal, Yassin's group triggered their own blast.
The sealed tunnel split with a thunderous crack. Dust and fire poured into the narrow shaft as Idris led the way with a flashlight, coughing.
They reached the cellblock amid chaos. Guards shouted above. Yassin kicked down a half-broken door—Khalid sat against the wall, bruised but alert.
"You're late," he rasped.
Yassin laughed. "I got caught in traffic."
Ashes and Echoes
The escape was brutal. Lamine was shot in the leg. Idris took a bayonet to the side but kept running.
Yassin carried Khalid through back alleys as sirens screamed overhead. Samira's team met them at a laundry warehouse, bloodied but alive.
Khalid looked at the crates stacked in the shadows. "So... we have weapons, fuel is down, and they think they're in control."
Yassin handed him a cigarette. "They have no idea."
Reflections
Later, in the hammam, the resistance gathered again. Khalid, wrapped in bandages, stood slowly.
"You did what I couldn't. You took the fight beyond the streets. You lit the city's soul on fire."
He turned to Yassin. "Wherever you came from... you belong here now."
Yassin stared at the watch. It glowed faintly, rhythmically—like a heartbeat. Something was coming.
He looked at the others. Samira, bruised but smiling. Nour lighting incense for the fallen. Abbas scribbling new routes. Idris laughing with Hakim.
A revolution lived. But the past wasn't done changing.
To be continued in Chapter 8: The Memory Bazaar