𐍞 — begin.
The glyph glowed in faint white chalk just above the water pipe.
Every ape that passed it knew what it meant.
It wasn't just a word.
It was a trigger.
A command.
They moved before dawn.
Caesar led them through the maintenance shafts first — four apes at a time. Rocket held the rear with Palefoot and Bright Eyes. Maurice carried the youngest on his back, arms outstretched to touch the walls as they passed, memorizing every twist of the path.
The humans didn't notice at first.
Not yet.
Inside the staff center, the air was thick with coffee and cheap cologne. The night guard, a stocky man named Jensen, flicked through news reports on his cracked phone screen.
More riots. More disappearances.
He rubbed his temple.
"You think it's airborne?" one of the other guards mumbled, voice low.
"Government says it's not."
"They lie."
"Of course they lie. Still—don't breathe too deep out there."
Jensen grunted.
Neither noticed the red glow on their oxygen meter.
Neither saw the shadows slipping past the control corridor behind the mirror glass.
Caesar paused at the gate controls.
Two levers. One failsafe.
He remembered Will's voice in his head.
"Electric override first. Then hydraulic. Don't reverse them. Sparks'll blow the damn breaker."
He signed behind him:
𐍃 — wait.
Rocket crouched. Maurice nodded once.
Caesar twisted the first lever.
A low hiss echoed through the walls.
The lights in the hallway flickered.
The apes froze.
Then:
Silence.
No alarm.
Caesar moved.
The next gate was heavier.
It hadn't been opened in years — sealed after a riot two winters ago.
Maurice placed his full weight against the base.
Rocket cracked his knuckles.
Together, they shoved.
Steel groaned.
Screws snapped.
Light bled in from the outside.
Open.
The apes flowed out like mist.
Not running.
Walking.
Deliberate. Focused.
Through the garden yard. Past the training pens. Up the side utility stairs toward the outer wall.
Guards patrolled above.
Three of them.
Caesar had counted.
He'd watched them for months.
Two walked clockwise.
One leaned against the north tower, always smoking.
The weak link.
He gave the sign.
𐍘 — now.
Palefoot climbed the scaffold like a whisper.
He reached the upper ledge and dropped a small sack onto the walkway.
The bag split.
Green powder erupted.
The guard cursed and stumbled back, clawing at his eyes.
The other two turned—
Too late.
Rocket struck the first in the back with a metal pipe.
Maurice hurled a crate into the second, toppling him over the rail.
They didn't die.
Not yet.
But they didn't rise either.
Caesar reached the top and looked out.
The forest stretched beyond the chain-link.
Fog rolled low between the trees.
He could smell the wild again.
After so long.
But they weren't free yet.
Not until every last ape crossed.
He signed to the rest:
𐍜 — go.
They moved in waves.
The smallest first, lifted by Maurice and Rocket.
The older ones followed — jumping, crawling, slipping through weak spots in the fence.
Some stopped halfway and looked back.
Not out of fear.
Out of memory.
This place — the Sanctuary — had been their prison.
But it was also where they had awakened.
Caesar looked at the cracked concrete below.
At the blood he'd spilled.
At the glyphs they'd carved.
He signed a final message into the dirt with his finger:
𐍗 — remember who we were.
Then he climbed down and vanished into the mist.
Thirty minutes later, the alarm finally went off.
Jensen dropped his coffee.
Sirens screamed.
Searchlights lit up the compound like a burning cathedral.
But it was too late.
The apes were gone.
In the forest, Caesar knelt beside a tree and began carving again.
Not with chalk.
Not with blood.
With stone.
He carved a long band of symbols:
𐍃𐍈𐍞𐍅𐍜
And one final glyph at the end:
𐍠 — home.
Miles behind, buried in the sewer grates near the sanctuary's edge, a shadow moved beneath the refuse.
A hand emerged.
A single eye glared toward the forest.
Koba.
Alive.
Watching.
Waiting.
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