"When the polis finally arrived, I explained everything, the two trucks that had already passed, the direction they took, and the routes most likely to slow them down. I gave clear instructions on how to intercept them before they reached the city gates. The officers who stayed behind with me insisted I leave the women in their care, claiming it was safer that way, but I did not trust them. If high ranked guards could be bribed so easily, then how could I place faith in officers of lower rank, men who lived closer to hunger than honor?
I ordered them to leave and join the pursuit. They refused, citing protocol and safety. The argument dragged on far longer than it should have. Voices rose, tempers flared, and precious minutes slipped away. In the end, I convinced them to let me take the truck myself and escort the women directly to the military base, where stone walls and discipline should have guaranteed protection. In that rush, in that sense of urgency pressing against my spine, I forgot to inform Henry or anyone else of my decision.
I reached the base by evening.
When I stopped the truck in front of this very building, the sight that greeted me felt wrong immediately. There were no soldiers outside. Not a single guard. No patrols pacing the courtyard, no sentries at the gates. The entire base looked abandoned. Windows were dark, unlit, staring back like empty eye sockets. The courtyard lay silent, untouched, as if life itself had fled the place.
And yet, through that silence, I heard music.
I stepped inside. Though I saw no one, the faint sound continued, drifting through the corridors. This building is enormous, nearly a thousand years old, yet engineered with such precision that even a whisper can echo through its bones. Sound travels strangely here. A note can bend, split, and return from a direction you would never expect. Tracking the source of the music was difficult. Every hall twisted it, every stairwell reshaped it, as though the structure itself was playing a cruel game with me.
I climbed floor after floor, checking each cell. Most of the lower military prisoners were locked inside, just as they should have been. Faces stared back through bars, confused, fearful, unaware of the larger madness unfolding above them. But several cells were open. Empty. Doors hanging wide like broken mouths. I thought I would find soldiers abusing or killing the prisoners again. My heartbeat climbed higher with every step, and I kept repeating the same words in my head, again and again. Nothing bad will happen. Nothing bad will happen.
But even then, somewhere deep inside, I already knew. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
By the time I reached the twentieth floor, the music had grown louder, joined by laughter, shouting, and the dull roar of celebration. I stood before the steel wall of that floor, my hand hovering near the controls, imagining every possible horror waiting behind it. My mind raced through scenarios, rehearsing responses, preparing countermeasures like a soldier about to breach enemy territory.
I took a breath and stepped forward. The air tasted wrong. Thick. Heavy. As if the building itself was holding its breath, waiting for me to open the door."
He paused there, jaw clenched, eyes distant, as though the weight of that moment still pressed against his shoulders.
"After steadying myself, I opened the door slowly, forcing my heart to calm though it beat faster than usual. But when the door finally parted, I found no one. The entire floor was empty. I searched every cell, checked every corner, every shadow, every blind spot. Only after confirming that no prisoner from that level was missing did I move higher, climbing the stairs that led to the roof of the wall.
There, I found them.
All five thousand soldiers, along with the prisoners missing from the lower floors, were gathered on the roof. They were dancing, drinking, laughing, shouting, playing games, sprawled across tables and tiles alike. Cups overflowed, bodies swayed, and music blasted so loudly it shook the ancient stone beneath their feet. Under the open night sky, they celebrated like liberated animals. It looked like a festival thrown to mock order itself, a moment of chaos born from stolen freedom.
Most were too drunk to notice me weaving through them. I passed soldiers with arms slung around one another, prisoners stumbling in clumsy circles, officers who had discarded rank and dignity alike.
Then I saw Henry.
He was laughing. Truly laughing. His shoulders shook, his mouth wide, his face lit with a joy I had never seen in eight years. He danced with a lower military prisoner, moving easily, naturally, as if the weight he always carried had been cast aside. The man beside him threw his head back and cackled.
In all those years, I had never seen Henry smile like that. His usual face, as you know, is rigid with anger, carved from bitterness and restraint. Yet there he was, laughing freely with someone he had barely known.
Perhaps I was jealous. Perhaps it hurt to see him share such freedom with another when he had never shown even a fragment of it to me. Or perhaps I was simply enraged by the absurdity of it all, this mockery of a military base. Whatever the reason, something inside me snapped.
I walked to the music player at the center of the roof and struck it with enough force to shatter it into pieces.
The music died instantly.
The silence that followed was brutal. Like ice water thrown over the crowd. Heads turned. Eyes widened. Drunken smiles drained away as recognition spread. Fear replaced laughter.
I yelled. I scolded them until my throat burned raw. When a few soldiers staggered toward me, slurring protests, I beat them down where they stood. Seeing me rage like a starving beast, the rest sobered quickly, trembling without needing another blow.
Once I believed they could understand, I ordered them to descend and help me move the women from the truck.
Within minutes, the roof emptied. Everyone left except Henry.
When I looked into his eyes, a jolt of unfamiliar dread ran through me. For a moment, I did not recognize the man staring back. His eyes were filled with anger, sharp and wild, hungry. Not for power, but for blood. He held my gaze like that even as he turned and walked down the stairs."