Bang!
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
That morning, at 05:17, I woke up.
But it wasn’t only the sound of gunfire that woke .
It was the change in air pressure. A wrong kind of silence. The birds in the garden—normally chirping before dawn—were completely silent.
Then ca the first human sound: a scream cut short, followed by the broken hiss of a radio from the guard post beneath my window. The sound was muffled by bulletproof glass, but its tone was unmistakable—suppressed panic.
My body moved before my mind caught up.
Rolling out of bed, grabbing the pants and sweater hanging on the chair.
My movents weren’t panicked, but asured, efficient. As if my muscles rembered sothing they shouldn’t rember—automatically waking in a state of readiness, a sharp inhale before entering a danger zone.
No. That was before. This is now.
But the body doesn’t care. The body only reacts. I felt my heart pounding, but it was a steady pounding, like a machine just switched on.
In my head, a flat voice—not my current voice, but an echo from another mory, another ti—issued commands: Assess. Move. Breathe.
In the hallway, I collided with Isabella, already out of her room, her face pale. She was carrying the small cloth bag she always kept under her bed—water, bandages.
She had woken faster than (as usual), but this ti out of pure fear from the chaos outside.
I had a different kind of fear—a fear I had carried since long ago, like an old jacket that still fit but slled unfamiliar.
“Eleanor,” she whispered.
“Mother,” I replied.
We split without further words.
She went to Eleanor’s room.
I went to Mother’s.
Mother was already standing in front of her window, the curtain pulled slightly aside. Her face looked like a statue in the gray dawn light.
“They’re breaching the eastern gate,” she said without turning around.
“Not a frontal assault. Infiltration.”
“Who? ndez?”
“No.” Mother turned her head. “Their uniforms… aren’t palace troops. And they’re moving… sloppily.”
Rebels.
Javier.
The logic was brutal in its simplicity.
ndez locked down the city. Javier needed a decisive blow—one with wide impact.
Storming the palace—the forr symbol of the old regi, now the symbol of the new one—was irresistible propaganda.
And inside it, there was us. The family of a leader. Symbolic.
Perfect hostages.
Or perfect martyrs.
“Safe room,” I said.
Mother nodded. But before we could move, another sound ca—closer, inside our wing of the palace.
BOOM!
Not gunfire.
Impact.
The sound of a steel door being forced open. Shouted commands distorted by helts.
They were already inside.
“Too late,” Mother muttered. Her eyes scanned the room, searching for anything that could be used as a weapon. A flower vase. A pen on the desk. A decorative mirror.
My mind worked fast. If they were already inside, heading to the underground safe room would be like rats entering a trap. One exit. They’d only need to wait.
We needed room to maneuver.
“The small library,” I said quietly. “Double doors. One high window. Can be locked from the inside.”
Mother looked at , then nodded again. In situations like this, any decision was better than paralysis.
***
We t Isabella and Eleanor in the corridor. Eleanor was half-asleep and terrified by the explosions, clutching her stuffed rabbit. Isabella held her hand tightly.
“Where?” Isabella asked.
“Library. Fast walk. Don’t run.”
Running draws attention. Walking quickly, with purpose, looks like soone doing their job—maybe a servant, maybe staff. In chaos, you can disguise yourself as sothing unimportant.
The palace corridors felt like a foreign labyrinth. Red ergency lights glowed, casting long, swaying shadows. Sounds grew clearer—sporadic gunfire, shouting, boots pounding on marble.
We turned a corner, and there they were.
Two n in dark green and brown uniforms, not the governnt’s blue-gray military. One carried a long rifle, the other a pistol, opening doors one by one. Their faces were covered.
They saw us.
Ti seed to slow.
Don’t stare. Don’t show challenge. Lower your head slightly—but not too much. Too much fear invites predation.
The thoughts ca automatically.
I looked at the man with the pistol—young eyes, wide, full of adrenaline. He didn’t raise his weapon. He was surprised. He’d expected soldiers, guards, maybe ndez himself. Not a woman with a cold expression, a teenage girl, a little girl, and a boy.
“Stop!” he shouted, his voice hoarse.
We stopped. I stepped slightly in front of Eleanor—not a heroic shield, just a simple visual barrier.
“We are the Guerrero family,” Mother said, her voice clear and calm, as if introducing herself at a dinner party. “We’re heading sowhere safer.”
The man’s eyes narrowed behind his mask. I could see him thinking—hostages. High value. But also baggage.
“Co with us,” he ordered, gesturing with the pistol. “Don’t make a sound.”
Then, from the adjacent corridor, ca the sound of disciplined, rapid bootsteps. Many of them. Blue-gray uniforms.
ndez’s troops.
The rebel cursed. “In here!” he hissed, shoving us into the next room—a linen storage room, packed with shelves and stacks of towels.
He and his partner followed, shutting the door. Only a thin line of light seeped from beneath it. We were squeezed between shelves, the sll of camphor and clean cloth filling the air.
Outside, ndez’s troops passed.
“Clear!”
“Next corridor!”
We stayed silent. In the darkness, I could hear Eleanor’s fast breathing, close to sobbing. Isabella covered her mouth with a trembling hand.
My own breathing felt shallow. Old instincts took over. I focused on details—the pattern of shadows on the floor, footsteps fading away, my heartbeat pounding in my ears.
One of the rebels—the one with the rifle—whispered into his radio.
“Alpha, we have a package. East wing, storage room. Awaiting orders.”
The reply hissed back.
“Hold. Don’t move. Main defense collapsed. We’re pulling back to the rally point.”
Pulling back.
They were overwheld. Their attack was a symbolic suicide strike, and now they were cornered. And we were here, with them.
The rebel with the pistol—the young one—looked at us in the dark. His eyes glead.
“You’re our ticket out,” he muttered, mostly to himself.
Ticket.
aning human shields or bargaining chips.
This was bad.
ndez’s troops would clear every room. When they found this one, there would be a firefight. And in a confined space, bullets don’t care who’s right and who’s wrong.
We had to get out. But how?
Two ard n. Us, unard. The only exit guarded.
Unless…
My eyes adjusted to the darkness. Tall linen shelves, floor to ceiling. At the far end, a small ventilation duct for airflow. Too small for an adult. But for an eleven-year-old?
My mind jumped to mory—a palace layout I’d once seen. This storage room bordered a service corridor along the outer wall. Across that corridor was a door to the garden and a small kitchen, then the periter wall.
If I could reach the vent, get inside, drop into the service corridor, I might get out. Get help. Or at least draw ndez’s troops here, giving Mother and the others a chance.
A terrible plan. A very terrible plan.
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But better than waiting for a stray bullet.
I caught Mother’s gaze. I nodded almost imperceptibly toward the vent. Her eyes widened, then she shook her head slightly. She understood—and refused.
I nodded again, firr.
Trust .
Because I had… experienced sothing like this before. Not exactly this situation. Just fragnts—running through different corridors, in a different uniform, a firearm in hand. The sa fear, under a different na.
Then I looked at the shelf beside . Stacks of towels and sheets. And on the floor, a small bucket and mop—probably left by cleaning staff.
An idea surfaced. Ridiculous. But maybe the only one.
I bent down slowly, picked up the bucket. It was half-filled with soapy water. I plunged my hand in, feeling the cold.
Then, very slowly, I nudged the bucket away from us with my foot, toward the opposite shelf.
The water sloshed softly. But in the tense silence, it sounded like thunder.
The rifleman snapped his head around. “What was that?”
The young rebel raised his pistol. “Who’s there? Move!”
I didn’t move. But my foot gave the bucket one last push. It bumped into the shelf with a dull thunk.
“Rats,” Isabella suddenly whispered, her voice trembling but convincing enough. “Maybe big rats.”
The young rebel grumbled. “Just shoot it.”
“Don’t waste ammo,” the other said. “I’ll check.”
The rifleman moved slowly toward the sound, his weapon angled down. His back turned to the vent.
This was my chance.
I slid sideways, slipping behind a stack of sheets near the vent. My movent was smooth, using shadows and their distracted attention. Lateral movent, not straight. Don’t draw attention with speed.
The vent was covered by a tal grate secured with screws. I tested it with my fingers. Not too strong. But I needed a tool.
My eyes caught a safety pin attached to the sheet—large, used to mark linens needing repair.
I pulled it free and began loosening the screws with its sharp tip. Small hands were lucky—the screws were loose, probably unchecked for years.
One.
Two.
The grate started to wobble.
“There’s nothing,” the rifleman muttered, returning. “Empty bucket.”
He sighed irritably, then scanned the room again.
“Where’s the boy?”
My heart stopped.
I felt—rather than saw—their gazes sweep the room. Three screws removed. One left.
“I’m here,” I said from behind the sheets, forcing my voice small and frightened. “I’m scared.”
My voice bought ti. But now they were looking at .
The last screw ca free. I pulled the grate loose; it made a faint screech.
“Hey!” the young rebel shouted.
I didn’t look back. I crawled into the vent. Dark. Tight. Slling of dust and tal. I pulled myself in, feeling sharp tal snag my pants.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Gunshots.
Not at . At the ceiling—a warning. The sound in the enclosed space was like thunder in a tin can.
Eleanor scread.
Don’t stop. Move. Don’t care about the noise.
That wasn’t my thought. It was instinct—muscle mory of survival in extre situations. A body that once, in another life, had heard the sa sound from much closer.
I felt my shoulder twitch, anticipating an impact that never ca.
I crawled deeper. The duct ran horizontally, then sloped downward. I let gravity pull , sliding through the dark tal tunnel, my clothes catching, skin scraping.
With a crash and a thud, I fell out of the duct’s end, landing on a pile of grain sacks—or sothing similar—in a quiet service corridor.
Pain.
I stood, dizzy. The corridor was long and low, lit by ergency lights. At one end, the sounds of battle. At the other, silence.
I had to choose.
Go back to ndez’s troops and lead them to the storage room? They might shoot first.
Or go the other way, find an exit, find help outside?
My choice was cut short by footsteps at the far end of the corridor. Not heavy boots. Light, fast steps.
Soone appeared around the corner.
A servant’s uniform.
Mother Rosa.
Her usually stone-carved face was pale. In her hand wasn’t a tray, but a long iron rod—perhaps a curtain hook.
She saw , eyes widening. “Young Master! Here!”
I ran to her. “Mother. Isabella. Eleanor. Linen room, east wing. With two rebels. They’re hostages.”
Her face tightened. She didn’t waste ti on questions.
“ndez’s troops have secured the east wing. But they’re shooting anything that moves. We need… a diator.”
“A diator who?”
“Soone they won’t shoot.”
Then we heard it. Heavy bootsteps approaching from the direction I ca from. Many of them. And calm, cold orders.
ndez. Or one of his officers.
Mother Rosa pulled into a small door, into a cramped room full of electrical panels. She closed the door, leaving a small crack to peek through.
ndez’s troops passed—six n, fully ard, moving with perfect discipline. At the front, an officer with a cold face I didn’t recognize.
They were heading to the east wing. To the linen room.
“We have to get ahead of them,” I whispered. “Or warn them.”
“Warning them ans condemning Madam and the children,” Mother Rosa whispered. “They’ll storm in. They won’t care who’s inside.”
She was right.
ndez wanted the rebels dead. Hostages were acceptable losses—especially hostages from a forr leader’s family he didn’t want around.
Even if it was risky, he might do exactly that.
We needed sothing to change that calculation.
My mind spun.
What did ndez want? Control. Cleansing. But also… legitimacy. And for that, he needed a narrative.
The Guerrero family dying as martyrs at rebel hands was a good story.
But the Guerrero family surviving because of him? Even better. He beco hero and de facto ruler.
“We need ndez himself there,” I said. My voice sounded insane even to .
Mother Rosa stared at . “How?”
“We give him a stage. Show him he can save us. But we make sure he can’t just attack.”
“And how do we do that?”
“We send a ssage. Not a plea for help. An offer.”
I looked around the panel room. There was a small internal radio on the wall—probably for technicians. A different frequency.
“What are you doing?” Mother Rosa asked as I grabbed it.
“I’m contacting command. But not as Mateo. As… one of the rebels.”
She understood. Her sharp eyes glead. She nodded, then stood by the door, listening.
I turned on the radio, adjusted the dial. So frequencies were crowded—position reports, calls for backup. I searched for sothing quieter, maybe command.
Then I heard his voice.
ndez.
Cold. Controlled.
“…clear remaining elents in the west wing. No captures. Neutralize.”
I inhaled deeply, pressed the transmit button, and spoke in a voice I tried to make deeper, strained.
“Command, command, this is unit in the east wing. We have the Guerrero family. Held by rebels. They’re threatening to… execute them if there’s an assault. They want to negotiate. Only with ndez. Repeat, only with ndez. They say… they have an offer. An exchange.”
I released the button. My heart hamred.
I wasn’t sure it would fool them. It sounded like a trap. But a plausible one for cornered rebels.
A long pause.
Then ndez’s voice again, flat.
“Identify unit. Code.”
I pressed the button again.
“No ti for codes! They’ll kill one in two minutes! Linen room, east wing! Only ndez!” I cut the radio.
“That’s extrely risky,” Mother Rosa whispered. “He might not co. Or he might send a kill squad.”
“But he’s ambitious and egotistical. He wants to be seen as the problem-solver. Better than Father. This is his chance.”
I hoped my analysis was right. This was a bet on the psychology of a man I barely knew.
***
We waited.
In the distance, gunfire faded. The battle was over. ndez had won.
Then, from the far end of the corridor, ca a different set of footsteps. Not many. Just a few pairs of boots. And calm, authoritative commands.
ndez.
He passed the crack in our door. His face looked just like on TV—firm, controlled. Behind him, only two personal guards. Confident. Or pretending to be.
They headed to the east wing.
“Mother Rosa,” I whispered. “Do you know a shortcut to the linen room? From another direction?”
She nodded. “Through the old kitchen. But—”
“Take there. Now.”
We left the panel room and ran through narrower corridors. Mother Rosa knew the palace like the back of her hand—turns, down steep stairs, past a hot boiler room.
My mind raced. What would I do when we arrived? I had no weapon. No solid plan. Only one goal: be there. Be a witness. Be an unexpected variable.
We reached a heavy wooden door.
“This is the storage next to the linen room,” Mother Rosa whispered. “Thin wall. We can hear.”
She opened it carefully. We entered a dark room filled with old garden tools. Through the wall, voices carried.
ndez’s voice, cold and clear.
“…so what’s your offer?”
The young rebel’s voice, tense, full of hatred.
“We release them. You give us safe passage out. With a vehicle.”
“And why should I do that?”
“Because if you don’t, we kill them. Starting with the smallest one.”
My stomach churned.
Eleanor.
“You can do that,” ndez said calmly. “And then you’ll die. And history will record you as child killers. While I… beco the man who avenged them. Easy choice, isn’t it?”
He was playing cold.
Now he didn’t care about our lives. Only the narrative. Whether we lived or died, he won.
I had to change the ga.
I scanned the storage room. A small high window with bars. But near the ceiling, an access panel for pipes—leading into the adjacent room.
“Help ,” I whispered to Mother Rosa.
She understood, clasped her hands. I stepped on them, she lifted . I reached the panel and pushed. Unlocked.
I opened it and crawled inside. A narrow space above the ceiling, filled with dust and cables.
I crawled toward the voices.
Through a gap in the boards, I could see part of the linen room below.
Mother stood near the shelves, shielding Isabella and Eleanor behind her. Pale, but her expression was marble.
The two rebels faced the door, where ndez and his two guards stood. Weapons raised. No one firing. A fragile stalemate.
ndez looked at Mother.
“Mrs. Guerrero. Apologies for the inconvenience.”
“Colonel,” Mother replied flatly. “Are you here to rescue us, or to observe?”
“To resolve this.” ndez looked at the rebels. “Your ti is up. Lay down your weapons. The family lives. That’s the only offer.”
“Hey!” the young rebel shouted. “You think we’re stupid? We drop our guns, we die!”
“You’ll die faster if you shoot,” ndez said, like a teacher losing patience. “Choose.”
Tension climbed. Fingers tightened on triggers. I saw ndez’s guard’s eyes—focused, ready. They were waiting for the signal. The rebels trembled, sweat soaking their masks.
They were going to shoot. And when they did, everything would end.
I had no weapon. No strength in this child’s body. All I had was the fact that above the ceiling, there was . And sotis, uncertainty is a weapon.
Distraction. We needed a distraction.
I grabbed a handful of dust and debris from the ceiling and dropped it through the gap, right between the two groups.
Dust rained down like fine gray ash in the ergency light.
Everyone flinched. They looked up.
“There’s soone above!” one guard shouted.
At that mont—when their attention snapped upward—I scread.
Not words.
A long, raw scream, echoing everywhere in the enclosed room.
“AAAAAA—!”
It was unexpected. Primitive. Disruptive. It shattered the asured rhythm of the standoff.
And in that split second, Mother moved.
She didn’t attack. She didn’t run. She did sothing smarter: she pulled Isabella and Eleanor down and dropped behind the heavy linen racks, out of the line of fire.
The rebels, confused, aid their weapons at the ceiling, then back at ndez. Their focus was broken.
ndez, however, didn’t lose control. His eyes flicked, just for a fraction of a second, to the ceiling gap.
He saw . Eye contact. In his eyes, there was a flash—not anger, but rapid recalculation. A new variable.
“Get whoever’s up there,” he ordered one guard. Then to the rebels: “Last chance. Drop your weapons.”
But montum had shifted.
The younger rebel saw Mother and the others hiding, saw the chaos, saw his hostage plan collapsing.
He panicked.
And panicked people make bad decisions.
He swung his pistol away from ndez… and toward the rack where my family hid.
“We die together!” he scread.
It was his last mistake.
Before his finger touched the trigger, two things happened almost simultaneously.
First, the storage room door beside —the one where Mother Rosa had been hiding—burst open.
Mother Rosa walked in. Not running. Walking steadily. In her hand was not the iron rod anymore, but a small pistol I didn’t recognize—taken, hidden, I didn’t know.
She didn’t shoot. She simply stood there, blocking the rebel’s line of sight to the racks.
Second, ndez, seeing the rebel aim at the hostages, gave an almost invisible signal.
His remaining guard fired.
Bang! Bang!
Two shots. Short. Precise.
The rebel with the rifle dropped, his chest torn open.
The one with the pistol staggered, his gun fired into the ceiling, then he fell.
Bullets clanged against tal. The sll of gunpowder filled the air.
Then—silence.
A silence louder than the gunshots.
I sat frozen above the ceiling, dust in my mouth, heart pounding in my ears. Below, I heard Isabella soothing Eleanor’s sobs.
Mother slowly stood from behind the racks. ndez looked at the two bodies with a blank expression.
Then he looked up again. At .
“Co down,” he said. Not angry. Just absolute authority.
I crawled back to the panel, dropped into the storage room, then entered the linen room. ndez’s guard watched , weapon still raised.
It felt familiar.
I stood there—dirty, dusty, arm bleeding. Mother rushed to and pulled into her arms. Tight. Eleanor grabbed my leg.
ndez looked at all of us.
“The family survived,” he said, as if concluding a report. “Rebels neutralized. Good.”
He didn’t ask how I got into the ceiling. He didn’t thank Ibu Rosa. He simply shaped his narrative.
“Unfortunately, two rebels were killed in a firefight while attempting to escape with the leader’s family as hostages. Our tily intervention prevented a tragedy.” He looked at Mother. “Mrs. Guerrero will confirm this. As gratitude.”
It wasn’t a request.
It was an order.
Mother looked at him for a long mont. Then she nodded once.
“We survived. Thanks to the vigilance of the Colonel’s forces.”
Her words were polished stone.
ndez was satisfied. He looked at once more.
“A brave boy,” he said. “Or a reckless one.”
He didn’t wait for an answer.
“Clean this up,” he ordered his guards, then left—leaving us among corpses, gunpowder, and a bitter new reality.
We survived.
But we had just beco part of ndez’s propaganda.
We had handed him the moral victory he needed.
Damn it.
Mother Rosa approached, handing a glass of water from sowhere. I took it, my hands still shaking.
“Brother,” Eleanor whispered through tears. “I was scared.”
“So was I, El,” I said hoarsely, hugging her. “But we’re together. That’s what matters.”
She hugged tighter.
Outside, the true dawn began to rise, illuminating a palace scarred by battle.
The fight was over.
ndez had won today.
But the war for this country’s future—and for our family—had just entered a new phase.
***
I drank the water, feeling its coldness slide down my dry throat.
We survived. That was a fact.
But in my previous world and this one, survival often only ans earning the right to fight again tomorrow.
And tomorrow, we would have to fight smarter.
Because now, ndez knew we weren’t just passive hostages.
We were variables.
And variables, in the calculations of soone like ndez, are things that must eventually be eliminated.
My body still trembled faintly, delayed adrenaline. In my head, echoes of screams and gunfire mixed with echoes from the past—the sa sounds, the sa fear, only the backdrop was different.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
The sll of gunpowder still lingered in the air, mixed with camphor from the linen. And the sll of fresh blood.
We survived.
But at what cost?
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