The smell of coffee filled the kitchen, dark and bitter, cutting through the early light. Denis stood by the counter, hands wrapped around the mug, staring at the steam as though it held answers. He hadn’t slept — not really. Every time he closed his eyes, he heard again the muffled sobs of his daughters, saw the way they clung to each other, trembling like small birds in a storm.

  Now, the house was quiet. Too quiet.

  The girls hadn’t come out yet, though usually by this hour Luna would be raiding the pantry and Sabrina would be complaining about the coffee smell.

  Something had changed.

  When they finally appeared, still in their pajamas, Denis noticed the tiny signs first — the faint redness around their eyes, the way they avoided his gaze, the forced smile Luna gave when she greeted him.

  “Morning, Papa,” Sabrina said, voice low but trying for cheerful.

  “Morning,” he replied, keeping his tone soft. “Sleep well?”

  They exchanged a quick glance before Sabrina nodded.

  “Yeah. Much better now.”

  He didn’t believe it. Not entirely. But he smiled anyway, because that was what a father did when his heart ached too much to push further.

  He poured two cups of warm milk, set them on the table, and said gently,

  “Remember, if something’s wrong… you can tell me. Always.”

  Both girls froze for half a second — barely a blink — before Luna spoke.

  “Nothing’s wrong, Papa. Promise.”

  Denis nodded, though he could see her hands trembling around the cup.

  “Alright then,” he said quietly. “Finish your drinks before school.”

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  He turned away, but inside, unease settled deeper. He had seen that kind of fear before — in soldiers, in people who had done something they couldn’t take back.

  Something had happened last night. And it wasn’t just what they’d told him.

  At school, Sabrina and Luna tried to pretend the world was normal.

  Sabrina laughed too loudly with her friends, forcing jokes she didn’t feel. Luna stared too long at her notebook, her mind replaying flashes of the night before — the screams, the sudden silence, the way the light had faded from a man’s eyes.

  They hadn’t meant to.

  It was supposed to be a task like any other.

  But when it happened — when that patrol guard fell — everything inside them broke just a little more.

  Luna reached out for her shadow during lunch, a reflex she couldn’t stop. The shape moved, flickered against the wall, and for an instant, she saw it twist into something monstrous — the same form it had taken when everything went wrong.

  She blinked, the vision fading, and pressed her hands over her eyes.

  “Get a grip,” she whispered to herself. “You can’t break now.”

  Across the courtyard, Sabrina sat apart from the others, staring at her communicator device.

  Another message blinked on the small dark screen:

  “Mistakes are part of growth. But don’t fail me again.”

  — Melisandra

  Her stomach turned. She turned the device off and shoved it deep into her bag.

  When the bell rang, the two sisters met outside the gates. For a moment, they just stood there, silent. No words felt right.

  Finally, Sabrina whispered, “Do you think he knows?”

  Luna looked down, shaking her head. “Not yet. But he will. He always does.”

  They walked home slowly, the world around them moving in the blur of late afternoon. Every laugh, every sound of normal life, felt like something distant — a world they were already falling away from.

  Back home, Denis sat at his desk again. The same files lay open, but his attention wasn’t on them anymore. He was staring at something else now — the small notebook where he had started writing down every strange thing that had happened in recent months.

  Missed curfews. Odd glances. Whispered conversations.

  He tapped the pen against the page and wrote one more line:

  “Last night — crying. Fear. Guilt. Something they won’t say.”

  He closed the notebook slowly and looked toward the girls’ closed bedroom door.

  His reflection in the darkened window stared back — tired, uncertain, but determined.

  Whatever his daughters were caught in, Denis knew one thing.

  He would find out.

  Even if it meant tearing down the world that had built itself around them.