Isaac stared at his sister, time suspended between them like a thread ready to snap. Léna looked back at him, her face a theater of conflicting emotions visceral fear, total incomprehension, and budding anger that made her lips tremble imperceptibly. Her eyes, wide and glistening with barely contained tears, desperately searched his for a familiar spark, a trace of the man she knew.
The helicopter blades carved through the air above the building with mechanical violence, each rotation sending vibrations deep into the foundations. The searchlights pierced through the windows like spears of raw light, projecting a choreography of shadows and brightness that turned their faces into shifting masks.
Outside, the voices amplified by megaphones continued their relentless litany, each word hammered out with the cold authority of those who hold power.
