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Chapter Sixteen - Rosa

Author: Sophia Merrit
last update Last Updated: 2025-10-26 20:07:06

Freedom wasn’t a sunrise.

It wasn’t a clean breath of air or a bright horizon waiting with open arms.

It was smoke. And ash.

And silence where the world used to hum.

We had crawled out of the earth like ghosts, skin caked in dirt, lungs burning with the taste of rot and rain. The compound collapsed behind us in a roar of steel and flame, the ground trembling as if the earth itself was trying to seal the wound shut. I didn’t look back. I didn’t have to. The vines had already claimed it — their green fingers curling through the cracks, swallowing the ruin whole.

Above us, the world was unrecognizable.

The air was heavy with humidity and the sweet, sour scent of overgrowth. Buildings had turned into skeletons wrapped in ivy. Concrete was split by roots thicker than my arm. Flowers bloomed from the ribs of cars. Nature hadn’t healed the world — it had consumed it.

Atlas stood beside me a few feet away, shoulders rising and falling with slow, deliberate breaths. His uniform was torn, bl
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