One afternoon, as Rachel described the ridge where he’d once taken her hiking, something snapped into place. Caleb’s gaze sharpened. “They… built… more?” he managed. Rachel froze. “Yes,” she said slowly. “After you vanished, they expanded. Houses. Shops. They said the reports cleared it.” His breathing hitched, and this time the words came with more force.
“Not… cleared,” he whispered. “Pressure… trapped.” The syllables were broken, but the intention behind them had shifted. They were no longer stray terms; they were parts of a sentence, fragments of a warning he’d tried to deliver seventeen years earlier and never finished.