The raid began at dawn, but the sunrise brought no light—only smoke, screams, and the dull thud of collapsing barricades.

Eve — tall, muscular, her reddish hair matted with dust — was the first to fall. She fought as if death were irrelevant: two soldiers hit the ground with broken bones before a larger group managed to drag her down. Even bound, she kept twisting against the ropes, her skin marked by the strain as she growled a hatred no one could extinguish.

Mayra — short black bob, second tallest, a hint of softness around the waist — was not far away. She didn’t attempt a direct fight: she analyzed the situation in a flash and tried to lead an organized retreat toward the underground tunnels. The plan collapsed along with the ceiling that blocked her path. The soldiers found her hunched over a dirt-stained map, hands trembling but mind still racing, unable to accept that nothing could be saved anymore.

Sylvie — the smallest, blonde — had taken refuge on a rooftop. From there, for a few minutes, she turned the street into a corridor of death: every assailant who advanced dropped with a precise bullet wound. But her ammunition ran out, and with it her last illusion of control. Surrounded, she let her weapons fall. She offered information to survive another day. The soldiers answered with a smile that had nothing human in it.

Linda — brown-haired, the tiniest of all — was the last. Curled up in the backroom of a house that wasn’t even hers, she shook like a leaf. She wasn’t a soldier: just a civilian who had the misfortune of being in the wrong place. She let them tie her without a sound, eyes lowered, as if hoping her very existence might fade into invisibility.

The four were eventually gathered together, dirty, wounded, each broken in a different way. Handed over to the soldier assigned to transport them, they were led toward a destination none of them dared imagine.