After midnight, the lights of the refugee camp blinked out one by one, as if someone had cut off their oxygen. Samira lay in Lena's tent, eyes open, counting the patrol lights sweeping through the gaps in the canvas—every twenty-seven seconds. The light spots slithered across the ground like a snake seeking an exit. The orange pinpoint below her collarbone lay quiet as a slumbering ember, but she knew it wasn't asleep; it was listening.
Lena's breathing was even, but her hand clenched her phone, screen down, as if pinning a bird that might fly away at any moment. Two hours earlier, she'd received a message in an NGO internal group: a "special transfer" tonight, with Karim's number on the list. The message vanished five minutes later, erased as if it never existed.
Samira rose silently. The pinpoint warmed faintly with her movement. She lifted the tent flap; cold wind slapped her face, thick with the smells of diesel and wet grass. The patrol light had just passed, and darkness rushed in to fill the void. She moved along the tent shadows, footsteps silent on the packed mud path.
The central tent blazed under stark white overhead lights. A white ambulance parked at the entrance, its red cross glowing an eerie pink in the night. Two guards in reflective vests smoked, their cigarette ends flickering like dying fireflies. Samira circled to the back of the tent, her fingers finding the seam in the canvas—the cut Lena had made that afternoon with a craft knife was still there, hastily stitched with two loose threads that gave way with a tug.
Inside was colder than outside. Folding cots lay in three rows, covered in disposable blue sheets like plastic corpses washed ashore. Karim wasn't among them. Samira held her breath, hearing a low sob from the corner, like a small animal with its tail trapped. She followed the sound, pushing aside the last layer of canvas—
A boy huddled on a metal chair, wrists raw and bleeding from plastic zip ties. Not Karim, but wearing Karim's grey hoodie, the letters "K.S." stitched in red thread inside the hood. The boy looked up, eyes swollen, lips trembling: "They said your brother… is on Line B."
Line B was the old freight route north of the camp. The tracks were long abandoned, rust creeping over the sleepers like scabs that wouldn't heal. Samira thanked him and reached for the zip ties. Her fingertips had just touched the plastic when footsteps sounded outside the tent. She ducked behind the metal chair, her heart pounding against her ribs.
The Grey Trench Coat entered. He carried an aluminum case, the same E-17-β number stuck on its corner. He placed it on a table, opened it. Inside lay a row of syringes glowing with blue light, their needles twice as thick as normal vaccine needles. The boy began to tremble, his voice reduced to a choked rasp.
Samira bit her knuckle. The pinpoint below her collarbone suddenly burned like a live coal shoved beneath her skin. She pressed her hand hard against her chest, but the searing pain shot through her veins to her fingertips. The air inside the tent warped. The shadows of the cots stretched, twisted, like water wrinkled by wind. The Grey Trench Coat snapped his head up, his gaze piercing directly towards her hiding spot—but he saw nothing. The shadows snapped back to stillness.
As the needle plunged into the boy's vein, Samira burst from the tent. Cold air flooded her lungs like shards of glass. She sprinted along the freight route, the rails clanking hollowly beneath her feet. A whistle sounded in the distance, long and low—not a passenger train, but the gasp of an old diesel engine.
At the end of the line sat a short train of three boxcars. One door stood ajar, spilling sickly yellow light from a bulb inside. Two figures in hazmat suits were handing a small aluminum case up into the car—the number E-17-β gleamed coldly on its side under the light. Samira crouched in the weeds beside the tracks; the pinpoint burned so fiercely she nearly cried out.
Just before the door slammed shut, she saw him. Karim. Wrapped in a silver thermal blanket, only his eyes visible, wide and dark like a deer caught in headlights. A new number was stuck to the blanket: E-18-α. The door slammed shut with a final *thud*, the lock engaging with a sound like teeth cracking bone.
The whistle screamed again. The train began to crawl. Samira scrambled to her feet. The pinpoint below her collarbone pulsed frantically, as if trying to tear free. She chased the train, the wind freezing her tears into icy grit. Gravel from the tracks bit into her soles, but she felt no pain.
The train accelerated. The rear door of the last car suddenly swung open. A hand reached out—Ilyas. He was thinner than three days ago, his left arm in a sling. With his good hand, he made a sharp "jump" gesture. Samira didn't hesitate. She lunged, grabbing the doorframe, her nails scraping harshly against the metal. Ilyas hauled her inside just as the door slammed shut behind her with a deafening crash.
Darkness. Only the rhythmic *clack-clack* of wheels on rails, like a heartbeat. Ilyas's voice was a rasp against her ear bone: "Quiet. They don't know I'm here."
Samira gasped for air, unable to speak. The pinpoint dimmed, becoming a faint, distant star. Her fingers found Ilyas's wrist, tracing a fresh needle mark.
"Karim's in the insulated crate up front," Ilyas whispered. "But it's wired to a temperature-sensitive bomb. If it drops below four degrees… it blows."
The train plunged into a tunnel. The last sliver of moonlight vanished. In the absolute dark, Samira heard her own heartbeat sync with Ilyas's ragged breathing, like two files rasping against the same piece of iron.
"Four degrees," she repeated softly, a strange calm settling in her voice. "Then we keep it hot."