Chapter 26: The Rebirth in Reverse

Sometimes, the cruelest illusion is not pain, but peace for nothing tempts the wounded more than a world where their scars never happened.

He opened his eyes to the sound of birdsong.

Not crows.

Not sirens.

Not screams behind padded walls.

But birdsong gentle, golden, impossibly clean.

Yousef lay beneath a willow tree, its branches bending like mothers over …