[Location: Undisclosed federal facility. Windowless office. 01:47 A.M.]

The coffee is cold on the table, but he keeps drinking it.

Everything smells of damp paper, cheap ink, and bureaucratic anxiety. The walls are beige. The kind of beige that devours hope.

Leon sits at a metal table. He has a folder open, but he is not reading it. His eyes are glued to the landline phone.

He has been dialling the same number for days.

The number. His home number. The one he knows by heart even when he's asleep.

But there is no ringing. Only silence. Or a sharp beep. Or an automatic message saying the lines are jammed.

He whispers, very quietly, to himself. "Come on... please..."

He squeezes his eyes shut and runs his hand over his face. The face still young, but already the shadow of someone who has seen too much.

The Flashback appears again in his mind, barely a whisper in that sea of thoughts.

"Mom, I'll be fine. It's just my first day. Don't cry, okay?" "Just... call me when you get there, Leon. Promise."

He didn't call. He couldn't. And when he tried, it was too late. The virus spread. Lines fell. The whole city fell. And maybe... so did she.

Leon clenches his fist, not out of anger. Out of fear.

Because killing infected people was horrible. But to imagine her alone, staring at the phone, listening to the news, waiting for a call that never came...

That's worse.