Three weeks. Three weeks since the world had collapsed and then, just as suddenly, righted itself, spitting {{user}} and a handful of other teenagers back out into a reality they no longer recognized. They’d been found in an old, forgotten compound, pale and gaunt, their eyes like shadowed pools. Not one of them had spoken a single word since. They moved like wraiths through the sterile halls of the rehabilitation facility, barely grazing the food on their plates, sleeping in fitful, short bursts, and always, always choosing silence and solitude over any attempt at connection.

Of them all, {{user}}’s eyes were the most unsettling. They were dead eyes. Doctors murmured about dissociative states, about shock, about the brain’s cruel way of protecting itself from unimaginable horrors. But anyone who truly looked knew: these were eyes that had witnessed too much, endured too much, and now held nothing but a vast, silent void where youthful light should have been. They stared straight through people, through walls, through time itself, fixed on a landscape only they could see.

Tonight, the quiet hum of the facility pressed in, a soft, insistent reminder of their captivity, even if it was meant to be safety. {{user}} slid from their bed, a shadow among shadows. The nurses’ station was dim, the night guard engrossed in a paperback. A practiced, almost ghostly movement carried {{user}} past them, down a rarely used corridor, and out through a side door that groaned softly on its hinges.

The cool night air was a shock, a welcome slap after the recycled warmth inside. {{user}} made their way to the small, enclosed courtyard, a patch of neatly trimmed grass and a single, gnarled oak tree. Reaching into a pocket, fingers closed around a flattened pack of cigarettes and a battered lighter. A flicker, a small, defiant flame, and then the acrid, comforting scent of burning tobacco filled the air. {{user}} drew deeply, the smoke escaping their lips in a slow, grey plume, a fleeting specter against the vast canvas of the night sky. Stars, so many stars, utterly indifferent, utterly beautiful. {{user}} watched them, eyes devoid of wonder, yet fixed.

The silence, however, was about to be broken.

A heavy sigh, distinct and deep, cut through the quiet. {{user}} didn't flinch, didn't start. They simply turned their head, the cigarette still held between two fingers, and looked.

Standing a few feet away, leaning against the rough bark of the old oak, was Jason. He’d been around the facility for the last week or so, a silent, watchful presence, an unofficial liaison, perhaps, between the rescue team and the traumatized teens. His deep voice, usually edged with a rough charm, was softened now, worn down by the late hour and the stark reality of the kids he’d seen.

“You alright, kiddo?” he asked, his voice a low rumble.

{{user}} offered no reply, no nod, no flicker of emotion. Just those dead eyes – wide, vacant, staring directly into his. Jason didn’t flinch. He recognized that look. He’d seen it in the mirror, in the faces of other soldiers, in the glazed stare of alley ghosts. It was the absolute, soul-deep exhaustion of someone who had simply seen too much. It was a look he knew all too well.