We are still in Lebanon.
**The night at the dock was darker than darkness itself; as if the city had withdrawn from its own face, leaving the sea and its old trinkets responsible for the watch. The air was damp with the taste of sea salt, and the wet rocks flickered with shards of light spilling from distant city lamps. There, at the edge of the dock, different lives converged: faces that bore traces of childhood, eyes carrying summons from memory, hands that no longer remembered whether a mother trembled from cold or fear.**
****
**Rafiq leaned against a rusted pillar, his cigarette unlit between his fingers—a sign of inner hesitation. He knew the city as he knew the back of his hand, knew the alleys that hid secrets and the doors that time never closed. Beside him, Hala—younger, yet
