The school bus was a hulking, sun-bleached yellow beast that Ayham had coaxed back to life with a mix of fervent prayer, mechanical skills and scavenged parts. Its engine now rumbled with a promising, if slightly asthmatic, rhythm.
“Twenty children are still there, Shihab,” Ayham said, his voice tight with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. He clutched the printed map, their destination circled in red: the “Al-Amal” orphanage, nestled in a village sixty-eight kilometers north of the city. “And only one teacher is with them. She stayed when everyone else ran.”
“Miss Ayah,” Shihab confirmed, his grip firm on the large steering wheel. He had seen her message, a desperate plea buried in the digital noise of a dying world. Her words were simple: "The Headmaster fled. I am alone with 20 chi
