And just like that… they were gone.
Silence settled over the café.
I looked around at the destruction—the broken furniture, shattered glass, torn curtains, scattered debris—and my heart clenched painfully. The café I had built from scratch… my dream… my livelihood… had been reduced to ruins in minutes.
The thought of the financial hit, the repairs, the customers I might lose—it all hit me at once. My knees buckled slightly, and tears welled up in my eyes, blurring the devastation before me.
That’s when I felt a pair of arms wrap around me.
I hadn’t even heard Soya come in.
She held me tightly, pulling me into her embrace, letting me cry into her shoulder as I broke down completely. I sobbed uncontrollably, the pain, fear, and helplessness spilling out.
Everything I’d worked for had
