The line appears overnight.
No announcement.
No decree.
No marker anyone can point to and say, there, that’s when it happened.
But by morning, everyone feels it.
Something has shifted from comfort offered to comfort defended.
The watchers notice first.
They don’t arrive to slammed doors or shouted refusals. They arrive to smiles that don’t reach eyes. To pauses before answers. To people who glance over their shoulders before speaking, then lower their voices anyway.
“We’re fine,” they’re told.
“We don’t need help right now.”
“Everything’s being handled.”
Handled by whom is never said.
Irena experiences it personally.
She stops by a familiar home in the southern quarter, one she’s visited dozens of times over the past year. The woman who answers the door smiles, but her body bl
