I woke to the smell of damp earth and old wood.

  My head throbbed, a dull, distant ache. I was lying on a low cot, a rough wool blanket draped over me. The air was cool and unnervingly still.

  I pushed myself up on my elbows, my eyes straining against the dim glow of a lantern hanging from a low beam. The walls were wooden, weathered, older than anything I’d ever seen in the Capital. Shadows swayed across them like watchful figures.

  And there, sitting against the opposite wall, was Steve.

  No smirk. No book. No lazy gestures. Just silence. One knee pulled to his chest, arms resting loosely on it, eyes fixed on me with an unsettling intensity.

  “Finally awake?” he said, his voice calm and flat. The room seemed to swallow the sound whole.

  My throat burned. “Where… am I? What did you do to me?”

  “Sedative. In the rag.” He didn’t move as if to say it was obvious. “You’re safe.”

  “Safe?” I spat, the anger cutting through the grogginess as I remembered what happened. “I was ambushed in sleep! I was ambushed from behind my door! I almost died! And now you dragged me to… wherever this is? That’s your idea of safe?”

  “It’s your safe-haven,” Steve said evenly, ignoring my outburst. “It’s a house. In a village. Left of the Capital.”

  The words froze me. Left of the Capital? Impossible. There was nothing there. The maps said nothing. The government said nothing about it.

  “Bullshit,” I whispered as I try to comprehend what more the government is hiding.

  A flicker crossed his face, the ghost of his usual smirk. “Is it? Or is it just what they wanted you to believe?” He tilted his head slightly. “The 4 cities aren't the whole world. The capital is the crown on a head of rot. This…” He motioned lazily with his chin, toward the unseen outside. “…this is what they don’t want you to see. The forgotten places. The places that don’t exist on their maps.”

  The weight of it pressed down on me. The coal imports. The phases. The whispers of the Land of the Truth. It wasn’t just a Capital conspiracy. The lie was so much larger.

  “They don’t know about this place?” I asked, barely breathing the words.

  “Oh, they know.” Steve’s voice sharpened, each word cutting. “They just pretend not to. It’s easier to erase us from their story than to admit we exist.”

  He rose smoothly to his feet, unfolding like a blade. The playfulness was gone. His presence was all steel and purpose.

  “Welcome to the first day of your real life,” he said. “The hiding is over. The training begins now.”

  “Stand up,” ordered Steve.

  Flustered, I scrambled to my feet, trying to match his sharp movement. He didn’t wait, just turned and strode for the door as soon as he stood up.

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  “Let’s get you out,” he said, voice clipped. “Time to see where your training begins.”

  I bolted after him, my legs still unsteady.

  The door creaked open, and the world beyond hit me like a shock.

  It was afternoon. The sun hung high but gentle, washing the world in a soft warmth, not the searing, oppressive heat of the Capital, but something calmer. Something I could almost crave forever.

  The shack, no, the house looked even stranger from the outside. Its design was crude, its angles uneven, almost prehistoric compared to the Capital’s rigid structures.

  The path at our feet was nothing but packed earth, but it felt alive, breathing. Grass spread out on either side, green in a way I’d never seen. Lush, vibrant, almost impossibly so.

  The path stretched about ten meters ahead before splitting left and right. Straight on, another house stood... or maybe it was a cluster of houses, so close together they could have belonged to the same family.

  Steve didn’t hesitate. He veered left, and I stayed close behind.

  His pace was easy, almost careless, like every turn of the path was etched into him. He didn’t walk like a soldier. He walked like a child revisiting his grandparents’ house, familiar, yet oddly full of wonder.

  We hadn’t gone far when the trees broke to our right, opening onto a wide expanse of water. My breath caught.

  It gently wraps around the right side of the road, a lake... or rather, an oxbow lake. Its surface shimmered, reflecting the afternoon sky.

  Steve glanced at it, his tone lighter for the first time.

  “That’s what the villagers call the Baor,” he said. “A lake born when the river changed its course. It only lives because the river still feeds it when the waters rise.”

  “Currently the river Meghna, its source, is running high,” Steve said, his voice carrying that calm, matter-of-fact tone of his. “The spillover water fills the Baor this time of year.”

  He gestured casually to the side, pointing at strands swaying gently in the air. “These hanging fiber things here are jute strands, drying. And those sticks bundled together? Jute wood. Villagers use it for fuel, fencing, all sorts of things.”

  I followed his hand, taking it all in. To our right, the Baor stretched wide and glimmering, the water lapping softly at its earthen edge. To our left, the landscape shifted, the neat ridges of farmland rolled out, green and gold under the afternoon sun. The road was flanked by trees, each with long bamboo poles stretched between them. From those poles hung the pale jute strands, swaying like curtains in the light breeze. Between the trunks, neat stacks of jute wood were piled in lines, their rough edges dark against the greenery.

  “The Baor becomes farmland when the water recedes. You’ll see that phase in about two months,” Steve explained, his tone casual, almost like he was giving a tour rather than reshaping my entire view of the world.

  I nodded, trying to keep pace with him, my eyes darting between the water, the drying jute, the stacked wood, and the fields on the other side. Every word he spoke felt grounded, unpolished, and real, so unlike the rehearsed lies of the Capital. It was hard not to believe him.

  We kept walking along the road, the houses appearing again on either side. After passing two on the left, Steve stopped at the third and walked in on the path inside without hesitation.

  “Old man, you there?” he called out, his tone respectful, yet casual.

  I straightened instinctively. This wasn’t just any villager.

  The house was built around a free, open ground. Surrounding it were separate structures. The main house, an outside cooking house, a small bathroom, and a detached toilet. Simple, practical, and worn with age.

  From one of the inner rooms, an elderly man emerged. His frame was thin, but his eyes were sharp, assessing me in an instant.

  “Brat, you’re back already?” the old man said gruffly. His gaze then settled on me. “And who’s this other brat beside you?”

  “Yes, it went as planned, so I came back early,” Steve replied calmly. Then, gesturing toward me: “This brat is Taseen.”

  The elder’s eyes lingered on me, heavy and unwavering.

  “And Taseen,” Steve continued, “he is the village elder. And he will be your trainer.”