France — Small Village
The telegram arrived in the late afternoon, delivered by a freckled boy with flour-stained hands.
Vera opened the envelope with steady fingers.
A few words, handwritten:
"Luca has left. He is safe. The flame continues."
She read and reread the lines, feeling a mix of relief and sorrow tighten in her chest.
Luca had fulfilled his part.
Now he was just another anonymous face crossing borders, living in the necessary silence of those who carry dangerous truths.
Vera walked out onto the porch of the small inn where she hid.
The cold afternoon wind tousled her hair, carrying with it the distant smell of burning fireplaces.
She gazed at the horizon — beyond the mountains, beyond the fields — and she knew:
her fight would not end here.
But it would be different now.
There would be no spotlights.
No crowded squares.
No posters bearing faces.
The resistance would live in the margins.
In underground newspapers.
In forbidden books.
In brief meetings in forgotten cafés.
Vera folded the telegram carefully, as one would a sacred relic.
And there, under the gray sky, she made a vow:
as long as injustice existed, her voice — even hidden — would never be silenced.