The days that followed felt like a nightmare that never ended. Keira felt the air around the village grow heavier, the sky darker, and the voices around her sound more hollow. People spoke in whispers, forming assumptions and stories about the fate of those young men. Some said they were taken to the city, others mentioned the names of secret military facilities. Some were convinced they were tortured. Some believed they were already dead. But no one truly knew. There was no news, no certainty, only a vague emptiness hanging in the air.
Keira felt the loss not just as the loss of a friend, but as the loss of hope. Something inside her began to waver. She felt as if she had been betrayed by something that was supposed to protect them.
The Republic of Tanadewa was now like a decaying building just waiting to collapse. Information from the City and the Government kept arriving, mostly negative news piling up one after another, week by week, month by month.
Minor conflicts broke out in various regions. Local militias grew, regional loyalties strengthened, and the central government became increasingly brutal in cracking down on dissent.
Criticism was silenced, independent voices were arrested, and ancestral lands were sold into the hands of invisible oligarchs. The law only applied to the common people, while officials and conglomerates walked free, amassing wealth from the people's hard work.
Oppression against minority groups continued to rise and was heard more frequently—those with different beliefs, cultures, or origins were slowly pushed out of the major cities, sidelined, disappeared. Civil organizations that were supposed to be independent were instead formed and maintained by the government for political purposes: to be mouthpieces for propaganda, to be vote-fodder for elections, or worse—tools to spy on and oppress their own people.
In the villages, the authorities were present not as protectors, but as overseers. Spies. The iron fists of power. Schools were strictly monitored; teachers were forced to teach according to the state's narrative. History books were slowly altered with narratives too sweet for a Government that didn't even do much for the welfare of its people. Youth who spoke of change were labeled as insurrectionists. Books were burned in secret. The internet was blocked and shut down across the country. Voices were cut off before they could spread.
Taxes continued to be raised, without explanation, without transparency. People were forced to pay more, even for basic rights like clean water and education. Meanwhile, officials made policies only to benefit their own elite circles—development that only occurred in one center of power, and a total disregard for the peripheral regions.
This country, once named a Republic, a democracy, now seemed to have transformed into a tyranny. A system that lived off fear and betrayal. A dark shadow that claimed the name of independence but oppressed those who truly wanted to be free.
Keira witnessed all of it from the edge of the forest, with eyes that were beginning to open.
She started writing in her notebook, not just about plants, but about memories. About the names that were lost. About the trees that were cut down. About the river that was beginning to be polluted. She recorded not to learn, but to survive.
That night, the light from a yellowish hanging lamp softly illuminated the interior of their stilt house. At a round wooden dining table that had begun to fade, Rakaya sat cross-legged on one side, Keira and her mother on the other. Steam from the yam and fern soup warmed the air that was starting to grow cold.
Her mother, Narra, was a woman of about forty, known as the most beautiful woman in Muntuwu Village. Her skin was ivory-clear, her cheekbones high, and her long jet-black hair was usually left to flow behind her. Her face was oval with a refined jawline, and the look in her eyes was serene yet full of authority—the kind of beauty that made people hesitant to stare too long.
Keira inherited her mother's beauty—especially the shape of her face and her bold eyebrows—but the look in her eyes, sharp and burning in silence, was a legacy from her father.
"What will the Elders do after this, Rakaya?" Narra asked slowly while stirring the soup. "Elang and his friends' fates are still unclear. The people are starting to grow restless."
Rakaya didn't immediately answer. He gazed far toward the wall of the house where ironwood spears and woven palm leaves hung.
"Tomorrow we will hold another meeting," he finally said. "But the Council still hasn't replied to the letters sent until now..."
"I want to send an envoy to the city. Directly to the Council's office," he said. His voice was calm but steady. "We cannot continue to wait in the dark."
Narra stopped stirring her soup, looking at her husband with a wary gaze. "Do you already know who you will send?"
Rakaya looked at Keira, who was still slowly eating her food.
"Keira," he said briefly.
Keira was stunned; the spoon in her hand stopped midway. She lifted her face, staring at her father.
"Me?" she asked softly.
"You are the daughter of the village chief," Rakaya said softly but firmly. "You know the traditions, you know the boundaries of the territory, you know who is an enemy and who is a brother. And... you are not a child anymore."
Keira looked down. Her heart beat faster, but she tried to remain calm. "But I've never been to the city alone. I'm not... ready."
"Kalek will accompany you," Rakaya said. "You are not alone. But importantly, your voice will be our voice. Not just the voice of Rakaya, but the voice of Muntuwu."
Keira nodded slowly. There was no choice. She realized this was no longer a matter of being ready or not. But a matter of responsibility that she had to begin to shoulder with strength.
Keira returned to eating her food slowly. In her mind, the faces of Elang and his friends—the young men arrested for defending their ancestral land and forest—remained clear. No letters. No news. Even their mothers had stopped crying.
Then, the sound of hurried footsteps was heard from a distance—followed by heavy breathing and a quick knock on the house stairs.
A young man appeared at the threshold. His clothes were soaked with sweat, his hair was messy, and his eyes were wild.
"From the central radio... there is... there is emergency news," he said. He gasped for air, clutching the doorframe. "World war has officially broken out. Russia, America, China... they have attacked each other. Major cities outside the continent have turned to ash... because of nukes. This... is not a rumor. This is official."
Her mother's spoon fell to the bamboo floor.
Keira froze.
Her father looked up at the ceiling, as if searching for meaning in the sound of a world collapsing.
Silence enveloped them, quieter than any night before. No one spoke. Only the sound of a heartbeat rang loudly inside Keira's head. World war. Those two words felt foreign yet terrifying. She didn't know how to feel. Afraid? Confused? Angry?
That night, Muntuwu's sky was grey as usual.
But for Keira, its dark color now held a new meaning: the beginning of an end that would change everything.
She did not yet know that the coming days would force her to become something else. Not just a girl on the edge of the forest. But a witness to the fracture that would give birth to a new world.