Season 1 chapter 2
The Forest Trek
The woods were dark and quiet, away from the steam engines and the sirens. Kniya and Malesh walked quickly, the heavy rifle bouncing against Kniya's shoulder. After they were far enough from the crash, they stopped to check their loot.
"How many?" Kniya asked, breathing hard.
Malesh pulled the brass rounds from his pocket, counting them one by one. "Twelve. We stole exactly twelve bullets."
Kniya looked at the rifle. It was heavy and made of cold iron. Malesh pointed at the handle on the side. "So, how does this thing actually work? I saw you pull that lever."
"It's a bolt-action," Kniya explained, trying to sound like an expert. "You pull this handle up and back to throw out the old shell. Then you push it forward to slide a new bullet into the hole. If you don't do that, the gun is just a heavy stick."
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An Unexpected Sight
As they pushed through some thick bushes, they suddenly stopped. A few meters away, near a large tree, they saw a man and a woman. The couple was being very intimate, clearly thinking they were alone in the dark woods.
Kniya's eyes went wide. "What the fuck?"
Malesh didn't look surprised at all. He just sighed. "Yeah, I figured we'd see this. It's a common thing to observe in these forests."
Kniya turned to him, confused. "Are you a daily observer of this? Why do you know that?"
"Think about it," Malesh said, acting like a professor again. "Hotels are expensive, or they have strict parents who watch their every move. The forest is the only place they can go for free."
Malesh looked at the rifle in Kniya's hands and got a smirk on his face. "Hey, we should disturb them. Fire a shot at the tree right above their heads. Imagine how fast they'd run."
Kniya immediately gripped the rifle tighter and shook his head. "Are you mad or what?"
"What? It would be funny," Malesh muttered.
"Bro, listen," Kniya whispered urgently. "Each of these bullets has a serial number on it from the ordnance factory. If I fire a shot, that bullet stays in the tree. The cops will find it, check the markings, and know it came from the officer's gun. We'd be traced and caught in a few hours. We aren't wasting a single shot on a joke."
Malesh looked at the bullets and then back at the couple. He realized Kniya was right. "Fine. No jokes. Let's just get out of here."
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The Outskirts of Seistain
Kniya and Malesh kept moving through the thick trees until the air started to clear. The heavy smell of soot and coal-smoke returned, signaling they were near the edge of the city. They pushed through the final line of bushes, expecting to see the usual quiet outskirts.
Instead, they froze.
The road leading into Seistain was unrecognizable. Huge military deposits had been set up at every entrance. Thousands of troops in grey uniforms marched in perfect lines, their iron boots clicking against the pavement. Tanks with steam-hissing engines and heavy artillery cannons were being positioned at the intersections. Armored vehicles patrolled the streets, and huge searchlights swept over the buildings.
But the worst part was the posters. They were pasted on every light pole and brick wall—hand-drawn but accurate sketches of two eleven-year-old boys.
Kniya looked at the massive army, then back at the rifle on his shoulder. He felt very small. "Bro, if they had used this much money on development and food, the country wouldn't be such a mess," he whispered. "Why are they using all this manpower just to find two kids?"
Malesh looked at the tanks and the rows of soldiers. He looked terrified. "Kniya... we shot a bullet at a police officer. If you look at it like a normal human being, that's a huge thing. We attacked the system."
Kniya stared at the posters of his own face. The gravity of it finally hit him. "I know. But this? This is a national emergency."
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The Command Center
Inside the central police department of Seistain, the atmosphere was chaotic. This wasn't just a local police matter anymore. The military in-charge of the city had taken over.
"I want thirty thousand troops deployed by dawn!" the General barked, slamming his hand on a map of the woods. "Block every exit. If those kids breathe, I want to know about it."
The officers scrambled to obey. The "Democratic" government couldn't afford to let two children escape after over-powering their men. It made the Republic look weak, and in Seistain, weakness was a death sentence.
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The Parents
While the army was preparing for war, a different scene was happening in a quiet, dimly lit waiting room.
Kniya and Malesh's parents sat on a hard wooden bench. They had been there for hours, trying to file a missing person report because their sons hadn't come home for a full day. They looked tired and worried, holding each other's hands.
A high-ranking officer walked in, holding a piece of paper. He didn't look sympathetic. He held up the sketches of the two boys.
"Are these your children?" the officer asked coldly.
"Yes! That's them," Kniya's mother said, her voice shaking with relief. "Did you find them? Are they safe?"
The officer pulled the paper away and looked at them with pure disgust. "Safe? Your children are not victims. They have committed a heinous crime against the Republic. They attacked officers, stole military property, and caused a state of emergency."
The parents went pale. The relief vanished, replaced by total shock. They couldn't believe what they were hearing.
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The Interrogation: The Parents' Reality
Back at the precinct, the air was thick with the smell of cheap tobacco and grease. Kniya's father gripped the edge of the wooden table until his knuckles turned white.
"My son is eleven!" he shouted, his voice cracking. "He doesn't know how to shoot a rifle! This is a mistake!"
The officer leaned in, his shadow looming over them. "Your son is a terrorist in the making. He and that other brat crashed a state transport, blinded a decorated officer with industrial glass, and shot him in the leg. Do you have any idea what the Republic does to the families of traitors?"
The mothers were sobbing, but the officers didn't care. They weren't looking for the truth; they were looking for someone to blame for the embarrassment of being outsmarted by kids. "If you're hiding them, or if you even suspect where they went and don't tell us, you'll rot in a cell right next to them."
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The Edge of the Forest: The Realization
Kniya and Malesh pushed through the final layer of thick, thorny bushes. Their uniforms were torn, their knees scraped and muddy, but they didn't care. They had reached the tree line where the forest ended and the city of Seistain began.
But the city they knew was gone.
Kniya watched a general barking orders at a squad of men. "They're scared, Malesh. They aren't hunting us because we're dangerous. They're hunting us because they're hiding something. In a country this rotten, the guy at the top is always the biggest thief. And right now, that thief is terrified that we might see something we shouldn't."
Malesh looked at him, confused. "What are you talking about? What could they be hiding?"
"Think about it," Kniya said, his mind racing back to the news reports he used to read just to laugh at the lies. "You remember the 'Overseas Development' project? The government wouldn't shut up about it. They said they transferred 5.32 billion DI'an Credits to develop Territory 36102—the Grenoble Islands military base."
"Yeah, I remember," Malesh muttered. "So what?"
"So look at them!" Kniya pointed at a soldier whose boots were held together with tape. "They say they spent 5.32 billion on a base, but they can't even afford decent gear for their own troops? That money never went to any island, bro. It went into someone's pocket. And if the Military In-Charge is willing to turn the whole city into a prison just to catch two kids... it means he's scared that his little secret might get out."
Malesh's fear slowly turned into realization. "So... he's using the army to cover his own ass."
"Exactly," Kniya spat. "We aren't going to run. We aren't going to hide in the dirt. We're going to find out where that money went. We're going to find the proof that this 'hero' is just a common thief."
"But we don't know where the files are," Malesh argued. "The city is huge. We can't just guess."
"We don't guess," Kniya said, a cold plan forming in his eyes. "We go to the one place that has the layout of every government building in the city. The Central Library. We find the blueprints. We find out where they keep the Military Archives. And then... we go hunting."
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The Journey Through the Smog
Moving from the forest edge to the city center was a suicide mission, but Kniya and Malesh didn't have a choice. The streets were crawling with soldiers. The air was thick with the smell of unwashed bodies, coal smoke, and the metallic tang of steam engines.
"Keep your head down," Kniya whispered, pulling Malesh behind a pile of garbage crates in an alleyway.
A patrol of six soldiers marched past the alley mouth, their heavy boots clanking against the cobblestones. They looked angry, shoving civilians out of the way and checking faces against the sketches in their hands.
"Bastards," Malesh muttered, wiping mud from his face. "Look at them. Bullying fruit sellers because they can't find two kids."
"We need to blend in," Kniya said, looking around. He spotted a group of factory workers covered in soot, trudging home after a double shift. "Grab some of that coal dust from the ground. Smear it on your face. If we look like we just crawled out of a furnace, nobody looks twice."
They blackened their faces and wrapped the long rifle in a torn piece of canvas tarp they found in the trash. Walking with their heads down, mimicking the tired, broken posture of the workers, they slipped past three checkpoints. The soldiers were too busy looking for terrified runaways to notice two "exhausted workers" shuffling by.
It took them two hours of heart-pounding stealth, dodging searchlights and ducking into sewers whenever a tank rolled by, but finally, the massive shadow of the Seistain Central Library loomed over them.
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