The old barn at the edge of the forest had long been forgotten by everyone—except those who now had no one left to trust.
Camila stood in the center, her shadow cast long by the flickering oil lamp hanging from a hook above. Around her, a dozen faces—young, tense, trembling—watched as she placed Mateo's notebook on the wooden table like a sacred relic.
"We hide, and they rewrite the story," she said, her voice sharp. "We speak, and they say we lie. But this—" she tapped the notebook, "—this is his truth. And now, it has to become ours."
Julián, the boy with soot under his nails and anger in his breath, stepped forward and rolled out a crude map of the town. Red markings showed the positions of police patrols. Yellow pins marked potential safehouses. Mateo's handwriting filled the margins with quotes, poems, strategy.
A girl with a laptop balanced on hay bales was already typing furiously, her eyes lit with purpose. "I've tapped into the town's wireless. I can send out the video we found—what really happened at the protest. If it reaches the right channels, people outside will see it."
Camila nodded. "Do it."
That night, the barn became a bunker. They trained their voices to be quiet but strong. They mapped out escape routes through irrigation tunnels. They painted signs in the dark, and passed them hand to hand like weapons made of ink.
But they weren't invisible.
The first warning came with the scream of dogs.
A patrol jeep tore down the dirt road, headlights slicing through the black. Shouts. Footsteps. A flashlight caught Julián's arm. A gun was drawn.
"Run!" Camila yelled.
They scattered into the night. Wheat fields swallowed them, their bodies moving low and fast beneath the swaying gold. A shot cracked the silence. Someone cried out—Luis had been hit in the leg. Two others turned back, dragging him into the corn rows, vanishing just before the beams could find them.
They didn't stop running until the moon was high.
Hidden behind bales of hay in a farmer's shed, they caught their breath in bursts of panic. Then a rusted door creaked open.
An old man with a lantern entered, eyes sharp beneath the brim of his hat. His hands, dirt-worn and strong, set down a blanket over Luis and knelt beside him.
"I planted seeds in this land long before you were born," he said. "I've seen them crushed, poisoned, burned. But some roots break stone."
They watched him in silence.
"You'll need better shelter. And better allies."
And so the resistance found its first elder.
By dawn, the video was online. In shaky footage, Mateo's voice could be heard shouting—not in fear, but with hope. Then came the screams, the chaos, the truth.
It spread like wildfire.
Camila read the headlines on a borrowed phone: "Youth Martyr Sparks Uprising in San Isidro". "Government Denies Violence Despite Leaked Video". "Anonymous Group Sends Out Call to Action."
The authorities would come harder now.
But so would the people.
From silence came sound.
From soil came rebellion.
From death, a voice that could no longer be buried.
And far beneath the fields, roots cracked the stone.