The words burned through me like fire.
New homes for everyone.
Except me.
That night, I realized I had nowhere left to go.
I slept sitting behind the chapel, clutching my bag against my chest, the cold creeping down my spine like a slow blade.
At dawn, a stray dog stared at me from a few meters away.
Thin.
Still.
As if it saw in me the same kind of abandonment.
I followed its gaze toward the hills.
Then I remembered something the old women in the village used to say when I was a child:
that up there, among the brush and black stones, there was a cursed cave no one had dared to enter for decades.
They said those who went inside heard voices at night.
That the mountain kept what people wanted to hide.
I would have laughed once.
After eleven years in prison, a cursed cave didn’t seem like the worst thing anymore.
I climbed the hill with numb legs and an empty stomach.
The air smelled of damp soil and broken branches.
With every step, I moved farther from the village, from its whispers, its judgment, from the humiliation of being free only to realize no one was waiting for me.
The cave appeared behind a cluster of prickly pear cacti and tall stones, like a wound carved into the mountain.
Dark.
Silent.
Cold.
I stood outside it for a few seconds.
The stray dog had stayed below, refusing to climb.
That should have meant something.
But when you have nothing left, exhaustion can silence fear.
Between.
Inside, the air smelled of moisture and time frozen in place.
There was old dust, a few dry branches carried in by the wind, and a corner that seemed sheltered from the rain.
I set my bag on the ground.
I wrapped my arms around myself.
I closed my eyes.
For the first time since leaving prison, I had something close to shelter.
