The second rifle did not wait for Congress Square to exhale.
It cracked from the steps.
Then the whole red line opened fire.
The sound was not one long roar. It came in hard, separate bursts that struck the buildings and returned as echoes. Windows broke above the western shops. Stone chipped from the fountain. The raised copies of the Constitution scattered into the air, their pages turning above people who no longer knew which direction to run.
The police shields took the first volley.
They were made to stop bottles, stones, and frightened crowds.
They were not made for rifle rounds.
Clear panels split. One shield spun from an officer's hand. Another officer fell backward into the civilians he had been protecting.
"Down!" Mr. Kim shouted.
NS struck my shoulder from behind and drove me toward the pavement. My injured ribs hit first. Pain flashed white across my vision.
Kitty fell beside me.
June disappeared beneath NS's body as he covered her head with both arms.
Around us, nine thousand people tried to become smaller at once.
There was no room.
A man climbed over my legs. Somebody's shoe struck my bandaged hand. A woman screamed a name again and again until the gunfire swallowed it.
"Hold on to somebody!" NS yelled.
Kitty caught my sleeve.
I reached across the wet pavement and closed my good hand around NS's wrist. June gripped the back of his jacket. For several seconds, the four of us became one damaged chain among thousands.
The rifles fired again.
White flowers burst apart against the ground.
The national police commander dragged himself upright against the fountain.
Blood darkened the front of his uniform where the rifle butt had struck him. He lifted his radio, but the secure network had vanished with the rest of the city's signal.
"Bring the patrol vehicles forward!" he shouted. "Make hard cover. Open the eastern medical lane."
His officers relayed the command by voice.
Police cars moved from the side streets with their sirens screaming. Drivers turned them sideways between the soldiers and the crowd. Civilians crouched behind doors, engines, and wheels while bullets broke windshields and punched through thin body panels.
The young policewoman near the fountain held her shield over two children.
A round struck the upper edge and threw her arm backward.
She did not let go.
"Move them east," she told their father. "Do not pick up anything. Do not stop."
One of MALT's soldiers advanced beyond the steps and fired at the police line from less than thirty meters away.
A national police officer beside the commander raised his sidearm.
"Permission to return fire?"
The commander saw civilians trapped behind the soldier.
"Not through the crowd."
"He is shooting us."
"Not through the crowd!"
The soldier fired again.
The officer next to him fell.
For one second, discipline failed.
Three police officers answered with their weapons. MALT's soldier dropped behind the Congress barrier, and the military commander screamed that the National Police had joined an armed rebellion.
The lie became true only after his men had fired first.
The young soldier with the crushed flower fired three times.
All three rounds went into the sky.
His rifle rose higher with every pull of the trigger, but the noise around him concealed the refusal until the soldier beside him noticed.
"Lower your aim."
The young soldier kept his weapon above the crowd.
"I can't see a target."
"They are all targets."
The other soldier aimed toward a father carrying a little girl beneath his coat.
The young soldier struck the barrel upward just as it fired. The round broke a window above the square.
The military commander turned.
"Disarm him."
Two soldiers seized the young man's rifle. He did not resist until they caught his arms and began pulling him toward the Congress doors.
"They are civilians," he shouted. "The roads were closed. They followed the order and you closed the roads."
His medical mask slipped beneath his chin. For the first time, the crowd could see his whole face.
He looked younger without the cloth hiding him.
Congresswoman Thiri Win had been forced to her knees beside the entrance. She watched him struggle past.
"Your name," she said.
The commander tightened his grip on the chain attached to her document case.
"Silence."
Thiri Win ignored him.
"Soldier, tell me your name."
The young man looked at her.
"Private Ko Ren."
"I heard you, Private Ko Ren."
One of the soldiers struck him behind the knees. He fell, then rose again beneath their hands.
"Nobody will remember a traitor," the commander said.
Thiri Win looked past him at the citizens carrying strangers away from the bullets.
"That is the mistake men like you always make."
Private Ko Ren tore the red cloth from his arm before they dragged him inside. He threw it toward the Congress steps.
The wet strip landed beside the remains of the white flower.
The commander picked it up.
He handed it to another soldier.
"Replace him."
The soldier tied the used band around his arm and stepped into the empty place in the firing line.
The rifles continued.
Mr. Kim pulled me behind the base of the fountain.
"Can you stand?"
"Yes."
"That was too fast."
"I can stand."
"Then prove it."
NS and I pushed ourselves up together.
Kitty crouched beside the old man who had raised the Constitution. His body lay facedown across the scattered pages. She reached for his neck.
June caught her wrist.
"Kitty."
"We have to check."
"I did."
Kitty stared at her.
June's voice broke.
"There is no pulse."
Another burst struck the fountain above them. Stone fragments sprayed across the pavement.
NS covered June. I caught Kitty beneath one arm and pulled her backward.
"He was talking to us," Kitty said.
"I know."
"He was standing right there."
"I know."
"He didn't do anything."
There was no answer that could survive the sound around us.
The old man's Constitution lay open beneath the rainwater and blood.
I never saw which article was printed on the page.
NC reached the eastern medical lane with Anna, Jihye, Bunny, and Cherry.
It no longer looked like a lane.
Wounded people covered the pavement between abandoned water cartons and fallen signs. Volunteers crawled from one person to another because standing made them visible above the police cars.
Anna froze when a teenager grabbed her ankle.
"Please," he said.
Blood soaked the side of his shirt.
Jihye dropped beside him.
"Anna, look at me."
Anna could not.
"Look at me."
Her eyes finally moved.
"We know what to do," Jihye said. "Hands over the wound. Press and do not lift to check."
"My hands are shaking."
"They can shake while they work."
Anna pressed both palms against the folded cloth Jihye placed over the wound.
The teenager cried out.
"I'm sorry," Anna whispered.
"Do not apologize," Jihye said. "Keep him alive long enough to complain about you later."
Bunny pulled white cloth from a volunteer's supply bag and began tying it around the arms of people who could still walk.
"What does this mean?" Cherry asked.
"It means they can move."
"And if they can't?"
Bunny looked at the bodies between them.
"Then we move them."
Cherry swallowed and took the next strip.
NC stood against an overturned cart and studied the east checkpoint.
The military truck blocking it had left a narrow gap beside a concrete post. It was wide enough for one person at a time.
Not wide enough for a crowd.
"If everybody sees that gap, they will crush each other," she said.
Shinso appeared beside her carrying one end of the old man's wheelchair. KM carried the other. The elderly passenger hunched between them while his son protected his head.
"Then don't let everybody see it at once," Shinso said.
"How?"
KM looked back at the gunfire.
"You are the smart major. Think faster."
"I am Med Track."
"Today everyone with a map is the smart major."
NC pointed toward the police cars moving into the lane.
"We need one of those vehicles to widen the opening."
Shinso raised his arm toward the nearest driver.
A bullet struck the road between them.
All three dropped.
The wheelchair tipped, but KM caught it before the old man fell.
"Temporary ceasefire," he reminded Shinso.
"You say that like I shot at you."
"I wanted the record clear."
Together they lifted the chair again.
At 9:58, VT released the official footage.
The clip began with glass striking a military shield.
It cut to protesters surging to their feet.
It showed police officers firing their sidearms.
It did not show the sealed roads, the seated crowd, the order from MALT, or the old man falling beneath his Constitution.
The caption appeared across every state-controlled channel still operating.
ARMED EXTREMISTS ATTACK CONGRESS. SECURITY FORCES RESPOND.
An analyst watched the edited clip loop.
"There are no armed protesters in the footage."
"There are angry ones," VT said. "Most people only read the caption once."
Camera Twelve found the Utopia group beside the fountain.
VT leaned closer.
XH moved badly but remained on his feet. NS stayed close to June. Kitty was turning back toward a body while Mr. Kim pulled her away.
"Track that group," VT said.
"For detention?"
"For interest."
The analyst marked their position.
On another screen, the eastern checkpoint began to fail.
The police driver did not wait for permission.
He reversed his patrol truck, turned hard inside the narrow lane, and struck the front corner of the military transport blocking the exit.
Metal screamed against concrete.
The transport moved less than a meter.
It was enough.
The gap widened.
"Families first!" the policewoman shouted. "Children and wounded first!"
People nearest the opening tried to obey. People farther back could not hear. The human pressure increased until the police formed two shield lines facing each other, creating a corridor between their bodies.
The first children passed through.
Then the elderly.
Then volunteers carried the teenager Anna had treated on a wooden sign used as a stretcher.
"Stay with him," Jihye told her.
Anna shook her head.
"Our group."
"I will find them. He only has you right now."
Anna looked toward the square.
Then she followed the stretcher through the gap.
Jihye watched until she disappeared beyond the truck.
"One out," NC said. "We get the rest."
We reached them at 10:01.
The distance from the fountain to the medical lane could not have been more than a hundred meters.
It felt longer than the road from Utopia.
NS moved first, bent low beneath the firing line. June held his belt with one hand. I kept my good hand around his wrist. Kitty stayed against my injured side, still gripping my sleeve.
Mr. Kim followed behind us, shouting the names of our classmates.
"NC!"
"Here!"
"Jihye!"
"Here!"
"Bunny!"
"Here!"
"Cherry!"
"Still unfortunately here!"
"Anna!"
Jihye answered for her.
"Through the checkpoint with a wounded boy."
Mr. Kim nodded once.
"Good. We follow."
The rifles paused.
The silence was worse because we knew it meant reloading, repositioning, or both.
People rose too quickly.
The crowd pressed east.
"Do not break the chain," NS said.
His hand tightened around mine.
The pressure struck us from the left.
Kitty cried out as somebody fell against her. I pulled her upright, losing my grip on NS for half a second.
June caught my forearm.
Our eyes met.
Whatever existed between us had no name I trusted anymore.
Her grip did not loosen.
"I have you," she said.
Then the red bands fired into the medical lane.
The police shields lifted.
The crowd folded inward.
Someone crashed between June and me.
Her fingers slid from my arm.
"June!"
NS turned at the sound of her name.
The human current carried us toward the checkpoint while he fought against it.
"June!"
Kitty remained against my side. NC and Jihye were ahead. Bunny and Cherry vanished behind a wall of raised shields. Mr. Kim shouted for everyone to keep moving.
NS forced his way back three steps.
I looked for June's white shirt, her mother's old shoulder bag, or one hand reaching above the crowd.
I saw none of them.
At 10:02, our chain reached the only open road.
June was no longer part of it.