The order echoed across the square.
"Fire!"
For a single heartbeat, nothing happened. The soldiers standing in the front line looked at one another. Their rifles remained raised, their fingers resting against their triggers, yet none of them fired. The thousands of civilians standing opposite them continued walking forward without slowing their pace. Men carried nothing but Lebanese flags. Women held photographs of Karim Haddad against their chests. Elderly men walked shoulder to shoulder with university students. Mothers marched with children at their sides.
None of them stopped.
The commander felt an unfamiliar chill crawl up his spine. This was wrong. Every protest he had crushed over the past twenty years had always ended the same way. A few warning shots, panic followed, and then they ran. Fear always won.
Today, fear had disappeared.
"FIRE!" he roared once more.
The hesitation lasted only another second before discipline prevailed.
Booom!
