decision had shattered something worse: the belief that the men beneath the mountain had ever been protected by the people who sent them there.

That was the aftershock nobody could measure with satellites.

Some families blamed the bombers and only the bombers.

Others said the most unforgivable act happened before the first penetrator hit, when leaders who already knew the radar picture was blind chose secrecy over evacuation.

The biggest red flag, Arman thought, had been how calm the orders sounded when the screens first went black.

Calm was what convinced men to stay where danger wanted them most.

Years might pass before anyone agreed on who was most guilty.

The foreign aircraft that turned the mountain into fire, or the commanders who turned it into a coffin.

But among the survivors who heard the recorder, one truth never changed: the tunnels did not become a tomb only because they were bombed.

They became a tomb because someone decided the lie hidden in Chamber Seven mattered more than the lives breathing below it.