The world above Wildan's head collapsed once more—not from wood and concrete this time, but under the crushing impact of a profoundly cruel reality.

When his body was finally pulled out from the airless sub-floor cavity, the first thing to strike his senses was open air. Yet that air was far from clean. The afternoon atmosphere hung heavy with drifting ash particles, thick and reeking of stinging sulfur. Wildan's lungs, accustomed to the minimal oxygen supply inside the underground waiting room for three full days, went into sudden shock upon receiving the raw atmospheric pressure outside.

"Kid! Can you hear me? Breathe slowly, kid!" the voice of Dika, the SAR officer cradling his body, echoed in Wildan's ringing ears.

Wildan couldn't answer. His throat felt as though it had been scoured raw with sandpaper, dry to the point where every attempt to draw a breath stabbed agonizingly into his chest. His lips were chapped, peeling, and crusted with dried black blood from severe dehydration. His frail body hung limply, surrendering completely to the folding stretcher carried by the personnel.

"Oxygen! Quick, hook up the portable oxygen tank!" Danu, the team commander, barked instructions while sprinting alongside the stretcher.

A medic swiftly pressed a transparent plastic mask over Wildan's face. The cold, hissing rush of pure oxygen forced its way in, compelling Wildan's collapsed lungs to inflate once more. Wildan choked, his body spasming slightly as his chest rose and fell in irregular spasms, fighting desperately to capture every single molecule of air capable of extending his life.

Amidst the struggle to breathe, Wildan's blurred, tear-filled eyes slowly scanned his surroundings. The stretcher carrying him lurched and bumped along a makeshift evacuation path. It was then that Wildan laid eyes on the true, terrifying landscape.

The illusion of a quiet, tranquil housing complex beneath a pale orange sky had vanished completely. What stretched out before him was a post-apocalyptic hellscape.

Their shop house wasn't the only casualty. The entire row of commercial lots to the right and left had collapsed into heaps of blackened charcoal and rubble. Further ahead, the traditional market area—ordinarily paralyzed by the hustle and bustle of merchants and buyers—now lay flattened to the earth. Concrete power utility poles snapped and spilled across cracked cement streets, trailing charred, dead black cables like severed giant veins.

The massive fire that had erupted two days prior had gutted the entire block. Thick white plumes still drifted from scattered pockets of ruin, blotting out the afternoon sun and casting a gray, lifeless, and chilling atmosphere over everything.

"Damn it... the path this way is washed out! Route it through the collapsed textile shop!" shouted one of the rescue workers leading the stretcher.

The SAR team's struggle to haul Wildan out from the epicenter of the ruins was no easy feat. The shop house cement floor, structurally compromised by the extreme heat of the blaze, risked sudden collapse at any moment. The workers had to step with extreme caution over jagged sheets of corrugated metal and timber beams still hiding glowing embers within. Their thick rubber boots sloshed through puddles of firefighting runoff mixed with black ash, kicking up thick mud along the way.

"Hold the position! Lift higher, there's a dangling rebar!" Danu commanded sharply, pitching in to support the center of the stretcher so Wildan's battered body wouldn't suffer violent jolts.

Upon the stretcher, behind the fogging oxygen mask, Wildan's tears streamed uncontrollably, washing away the black soot caked on his cheeks. The physical agony from dehydration and minor skin burns paled entirely against the crushing devastation tearing through his chest.

Taking in the total destruction all around him, Wildan's memories snapped instantly back to the illusionary home of that third day. He remembered how his mother had so gently asked him to stay inside. He remembered the profound life lessons delivered by his father with a gaze full of aching sorrow. He remembered how Rian, his little brother, had clung tightly to his legs while crying, "Rian's scared of the ash, Big Brother..."

They had known they were gone.

Those 'stiff mannequin' figures holding him back with monstrous strength in the final moments before he opened the door hadn't acted out of malice. It was the physical manifestation of the residual love and protective instincts of their departed souls. They had deliberately locked Wildan's consciousness inside a slow-moving time bubble so his physical body wouldn't panic, wouldn't inhale the toxic smoke outside, and would remain safely tucked beneath the sub-floor hatch until rescue workers found him.

His family had sacrificed the remainder of their spiritual existence just to ensure their eldest son survived.

"Wildan... you have to become a sturdy pillar, Le. Someday, when you find your own path, never run away again. Face it..."

His father's advice suddenly rang out with crystal clarity inside Wildan's mind, cutting right through the chaotic roar of sirens and SAR instructions. Those words no longer felt suffocating; they transformed into a spiritual fuel that incinerated his remaining despair.

Wildan gripped the sides of the stretcher with his weak fingers. He couldn't give up here. If he surrendered to the pain and chose to die, then the sacrifice of his father, mother, and Rian—who had held him back within that waiting room for death—would be reduced to nothing.

I have to live, Wildan whispered deep within his heart, drawing a long, steady breath that felt significantly lighter behind his oxygen mask. I will live for you all.

Their shop house might be reduced to dust, the nearby market turned to ash, and his family's physical remains merged with the earth. Yet Wildan realized one fundamental truth: their immense love hadn't burned away. That love had carried over, flowing through his bloodstream, anchored firmly within every beat of his heart.

They weren't truly gone. They would live on inside him forever, serving as a compass to guide his steps through the harsh reality he now had to face alone.

Wildan's stretcher finally cleared the police line, greeted by the emotional cheers and applause of local residents witnessing the miraculous rescue. His limp body was gently loaded into an ambulance with its rear doors swung wide. The doors sealed shut behind him, cutting Wildan off from the charred ruins, whisking him away toward the dawn of a new life—carrying eternal inner scars, yet bearing an unyielding will to live that no fire could ever extinguish.