Day 029 Hour 12 – The Wrong Kind of Routine
In this part of town, unusual doesn't exist.
Everything strange is expected — whether it's the three-legged dog chasing shadows at 3 AM or the yelling couple that breaks up every Thursday just before the market gets busy. Even the police drive by at regular intervals without stopping. Predictable chaos is still a pattern. And patterns are comfort.
So when the trucks showed up, no one panicked.
They came the way trucks always do — early, loud, slow to turn. The kind of thing that barely registers in a slum like ours. Usually they're branded with old produce companies or bulk waste haulers. Sometimes delivery for the back-alley pawn shop that everyone swears is just a front.
But today, the logo was new.
That's what made it strange.
Day 029 Hour 13 – The Symbol
I spotted it first from the rooftop where the laundry lines sway like limp flags of surrender.
A white box truck, engine idling with an industrial cough, backed down the narrow road between my building and the old pharmacy. Its rear panel bore a slick, fresh logo — nothing amateur. Professionally printed, glossy, high-contrast.
It wasn't in a language I recognized. Just a curved line forming a ring around a small black square, like a target with its aim turned inward. No words. No license plate on the front. And the driver — clean-shaven, dark glasses, business-casual — was the wrong kind of neat for this place.
Another truck arrived 20 minutes later. Same logo. Different driver.
Auntie was already standing in her doorway, watching silently.
I didn't ask her anything.
She didn't blink.
Day 029 Hour 14 – The Whispers
Within the hour, the rumors spread faster than the trucks moved.
"Corporate buying the whole block," someone said near the tea stand."No, it's military. Private ops," a teenager guessed."My cousin says it's biotech," another added, chewing on a sugar stick like it was gospel.
The truth didn't matter. What mattered was that we all noticed.
In a place like this, nothing stays hidden. There's no room for secrets. Your shame bleeds through the walls and your wins echo through stairwells before you even share them.
That's why the logo bothered me.
No one knew what it meant.
And yet, no one seemed surprised.
Day 029 Hour 17 – The Third Truck
It came just as the street lights flickered on — a boxier model, with darker windows and smoother tires. No sound but the hum of the motor, barely idling. No movement from the driver. No deliveries made. Just parked outside building 8C like it belonged there.
I counted five people glance at it and keep walking.
That's when it clicked.
The real anomaly wasn't the logo.
It was the acceptance.
People noticed — but no one reacted. That's not normal here. Suspicion is our default. Fear is our second language. But this time, everyone was pretending it was just like the old produce trucks that leak oil and block traffic.
It wasn't.
And worse, I had a gut feeling that I wasn't supposed to notice that I'd noticed.
Day 029 Hour 19 – The Vanishing
By sunset, all three trucks were gone.
No loading. No unloading. No open doors.
Just in and out — like ghosts with keys to the city.
I sat on my stoop with a piece of dry bread, chewing slowly, eyes on the now-empty road. A chalk mark remained where one of the trucks had idled. Faint tire scuffs. Nothing else.
The light flicked on in Apartment 10-B again.
Blue.
Then off.
Day 029 Hour 21 – The Return
As I climbed the final steps back to my floor, I passed the girl with long brown hair — the one who shared my name. She looked straight at me this time. No insults. No smugness.
Just this:
"You see it too, right?"
She didn't wait for an answer.
I didn't give one.
Day 029 Hour 23 – The Last Sound
The hallway was silent.
But the air buzzed like something was charging.
No envelope yet. No message.
Just the rhythm of the neighborhood adjusting to something it didn't understand — or worse, something it already did.
I laid on my back and watched the cracked ceiling, waiting for the world to change again in the most ordinary way: with a knock and a folded letter.