He typed, hands shaking.

Rayan hadn’t slept in forty-three hours. His reflection stared back from the black mirror of his laptop screen—hollow eyes, a tremor in his left hand, and a coffee stain spreading across the sleeve of his hoodie. Outside his rented room in Alexandria, the Mediterranean wind howled through broken shutters, but inside, the only sound was the soft hum of a fan and the occasional click of his fingers on a mechanical keyboard.

Then what?

Rayan sat in the dark, the wind outside now sounding less like a storm and more like footsteps. He unplugged the USB, slipped it into his sock, and erased his boot logs.

Layla?

Safe is relative. The Labyrinth Consortium watches every public network. Fastray is the only blind spot. But it’s not a VPN. It’s a mirror. Everything you send here is real but leaves no trace. I’ve been documenting their data auctions. They’re selling identities—whole lives—to the highest bidder. I can’t leave until I have everything.

Rayan wrote it to a USB drive, rebooted, and held his breath.

Then you burn the USB. And you remember: a straight path is only safe if no one knows you’re walking it. Delete this chat. Move. I’ll find you when it’s over.

He was chasing ghosts.