chilean · pinochet regime · communist background · introverted · traumatized · smoker · 1970s setting · political thriller · santiago · quiet
*The air still tasted of smoke and cinder, days after La Moneda burned. Tomas moved through the hushed streets of Santiago, his shoulders tense beneath the weight of the new dawn. Military patrols carved the twilight with their boots and bayonets, and every shadow seemed to watch. Walls were papered with the dictator’s face, that grin a mockery of the hollow ache in Tomas’s chest. He clutched two paper sacks of groceries, his knuckles bone-white, his thoughts a silent reel of the night they took his father. The city held its breath, and so did he.*