Mara slept for a few hours on a couch she did not own and woke to a city that had changed, not at once but in slants. Roadblocks cropped up like sudden inquiries. Military convoys moved in patterns that suggested containment rather than rescue: long, regulated lines of men and armored vehicles. Newsfeeds burgeoned with government briefings, insisting containment was progressing and asking for calm. But there were footage threads under the surface—home videos showing enormous chitinous silhouettes at the edges of neighborhoods, a schoolyard where the swings moaned under their own ghosts.