Sam stopped at the asteroid mark and pressed his notebook to his chest. The chalk circle in the grass looked small, but the loss it showed felt huge. “So many living things,” Sam said, staring down the line, “and then so much changed.”

Ren set the chalk by his boot and stayed quiet for a moment. Grandma Noor touched Sam’s shoulder and said, “Yes. A hard ending. And still, life kept moving forward.” Sam looked along the map again and felt time moving on, even through sadness.