Let's prioritize speed and quiet

You leave the rifles, the grenades, the belts. Too heavy, too loud. You wipe your hands on your trouser and walk back to where you leave your AK47, after that you return your blooded knife back in your boot. Your pistol still holstered and unused. The kills were silent. The night swallows them. No shouts, no running boots behind you. Just the crackle of fires and the low moan of the wind through broken windows.

Ten minutes later the avenue opens into a wide plaza. The old cathedral stands at the far end, black against the burning sky. Four storey of stone, walls pock marked by shells. The bell tower is missing its top half. Jagged edges point at the smoke like broken teeth. Every window on the ground floor is boarded or bricked up. The main double doors of thick oak banded with iron hangs open on one hinge. Light leaks out of yellow, it's steady. Someone inside is using lamps.

Two trucks are parked sideways across the steps engines cold. Canvas flaps tied down with blood stains on the tailgates. A single guard leaning on the side of the nearest one. Rifle slung to his side head nodding with fatigue.

From the shadows you count three more silhouettes moving behind the colored glass of the rose window high above. At least four men. Maybe more deeper inside.

Your sister could be in there. Or already gone.

You ease the pistol from your belt, check the magazine by feel. Eight rounds left.

Go in loud kick the doors, shoot anything that moves, hope you reach her before they do or slip through the dark, cut throats one by one, and pray the silence holds.

Which way?