She pointed at the screen. The hero was losing a duel. The subtitles read: "Edhe yjet bien, por nata nuk mbaron." Even stars fall, but the night doesn't end.

"For when you miss the fall," she said.

"For you," she said in broken Italian. "American film. But me titra shqip —Albanian subtitles."

He clicked it on. An old Western played—John Wayne squinting into dust. Marco understood nothing. The Albanian subtitles scrolled past like ancient runes. He felt the ground dissolve. He was falling.

Marco didn't understand the words. But he understood the shape of them—how Arta's voice softened when she translated, how his nonna squeezed his hand from the bed, how the mountains outside swallowed the darkness without fear.

The village, Qerret i Sipërm, existed outside of time. Donkeys carried firewood. Old women in headscarves stared as Marco tripped over a chicken. His nonna, bedridden but sharp-eyed, laughed. "Ti je si reja, nip. You're like a cloud—lost up there."

On his last night, Arta gave him a DVD. The same Western. Me titra shqip .

Arta tilted her head. "Po. You fall from clouds. But here, we catch."

And Marco, for the first time, didn't feel lost. He felt held.