The announcement came out of nowhere.
“We’re going on a field trip,” Mr. Shafiei, their civics teacher, said one morning, standing in front of the blackboard with his usual air of exasperated patience.
The classroom erupted into chaos.
“What? Where? Why?” Arash heard himself ask, his voice blending with the excited murmurs of his classmates.
“Quiet!” Mr. Shafiei barked. “It’s an educational outing. We’re visiting the Khosrow Environmental Center. You’ll learn about community projects and teamwork.”
That didn’t sound exciting at all, but a break from school was still a break from school.
“Wait, sir,” one of the boys piped up. “Is it just… us going?”
Mr. Shafiei’s lips twitched, almost forming a smirk. “No. The youth group from Shams High School will also be there.”
Dead silence fell over the classroom. Everyone knew that Shams High School was co-ed.
The Boys’ Plan
The bus ride to the environmental center was electric with nervous energy. Most of the boys …
Arash had never thought of the school library as a particularly thrilling place. Sure, it was a quiet refuge from the chaos of his classmates’ shouting matches and pencil wars, but it was mostly just rows of dusty books, ruled over by the ever-frowning librarian, Mr. Jalali.
But one day, everything changed.
It started when Kian, who was supposed to be reading about physics, elbowed Arash and whispered, “Psst! Look at this.”
Arash looked over. Kian was holding a thin, unassuming book. The cover was simple, with a flower and a woman’s name scrawled elegantly across it: "Parinoush Saniee."
“A book by a woman?” Arash asked, his voice a mix of surprise and awe.
“Yeah,” Kian said, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Do you think we’re even allowed to read this?”
“Why wouldn’t we be?”
Kian raised an eyebrow. “Because it’s by her! You know… a girl.”
Arash smirked but couldn’t deny his curiosity. Growing up, …
At Arash’s school, life was a testosterone-fueled symphony of chaos. Every day began with a thundering stampede as boys flooded the hallways, racing each other to class as if punctuality were a sport. Backpacks swung like pendulums, shoes screeched against the tiled floors, and someone, somewhere, was always yelling, “Last one to the classroom is a chicken!”
Arash usually wasn’t in the front of the pack—running wasn’t his thing—but he also refused to be the metaphorical chicken, so he always managed to come in somewhere in the middle. His classroom, Room 14, was a microcosm of every stereotype about boys you could imagine. There was Hamid, the self-proclaimed athlete, who carried a soccer ball everywhere like it was his firstborn child. Majid, the class clown, could turn even the dullest math lecture into a comedy sketch. And then there was Kian, Arash’s best friend, whose life goal seemed to be proving …
The storm outside howled like a wounded beast, slamming rain against the reinforced glass of Dr. Elena Vega's underground lab. Power flickered, but the hum of the emergency generators kept her machines alive. On her desk, a small glass vial shimmered faintly in the dim light, its contents a liquid so iridescent it looked like captured starlight.
She called it The Catalyst.
Years of research had led her here: a synthetic compound capable of reversing atmospheric carbon levels at an unprecedented rate. Not just slowing the crisis—undoing it. A single droplet, when deployed, could trigger a chain reaction in the air, neutralizing greenhouse gases and stabilizing the planet's climate.
Elena’s fingers trembled as she secured the vial in a portable case. She had to get it to the launch site before it was too late. Outside, floodwaters rose, and the city’s air was thick with smoke from wildfires raging hundreds …
Read MoreEmma Cole stared at the thick manila envelope on her desk, her fingers tracing the edge of its flap. It had arrived anonymously, slipped into her mailbox at the Capitol Press offices late last night. Inside were documents, transcripts, and grainy photographs—enough evidence to topple the newly minted administration of President Nathan Hale.
The “People’s President,” they called him. Charismatic, sharp-tongued, a man of the people. But the papers in her hands told a different story: secret bank accounts, backroom deals with defense contractors, and payments funneled to silence dissent.
Her editor, Mark, leaned against the doorway. "You’ve been quiet all morning. What's in the envelope?"
Emma glanced up, then quickly slid the documents into her desk drawer. "Just background research," she said, her voice too casual.
Mark frowned. "You sure? You look like you’ve seen a ghost."
"I’m fine," she lied.
The truth was, her heart hadn’t stopped racing …
Read MoreCommander Elena Martinez floated in the quiet solitude of the Mars capsule, her hands steady as she adjusted the controls, guiding their craft closer to the Red Planet. The stars outside the small porthole shimmered, distant and cold, like pinpricks of hope in an endless, empty canvas.
She was the first to leave Earth with a mission that felt bigger than any one person—humanity’s boldest leap into the unknown. They called it Ares Venture, a pioneering journey that would mark the beginning of colonizing Mars, of securing humanity’s future beyond their fragile home. Yet, despite all the technology, the sleek spacecraft, and the mission’s grand purpose, Elena couldn’t shake the feeling of being utterly, terribly alone.
The other astronauts were awake—some conducting experiments, others preparing for the arrival—but Elena felt the weight of the silence in her chest. It wasn’t the absence of sound that unsettled her. It was the …
Read MoreIn Arash's world, everything came in pairs but was never allowed to mix. There were two entrances to every building: one for men, marked with bold, no-nonsense letters, and another for women, adorned with a flower motif that no one questioned. There were two sections in restaurants, separated by a curtain so thick it could muffle a scream, and even two lines at the bakery, as though bread had a gender preference.
But it was school where the divide felt the strongest. Arash’s all-boys school was a loud, chaotic world of roughhousing, competitive shouting, and an unspoken rule that everything, from pencils to playground arguments, must involve some form of combat. Across the street was the girls' school, a fortress of pastel walls and floral murals that seemed to hum with a serene, mysterious energy. For years, Arash and his classmates had speculated wildly about what went on behind its gates.
“Do …
It was a quiet evening at home. Arash sat cross-legged on the living room carpet, building an elaborate fort out of dominoes while his father flipped through the newspaper. His mother was in the kitchen, humming softly as she prepared dinner, and his older brother, Saeed, was sprawled on the couch, scrolling through his phone with the expression of someone enduring great boredom.
The quiet was broken when Arash’s younger cousin, Mina, ran past the room, giggling as her mother called after her. Mina had been visiting for a few days, and her presence had been a peculiar phenomenon in the house. Though she was only six years old, she belonged to the "other side," the mysterious world of girls, and her occasional intrusion into Arash’s boy-dominated universe always caused a ripple of awkwardness.
As Mina dashed by, Arash found himself pondering a question that had been bubbling in his mind for …
The rain soaked Mateo’s jacket as he held his wife Rosa’s hand, their two children huddled close between them. Outside the immigration office, a crowd of protesters shouted into the night, their signs bobbing like storm-tossed buoys: “Families Belong Together.” “No Human is Illegal.”
Behind the glass doors, Councilwoman Evelyn Grant stood watching. She didn’t belong here, not tonight, but something had pulled her from her townhouse and into the chaos. Perhaps it was the image of the Díaz family on her desk—the photo clipped to their immigration file, now stamped with the red letters FINAL ORDER.
Her aide had warned her. “Stay out of it. You’re running for re-election. You can’t take this fight.”
But here she was, drenched in guilt and indecision.
Evelyn recognized Mateo immediately, his weathered face exactly as it looked in the photo. He met her gaze through the glass, his eyes filled with something …
Read MoreKai’s fingers flew across the keyboard, the glow of the screen painting their face in pale blue light. The breach had been catastrophic—millions of names, locations, and personal histories leaked from VaultCore, the company that promised unbreakable security for the digital age. Among the stolen data: Kai’s mother’s bank details and her online medical records, now plastered across the dark web.
The official statement blamed "sophisticated cybercriminals," but Kai didn’t buy it. Not after finding the encrypted files buried in VaultCore’s server logs, files that didn’t belong in any legitimate operation.
"Someone left the back door open," Kai muttered, decrypting another file. And it wasn’t hackers. It was VaultCore itself.
The file revealed chilling plans: selling anonymized—yet traceable—user data to private contractors. The breach wasn’t a crime. It was a smokescreen.
A faint sound broke Kai’s concentration—a creak on the stairs.
They froze, ears straining. At this hour, it should’ve …
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