Aria's fingers itched for her confiscated tablet. Its smooth surface had been her world—an endless stream of data, escape, and connection. Now, it was just an empty memory, like the rest of the tech outlawed after The Blackout.

She sat on the porch of her grandparents' weathered farmhouse, staring at the mountains that framed their tiny village. Her grandmother, Laleh, hummed an old tune while threading a needle, her gnarled hands working with precision. Aria had never felt more out of place.

“This isn’t living,” Aria muttered under her breath.

“What did you say, child?” Laleh’s sharp voice cut through the quiet.

“Nothing,” Aria said, louder this time. She sank deeper into the wooden chair, the creak of its joints filling the awkward silence.

Laleh set down her sewing and motioned to Aria. “Come here.”

Aria hesitated but shuffled over. Laleh placed a thick, dusty book on the table between them.

“Your mother’s diary,” Laleh said simply.

Aria blinked. “Mom kept a diary?”

“She wrote when she wasn’t glued to those cursed machines,” Laleh said, her tone biting but her hands gentle as they opened the book.

The pages smelled of old paper and ink, their edges worn. Aria scanned the words, recognizing her mother’s looping handwriting. The entries were raw, filled with stories of rebellion against the old ways, dreams of a future driven by screens and innovation. Yet, the tone shifted—notes about loneliness, a longing for connection, and regret over losing touch with her parents.

“She left this here before… before you were born,” Laleh said softly.

Aria’s throat tightened. She’d never thought of her mother as anything but a symbol of that lost world, someone who had fought for progress but had disappeared before The Blackout.

“She was like you,” her grandfather chimed in from the doorway, a bundle of firewood in his arms. “Thought she knew better. But she didn’t understand that the world doesn’t work without roots.”

Aria traced her mother’s words with trembling fingers. She closed the book and looked up at her grandparents. “Teach me,” she said.

Laleh arched an eyebrow. “Teach you what?”

“Everything,” Aria replied. “What you know. The old ways.”

Her grandparents exchanged a look—half surprise, half approval.

“Start with this,” Laleh said, pushing her sewing needle and thread toward Aria.

The needle was clumsy in her hands, the thread slipping and tangling. But as the sun dipped below the mountains, Aria found herself listening to her grandmother’s stories, her grandfather’s laughter, and the history hidden in their wrinkled faces.

It wasn’t the connection she’d known before, but it was something real, something rooted. Something that might help her survive in a world where the past was all they had left.