Every morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is unlock my phone and stare at that little icon in the top right corner—the one that should mean connection to the world.

And how bitterly it hurts when you see it crossed out, silent, dead. Cut off from everything. Powerless.

These days, I can barely bring myself to work. I long to go to the gem-cutting workshop, lose myself in the familiar rhythm of shaping beautiful stones like before… but the will is gone.

So, I sit here in front of this battered monitor and let the words pour out. The day after that terrible Friday, January 9 …

According to my sister, many young people in her city took to the streets last night in fierce anti-regime marches. Clashes were brutal. Many lives were lost.

 With the nationwide internet blackout, the deepest pain is not knowing—being left in utter darkness. Yet the news that travels mouth to mouth, person to person, carries an ominous weight.

Like someone gathering scattered pieces of a puzzle, slowly fitting them together until the full picture of a catastrophe emerges.

She told me a relative who works at the hospital reported more than fifty bodies brought to the morgue in a single night. And hundreds of eye enucleations—just in one hospital.

When she said it, I fell silent for long moments. The numbers felt impossible. There was no official confirmation. And truthfully, my heart refused to accept it could be real. In the middle of this, her seventeen-year-old daughter—the one always full of fire and life—had been begging to join the protests again tonight.

My niece. Last night she was kept home by force. Tonight, she was determined not to be stopped. My sister said the girl was restless beyond words; no reasoning could hold her back.

A national team athlete, strong, fast—she told her mother:

“Don’t worry about me! I can defend myself. I run like lightning; I leap over walls. If anyone comes at me, I’ll answer with my fists.”

My sister shook her head: “She thinks because she’s on the national team she can stand in front of bullets.”

I don’t want to sound heartless, but I don’t want her in those deadly streets either. I love her dearly. If I could, I would stand in her place, take the risk for her. In the end, after endless pleading, her mother managed to keep her inside. From early evening until past midnight the girl paced—parking to rooftop, rooftop to parking.

Once she even tried to slip out to the street under the excuse of throwing out the trash; her parents blocked her. Finally, she went down to the apartment parking garage and waited there behind the door, hoping that if protesters passed, she could at least help somehow.

And help came. A group of young marchers, afraid of being caught, ducked into their building’s parking area. My sister and niece offered them water and drinks, gave them a few minutes of safety, a brief sanctuary.

Still, the protesters trusted no one. They feared betrayal at every turn. The family reassured them: “We stand with you. You’re safe here.” Eventually, as the situation calmed, most of them slipped away—except for one sixteen-year-old boy who stayed crouched in a corner, trembling with fear.

My sister brought him something to drink, spoke softly, tried to ease his terror. Then came the nosy building caretaker. His arrival turned everything menacing. The frightened boy bolted and ran.

“Damn this internet—why is it still cut?! How much longer?!” Part of me thinks: if this blackout continues, we will fall behind the whole world—behind work, behind life, behind everything. Living like this becomes nearly impossible. But another part of me whispers the opposite truth:

As long as the internet remains severed, it means the people are still in the streets.

Our true enemy—the regime that fears its own people—is still struggling, still bleeding.

P.S.

To my dear Publish0x friends who have stood by me through joy and through sorrow:

The internet is back now. Speeds are much better. Yet for some reason Publish0x remains harder to reach than other places. I believe it’s because this page is filtered inside Iran and we must use VPNs to access it—and this platform seems especially sensitive to VPN traffic compared to others.

I’m usually active on different pages these days, but the people here have always treated me with real warmth. So, I’ve decided to stay, just as I have for the past few years.

 I know my words are bitter lately, my writing rarely brings comfort. I only try to speak the reality I have lived. I can’t reply to comments properly—the connection chokes every time I try. So, I leave the answering to my friends abroad who have taken up the fight for our homeland’s freedom these days. This is a war we have been waging against this child-killing, bloodthirsty regime for over forty years—and I, personally, for twenty of them.

How brutally long these days have dragged on, and how agonizing they remain for Iranians across the globe.

Understanding what stirs inside us now—chests filled with hearts riddled with bullets—is no easy task.

We are no longer truly alive!

We are merely spirits, drawing breath only to claim vengeance.

Yet I am certain…

I am certain that we will triumph. No matter the cost, we will triumph.

Dead or alive… we will triumph.

And we will show the world exactly how humanity was butchered in the streets of Iran—and how the nightmare of it still walks among us.