An ordinary winter day. 202x.
Sulaymaniyah University, Physics Department — Classroom 111.
An ordinary student sat in his seat.
The professor walked in with a stack of papers tucked under his arm. He set them on the desk and looked out at the room.
"These are your midterm results. Have a look and hand them back to me at the end of class."
He began moving through the rows, setting papers face-down on desks as he passed. When he reached the student, he paused. He placed the paper down and moved on without a single word.
The student turned it over.
He looked at it for a moment. Then, he looked up at the professor.
In the professor's eyes—before he'd even looked away—something was already there. Not anger. Not disappointment, exactly.
Just the particular, heavy exhaustion of a man who had seen this before and wished he hadn't.
Before moving to the next desk, the professor leaned down slightly, his voice dropping low enough that only the student could hear.
"Cevver—after class. I'd like a word with you, if you have the time."
The student put his head down on the desk. It was the boneless, heavy collapse of someone who is very tired and very done.
"Fine. Sure, professor."
"Don't just say sure. Actually come, alright?"
The student raised one hand in a vague gesture of acknowledgment without lifting his head.
The chair across from the professor's desk was the kind that had been sat in by too many nervous students for too many years. Cevver sat in it.
The professor set his glasses on the desk. Picked up his water. Took a sip. Set it back down.
"Cevver, was it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Right." He folded his hands. "I've been looking at your record this semester. Not just this class—all of them."
A heavy pause.
"You've failed almost everything."
The window behind the professor showed the university yard. A pigeon landed on the sill and immediately flew away.
"Son."
Cevver tilted his head toward him. "Yes, sir."
"What's going on with you? Are you working somewhere? Labor? Are you—" The professor searched for the right word. "Are you having a difficult time?"
Cevver's knee bounced once under the desk. Twice.
"Say something. Anything. Help me understand."
"It's... it's nothing. I'm just..."
"Just what?" The professor leaned forward slightly. "If this continues, you won't finish your degree. Not this year. Not next year either."
Cevver nodded blankly at the desk.
The professor looked at him for a long, quiet moment. Then, he leaned back, pulled a sheet from the stack beside him, and drew a single, heavy line through something on it.
"I'm not going to register your results."
"Thank you, sir."
"Don't thank me yet." He set the pen down. "Five assignments. Two weeks. You bring them to me on time—all five—and I give you the marks you need to pass this subject. That's the absolute most I can do."
Cevver went still. Then nodded quickly.
"Yes—yes, of course, sir. Thank you. Really."
The professor studied him. "Wake up a little. I'm not asking for the world. Just a little. Understood?"
"Understood, sir."
"You can go."
The university yard was cold and bright.
Cevver walked out with his books tucked between his arm and his ribs. He was still squinting against the harsh winter light when an arm hooked over his shoulder from behind.
"Ha—Ceva. How'd you do?"
"Terrible."
"I barely passed."
"Ibrahim, you are such a lucky bastard."
"Hey." Ibrahim pulled back, deeply offended. "I studied a little, man. Don't jump to conclusions, you penis head."
"Hm." Cevver shifted his books. "What are you doing today?"
"Tomorrow's Friday, day after is Saturday." Ibrahim spread his free hand like the answer was obvious. "I say we go out. Billiards. Then FIFA or Black Ops 2 zombies at the game center."
"Did you bring your car?"
"Parked right at the front gate." He nudged him. "Come on."
"I don't know if I have time. The professor gave me assignments."
"Deadline?"
"Two weeks."
Ibrahim waved this away completely. "Ehh. You've got loads of time. Do them in one night with ChatGPT." He was already walking. "Come on."
Cevver considered this for approximately four seconds.
"...let's go."
Ibrahim's car smelled like old pine freshener and stale cigarettes.
He lit one before he'd even started the engine, passing one across the console without asking. Cevver took it.
They pulled out into the busy street.
"Cev."
"Hm."
"You heard about that thing?"
"What thing?"
"That guy—front row, right side of our class."
"Hevar?"
"Yeah, that smoothie."
"What about him?"
"He got married."
Cevver turned to look at him. "Swear?"
"Yes, yes."
"...we're both going to burn from virginity."
Ibrahim snorted a cloud of smoke. "My parents are like parrots, man. Chew chew chew in my ears about some girl they want me to meet."
"Ibrahim."
"Hm."
"How old are you again?"
"Twenty-two."
"I'm twenty-three."
A red light. Ibrahim drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.
"Cev. Do your parents do the same? The marriage thing?"
Cevver looked out his window. The street outside was painfully ordinary—a bakery, a phone repair shop, a man arguing with a parking attendant.
"Me?" He tapped ash out the window. "No. Not really."
A beat.
"I'm not interested anyway. My right hand is enough for me."
"Man, shut your ass up—"
"Ibrahim."
"What—"
"IBRAHIM!"
Ibrahim's head snapped forward. A car was coming directly at them, drifting into their lane.
He yanked the wheel hard. The tires chirped aggressively against the asphalt. The other car blasted past with its horn going long and furious, and then it was gone.
Silence.
Both of them sat very, very still.
"...my soul almost left my body," Ibrahim said quietly.
The cafeteria was warm and crowded.
They found a table near the window, and Ibrahim whistled at the waiter before they'd even sat down properly.
"Cappuccino and an espresso—don't put sugar in the cappuccino, bring a caramel toffee on the side."
"Right away."
The nargila came first. Ibrahim inhaled, blowing out a thick cloud, and passed the hose across. Cevver took it without looking up.
They sat like that for a while. The pipe passing back and forth. Phones out.
It was the particular, comfortable silence of two people who have been friends long enough that silence doesn't need filling.
"Ibrahim."
"Ha." Still looking at his screen.
Cevver's knee bounced. Slowed. Bounced again.
"My parents aren't home tonight." He handed the pipe across. "The match is Arsenal and Bayern Munich."
Ibrahim took it and inhaled. "So?"
"So what, bum? Bring beers. We'll watch it together."
Ibrahim looked up for the first time. "Cev, you drink?"
"Been drinking lately." Cevver held his hand out for the pipe. "Behind their backs. It doesn't hurt if a man looks for a little escapism."
"Ahhhh." Ibrahim grinned and passed it over. "I see. Your crush is with another guy."
"It's not even about women." Cevver inhaled. Held it. Let the smoke out slow.
"It's not about anything like that. It's just that I—" He turned the pipe over in his hands. "A man can't say much, can he?"
Ibrahim stared at him. "What the fuck are you saying? Give me the pipe, you goof."
Cevver sighed and handed it over.
The coffees arrived. They drank. They scrolled. The coals on the nargila went from red to grey, and the waiter came and replaced them without being asked.
Later—billiards. The satisfying crack of a good break. Ibrahim loudly disputing every single shot that didn't go his way.
Then the game center. Controllers warm from use, the chaotic sound of zombies, and Ibrahim aggressively swearing at the screen.
By the time they got back to the car, the evening had settled into itself. That particular winter dark that comes early and sits heavy on the city.
Ibrahim lit a cigarette before pulling out. Passed one across.
"When's the match?"
"Ten-thirty." Cevver cracked his window slightly to let the cold air in. "Don't forget the beers."
"Two cans enough?"
"Make it four. I'll repay you."
"You better." Ibrahim pulled into the street. "They've gotten more expensive since this whole thing between Iran and the Jews kicked off."
"I know. Groceries too."
"Man." Ibrahim shook his head. "I hate those fucking Jewish goblins."
"Everyone does. Though honestly, they don't even like themselves."
"Ibrahim—I don't care if you're offended, but Islam is just another cult alongside them."
"You're saying this like I'm some devout man." Ibrahim waved his cigarette dismissively. "I couldn't care less. Fuck religion. Fuck God too. I only pray when my parents are looking."
"I wouldn't say that to be honest, but fortunately, my parents aren't really religious," Cevver replied, exhaling smoke at the windshield.
"IBRAHIM!"
Headlights. Coming directly at them.
"FUCK!"
Ibrahim yanked the wheel violently. The other car blasted past with a long, furious horn that dopplered away into the dark.
Silence.
"...this is the second time today," Ibrahim said quietly, his grip white-knuckled on the wheel.
Cevver sat very still in the passenger seat, his cigarette burning down between two trembling fingers.
"...maybe that old asshole in the sky heard us."
Ibrahim didn't say anything at all.
Moments later.
Ibrahim pulled up outside Cevver's building. Cevver got out, reached back in for his books, then patted his pockets and found his keys.
"See you tonight, then."
"Yeah, see you around, bum." Ibrahim leaned an elbow on the open window. "Try not to think about it too much."
Cevver stopped. "Think about what?"
"You know—"
"Ohhh." He straightened up, forcing a casual posture. "Right, right. Nah—I couldn't care less."
Ibrahim looked at him for a long moment through the window.
"You've been acting weird lately." A beat. "I hope you don't end yourself or something, because I love you, man."
Cevver stared at him. "Ibrahim. What is wrong with you? Why do you say things like that? You almost ended us both today."
"You know what—" Ibrahim reached for the window button. "See you tonight. Yalla. Goodbye."
The window rolled up.
A short, sharp horn—just once—and the car pulled away.
Cevver stood on the cold pavement and raised one hand.
He watched the taillights until the car turned the corner.
Then he lowered his hand.
He stood there for another second.
And went inside.
The house was quiet.
Not the quiet of an empty room, but the quiet of a house that knows nobody else is inside it. The whole building felt heavy with it.
Cevver dropped his books on the desk. Looked at them. Opened his laptop.
The cursor blinked on a blank screen.
He thought about what Ibrahim had said. One night, ChatGPT, done.
Then he thought about the professor's face this morning. The particular, deep tiredness in his eyes. The way he'd drawn that line through the failing results without making a humiliating performance out of it.
The professor will know it's AI written.
He stared at the bright screen.
...will he, though?
He stared at it a while longer.
Closed the laptop.
He went downstairs, put a pot of water on the stove, turned the gas up, and stood there with his hands in his pockets, staring at nothing.
Then, he turned around and went back upstairs without even waiting for it to boil.
He lay on his back on his bed. Pulled out his phone.
6:58 PM.
The professor's voice drifted through his head.
Wake up a little, I'm not asking for too much.
He looked at the thought from a distance, the way you look at something through thick glass.
Cevver, you fucking piece of shit, do your job properly for once. Just for once. Don't. Don't.
He closed his eyes, squeezed them shut, and opened them again.
He opened TikTok. The thought was gone.
The feed loaded immediately.
An edit. A song he half-recognized. Someone's gym progress. A pretty cosplayer. A silly VTuber. News of geopolitical victories. The USA bombing the Middle East again.
A news clip with the sound off—a city on fire somewhere in Iran, UAE, or Iraq, the caption mentioning casualties.
An anime fight cut to heavy music. A girl dancing. Another news clip—different city, same fire. A cat knocking something off a table. Someone crying.
Half-Life 3 confirmed clickbait, but the comments were viciously arguing about something else entirely.
A brutal war condensed into fifteen seconds, wedged perfectly between two advertisements for skincare products.
His thumb moved without him asking it to. Load after load of information. A never-ending stream of unpleasant news and mindless noise.
At some point, he got up, put his earphones in, and walked circuits around his room. Something loud and rhythmic filled the empty space behind his eyes.
That was better. That was marginally better.
He walked until the song ended, then started another one, pacing through that one too, imagining himself inside fictional, grandiose scenarios he made up just to feel something.
7:54 PM.
He lay back down and stared at the blank ceiling.
Assignment.
The ceiling didn't offer any useful advice.
Watch porn first, or start the assignment.
He thought about this with far more genuine deliberation than it deserved. There were five assignments, and two weeks was actually a lot of time if he was being honest. Ibrahim was right; one solid night could fix it.
He reached down, pulled his trousers off, and made a decision.
It took about as long as these things take when a person is just going through the motions, rather than actually being present for them.
Afterward, he lay completely still, the phone resting face-down on his chest.
The room had gotten darker without him noticing. Outside, a lone motorcycle passed. Someone in the apartment above walked from one room to another, the heavy footsteps crossing the ceiling and stopping.
He should feel better. That was supposed to be the entire point of the dopamine hit.
Instead, the familiar weight was back.
Heavier than before. The way it always was afterward.
It sat right between his sternum and his throat. It didn't have a name or a shape. It was just a crushing pressure. Just a cold, hard fact.
He lay pinned under it, not moving, thinking about nothing specific. Just the general, suffocating texture of everything in his life being slightly wrong in a way he couldn't locate, explain, or talk about without sounding completely insane.
A man can't say much, can he.
"What have I done wrong for my life to turn out like this?"
He stared at the ceiling, dragging his sweaty palms down his face.
"Every single decision I make ends in the worst way possible."
He took a deep, trembling breath, exhaling with a voice so low only the empty room could hear it.
"I wish I could go back and start all over again....."
7:58 PM.
He got up, pulled his trousers back on, and walked to the bathroom. He washed his hands and looked at himself in the mirror for a second.
Just a second. Not long enough to start spiraling.
He went downstairs to the living room.
The living room was pitch dark. He didn't bother turning on the light.
He just dropped onto the couch, one hand resting flat over his sternum where the heaviness still sat. He reached over to the table and blindly felt for a cigarette.
He put it between his lips.
His nose wrinkled. He sniffed the stagnant air.
Something smelled strange.
He looked toward the kitchen from the hall. He didn't see anything. No glow from the stove. He dismissed it.
He sat there with the unlit cigarette between his teeth, lighter in hand, not moving.
Again. A smell.
Faint. Chemical. The specific, unmistakable smell of leaving a gas burner on and walking back into a room, feeling it in your lungs before your brain consciously registers the danger—
The pot!
He sat up slightly, peering into the dark kitchen. He hadn't seen a flame on the stove earlier. He hadn't lit it to boil the pot at all.
He slumped back down onto the couch.
"Heh."
The lighter was already in his hand.
The room was dark. His thumb was already resting on the spark wheel.
It was just one flick.
The lighter clicked.
And that click was the last ordinary sound he would ever hear.
Outside, Ibrahim's car rolled to a stop in front of the building.
He killed the engine, checked his phone—10:12, still time—and reached into the back seat for the plastic bag. Four cans knocked together heavily as he pulled it out.
He was already composing the complaint in his head, ready to tell Cevver he better actually pay him back this time, when he stepped out onto the cold pavement and looked up.
The windows on the ground floor were wrong.
He stood there, the bag of beers in one hand and his phone in the other, trying to understand what he was looking at.
Then, the glass on the nearest window darkened from the inside. Something was pressing against it.
His brain was still struggling to catch up when the handprint appeared.
Palm flat. Fingers splayed wide.
Moving downward, the way things move when the life and weight are leaving them. It dragged a dark, wet, horrific smear down the glass as it fell.
Ibrahim's phone slipped from his fingers and hit the pavement.
His hands went slowly to the back of his head.
The bag of beers was still dangling from his trembling fingers.
"...."
"Cevver!" he screamed, his voice tearing out with every ounce of strength in his throat.
Darkness.
Not the darkness of a room with the lights turned off. Not the darkness you see behind closed eyelids.
Something else entirely.
A darkness with unfathomable depth to it. With distance. Like floating in the dead center of an ocean that had no walls, no floor, and no ceiling.
He tried to extend his arms and legs, but he couldn't.
He realized, with a creeping lack of panic, that he did not have a body.
Then how can I feel or see the darkness?
The question didn't seem to apply here.
Then.
Two points of light.
Blue. Side by side.
Faint at first, the way stars look through heavy cloud cover. Then steadier. Closer.
Growing slowly as they approached—or was he approaching them? Direction had lost all meaning.
They grew until they filled enough of the absolute dark to look like a pair of eyes.
They stopped.
Something rippled through the dead silence.
"Time?"
A long, heavy pause. As if the word itself needed to be carefully weighed.
"Is it really that time again?"
The glowing blue lights regarded him.
Then, they dimmed. Slowly. Fading back into the pitch black the way embers die out in the ash. The glow outlasted the source for a second, and then that too was gone.
The dark went with them.
And then, he was moving.
No—ascending.
Upward, tearing through layers of something that thinned as he went. From heavy grey, to lighter grey, to a pale expanse that possessed no color at all.
Then through cloud. Through the phantom, freezing wet interior of it, bursting out the other side into open air.
He was above it. Above everything. The clouds beneath him formed a broken, brilliant white plain stretching in every direction.
Still rising.
Faster.
The clouds shrank. The horizon curved. The bright blue of the sky deepened, thinned, and then darkened at the edges into the absolute black of space.
The curve beneath him became unmistakably, undeniably a sphere. White, brown, blue, and green. The whole beautiful, fragile thing hanging there in the center of nothing.
He ascended faster.
The sphere shrank. Stars ignited around it. Then more stars. The Earth became a marble. Then a speck of dust. Then it vanished entirely into the cosmic background.
He flew even faster.
The stars blurred, their piercing light stretching into long, blinding lines. Direction became meaningless. Speed became meaningless. The only thing that existed was the going. The violent, unstoppable movement itself, until—
There.
Ahead.
A star. Blazing blue. Enormous.
Growing as he approached it, the way the ground grows when you fall from a great height—slowly at first, then all at once. The terrifying scale of it becoming real far too late.
He slammed straight into the heart of it.
The moment he made contact, everything went white.
Total. Absolute. The blinding white of everything existing at once.
Then, he felt the plunge. He was going down. Down.
Fast. He saw the clouds again. He descended so rapidly he tore through them without resistance, no friction, just the freezing wet interior for half a second before bursting out the other side.
Below him was land.
The descent was so violent it was impossible to see where he was going to hit. The ground rushed up to meet him so fast there was absolutely no time to brace for the crash.
Contact.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inside a warm, candlelit cottage.
A cry. Raw. Screaming. A small body, wet and red, its tiny limbs drawn tight against the cold air.
A woman's weathered hands moved over it with practiced speed. One finger swept inside the tiny mouth. Another wiped the nose. A warm cloth passed over the heaving chest, the belly, the kicking legs.
"It's a boy."
Through the heavy wooden door of the room, a man stepped forward.
"Is he—"
"He's fine, Mr. Freeman." The woman's hands moved lower, working quickly between the legs of the exhausted woman lying on the bed. "His lungs are good. Just listen to that cry."
Another wail pierced the room. His small fists clenched tight.
The woman on the bed lifted her heavy head. Her face shone with sweat. Dark black hair stuck to her forehead and cheek. Her arms shook violently as she reached out.
"Let me—give him to me—"
The midwife placed the bundled infant into the curve of her arm, moving quickly but carefully.
The mother looked down.
The tiny face in the bundle was red and scrunched, eyes squeezed shut against the light. The mouth opened and closed, letting out a small, breathless squeak.
"Oh." Her breath caught in her throat.
The man moved closer. He stood towering over them, looking down. His large, calloused hand hovered near the bundle's head, afraid to touch.
"His fingers," he whispered. "Look at his fingers."
The woman on the bed looked down.
The small hand had opened. The tiny fingers curled slightly, grasping at the air. The miniature palm was crossed with fine, brand-new lines.
She reached out and touched the back of that tiny hand with one trembling finger.
The small fingers instantly closed around hers. Tightly.
The woman's eyes welled up. Tears spilled over her lashes and fell silently onto the rough blanket.
The man placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. He left it there. His thumb moved once, rubbing a small, comforting circle, then stopped.
"You did so well, Ms. Freeman." The midwife with the cloth was already packing her tools into a worn leather bag. She looked up and straightened her back. "Congratulations on the baby boy. May the Almighty bless his life and his parents' lives."
With that, she bowed respectfully, left the room, and closed the heavy door behind her.
The room fell quiet. A deep, peaceful quiet.
The man crossed his arms over his chest, scowled at the door, and muttered, "Almighty, my ass."
He looked down and caught the woman on the bed staring at him, deeply unimpressed.
"Alright, alright, I'm sorry. It just slipped out."
She dismissed him with a tired eye roll and looked back down at the bundle in her arms.
The baby made a wet, small noise.
The mother pulled the bundle closer to her heart. She lowered her exhausted face to it. She inhaled the scent of him.
"Hello."
Her dry lips touched the very top of his soft head.
The baby's eyes fluttered open for a single, slow blink.
Grey-green. And completely unfocused.
To be continued....