[Setting: Aleppo, Near the Governor’s Office – 22 January 2025, Afternoon]
[POV: Bilal Idris]
The chants had already begun to ripple through the march by the time we turned onto the wide boulevard. “The Book is our voice!” they called out in unison. “Render trust to whom it is due!” The words rolled down the line like a wave, rising and falling, carried by students with kaffiyehs tied at the neck, elderly men leaning on canes, veiled women with folded affidavits clutched in their hands. There were no flags. No fists in the air. Only footsteps, unity, and verses cradled against chests like shields.
Ahead, Hassan had just finished speaking, his final words still echoing in my mind. He had stood calmly atop the old foundation stone near the mosque gate and reminded us why we were here. Not to provoke. Not to claim power. But to remind this city of what it had once meant: a place where justice had once walked these streets without fear. He had spoken of the Umayyads, of the scholars who walked barefoot in the alleys of Aleppo, of the trust of governance (an Amana) and how we had let it rot in silence.
People had cried. Not from grief, but from recognition.
Now we marched. Qur’ans in our arms, folded papers in our pockets, and voices louder than we had believed they could be.
Takbirs rose behind us, strong and rhythmic.
“Allahu Akbar!”
“Justice is a right, not a request!”
“No more silence! No more fear!”
The textile quarter loomed up ahead. Children peeked from second-story windows. A butcher leaned from his shop door, hand still on the cleaver, gaze unreadable. Even here, under the shadow of the regime building, no one had yet tried to stop us.
And then it shifted.
The first crack didn’t register. It was like a firework misfired in daylight. The second was unmistakable: a rubber bullet snapping past my shoulder, thudding against a lamppost. Screams followed. Gas canisters hit the cobblestones, spinning once before releasing their bloom. The crowd buckled. Some scattered. Others stood frozen.
I turned. A boy, maybe fifteen, had gone down beside me, one leg twisted under him. His affidavit was crushed into the mud. Someone screamed, “Run!” A mother shouted for her son. Another chant tried to rise but choked on smoke.
For a moment, I almost moved with them. My instincts surged: find cover, get out, survive. I started to step back. Then I heard it.
“Don’t walk for yourself, Bilal.”
The voice wasn’t there. Not truly. But it came, clear and steady, as if Salim had left it stitched into my bones.
“You walk for the ones who can’t anymore.”
Then I saw them: regime soldiers forming a line, and behind them, the plainclothes enforcers of Al-Amn. One figure stood apart, his posture too still, his coat too clean. He didn’t bark orders, just watched. The others obeyed. I didn’t know his name then. Didn’t know how far his reach would stretch into my life. Only that when he turned away, two men were dragged off screaming, and no one dared follow.
One officer raised his launcher again, firing straight into a group of girls shielding an old man. A younger soldier swung his baton into the stomach of a man clutching his Qur’an, then hauled him away by the collar, kicking his knees out from under him. Another was dragged face-first into a van, limbs thrashing as the door slammed shut. There was no warning. No negotiation. A silent order to punish, and bodies taken as the message.
I dropped to my knees beside the boy. His eyes were wide with panic, hands clawing for air. I pulled him up, half-dragged, half-lifted. Tear gas seared my lungs, clawed down my throat like broken glass. Ali was somewhere ahead, waving people to the alley, guiding them through narrow lanes.
Rubber bullets struck walls around us, and another canister landed just behind, belching smoke that clawed down my throat. I kept moving. The boy clung to my arm, trembling. A woman reached for him through the haze, and I passed him over without a word. My lungs burned, my eyes blurred, but I stayed upright, no longer running, no longer unsure. We didn’t win anything that day. No ground held, no banners raised. But we didn’t kneel either. And somewhere, beneath the smoke and the shouting, something had been planted.
[Setting: Aleppo, Mosque Courtyard – 23 January 2025, Late Afternoon]
[POV: Bilal Idris]
The smoke had cleared, but its taste still clung to the back of my throat. Yesterday’s march had ended in panic, gas curling through alleys, boots slamming against stone, the air choked with shouting and rubber bullets. Now, the mosque courtyard stood in sharp contrast: still, open, rinsed clean by silence. The smell of lemon soap and old stone replaced the sting of tear gas. Wind brushed gently across the tiles, rustling the bare fig branches overhead. Asr prayer had ended, but no one had left. People lingered not out of ritual, but because something unfinished hung between us.
Ali and I sat near the far edge, backs to the outer wall, surrounded by about fifteen men, most younger than me. One boy’s arm was wrapped in gauze, another still coughed from yesterday’s gas. They had come with questions, with fire in their eyes, but what held them now was something quieter: hunger. Not for food. For direction.
A wiry teenager near the front rubbed his ribs and muttered, “We held out our hands and they answered with boots.”
A few nodded. One man spat into the corner. “If that’s how they respond, maybe it’s time we speak in a language they understand.”
“No,” Ali said, not loud, but firm. He shifted his weight slightly, letting the silence do half the work. “That’s what they want. They want rage without aim. If we answer fists with fire now, they’ll make us ghosts before we’ve taken a single step.”
The boy with the bandaged hand spoke next. “Then what? We just wait? Watch more get dragged off?”
Ali looked at him, not with pity, but with gravity. “We raise our hands again,” he said. “But not empty this time. With truth. With organization. With eyes on us. Let them strike while the cameras are watching. Let the world see who they are, and who we are.”
The words settled like slow-burning coal. No fire. Just heat.
I took a breath and stepped forward slightly. My voice felt unfamiliar when I spoke, not because I didn’t believe it, but because I wasn’t used to speaking from Salim’s side of the fire.
“‘So give good news to those who are patient,’” I recited, letting the verse guide my breath. “‘Those who say, when afflicted with hardship, Verily to Allah we belong, and verily to Him we shall return. Upon them are blessings from their Lord, and mercy. And it is they who are rightly guided.’”
A few men bowed their heads. Others closed their eyes.
I let the words linger, then added, “What we started yesterday, it wasn’t just a march. It was a line drawn. Between fear and faith. Between forgetting and remembering who we are. We didn’t lose. We stood. And when the smoke clears, they’ll know we’re not leaving.”
A voice rose from behind us, soft, worn. The old imam stood near the steps, his hands folded in front of him, his robe gathered like a scholar from another century. His voice, when it came, was kind but heavy.
“You carry flame, sons. But don’t burn out your own hearts. Too many before you raised voices only to lose their way when the noise faded. This Ummah doesn’t need sparks. It needs steady lanterns.”
He stepped forward slightly. “O you who believe, patiently endure, persevere, stand firm, and fear Allah, that you may succeed.”
A hush fell over the group. The imam didn’t linger. He turned and walked back into the prayer hall without waiting for reply. His words remained, a thread woven into the stone beneath our feet.
Ali met my eye. I didn’t need to say anything. Neither did he.
One of the younger men let out a breath and nodded. Another adjusted the scarf around his neck and stood straighter. Across the courtyard, a call broke the stillness, not adhan, not warning. Just a fruit vendor shouting down the lane.
But here in the courtyard, something had shifted. Not triumph. Not vengeance. Just a new kind of certainty. They had tried to silence us. And now they had amplified us.
[Setting: Abandoned Apartment Office, Aleppo – 25 January 2025, Night]
[POV: Hassan al-Sharif]
Omar al-Rashid sat across from Hassan in plain clothes, though nothing about him was plain. His posture hadn’t changed since the academy days, upright, deliberate, the bearing of a man who still weighed consequence before he spoke. His coat lay folded on the windowsill beside a half-full ashtray. He hadn’t touched the cigarettes. Just kept them there, like a habit he hadn't yet buried.
The light flickered above them, casting thin shadows against peeling walls and water-stained plaster. The room still carried the scent of dust and ash, the kind that seeped into coats and refused to leave. A single table stood between them, its edge chipped, the corners scorched from a fire someone had once tried to forget.
They had once sparred on opposite sides of the same war games. Now, they met in the wreckage of the state both had grown disillusioned with.
“They think this will break us,” Hassan said, breaking the silence first. “But all it’s done is prove what we’ve been saying. The crackdown only amplifies what they tried to suppress.”
Omar didn’t look away. His hands rested on the table, steady and clean. “There are some,” he said quietly, “who see it.”
“Then show it,” Hassan replied. “Before the people do it for you.”
Omar’s eyes narrowed, not in anger but in calculation. “You know what you’re asking.”
“I know exactly what I’m asking,” Hassan said. “And I know what happens when men like you stay silent while the fire creeps closer. You’ve seen the names. You’ve read the affidavits. You know the men shot yesterday were unarmed.”
“I do.” Omar’s voice was even. No denial. No excuse.
“Then don’t speak to me about caution,” Hassan said, leaning forward slightly. “They carry Qur’ans, not rifles. For now. But you and I both know patience has its limits.”
Omar’s expression didn’t change, but something in his gaze tightened—a weight Hassan recognized. Not guilt. Burden.
“Be patient,” Omar said after a pause, his words carried the weight of years of compromise. “The time will come. Allah’s timing is perfect. You can’t force it.”
Hassan didn’t flinch. “People have been patient their whole lives. And they’ll die waiting. Some already have.”
Omar’s lips pressed into a line. “To Allah we belong,” he murmured, “and to Him we return.”
For a moment, the room seemed to settle. The ceiling creaked. Outside, a dog barked twice before silence reclaimed the street. The city was sleeping, or pretending to.
Omar reached into his coat and drew out a slim folder. No markings. No crest. Just a seal of tape across the top.
“These are names,” he said. “Affidavits. Eyewitness records from yesterday. I didn’t get them from you. And I won’t confirm what happens next.”
Hassan took it without a word and set it on the table, untouched for now.
“You’ve seen what the people are willing to do without weapons,” he said.
Omar stood slowly and slid his coat over his shoulder. “That’s what makes this so dangerous.”
“Not dangerous,” Hassan corrected. “Inevitable.”
Omar didn’t argue. He nodded once, then turned toward the hallway. His footsteps didn’t hurry. At the door, he paused.
“Don’t expect miracles from me, Hassan.”
Hassan stood too. “I don’t,” he said. “Just movement.”
Omar didn’t respond. He walked out, the sound of his boots vanishing into the stairwell.
Hassan remained a while longer, his hand resting on the folder. Outside, the wind carried the echo of something deeper than defiance, a pressure building, a reckoning waiting to be named.