Niamehr123
Chapter 1: Where It All Started
I was 18 when it happened.
A teenager, half-American, half-Iranian, born in Florence Italy, raised with Western ideals-and a chip on my shoulder that wouldn't disappear. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps didn't care about any of that. They only saw me as a threat.
That day, I was nearly at the end of the painted American and Israeli flag on the IRGC military base, carefully avoiding stepping on it. It was a stupid ritual forced on all of us-meant to humiliate and shame what they called "the enemy." I wasn't going to do it. I couldn't.
I'm half Jewish, half Muslim-born into both, but belonging to neither.
Just as my foot was about to cross the last red stripe without touching the paint, something struck me-hard.
A sharp blow, metal-like.
I blacked out.
When I came to, the stench hit me first. It was a suffocating mix of sweat and golab-a sickly rosewater perfume clerics used instead of bathing. That scent still haunts me.
Then the questions started.
What music was I listening to?
Why didn't I step on the flag?
Was I an American spy?
They didn't care about answers. They wanted to break me.
From that moment on, my life would never be the same.