Two first-person accounts—from Tehran and a city in central Iran—trace what the January massacre did to bodies, families, and everyday life: fear, loss, and the thin hope that arrest means survival.
Hopelessness After a Bloody Night
What you are about to read is based on the account of “V.B.,” a 22-year-old student, about the January massacre of 18 Dey 1404 (January 8, 2026) in Tehran.
V.B. — “I kept looking left and right, hoping I’d see Hiva. It was like a battlefield—except the other side had military weapons and was killing unarmed people, people who had come out to protest… I felt nauseous… I got up and saw ten or twelve people running, so I started running with them. I got lost in the alleys… from far and near, you could hear gunfire…”
My father has been fighting cancer for four years. His medicines have become scarce—almost impossible to find. Yesterday, after running around all day, I went to Naser Khosrow for the second time. With sheer misery, I managed to get “Maylodoc 25 mg” on the black market—three times last month’s price.
I walked on foot from Naser Khosrow to Jomhouri, staring blankly at people. Hopelessness surged in every passerby’s face, every shopkeeper’s face—everyone. I lit a cigarette and sank into its smoke… and then I was dropped into that hellish night.
Hiva’s voice was still in my ears: “Brother, trust me—soon they’ll disappear. We’ll remain, and this beautiful city.”
Since that night, there has been no news of Hiva. And I keep praying—please God, let him have been arrested. Let him be alive.
My phone rang. My mother, hopeless on the other end, said: “What happened, my son? Did you manage to find the medicine?”
I said: “Yes, my dear. I’m coming home.”
I got into a taxi. An old woman sat beside me, talking on the phone: “Can it get worse than this? Meat is 1.8 million. Chicken has doubled. Oil is triple. No water, no money—and don’t even get me started on electricity and gas bills…” Her words faded in my ears. My eyes were fixed outside: on the thick, old trees along the road—trees I’ve loved for years, friends that somehow give me strength.
I drift back to high school, when Hiva and I walked this route to school and back every day. Sometimes we stopped under these trees, stared up at the highest branches, counted them one by one. Each of these trees had endless branches. And the roots—don’t even ask—pushing right up through the sidewalk. Hiva used to say: “The roots of the trees on this side of the street and the trees on that side meet underneath. Even if these are here and those are there, under the soil it’s like they’re holding hands.”
Each of these trees is over a hundred years old—older than these fascists. Back when these conscienceless clerics weren’t here, these trees were here. They’re here now. And after these criminals are gone, they’ll still remain.
I still had ten minutes of walking ahead to reach home. I lit a cigarette—and returned to the night of 18 Dey 1404 (January 8, 2026), to the unbelievable noise of the street and the nationwide protests… Hiva and the other guys and I had gone out to get one step closer to freedom.
We’d been on the street for about two hours. Everyone was there—from Mr. Mahmoud, the greengrocer at the corner, to Dash Ali the mechanic; from Mr. Mohammadi, our high school teacher, to Mr. Sanandaji, the university library’s librarian. I saw so many people. A few girls from our faculty were there too. It was unreal. The air was cold—I don’t know if it was truly cold, or if we were shivering from fear. But we warmed ourselves with cheers and chants.
I don’t know how it began—plainclothes agents and security forces started shooting. The crowd shattered. Everyone scattered. Screams vanished inside the gunfire.
I started running. For a moment I turned back and saw a few people lying on the asphalt. The gunfire grew louder and louder. I went over to one of the wounded. He was still breathing. A bullet had hit his stomach and his leg. He was bleeding. My head spun.
The shooting wouldn’t stop. A few people came and dragged the wounded person onto the sidewalk. I was in shock. My head spun and I fell. I crawled—hands and knees—until I reached the curb.
Someone grabbed my arm and flung me behind a parked car. He sat beside me and said: “You okay?” I just stared at him, stunned. He shook my shoulders: “Are you hurt?”
I said: “No… thanks. I’m okay.”
Then I snapped back—Hiva wasn’t there.
“Hiva… Hiva, where are you?”
I kept looking left and right, hoping I’d see him. It was like a battlefield—except the other side had military weapons and was killing unarmed people, people who had come out to protest. I felt nauseous. I got up and saw ten or twelve people running. I ran with them. I got lost in the alleys. From far and near, you could hear gunfire…
I got home. I kissed my father’s hand, put the medicines on the small table by his bed, and collapsed onto the couch.
My father swallowed one of the Maylodoc capsules and gulped down a glass of water. With trembling hands he picked up his thick glasses and a tissue and began cleaning them. With a lump in his throat he said: “These days will end too, my son…”
He burst into tears: “I don’t know why I don’t die…”
I had never seen my father this sad and wilted. He wiped his tears with the same tissue, set his glasses back on his bony nose, crumpled the tissue in his fist, and went on: “I wish this blood cancer had finished me off so I wouldn’t see these days. I wish a cancer called the Islamic Republic weren’t slaughtering our young people like this…”
He pressed the thumb of his right hand to his mouth. Biting it, staring at the wall clock, he said: “Don’t be mistaken… My illness is nothing. Our incurable illness is them. We’ve been grappling with a cancer called the Islamic Republic for forty-seven years—a tumor that grows bigger and bigger every day, eating into all of us. It spares neither the young nor the old…”
My father lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Without looking at me, he asked: “By the way—any news of Hiva?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “No… still nothing.”
Hiva is my neighbor and my classmate. We grew up together since childhood. He’s closer to me than a brother. Since that hellish night, I haven’t gone a single moment without thinking of him.
I haven’t seen Hiva since that night. His mother came to our house yesterday. I told her the story a hundred times.
I call Hiva’s mother “Auntie.” I held her hand and, slowly and carefully, I said: “No, Auntie, I swear to God—there wasn’t any shooting… I mean, we heard gunfire from far away, but where we were, there was no shooting. Suddenly the security forces arrived and attacked us with batons, and each of us ran in a different direction, and then… I don’t know what happened…”
I didn’t want to upset her. I didn’t want to tell her the truth. “I don’t know which way Hiva went… I don’t know how we got separated…”
Auntie is forty-five. But since the night Hiva disappeared, she has aged forty years—like an eighty-five-year-old woman. My mother says she barely sleeps. She stares at the door from night until morning. Near dawn she falls asleep—two or three hours at most.
All the world’s grief ripples across Auntie’s face. She pushed her salt-and-pepper hair away from her face. With eyes that looked like they were about to leap from their sockets, she glanced at my mother. Tears poured down and she threw herself into my mother’s arms: “We searched everywhere, sister. There’s no trace of him… I’m going insane… And at the same time I’m relieved there’s no trace. I keep saying, God willing we won’t find him these days—maybe he’s alive… because if we find him now—God forbid—we’ll find his body…”
Her sobbing rose and swallowed her words. “Our only comfort is that he’s not among the dead… We hope he’s been arrested!”
Today too—like other days—I escape the heavy air of the house and take refuge on the rooftop. I look at Tehran’s wilted, tearful sky. Not even a single bird flies.
These days even crying doesn’t cure the lump inside me. Wherever you look in life, it’s all tears and pain. I feel like Hiva is up there, behind those gray clouds. I don’t know…
Hiva? Brother? My playmate, my classmate—please come back… For Auntie’s sake… I’d do anything for you. Either come back, or take me with you. I miss you. I miss you—do you understand?
God willing you’ve been arrested, so at least we know you’re alive. Huh? Is that wrong to say? One day you’ll be free. We’ll be free. We’ll go again under the trees on the way to school and stare at the branches… Don’t you know, brother—we’re like trees too. Our roots are connected. Without you I’m rootless. Where are you? Come back…
Fear as a Tool of Power, the People’s Cost
It is 21 Dey 1404 (January 11, 2026), the day after two days of bloody demonstrations across Iran. In a city in the center of the country, everything feels uneasy and trembling—neither like ordinary days nor like turbulent nights. Something in between; sensed less through sound than through bodies. Anger still hangs in the air, along with an anxiety you can see: in people’s eyes, in brief pauses, in vendors’ lowered voices, in steps that move a little faster than usual—without any change of destination.
It is around noon. My sisters and I are walking in the city center. In the middle of this short route, a man with an unremarkable appearance approaches. In a threatening tone, he directs us toward a military vehicle. A man in his forties, wearing a simple jacket and light-colored cotton pants—like thousands of other men on the street. I ask, “Who are you?” He says: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). And we have to go with him to the base. He has no uniform, no official insignia. My sister asks, “Why? What have we done?” He says: “Your appearance is abnormal.”
Our appearance? Abnormal? What does that even mean? We must go to their headquarters because we look “different.” “Abnormal” is a stretchy word—so stretchy it can include anyone at any moment. In that instant, the issue was not only how we looked; it was this: in the streets of your own city, without committing any crime, you suddenly have to prove you are innocent. How thin the line has become between “citizen” and “suspect”!
We are stunned. My sister, who is ill, points to our car parked ahead and asks him to let us go. That moment when time shrinks and the mind looks only for an escape route. Before the soldier standing near the IRGC vehicle even approaches us, we rush toward our own car—and take refuge.
That moment, that encounter, was not only about us. It was a sign of something deeper: mutual fear—fear as a tool of power, and ordinary people as the primary ones who pay its cost. History shows that no order can build lasting security relying on fear alone. Security without trust is impossible, and trust—in an atmosphere where “abnormal” can become a crime—is the rarest capital of all.
