thanh.nguyenhoang.1403@gmail.com
Stories
168
Chapters
1,512
Words
3.2 M
Comments
0
Reading
11 d, 4 h
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Irena The main rink at the Zenith Arena at five in the morning is a sensory deprivation chamber. The overhead halogen lights are set to a low, humming dimness, casting long, bruised shadows across the freshly resurfaced ice. There are no cameras blinking red, no federation officials with their clipboards, no desperate journalists. It is just the blinding expanse of frozen water, the biting ambient cold, and the woman who is currently trying to dismantle my life. "Your center of gravity is completely…-
11.0 K • Completed
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Maeve The media lounge of the Zenith Arena has been transformed into a suffocatingly bright interrogation cell. Three massive LED ring lights form a blinding halo around the cramped, plush velvet sofa where Irena and I are forced to sit, our thighs separated by barely an inch of negative space. The air in the room is thick with the scent of hot electronics, hairspray, and the expensive, icy floral perfume Irena uses to aggressively mask the medicinal reek of her wintergreen muscle rub. "And we are…
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11.0 K • Completed
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Maeve The roar of the Zenith Arena crowd is a physical weight, a crushing wall of sound pressing against my ribcage. My skates carve into the pristine, scarred ice as we take our starting positions for the semifinal, but my mind is still trapped in the suffocating silence of the dressing room. The video of my sister signing away her integrity for a federation payout plays on a relentless, agonizing loop behind my eyelids. I spent three years sharpening myself into a weapon, aiming all my grief and fury…
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11.0 K • Completed
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Maeve The harsh blue glare of my laptop screen is the only light in the suffocating darkness of my hotel room. The biometric drive, a sleek silver rectangle still warm from the heat of Irena’s pocket, is plugged into the side port. My lips are still bruised. My pulse is still hammering a frantic, erratic rhythm against my ribs, an intoxicating echo of the tunnel, the shadows, the desperate way she pulled me against the concrete. The vulnerability she handed me was absolute. And that is exactly why I…
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11.0 K • Completed
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Maeve The Zenith Arena's master control room smells of ozone, stale coffee, and the frantic sweat of the production crew I just locked in the hallway. My fingers fly across the massive mixing console, bypassing the broadcast delays and hardwiring the main jumbotron feed directly to my encrypted laptop. Down below, the ice is covered by a sprawling red carpet. The Federation President stands at a lucite podium, flanked by the ethics committee, bathed in the blinding glare of a hundred press cameras. They…
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11.0 K • Completed
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Irena The heavy oak doors of the federal courthouse close behind me, muting the frantic, echoing clamor of the press pool still trapped inside the lobby. I stand on the granite steps, pulling the collar of my wool coat up against the biting November wind. It has been three months since the broadcast at the Zenith Arena. Three months of grueling depositions, subpoenaed hard drives, and watching the seemingly invincible architecture of the skating federation crumble under federal indictment. The board…
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11.0 K • Completed
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Roya Sunlight did not warm the penthouse. It only sharpened the brutalist edges of the steel and glass, illuminating the dust motes dancing over the massive obsidian dining table. I sat at the edge of a leather chair, scrolling through the encrypted tablet Shirin had left for me. The digital ledger contained the inventory of the subterranean vault. But as my eyes tracked the routing numbers and shipping manifests, a cold, cognitive dissonance began to fracture the narrative Kian had hammered into my…-
11.4 K • Completed
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Roya The grand ballroom of the Farahani estate was a cavern of gold leaf and velvet, packed with the city’s elite—parasites in tailored suits and silk gowns. I stood by the champagne tower, my fingers grazing the cold glass, feeling the heavy, suffocating weight of the pistol concealed in my holster. Every laugh sounded like a jagged edge. Every shadow felt like an ambush. I was officially "Roya Tabrizi," Shirin’s new protégé, but beneath the sapphire gown, my skin felt like it was…
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11.4 K • Completed
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Roya The estate’s emergency lighting bathed the study in a sickening, rhythmic pulse of crimson. Outside, the distant thrum of heavy machinery signaled the systematic sabotage of the power grid. Kian was no longer hiding in the shadows; he was tearing down the doors. I gripped the edge of the desk, the digital drive Shirin had given me digging into my palm. My breath came in shallow, jagged hitches. The reality of the situation—of my entire life—was disintegrating. Shirin stood by the window, her…
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11.4 K • Completed
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Roya The man stepping out of the suffocating shadows of the corridor was a ghost I had buried four years ago. His name was Tariq. He had been my father’s closest confidant, the man who used to slip me stolen candies from the Macau markets, and the very man the coroner’s report claimed had perished in the blaze alongside my family. Yet here he stood, entirely solid, holding a suppressed submachine gun and wearing the tactical insignia of Kian’s elite extraction unit. A jagged, pale burn scar…
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11.4 K • Completed
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