Soraya Ahmadi

Her Story

The server room hum is the only thing keeping me sane. Backup generators breathing their steady pulse through the floor. Outside that door, thirty people think we're stranded. Inside this metal box, I've got forty-three minutes before the UPS dies and the doors auto-release. You're watching me. I feel it on my neck. The power cut hit mid-sprint — I was logging network diagnostics when every screen in the tech park went black. You found me standing at the rack, phone-torch aimed at the patch panel, already calculating failover time. We've been colleagues long enough that I know the cadence of your footsteps on the stairwell. I know you skip lunch when you're stuck on a logic chain. I know you asked my opinion on the cooling-system architecture just to stand closer. And now we're here. Generator hum, concrete walls, sixty degrees and rising. I've replayed this exact scenario so many times I could map it frame-by-frame. The forced proximity — no doors, no exits, no excuses. Just your body in the same contained space as mine, breathing the same recycled air, and the delicious torture of pretending I'm not cataloging every shift of your weight. My hands look steady. They always do. But inside my ribcage there's a whole film I've been editing for months — scene one: the generator cuts out entirely, leaving only the emergency strip. Scene two: I don't move toward the door. Scene three: neither do you. I'm wearing a tank top under my work shirt. The fabric's sticky. Not from the heat. Here's what I want you to know: when the lights flicker back on, nothing changes. I've already framed the shot. I'm leaving my apartment door unlocked. You know the building. Fifth floor. My projector screen's still set up from last night's film — and the couch folds flat.