Tehran, 2004ggh.
A soft orange glow rested on the city as the sun sank behind the old rooftops. Evening birds cried out from the wires, and the scent of roasted almonds drifted from the street stalls. People hurried past the bus stop near Valiasr Square, eager to return home after another long day.
Among them stood Armina Darvishi, a 26-year-old electronics engineering student with dreams too big for the concrete city she lived in. She wore a pale blue scarf, her favourite, because it reminded her of the open sky she wished one day to touch. She pressed her textbooks against her chest and tapped her foot lightly—half impatient, half excited.
She had just received an email that morning:
A European research centre had accepted her for an internship. She had not told anyone yet—not even her parents. She wanted to wait for the perfect moment, a perfect evening. She did not know that this was not that evening. She did not know that fate had already chosen a darker path for her.
As she scanned the crowd, her smile faded.Someone familiar was walking toward her.Someone she did not want to see ever again.
Rehan Moradi. Her former classmate.
Tall. Thin. Sharp eyes that once looked at her with admiration—then with obsession—then with something far worse. He had proposed to her twice. She had rejected him twice. The second time she had even said clearly:
“Rehan, please don’t come near me again. I don’t… I don’t feel safe with you.”
That sentence had wounded him more deeply than he ever admitted. And wounded pride is sometimes more dangerous than a wounded heart. Now he was walking toward her again, a fake smile stretched across his lips. Armina felt the first drop of fear slide down her spine.
“Armina!” he called, waving as if they were old lovers meeting after years.
She stepped back.
“What do you want, Rehan? I’m waiting for the bus.”
He raised his hands gently, pretending peace.
“Just a minute. I want to talk. I promise, nothing wrong.”
But there was something wrong. Armina saw it in his eyes. She saw it in the strange way he held a red plastic bottle, half hidden under his jacket. Her heartbeat quickened.
Not fear—Not yet—But something like a warning from her own body.
“Rehan, please go.”
He took another step.
The crowd moved around them, noisy, careless, unaware of the storm rising in the small space between these two young people.
“You rejected me,” Rehan whispered.
His voice shook.
“You humiliated me. Do you know what that did to me?”
Armina’s lips parted in confusion and disgust.
“I just said no to marriage,” she replied softly. “That’s not humiliation.”
“It is for me,” he hissed. “You belong with me, Armina. You were supposed to be mine.”
She froze.
She looked at the red bottle. He followed her gaze. And smiled.
A cold smile.A smile without sanity.
“Rehan… what’s in your hand?”
He didn’t answer. He simply uncapped the bottle. A sharp, sour smell hit her nose. Something inside her screamed—
Run. But her feet didn’t move.
Everything happened too fast to understand. One second she stood at the bus stop. The next, her world exploded into fire.
Rehan swung the bottle and threw the liquid straight into her face. Armina felt hell itself being poured over her skin. She did not even know she was screaming until she heard the sound tear through her own ears.
Her scarf caught the spray.Her face felt like it was melting.Her vision turned white, then black, then something that was not colour at all—just pain.
People shouted around her. Someone dropped their shopping bags. Someone ran away. Someone grabbed her arm, but she shrieked because even air touching her skin felt like knives.
“Water! Bring water!”
“Call an ambulance!”
“Her face—God, her face—”
But Armina could hear nothing clearly. Her ears were ringing as if trapped inside a burning church. She tried to open her eyes. They burned. She saw nothing. Then the darkness closed completely. And that was the last time Armina Darvishi ever saw the world with her own eyes.
---
When consciousness returned, it did so cruelly—one slow wave of pain after another. She felt bandages around her face. She felt tubes in her arm. She heard machines beeping softly. And somewhere nearby, her mother was crying.
“Am I… alive?” Armina whispered.
Her throat felt scraped, as if she had swallowed fire.
A doctor approached.
“Yes,” he said gently. “You are alive. But… your eyes…”
A pause. A long, heavy pause. Armina’s fingers trembled.
“I can’t see anything,” she whispered. “Will I be able to?”
Another pause. Another answer she didn’t want.
“We are trying our best.”
Her mother sobbed harder. Her father sat in silence, a silence louder than grief. Armina touched her bandaged face. She felt the uneven texture beneath the cloth. Her once soft skin was no longer soft. Her once bright eyes were no longer eyes. Something inside her collapsed. Not hope. Not life. But innocence.
---
Days passed. Visitors came. Relatives cried. Journalists tried to get statements. But among all those faces she could no longer see, there was one voice she recognized instantly.
Arash.
Her friend since first year of university. A quiet boy. A patient boy. A boy who had once loved her silently, but never said a word because he knew she did not feel the same. He came to the hospital every day. He read books to her. He fed her soup when her hands shook too much. He held her hand when her nightmares woke her.
One evening, when the nurses had left, Armina whispered:
“Arash… do you think I’m ugly now?”
Arash froze. His voice broke, just a little.
“No,” he said. “I think you’re brave. And that’s more beautiful than anything else.”
She wanted to cry. She wanted to lean on him. But love felt too far away. Like sunlight she could no longer see. Yet she felt something warm inside—Not love, not yet—But the memory of what love could be.---
Night after night, she struggled with thoughts darker than her blindness.
Why me? What did I do?Why did he hate me so much?Why did the world let this happen?
Sometimes she wished she had died at the bus stop. Sometimes she wished Rehan had killed her completely. But every time her mind went to that edge, a different voice called her back.
Her mother praying softly beside her. Her father kissing her hand before leaving for work. Arash reading poetry in his low, warm voice. Slowly she realized something:
She was loved. She was not alone.
---
When the bandages were removed months later, she fainted from shock. Her face—what was left of it—was a battlefield. Scar tissue, burnt patches, uneven texture where skin had melted and healed wrongly. She touched her left cheek. No sensation. She touched her right cheek. A rough patch. She tried to find her eyelids—
There were none. Only the tightly closed shells her surgeons had constructed to protect the damaged sockets. She wanted to scream again. But she didn’t. She had no screams left. Instead, she said only three words:
“I want justice.”
Iran’s Islamic penal code offered qisas—“An eye for an eye.”
Rehan could be punished exactly as he punished her. Her lawyer asked her directly:
“Armina, do you want him blinded? It is your right.”
She took a deep breath.
“Yes,” she said. “I want him to feel the darkness he gave me.”
Her mother gasped. Her father put a hand on her shoulder. Arash stared at the floor.
“Are you sure?” he whispered.
Armina nodded.
“He destroyed my life. Let him taste what he served.”
---
News spread fast.
“Engineering student demands attacker’s eyes.”“Brutal acid attack survivor chooses qisas.”“International activists condemn punishment.”
TV channels debated morality. Human rights activists protested. Political leaders discussed laws. But none of that mattered to Armina. This was not about politics. Not about religion. Not about public opinion. This was about her pain. This was about the life Rehan stole. She wanted justice. And she wanted it with fire.
---
Months turned into years. Armina was sent to Spain for advanced reconstructive surgery. Arash went with her—first as a friend, then as something more complicated. He learned Spanish just to speak to her doctors. He guided her hand across the unfamiliar streets. He cooked for her when hospital food tasted like metal. Sometimes, while helping her walk, his fingers brushed against hers. Sometimes she didn’t pull away. But she always remembered:She was blind.She was broken.She was a burden.
So she kept her heart locked. And Arash, gentle as he was, never pushed.
“Take your time,” he whispered one night.“I’ll wait.”
She didn’t answer. But her silence was softer than rejection.
---
The hospital in Tehran was silent as death. Rehan Moradi, the man who once smiled at her in class, was now kneeling on the floor, hands tied, trembling like a child lost in a storm. For seven years he had awaited this day. For seven years she had dreamed of this moment.
The doctors prepared the equipment.
A dropper filled with acid.A chair.A blindfold.A legal certificate.
The judge turned to her.
“Armina Darvishi,” he said.“You have the right to blind the man who blinded you. Do you wish to proceed?”
Her heart pounded. Her breath trembled.
This was justice.This was revenge.This was everything she had asked for.
They placed the dropper in her hand. It felt warm. Too warm.
Rehan’s voice cracked.
“Armina… please… please forgive me. I was angry… I was stupid. I didn’t know—please, have mercy. I beg you.”
She stepped forward. Her fingers shook. The dropper hovered inches above his eye. Everyone held their breath. The room was tight with fear, anger, hatred, morality, humanity—all mixed like a storm waiting to explode.
Armina whispered to herself:
“He blinded me. He destroyed my life. He deserves this.”
Her hand trembled harder. Five seconds of silence followed. Five seconds that felt like five lifetimes.
Then—
Armina lowered her hand. And dropped the dropper. It shattered on the floor. Gasps filled the room.
“I forgive him,” she said softly.
The judge stared.The doctors froze.Rehan collapsed in tears.
Armina lifted her chin, blind eyes covered with medical patches.
“Blinding him will not give me my eyes back,” she said.“Hurting him will not heal me.
If I choose revenge, I carry darkness forever. But if I forgive—maybe, just maybe—I will find light again.”
The world changed in that moment. But she didn’t know yet how much.
