The soft hum of the city filled the air, a steady reminder of the world outside the glass walls of the office. Zayn stared at his screen, the blueprint of his latest project stretched across the monitor. Lines and angles danced in front of his eyes, but his mind was far from the architecture he had spent hours crafting. He hadn’t slept in two days, yet the exhaustion weighed heavier on his chest than the blueprints.

A soft ding! echoed through the silence, pulling his attention away from the endless lines. It was a message from Raisa.

Raisa: “Can we talk? I need to hear your voice.”

He blinked, staring at the message as if it were a puzzle he couldn’t quite piece together. His heart quickened, and he immediately felt the knot in his stomach tighten. It wasn’t the first message like this—it wasn’t even the first time she had asked. But something in the urgency of her words made him hesitate. Did she really need to talk, or was she just reaching out in the way she always did—digitally, through the screens that separated their lives?

“I’m too busy for this,” he thought, his fingers itching to type a dismissive response, but something held him back. He glanced at the clock on his desk. Almost noon. Another half-day at work. But the pressure to finish his project was starting to eat at him.

“Zayn,” he scolded himself, “this isn’t just work. It’s your life.”

Taking a deep breath, Zayn tapped his phone and dialed Raisa’s number.

Meanwhile, across the city, Raisa sat in the soft glow of her living room, surrounded by stacks of books and gadgets. She had long stopped keeping track of the number of hours she spent scrolling through her phone, and now, at this moment, it felt like an endless loop of digital noise. But it was all she knew—her work, her friends, her world. And yet, she still felt isolated.

Her phone buzzed in her hand. She glanced down at the screen—Zayn’s name flashing there. Her heart skipped a beat, the familiar rush of hope mixing with anxiety.

“Hello?” she answered, trying to keep her voice steady despite the storm swirling inside her.

“Raisa,” Zayn’s voice was low and tentative. “It’s been a while. How are you?”

Raisa blinked, taken aback by the question. How was she? The answer felt too complex, too heavy to put into words.

“I—uh, I’m fine,” she said, forcing herself to sound upbeat. "Just... you know, busy."

Zayn chuckled softly, though the sound didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’ve been hearing that a lot lately. You’re always working.”

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She sighed, feeling the weight of the unspoken truth hanging between them. “I know. I don’t know how to stop, Zayn. The digital world... it’s become my whole life. Sometimes, I forget what it’s like to be real.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. Then Zayn spoke, his voice soft, almost distant. “I get it, Raisa. I feel like I’m in the same place. Building something, trying to make things perfect, but... forgetting what it feels like to just live.”

Raisa’s breath caught in her throat. The words were so simple, but they cut through the noise in her mind, touching something deep and unspoken.

“So, what do we do?” she asked softly, her voice breaking through the tension.

Zayn exhaled, long and slow. “Maybe we stop pretending. Stop pretending that we’re fine when we’re not.”

“Stop pretending...” Raisa repeated, almost as if she were testing the idea. “But... what if everything falls apart?”

“There’s always that risk,” Zayn admitted. “But isn’t it worth it? Trying for something real?”

Raisa looked out the window, her gaze meeting the sky. The city stretched out before her—so vast, yet she felt so small in it. She was lost in a world that moved too fast, and here was Zayn, offering her a chance to slow down.

“I don’t know, Zayn. I’ve been running for so long, I don’t even know where I’m going anymore.”

“You don’t have to know,” Zayn said quietly. “We just have to stop running.”

A few blocks away, Kendra was sitting in a local café, her camera resting on the table next to her. The morning light filtered through the large windows, casting a soft glow across the empty room. She absentmindedly flipped through the images on her camera, but her thoughts were far from the photos. She wasn’t in the mood to shoot today.

Her phone buzzed, a message from Luca lighting up the screen.

Luca: “Want to meet for coffee later? I’ve been thinking about our conversation.”

Kendra smiled faintly. It had been days since they’d had a proper chat. She couldn’t help but feel a little surprised by his sudden message. She hadn’t expected Luca to reach out after their last conversation. But maybe that’s what she needed—someone to pull her out of this whirlwind.

“Sure, I’d love that.”

She hit send, and almost immediately, she felt a sense of relief.

Back at the office, Zayn’s mind was still racing. The conversation with Raisa had left him feeling both unsettled and hopeful. He stared at the blueprint in front of him but found it hard to focus. He was used to thinking ahead, planning every detail of his work, but right now, he felt out of control, like he was swimming against a tide that kept pulling him under.

The sound of his phone vibrating on his desk interrupted his thoughts. A new message from Raisa.

Raisa: “I don’t know where this is going, but I’m willing to find out with you.”

Zayn’s heart skipped a beat, and he couldn’t stop the smile that tugged at the corners of his lips. Maybe, just maybe, they could both stop pretending and find out what was real.

But as the city continued to hum and move around them, none of them could see the path ahead. They were all lost in a too-fast world—seeking something real in the blur of ambition, expectation, and isolation.

As Zayn picked up his phone to reply, the sound of a distant ring! echoed through the office. It wasn’t his phone. It was the sudden alert from the city’s central network—a notification of an impending cyberattack on multiple systems, including Raisa’s influencer network.

His phone buzzed once again, but this time, it wasn’t a message from Raisa. It was a notification about the attack.

Zayn stared at the message in disbelief. What did this mean for them? For Raisa’s world?