I Archived a Dying City From a Basement Under Siege

In 2014, as the historic city of Homs in Syria was being systematically reduced to rubble, one university student found himself trapped. Ziad was studying to be an architect, someone who builds things, but his world had become a landscape of demolition. After his own family home was not just destroyed but its memory erased by militia graffiti, a profound sense of despair set in. He was isolated, cut off, and witnessing the soul of his city being overwritten day by day. From a damp basement, with a flickering internet connection powered by a car battery, Ziad found an unlikely lifeline in an international science fiction forum. A simple question from a stranger across the world—'Everything okay?'—sparked a quiet, powerful form of resistance. He started an anonymous blog, not to chronicle the human tragedy, but to document the architectural one. With the precise language of a student of design, he began to archive every lost archway, fractured facade, and shattered balcony, creating a blueprint of memory so that Homs, even in its destruction, would never be truly forgotten. Stories are work of fiction and dramatized based on inspired events. Names, places and details are changed for privacy and is not true events. Produced with AI assistance.