Silence Is Not A Choice

My name is Sarfaraz Islam. And no, I’m not a life expert. I’m not someone who has everything figured out. I’m just a teenager living the same life you’re living right now. I wake up with expectations. I go through days where I feel motivated, and then suddenly, everything feels heavy for no reason. Sometimes I understand myself, and sometimes I don’t. And honestly, that confusion is what made me write this book. Because one thing I realized is teenagers don’t actually need perfect advice. We don’t need someone who talks like a teacher or a motivational speaker. We need someone who actually gets it. Someone who understands what it feels like to be stuck between pressure and confusion. Between dreams and expectations. There are days when you feel like you can do everything. And then there are days when even getting out of bed feels like a task. People see your age and think your problems are small. But they don’t see the overthinking, the pressure, the silent stress you carry. I didn’t write this book because I know all the answers. I wrote this because I know the questions. The same questions that probably run in your mind too. If you’re reading this, just know one thing you’re not alone in this. And you don’t have to figure everything out perfectly. You just need to start understanding yourself a little better.

Mahi Aktar Stormheart is an author who finds inspiration in the clash between order and chaos, whether in the precise patterns of a crime scene or the unpredictable mechanics of a Dark Souls boss fight. When not writing about complex women bending the rules of justice, Mahi is likely over-caffeinated, strategizing a comeback in a video game, or meticulously planning a story that refuses to follow the outline. Arya Venn-I is their debut novel.

Sakib Ahmed is a young political theorist and strategist whose works explore the mechanics of power, structure, and survival in human systems. His writing focuses on transforming realism into disciplined governance, free from moral abstraction. He is the author of The Theory of War and The Unseen Legion: Women, Law and Power as well as Human Vice Theory. Through his work, Sakib presents a unified framework for understanding conflict, statecraft, and the enduring nature of human energy in shaping civilizations that last.