One year ago, Myanmar's military staged an audacious coup, claiming the heavyweight political scalp of Aung San Suu Kyi and shattering a fragile democracy.
But in the 12 months since they seized power, the country's people have made one thing overwhelmingly clear: they will not be scared into submission.
On February 1, 2021, Ms Suu Kyi and senior members of her government were arrested in pre-dawn raids as tanks and soldiers moved in to assert power and quell any resistance.
Myanmar's people were in shock at first, but that soon turned to anger — they had only emerged from 50 years of military rule a decade earlier and they did not want it to return to it.
In the days, weeks, and months that followed, millions came out to protest and even as soldiers began violently cracking down on dissent, they found other ways to resist.
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Burma (AAPPB), a human rights group, estimates almost 1,500 people have been killed since the coup, while thousands have been injured and more than 8,700 arrested.
"The military coup in Myanmar has been a tragic failure — tragic for the people and a failure for this illegal military junta," said Debbie Stothard, activist and founder of the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma.
"[The past year] has been absolutely horrendous and outrageous, but also inspiring looking at how people all around the country from so many different backgrounds have consistently and courageously resisted the military junta."
Ms Stothard told the ABC that coup architect Min Aung Hlaing massively under-estimated "how strongly young people in Burma felt about democracy and freedom" and how much they loved their leader.
Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party won the most recent election before the coup with a resounding 83 per cent of the vote, but the military claimed the poll was fraudulent and that Ms Suu Kyi was a criminal.
She is currently on trial for corruption, electoral fraud and violating the state secrets act, and has already been sentenced to six years' jail for incitement, breaking COVID-19 rules and illegally importing walkie talkies.
Ms Suu Kyi denies the charges and her supporters say they were trumped up by the generals to try to end her political career and legitimise their power grab.
"I think the military is in shock because they expected to be able to gain control — political, territorial and economic control — of the country in a matter of weeks," Ms Stothard said.
"What we have seen instead is an increasingly desperate military junta committing more vicious and brutal atrocities in order to scare the people … [but] that intensity of violence against the population hasn't made them shrink."
The junta, which calls itself the State Administration Council (SAC), has consistently defended its actions over the past year as necessary to fight "terrorists" and has disputed the number of casualties.
The SAC did not respond to the ABC's request for an interview for this story.
'Our future in this country is completely dead'
The first anti-coup protests were held in Myanmar's biggest city, Yangon, but rallies soon sprung up in cities and towns from the northern hills to the southern panhandle.
University student Thura*, 21, led a peaceful demonstration of 200 people in his township a few days after the takeover and went on to front almost daily rallies there.
When soldiers started shooting indiscriminately at protesters, he was shocked. But those confrontations emboldened him to join an urban guerrilla force to fight back.
Thura and his friends soon discovered there was a warrant out for their arrest and police rounded them up at the end of April.
"First, we were beaten and interrogated at the police station, they tortured us as much as they could and asked us questions," he said.
"Now, as I'm looking back on that moment, it was really traumatic."
Thura spent six months in Yangon's notorious Insein Prison before being freed when junta chief Min Aung Hlaing approved the release of several thousand prisoners on humanitarian grounds.
While Thura is relieved to be out of prison, he also feels depressed about the state of the country around him and worried for his generation's future.
Myanmar has been experiencing food shortages, high inflation, cash limits and long queues at banks, and its almost non-existent health care system has been struggling to deal with COVID-19.
On top of all of that, security forces have continued their violent crackdown on dissent.
"We see that our future in this country is completely dead," Thura said.
"Our whole generation does not know what to do next."
Thousands have joined the People's Defence Force (PDF), which is the armed wing of the National Unity Government (NUG) — a parallel group that formed over the past year and includes ousted politicians in hiding, ethnic leaders and protest leaders.
PDF soldiers, including many trained by ethnic armies, have clashed with the junta's security forces in all regions, ambushed and killed soldiers and burned down outposts.
The SAC has declared both the PDF and the NUG to be "terrorist organisations".
Civil disobedience movement hits junta hard
With the threat of violence ever-present, the majority of people in Myanmar have found inventive ways to keep resisting as safely as possible.
Entire neighbourhoods have banged pots and pans at co-ordinated times and women have hung sarongs in the streets to spook security forces, playing on a belief that it is bad luck for men to walk beneath women's clothing.
There have been clever online campaigns whenever the junta has not blocked the internet, silent strikes with businesses closing and people staying home, and flash-mob-style street protests.
The resistance hitting the junta the hardest of all is the civil disobedience movement, which has seen doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers and other public servants all refusing to work under military rule.
Many doctors and nurses taking part in civil disobedience have set up underground clinics in cities and towns while others have fled to border regions to treat people in ethnic states.
Dr Aung Htut* fled to Karen state near the border with Thailand after discovering a warrant was out for his arrest for speaking out against the coup.
He and a group of other doctors in the civil disobedience movement set up a hospital in the mountains.
"There are a lot of patients here … and most of them are not able to afford medical treatment so we give our best treatment free of charge to everyone," the young doctor said.
"Among them are ethnic people who are displaced because of the conflict, some are residents from this area … and others are civil disobedience movement workers [who have fled from the cities]."
The landscape around them is peaceful and stunning, but the threat of violence looms large.
Fighting between ethnic border armies and the military has been going on for decades but the conflict has intensified under the coup and flared up in the past month.
The military has also been carrying out air strikes.
The doctors are mainly treating patients who have malaria and malnutrition, but they have stocked up on extra medicines and other supplies in case of a local attack.
Dr Nilar Win* said she had lost many friends and colleagues over the past year and felt like she was living on borrowed time.
"The place is actually not safe, the military can reach every area and we are working in fear of the jets flying over here," she said.
"They can destroy us if they want to."
Tens of thousands of people displaced since the coup
The United Nations estimates more than 406,000 people have been displaced in Myanmar since the coup, with many fleeing into neighbouring countries India and Thailand.
Some have only crossed borders temporarily, but others have sought refugee status from third countries and been approved to relocate permanently.
Soe Soe Khin* was an active NLD supporter and attended several anti-coup protests in Myanmar in the weeks after the coup before a relative told her she had a target on her back.
She fled her home in March 2021, travelling on overnight buses and walking through jungles to get to the Myanmar-Thailand border.
Ms Khin hid on the Thai side for five months feeling "lost and depressed", then moved to a refugee safe house for another five months.
The young woman was eventually granted refugee status to move to a third country, which she does not want to name in case it affects her ability to stay there. She met with the ABC just hours before she left Thailand.
"I feel sad, to be honest … nobody is happy to leave where they belong, where I grew up, my family, my friends, the culture I love," she said.
"I don't want to leave that but I have to survive."
What does the future hold for Myanmar?
Many in Myanmar have described the past year under military rule again as "going back to the dark ages", while the United Nations declared in October that the South-East Asian nation had spiralled into "civil war".
"What we have seen is pretty much any war crime and crime against humanity that we could possibly imagine, happening in one country in the space of a year," Ms Stothard said.
"We need to prioritise accountability, otherwise future militaries of Burma and around the region will feel that it is quite OK for them to commit human rights violations with impunity."
Min Aung Hlaing has pledged to hold fresh elections in August 2023 and has appointed himself caretaker prime minister in the meantime.
The Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has called on him to end the violence, open up a dialogue and allow a special envoy to visit, but none of those requests has been granted.
Junta representatives were frozen out of ASEAN meetings in October, which only made the regime angrier.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, this year's chair of ASEAN, has met with junta chief Min Aung Hlaing twice this month — once in Myanmar and once via video call.
The pair discussed the need to "improve the situation" and while the junta chief said he was open to more "candid discussions", he made no commitments.
Human rights groups around the world have made repeated calls for targeted sanctions against military sources of revenue, as well as arms embargoes to hit the military regime where it hurts.
The UK, US and EU have imposed some sanctions, while Australia has severed military ties with Myanmar and redirected aid money.
The NUG, which claims to be the legitimate government of Myanmar, has built strong support among Burmese people and held virtual talks with top officials from several countries, including Australia, the UK and the US.
The people of Myanmar had been hoping for a political solution with the help of the international community but, as time wears, on they are becoming less convinced anything substantial will come.
Protester Thura says the UN and others will no doubt continue to "issue statements of concern", but ultimately he feels demolishing the dictatorship will be up to the people.
"I am proud of all young people … I am proud to be writing my own history," he said.
Dr Aung Htut hopes the military junta will be defeated and democracy can be restored — not just for his generation, but for future generations.
"We must fight the military until the end so that this kind of thing will not happen again," he said.
*The ABC has changed the names of some of the people interviewed for this story for their safety.
**Additional reporting in Myanmar by journalists the ABC is not naming for their safety.
