Just last week, the sound of bullets was so loud and close that we all rushed into the lobby of the hotel near the Media Production City. Since the imposition of an emergency curfew following the Brotherhood’s attacks on churches, journalists, government bureaucrats and ordinary citizens, the hotel has become a twin of Baghdad’s famous Rashid Hotel during the Iraq war: a place of gathering and shelter for journalists. When the bullets died down, we made sure no one had been hurt.

On my first night at the hotel, a motorcycle carrying three men tried to crash into the lobby. They fired shots into the hotel, and a police chase ensued. When two of the three were captured, they said that they had just been lost in the desert and confused, a funny excuse for something that was not funny at all.

Remaining in the hotel with other television journalists, also living under death threats, was terribly depressing. For safety’s sake, I asked a police officer to escort me back to Media City, even though my house is only 10 minutes from the compound. As the siren of the police car driving ahead of me blared its way through the curfew and I sat next to a police officer in a bulletproof vest holding an automatic rifle, I recalled the day in 1992 when I opened the door to my apartment and found an officer from the Interior Ministry, warning me that I had appeared on a militant group’s list of assassination targets because of my criticism of Islamists.

At the time, I was writing against the rising tide of terrorism and extremism during a difficult phase in Egypt’s history. I was also single. Looking around my small, sparsely furnished apartment in obvious distaste, the officer asked me if I wanted a moving guard (who would accompany me everywhere I went) or a fixed guard (who would just stand outside my home or workplace). I told him that I didn’t own a car, and asked whether the officer would just ride the subway or the public bus with me. The officer was fed up with me and decided I would get a fixed guard.

The guard’s job was to accompany me as I crossed the street, then stand by my side as I negotiated with taxi drivers to take me to work. Once I’d found my ride for the day, he would wave, then go back to his post outside my apartment building. Later, when I learned more about confessions by members of the group that had targeted me, I learned that they knew where I lived, that the sister of one of the men lived nearby, and that I had been under threat wherever I went. During this period, I learned to be brave in the face of death, and since then, I have not feared anything else. Since the start of my career, I have faced accusations of blasphemy and death threats. I have been fired; seen publications I’ve edited get shut down; and watched as copies of my novel “Assassination of the Big Man” were seized.

Last week, as I waited for the police car to escort me to the studio and for the fully armed officer next to me to shield me from a potential attack, I found history repeating itself on a grander, more dangerous scale. It’s as if terrorism will never end, and my fate is to face death because of what I write and what I say. Sometimes, when I set out for work and say goodbye to my wife and children, I feel like a soldier waving to his family from a train as he heads toward battle.