The deep personality hidden behind the facial features turned rainwater into a flood. The knot tied by those abandoned to their fate grew exponentially, leaving a painful taste in throats. As time was stitched upon the skin of reality like a cruel surgical wound, stillness looked on as if it could finally settle upon the world. This was death. This was life. It was a search for meaning. It was a war to be better than yesterday, to know more—a war waged sometimes at the bottom of a tunnel, sometimes elsewhere. It was chess. White against black. Why two people cannot win at the same time in the same game, that was the reason for this hunger. The insatiable ambition of the hunters.
In that moment, I realized that the old man didn't know much either. Was he really unaware of what was happening above his head? All I could discern from his pupils, where a tiny spark appeared like a hope for life within a divine light, was that hopeless gaze. "What is an old man like you doing here anyway?" I asked, feeling the tension hanging on my shoulders.
He slowly bowed his head. "I collected scrap for many years, then I was kicked out by my wife, torn away from my child... No meaning remained for me in this world."
"Still, you shouldn't have come here."
"Are you the one telling me this?" he said, his voice cracking. "But let's leave this subject. This newcomer..."
"Yes," I murmured.
"Tell me about him," he said: "Don't let your fears take hold of you."
"You're leaving something out," I said distrustfully. People usually did that.
"I'm surprised I once believed life had a meaning years ago," he said with a mischievous expression.
"You said you had a child... Is that all?"
There was a subtle ripple in my voice. I knew that children left alone by their parents never truly grew up. I didn't know that long story now, but the only thing I knew was that knowing didn't always have to be at the highest level of comprehension. "I'm just asking," I said with a dryness in my throat. "Out of curiosity."
"I know," he said with a non-denying word. "Don't I know? My child..." He looked with a pained expression. He seemed to be trying to gather his thoughts. "I really don't know where they are right now, but all I know is that the world is vast. Sometimes two people cannot meet in a tiny city."
"Then you aren't a good father..." the words spilled from my lips.
The old man's head turned toward me. "I don't understand... You rebuked me so deeply without knowing my story. Why?" The question "Why?" made my heart ache. I didn't know; only in that moment, a cruel side of me sharpened like a knife.
"Because your child cannot be torn away from you. Only you can choose to abandon them."
"Were you abandoned?" he asked; he too had hardened for a moment. Perhaps he wanted to show me the face I had put on.
"I'm not saying these things out of my own pain," I said then, lowering my guard.
"But you are in pain..."
"Undoubtedly," I said; "Undoubtedly. So, what are you doing here?"
I enjoyed the freedom of continuing as if there hadn't been a friction between us just a moment ago.
"Darkness absorbs human pain. It dresses your wounds. It takes out the stitches."
"Do you believe in freedom?" I asked timidly.
"Freedom is an excuse," he said, sliding his single hand over his knee.
"An excuse for what?" I asked, weary from standing.
"For escape..." he said in a shrill voice. "For leaving, for the inability to return."
I could have talked to this man like this for hours.
"You... How much more do you know about this place?" I asked, trying to catch his eyes, but he never made eye contact.
"I am always running from the truth," he said in a resigned state. I saw a mournful wave in his eyes.
***
Sis
When I took that gun in my hand, the first thing I thought was that I could never be a normal person again. I could never walk down the street with my head held high again. I couldn't sleep with a quiet conscience. I couldn't think about how pure and clean the world's places were while counting my steps. I couldn't close my eyes, or perhaps stand with people holding banners for a murderer to be caught. Because I had seen that bullet. The bullet was thick. It was cold. It was hard. It was something sinister within that power settling between my fingers that imprisoned me in my fate.
I had tried to be myself so many times... I couldn't manage it. The more you try something and fail, the more it hurts. Because despite the possibilities, you believe that nothing will ever happen. That was my case. Every time I look at the forest behind the locked windows opened to the past, I don't see the wet, fresh leaves of those trees, but my own savage side.
It's as if everything has waited for today. It's as if everything has spiraled out of control.
I remember very little. But what I remember most clearly is the moment I killed him. The power that directed the gun toward the other side. The thing that placed my finger on the trigger.
I remember the paper handed to me when I wanted to enter the Mechanism.
Before they imprison you here, they make you sign an agreement. This agreement is scored from one to ten. The symptoms of your illness are associated with various numerical scales. Before being absolutely condemned to the cold side of life, you sign for the most suitable program.
In that paper you wait to sign with your trembling hand, some articles are presented and conditions are set, which you think everyone is made to sign. However, illness scales work differently for every individual. Your scale number is your fate. While it is forbidden for you to inflict or receive violence, this ban is lifted for someone else.
In the agreement I was made to sign, a weapon was mentioned whose location was explained in the finest detail.
As soon as I entered the Mechanism, I found it as if I had placed it there with my own hands.
What can you do with a gun? A gun hits, a gun pierces, a gun passes through.
You cannot use it for good in any way. It is in its nature to destroy things. Just like my father said... Whatever is in a thing's nature, that thing is what it is.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the chip placed in my neck turned me into someone else.
But all I know is that momentary impulse that transformed me.
When I found the gun, I was bewildered, because it was a mirror showing me its nature.
I had seen a preliminary trailer for the frozen faces I encountered inside, the hunger and thirst that were sure to begin, and many more atrocities. What was to be expected? There was only one thing I would never understand. Why did I do it? Was I dreaming? Why did I kill him? Why did I become a murderer?
To escape my thoughts, I felt the shiver by touching the tip of the pistol with my fingers.
The blue holo-screen was shining like a sun appearing behind a dead mountain. The light was branching out, touching my face. I had lost my self-confidence once. Was it an external factor that kept me from killing someone for all this time? I pressed my teeth together as if I were going to break them from rage. All bad feelings were coming out with an impulse.
I looked at the crowd of people standing before me, looking into my eyes and waiting for an order. They were all looking at my face in a crawling position, but I was standing tall before them as if helpless. Playing whatever game I wanted with them? That was tempting.
"You are a devil," said the voice inside me. I immediately whispered back to it: "And you are no angel..."
That man, whose name I learned was Mert that day—the day before I became a murderer—standing at the very front of the group, was looking at me. The disgust I had awakened in his eyes was clearly visible. I approached him with the pistol in my hand and leaned down to his sitting height.
Everyone tried to understand what I wanted to do with curious eyes. Did I have a place among these dead, ghostly faces?
Placing the tip of the pistol under Mert's chin, I slid his face upward. In the reflection of his pupils was the final dream of someone fallen into horror. In those pupils, I saw a murderer. I saw myself. I saw death. I saw dreams. I saw impulses. Without moving his face at all, he just let the head of the pistol raise him. What I saw in him... was the difficulty of understanding whether he was obeying me or not.
The Mechanism had accepted me as the new leader. It was as if someone had said "well done" to me because I killed someone.
Is this why the real devil inside me was coming out?
"What is your greatest fear?" I asked. He wasn't expecting this. My voice was icier than I expected. I knew it made him shiver. But he put on his pride. Honorable people did this more often than the dishonorable. I witnessed his lips trembling slightly. "Right now, it's you," he said, his voice stuck in his throat.
I smiled at the comic show. "Your old leader..." I said, lifting his head even more. I wanted him to look into my eyes. I wanted to see the power in those pupils. He, however, averted his gaze. "Is that what he taught you?" I asked.
My darkness was dancing on his face. "Did he teach you that these sentences are beautiful?"
He seemed undecided on how to answer. "Why do you continue this empty life?" I asked, with realistic curiosity. I didn't understand. "With this dishonor, by selling your honor just to live?"
His eyes closed tightly, his body shook as if he had a fever. When I pointed the gun at that woman named Aysal, she had trembled like this too.
Just as I had made her experience the fear of death and continued to do so... I was doing the same to the victim standing before me.
"Most of all..." he said, swallowing heavily. "I paid the price for this life."