# Chapter 8: The Fragmented Truth
The night was cold when Yunar closed the door behind him.
He had just walked Alya home, as he always did. The walk had been quiet, punctuated only by the sound of their footsteps on the pavement and the occasional rustle of leaves carried by the wind. Alya had smiled as she said goodbye — that small, genuine smile that always made something tighten in his chest, something he couldn't name but that was always there.
Now, alone in the dark hallway of his house, Yunar stood still for a long moment. His fingers still rested on the cold door handle as something heavy and indefinable settled in his chest. It was a familiar feeling, that silent oppression that accompanied him every night, like a shadow that never fully disappeared.
The tears came without warning.
He didn't even need to touch his face to know they were there — the familiar warmth streamed down his cheeks, persistent and constant. Always like this. Always involuntary. No matter how happy or calm he felt, the tears came like a tide obeying invisible moons.
Yunar ran a hand over his face with a tired sigh, wiping the moisture with the back of his hand. But it was useless. They would come back. They always did.
He walked down the hallway to his room, his heavy footsteps against the wooden floor that creaked slightly under his weight. The house was drowned in silence — his mother must already be asleep, and the quiet around him only amplified the sound of his own breathing.
When he entered his room and closed the door behind him, Yunar found himself staring at the bed as though it were an adversary. Sleeping. The idea should have been comforting, a refuge from the day's exhaustion. But for him, sleeping was something else. It was crossing a threshold into a place he didn't understand, a place that left him more drained than being awake.
But the body had its limits. And Yunar was exhausted.
He sat on the edge of the bed, taking off his shoes slowly, each movement mechanical and automatic. His hands were trembling slightly — he hadn't even noticed until that moment. He took a deep breath, trying to calm the thoughts that spun in his mind like leaves caught in a whirlwind.
He lay down.
The mattress sank under his weight. The white ceiling above him was marked by thin cracks that spread across the surface like veins. Yunar knew them by heart — he had spent countless nights staring at that same ceiling, trying to resist the sleep that inevitably came.
But today, the exhaustion was greater.
His eyelids were heavy as lead. Darkness closed around him, at once comforting and suffocating. Yunar tried to keep his eyes open — just a few more minutes, he thought. Just a little longer.
But it was too late.
Sleep pulled him under like an anchor.
---
When he opened his eyes, he was standing.
The transition was abrupt. There was no gradual waking, no moment of disorientation. One second he was lying in bed, and the next he was on his feet in the middle of a lit kitchen, something cold and heavy in his hands.
Yunar looked down, processing slowly.
A knife. Sharp blade, wooden handle worn from use. It was in his left hand, his fingers curled tightly around the metal.
In his right, a potato.
The kitchen around him breathed normality. The scent of spices and garlic hung in the warm air. Golden light came through the window, painting everything in the warm tones of late afternoon. The rhythmic sound of a knife cutting vegetables echoed beside him — a comforting, domestic sound.
The woman was there.
She worked beside him, focused on chopping potatoes with precise and familiar movements. Her hair fell softly over her shoulders as she worked, and there was something deeply comforting in the way she moved — as though that moment were eternal.
But Yunar's eyes were burning.
He blinked. The tears were already there, falling silently down his cheeks without permission.
The woman stopped cutting and turned to him. Her eyes met his, and immediate concern settled across her face.
"Your face looks like someone who's been crying so much," she said softly. "You should wash it, love."
Before Yunar could respond, a high-pitched voice echoed from the other side of the counter.
"Yeah, Daddy! You should wash your face!"
Yunar turned his head sharply.
The child was there. Dark hair tied in a messy ponytail, large bright eyes fixed on him with that purely innocent childlike concern that breaks the heart.
She was standing on a step stool, too small to reach the counter without help. And then, with a quick movement, she leaned down to take something from her pink backpack — the one decorated with shiny stars.
When she turned back, she was holding a sheet of paper in her small hands.
"Daddy, look!" Her smile was radiant, full of that pure joy that only children can have. "Your daughter is very smart! I got a positive! First in the class!"
The sheet trembled slightly in her hands as she held it up, waiting for approval, waiting for pride.
But Yunar couldn't move.
Couldn't smile.
Couldn't do anything but stare at that scene — at the woman, at the child, at the lit kitchen — and feel something shatter inside him.
Because he knew.
The tears intensified, falling faster, heavier.
"It's not real..." His voice came out low, hoarse, almost inaudible.
The woman stopped completely. She turned to him, her expression shifting from concern to alarm.
"Love, are you okay?"
"It's not real..." Yunar repeated, louder this time, his voice trembling. "It's not real..."
The child climbed down from the step stool slowly, the sheet of paper slipping from her fingers and floating to the floor. Her childlike eyes, moments before filled with joy, now reflected confusion.
"It's not real!" Yunar's voice exploded, echoing through the kitchen. "You're not real!"
The silence that followed was deafening.
The woman didn't grow sad. She didn't cry. But her entire body began to tremble — not from sadness, but from pure fear. Her hand, which had extended toward him, froze in the air.
The child took a step back, eyes wide with terror at seeing her father gripping the knife brutally while repeating the same words like a broken mantra.
"Love, put the knife down," the woman said, her voice carefully controlled, as though speaking to someone standing at the edge of a cliff. "Everything's okay. You just need to put the knife down."
"This isn't real!" Yunar shouted, tears streaming without stopping. "You don't understand! All of you — you're nothing but an illusion!"
And then, without hesitating, he raised the knife.
He directed the blade toward his own chest, determined to wake from that dream the only way he knew how.
The woman screamed. The child screamed.
But before the tip of the knife could touch his skin —
The world dissolved.
---
Yunar was back on the rooftop.
The cold wind cut across his face like invisible blades. The city stretched out below him, a sea of blinking lights in the darkness like fallen stars. The sky above was black, moonless, starless — just an infinite void.
And then, a voice.
"You're quite decisive."
Yunar spun around sharply.
The old woman was there. Standing a few metres away, leaning on her dark wooden cane. Her eyes fixed on him carried something he couldn't decipher — a mixture of disappointment and something more personal.
"If you had taken your own life," she continued calmly, "you would have died in the real world too."
Yunar's eyes went wide.
"What are you talking about?"
"Don't worry," the old woman said, taking a step forward. "You won't die now."
A pause.
"Not until you have paid for everything you put me through."
And then the voice changed.
Drastically.
The old woman's hoarse, tired voice transformed into something young, familiar — painfully familiar.
Eren's voice.
Yunar's eyes went wide as he watched the transformation happen before him. The old woman's curved body straightened. The wrinkled skin smoothed. The white hair darkened. The cane disappeared.
Until, standing before him, was Eren.
Perfectly Eren.
"What are you talking about?" Yunar managed to say, his body shaking. "How did you... how is this possible? This must be another dream!"
"No," Eren said, his voice now entirely his own. "All of this is real. You just don't remember."
He took a step forward, his eyes fixed on Yunar with an intensity that burned.
"We were supposed to be friends. To control the fragments of the temporal lines together. She was supposed to be mine. That child was supposed to have been mine."
Eren's voice trembled — not from sadness, but from contained rage.
"But you... you kept her for yourself, selfish as you are. You had the family that was supposed to be mine."
Yunar felt the ground disappear beneath his feet.
"And now you're going to hurt another victim?" Eren continued, stepping closer. "You're going to hurt that poor woman, that Alya, just like you did to me?"
"What are you saying?" Yunar was shaking violently. "None of this makes sense!"
"Of course it does, you selfish coward!" Eren exploded. "Every time you sleep, you come to this reality — the original reality!"
He pointed at Yunar, his accusing finger cutting through the air.
"I used the fragments of the temporal lines to send you to another one — so you would feel the same pain I've felt all this time!"
"That's not true!" Yunar shouted.
"What does it matter if you don't believe it?" Eren responded, his voice cold. "If you don't remember? The truth is that—"
At that moment, Eren dropped to his knees.
Blood.
Blood pouring brutally from his mouth. From his nose. From his ears.
Yunar stepped forward with a trembling body, instinctively trying to help. When his hands touched Eren's shoulders, images exploded in his mind — fragments of memories, forgotten conversations, moments he hadn't known he had lived.
"That's a lie!" Yunar said, his voice breaking. "I didn't take anything from you! You... you wanted me to—"
He stopped, looking at Eren, who was gasping for breath, his body shaking violently.
Yunar quickly grabbed him by the shoulders, trying to steady him.
"The fragments... why did you do this?"
Eren looked up, blood running from the corners of his mouth.
"I hate you," he said, each word a blade. "It doesn't matter what you do now. The cycle will only close when you choose one of the realities."
"This isn't the time for that!" Yunar
shouted, desperate. "How could you use the fragments knowing the cost would be this?"
But Eren only smiled — a bitter, broken smile, tinged with red.
And the world began to shake.
---
*END OF CHAPTER 8*