The apocalypse had broken out, and during those moments, we were joyfully walking down Istiklal Avenue, totally wasted; we had unintentionally pulled off a stunt against the absolute worst person, something even the toughest guy claiming he could wouldn't dare.
The guy next to me, who was attempting to bore a hole in my side with a head like a carriage lantern, suddenly vanished. The brief shock I experienced turned into terror when the exact same thing started happening all around. Fortunately, this feeling didn't last long; the moment I felt my insides being pulled, I suddenly found myself in an endlessly white space.
I started looking around in a panic. There were no walls, but the environment, composed of endless white as far as the eye could see, made me feel as if I had been thrown into a transparent cage. Startled by the sound of a cough reaching my ears, I turned back to the front, only to see an entity that hadn't been there a second ago, now hovering barely two hand-spans from my face.
"The time of reckoning has come, mortal creature!"
I knew what was happening, but a thought rejecting all of this was still crawling through the folds of my brain, like maggots gnawing at broad-trunked poplar trees.
This was the moment I shattered that final hope with my own eyes. The bizarre creation, devoid of flesh and bone and lacking a fixed shape, was right in front of me. Yes, "creation" is what passed through my mind. Ironic, isn't it? When a human is terrified, the first thing they cling to are the things they initially denied.
It was floating in the air, and even though it didn't have a mouth to speak, I could hear everything it said perfectly clearly; it was as if the words were echoing directly inside my brain.
"Your sins and good deeds will be tallied, mortal, and you shall go to the appropriate place depending on which is greater!"
Well then, we had arrived at the moment of truth. Let's see what I had done throughout this short life of mine. What followed happened completely detached from time and space; I experienced and saw firsthand the ripple effects of all my actions and the resulting consequences etched into my ledger.
When I returned, I was standing in the exact same spot with the shapeless entity in front of me. It was impossible to find the words to describe the shock I was experiencing, but I would soon learn that I needed to wait to hear the real bombshell.
"Mortal, up until your final night, your good deeds were sufficient to take you to the lower tiers of heaven, but on the eve of your day of reckoning, you committed a multitude of sins!"
I remember my vision going black for a second. A buzzing sound, a hundred times louder than the noise of a treacherous mosquito that wakes a person from sleep in the dead of night, was roaring in my ears. Then, in between, I heard a phrase about my sins and good deeds being equal, and I almost died from excitement.
I know that expression had become null and void a long time ago, but once a human tongue gets used to something, it just can't stop, using its lack of bones as an excuse.
"Had you not drunk that final glass, after a brief stay in Purgatory, you would have earned the right to join the beloved servants of the Creator, but the price for that final glass will be heavy!"
"BIG BROOOOOO MUHARREMMMMM!"
I was about to continue with, "Fuck you and your farewell party," when my vision cut out. I had fallen into a motionless sleep, as if a thick grandmother's quilt had been thrown over me.
All my hopes, the dreams I worked like crazy to achieve, had evaporated into thin air. On top of that, learning I had missed the grand prize by a single number made me lose my shit regardless of time and place, so when I opened my eyes, my body ached like I had been beaten to a pulp.
Even though I tried to move my hand, the effort was futile. Right now, I was like a fish frozen in a block of ice. A voice was echoing in my mind; the three words I heard before losing consciousness kept spinning on repeat like a broken record: "The first layer of Hell."
I don't know how much time passed until I broke free from this state. As I slowly regained control of my body, I began to sit up. I was surrounded by people wandering around with bewildered looks, half-sitting up like me, or still lying completely motionless on the ground.
Finally, when my energy and senses fully returned, I jumped to my feet. Now everything could be seen more clearly; after a brief investigation, I had roughly figured out what was going on.
The first thing I noticed was that, without exception, everyone had a name written above their head. When I called out to a few of them to test it, I didn't get an answer, but I had no intention of giving up. I was going to try to talk to them; the more information I gathered about this place, the better.
"Max, brother, look here, Max!"
My determination was interrupted by someone shouting right in my ear—well, saying "ear" is just a figure of speech, because when I turned around, a peer looking to be in his twenties, who barely reached my shoulders and had a belly area attached to him like a ring-shaped candy, was calling out to me.
"What do you mean Max, bro? You're all up in my personal space, back up a bit!"
This guy clearly had no concept of personal space. I chewed him out, ignoring the cuteness added by his chubby cheeks that had turned slightly red from my scolding.
"It's written above your head, brother, I thought it was your name. I was going to ask you what it says on mine?"
Oh right, while everyone else had weird things written on them, I couldn't possibly be exempt from it. So it says Max on my head too, but why is this weird thing here instead of my real name?
This was the moment I experienced my first epiphany. No matter how hard I thought about it, my name wouldn't come to mind. In fact, while straining my memory, I realized that even the things I experienced before dying were fragmented.
Faces and events had blended together; everything was blurry except for the final night. Even in this uncertainty, the details of only a single person remained stamped in my memory like a seal: Big Bro Muharrem.
"It says Toraman on yours, bro!"
When I told the kid—who was a bit more than just chubby and whom I had unfairly snapped at earlier—what was written above his head, his face instantly fell. He took a deep breath, and his torso, which was about the size of a small car, became even more imposing, triggering a sense of danger even in me.
Somehow, the thing I expected didn't happen. The kid, who was breathing furiously, slowly calmed down after a while and slumped to the ground. The kid named Toraman, whom I had taken precautions against, assuming he would scream frantically and attack whoever crossed his path, calmly lay down and drifted off to sleep.
This bizarre event had stolen a bit of my time, but it also allowed me to learn a fundamental truth. From this moment on, whenever someone said Max, I would know they were calling me, because in this new world, this was my name.
Returning to my investigation, I noticed a four-colored formation encapsulating the area within certain boundaries like a glass dome. We were all inside this structure composed of yellow, green, blue, and red colors. A while later, the small, single-story houses located right at the center caught my eye, and I started sprinting toward them.
I knew I had come to Hell, and everything I was taught since childhood told me that my eternal torment had begun. So, I shouldn't have been in a hurry anymore, but for some reason, a feeling inside me was screaming that every second was precious.
The distance between where I stood and the buildings wasn't that far; under normal circumstances, I could have reached them in a minute or two, but trying to weave through the hundreds of people in between had taken up a lot of my time. When I arrived at my destination, I saw small structures lined up in a circular pattern with counters on one of their facades, and a stone obelisk in the center with writing on all four sides.
Now I had caught on. The shield surrounding the area, the shop-like structures, and a stone obelisk in the center—there was no room for doubt: this was the classic beginner village in MMORPGs.