Every farewell hurts.
No farewell promises to pass, nor can it. Because each is a wound on the most sensitive part of a human being.
If a restless voice comes and puts a hand on your shoulders as if giving your life back to you, can things change?
The doctor remained in the room throughout the conversation. My tongue was tied, my teeth clenched, as I continued to stare helplessly at the door Jenan Uncle had closed. Like a single grain of sand swept away in the merciless storm of a desolate desert, I felt the freshness of the tears flowing from my eyes against the velvet texture of my lips. I remembered what we had discussed.
***
10 minutes ago
As soon as Jenan entered the cramped room, he paused for a moment to look at the woman chained to the bed. It wasn't emotions or thoughts that stopped him. What stopped him was the very thing that moved him: Ambition. After taking a deep breath with an overflowing ambition, he fixed his eyes on the hospital bed. The chains lay quietly on her motionless wrists and ankles. Like someone who makes no effort to escape even though they are being led to the guillotine, Aysal was motionlessly allowing the game to be played around her.
But didn't someone need to end this game now?
As the coldness radiating from the metals flowed into the young woman's wrist, the walls closed in on both of them. The doctor, having received no instructions, contented himself with stepping back and sitting at the desk.
Jenan, as if deciding not to stay where he was, walked toward the middle of the room. He slowly sat on the chair that the doctor had pulled back for him in a state of double-folded respect. The texture of the chair, somewhere between hardness and softness, was like a gambling card that resembled Aysal's bright eyes.
Aysal continued to stare, unable to believe what her eyes saw. When would this staring contest end?
Jenan raised his shoulders and spoke, "Aysal." His voice was flat.
Aysal repeated once more, "Jenan Uncle." Her astonishment was written all over her face. So much so that a few pieces of heartbreak lying in the most mysterious folds of her soul had come to light. "You... How can this be?" She continued to stutter: "I don't understand... What—"
"Why?" Jenan said, letting his lips curl into a bitter smile. "Are you asking me this, Aysal?"
Aysal found it strange to be addressed by her name. It was as if she had forgotten it. Along with her own name. She felt her fingers turn to ice. In the void of the ring on her finger, she suddenly felt her husband's face flickering, all sounds crackling, and that dim, damned flickering light from above shining. She wanted to move her hands, arms, and limbs to vent the anger in her body; she wanted to scream without holding her jaw anymore. She didn't. She only gripped the mattress of the stretcher tightly between her fingers. "Is Tarık dead?"
All the subtle emotions hidden behind this fear-filled question were damaged.
A look of intense dissatisfaction appeared in Jenan's aggressive eyes.
"How much have you lost here, Aysal? For example..." He paused. He was almost no different from a killer looking at his victim. The light flickered once more, breaking the sonata of silence. "Yourself? Your husband? Your time? Or..." He crossed his legs, settling into a better position. The painful smile on his lips was replaced by a serious expression: "Your future?"
Aysal just continued to look at the man's face, not knowing what to answer.
"I haven't lost anything." Her voice was quite clear despite the shitty situation she was in. "I don't believe..." She paused and moistened her dry lips. "That Tarık is dead. But you... what kind of person are you? I... I don't understand. You are in the System (The Mechanism)."
"The System used to give a person the highest rank they could attain in my time," Jenan replied in a cool voice. "But the subject we are going to talk about today is neither the System nor the fact that I am your 'Jenan Uncle'. Today, we don't know each other. We don't even remember our faces. We can't even make a sound. Do you know why?" He waited a second, then leaned in as if giving an important secret, lowering his voice a notch: "There was something only the two of us knew... But someone else learned it unintentionally. I don't like those who learn things unintentionally. Learning everything... brings trouble to one's head."
"W-what did you learn?" Aysal asked Jenan with curious eyes as she lay there.
The doctor pulled his eyes away from the screen for a moment and looked at Jenan. It was certain that he couldn't help his curiosity either.
"Hm," Jenan said mockingly. But then Aysal realized that in this voice, rather than mockery, there was grief. It hadn't taken long to realize this. "You know him."
Aysal never expected this. "Who?" Her voice came out as a whisper.
Jenan exhaled sharply. "Come on, don't make me hate you! You know."
"I swear to you, I know nothing!"
"Think," Jenan said, putting his index finger to his own head. "Reason it out. You must know."
"I'm not a magician, tell me what you're talking about!" Aysal shouted, forgetting that she was in a position where she shouldn't raise her voice.
There was a heavy silence for a short while.
"That damn man you saw in the tunnel, of course! Come on!" Jenan answered her with a hand-closing gesture, showing he was at the limit of his patience.
"What's wrong with that man?" Aysal asked quietly. Now the chains seemed to bind her more, and fresh dark blood rushed to her cells.
Jenan paused for a moment. He closed his eyes and put his hand on his burning forehead.
"Sir, are you alright?" the doctor asked, immediately stepping in.
"Shut up!"
Jenan's roar was trapped within the four walls.
The doctor suddenly shrank into his corner, backing away with a string of apologies.
At that moment, words were held prisoner.
Jenan's gaze shifted completely to Aysal. Not even the slightest bit of fear remained in Aysal's eyes now. Every second Jenan tried to understand the reason for this, he realized he was standing eye to eye with the woman created by "The System." A person's pure fear had been stolen, their pounding heart taken from between their ribs.
Jenan reached into his jacket pocket and took something out.
When Aysal looked in that direction, she felt nauseous. The inside of the room had frozen. The cold was stapled into her veins. Moistening her lips, she wondered what was hidden between the fingers of that hand.
When Jenan opened the fold of the envelope, several photographic papers came out.
"Here," he said in a dull voice. Then he held the photos up without showing any sign of excitement. The lamp swayed. As the light washed over the photos ruthlessly from beginning to end, the expression of amazement in the young woman's eyes became clear. These were the photos—the day she learned Tarık died—that a man had shown her in the tunnel. Car accident scene photos.
She was sure the photos were exactly the same.
Aysal remembered those pitch-black eyes, the leather boots.
As the scenes drifted before her eyes like slowed-down film frames, what remained was the bitter taste in her mouth.
"I don't believe these photos," Aysal said with the last strength she could find. "Why should I believe he's dead? What if this damn place is playing a game with me again?" Every possibility she could think of had made her pause. "Show me a proof."
Jenan nodded slowly. There was that grief-filled expression on his face again. But with every passing second, he seemed to be trying to put on a more meaningful expression. "Fine," he said, taking a remote from his other pocket and pressing the button. With the press, a vivid image screen was projected onto the opposite wall.
The video was dark. Light filtered through a few small points, like the end of a hole. Aysal focused her gaze entirely on the video. Before long, a person dressed entirely in black appeared on the screen. The pitch-black mask covering his face and his bright black eyes were a demonic feast presented to the camera. He had held a knife to the chin of a man tied to a chair. This face was not clear at all.
Jenan watched the expression that suddenly changed on Aysal's face.
He could see her clenching her hands.
"The person in the video is my nephew," he whispered; "And your husband."
"N-no!" Aysal said slowly. Her voice was controlled. "The face of the person tied to the chair isn't visible, so—"
"Not him," Jenan said, raising his voice. "That man is Tarık. The one with the black mask, the black gaze. The one holding the knife. Washed in absolute power!" He stopped. "The Punisher, the Silencer, and the Threatener. And for whom?"
Everything was mixed up now.
Aysal tried to lift the mask off those pitch-black eyes in her mind and replace it with her husband's face. Although she wasn't very successful at this, those bright eyes, almost transcending the video, proved that they belonged to her husband. But... Aysal had never known him. She was almost sure the person who handed her those photos was a stranger. Now what had happened?
She allowed the strangeness of the man on the chair to turn into a familiar "fearful human" figure.
Under the hazy light, her eyelids opened and closed like dumpsters.
The pieces weren't fitting together well enough.
"They told me he died. They told me I killed him." Despair covered Aysal's voice. A bead of sweat gathered under her chin and flowed away. Every part of her was burning as if she were among warm logs. "And you've come... telling me he's a killer."
"He's a traitor," Jenan whispered. Then he pressed the remote. The screen went dark.
The darkness was driven into their minds like a nail.
Jenan moved his chair closer to the young woman.
"A traitor of the four faces of The System."
"Why are you telling me all this? Why?" Aysal cried out. "Why me? What did I do to anyone? Take back what you said about Tarık!" Her voice was trembling violently. Now was the time for the players to show their true faces.
Jenan smiled as if he had another plan in mind.
"Because he's coming to kill you."