(Listening : Starset - My Demons (acoustic))
Rüzgar Atahan
I opened my eyes abruptly. When the familiar ceiling of my room came into view, I let out a deep sigh and closed them again.
It was over.
Once my breathing steadied, I pushed myself up in bed. I knew there was no chance of falling back asleep.
I threw the blanket aside and planted my feet on the floor. As I rubbed my face and ran a hand through my hair, I glanced at the clock on the nightstand.
03:47
Four hours.
Not bad.
I took a cigarette from the pack beside my phone and lit it, then slowly exhaled the deep breath I'd drawn into my lungs. As I watched the face that formed in the cloud of smoke disappear along with it, the corner of my mouth curled into a joyless smile.
Since when had she been the first thing on my mind the moment I opened my eyes?
A month?
A year?
Longer?
Taking another drag, I stood up and walked over to the window across from the bed.
With the moonlight too weak to offer much illumination, the city lay under a suffocating darkness, wrapped in a dangerous silence.
But the truly dangerous thing wasn't the silence or the darkness.
Those were merely harbingers of danger.
The real threat was the hunters—those who used the darkness as a mask, lurking within the shadows, waiting patiently for the moment to strike their prey.
Prey.
Victims who spanned a wide spectrum of humanity—people who, more often than not, invited danger simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and in some cases became victims of their own conscious choices.
Just like my family.
Hunters.
People who had surrendered themselves completely to the darkness within. Though their outward appearances varied, at their core they all shared the same purpose and method.
Catch.
And destroy.
Just like the ones who took my family from me.
According to society's moral judgments, committing a crime categorized a person as "bad," and hunters were therefore labeled as bad people. But like most widely accepted beliefs, that assessment was deeply flawed.
To understand why, it was enough to know just three things.
First: colors.
Even the best person had a streak of black bleeding into their white, just as the worst had a trace of white seeping into their black. Hunters, however, were stripped of all color. For them, acts society defined as crimes held no meaning—and as a result, the rules built around those definitions held no authority either.
Second: emotions.
No matter how cruel people became, there was always one emotion they struggled to escape.
Regret.
When it came to hunters, their brutality—far beyond the limits of cruelty—was the clearest proof that they lacked this emotion entirely.
And lastly, the thing most responsible for confusing evil people with hunters: pleasure.
Evil people took pleasure in committing crimes only under very limited circumstances, and only one of those involved harming others—revenge.
Hunters, on the other hand, derived pleasure solely from inflicting pain on their victims in countless ways. That pleasure was their one and only purpose in committing crimes.
Hunters were, by modern definition, psychopaths.
Although I had never come face-to-face with a hunter personally, something deep inside me told me I had indirectly made an enemy of one.
And not just any hunter—but someone highly skilled at what he did.
At first, I hadn't considered the possibility, which was why I failed to see the connection. But once I pieced together the information I had and thought it through, the conclusion became painfully clear.
I still didn't have definitive proof.
But I trusted my instincts.
And my instincts were telling me this enemy was a hunter.
I exhaled a long breath of smoke and leaned my arm against the window.
Today was the day the identities of the people who murdered my family would be revealed.
And the moment I learned who my true enemy was, the real hunt would begin.
But this hunt would be different.
Not between a hunter and his prey—but between a hunter who had long been stalking his victims and another hunter who was about to rewrite the rules of the game.
A dirty fight?
Perfect.
They weren't the only ones who despised playing fair.
And unlike them, I had nothing left to lose.
Which made me the most dangerous kind of enemy anyone could face.
Especially when that enemy was me.
By laying a hand on a defenseless woman to silence us, they had made their second greatest mistake. And when the time came, they would pay for it dearly.
Because when it came to the people I loved, I enforced my own justice.
And in my system of justice, there was only one law.
An eye for an eye.
Based on everything that had happened so far, this dangerous chase—one that promised to be brutal for both sides—currently seemed to favor them.
But that balance was about to shift.
Once the strings were in my hands, nothing would ever be the same for them again.
I stepped away from the window, walked back toward the bed, stubbed out my cigarette in the ashtray on the nightstand, and headed to the bathroom. After showering and getting dressed, I pocketed my phone and other belongings and left my room.
As soon as I reached the stairs, the sounds coming from Demir's room made me shake my head helplessly.
That guy would never learn.
Remembering that Efe's room was directly above Demir's, I couldn't help but feel sorry for him.
I went into the kitchen, planning to grab something quick to eat, just as Efe walked in with sleepy eyes. As he poured the milk he'd taken from the fridge into a small coffee pot, he turned to me as if he'd just noticed me, frowning and gesturing at my clothes.
"Did you just get back?"
"No. I'm heading out now."
He glanced at the clock on the wall, clearly about to ask where I was going, but then waved it off.
"I don't think I want to know why you're going out at this hour."
I smiled at his reaction and turned back to my plate.
He poured the heated milk into a glass and sat across from me. Studying how exhausted he looked, I set my fork down and leaned back.
"Did Demir wake you up?"
He snapped out of his daze and looked at me blankly.
"Huh? Oh… Demir. No. I'm used to him now. I sleep with earplugs."
"Your family?"
He sighed and slowly nodded.
"They still not talking to you?"
"No. Neither of them is answering my calls."
"I think you should give them some time to cool off. Letting things be for a while might be better."
He let out a deep breath and leaned back.
"Maybe you're right."
Before I could say anything else, his phone rang. With the same tired movements, he pulled it from his pocket and checked the caller. Judging by the change in his expression and the faint blush spreading across his cheeks, it was Duru's troublesome friend.
I returned his fleeting glance with a crooked smile that told him I understood exactly what was going on, then stood up.
"See you later."
"See you… Rüzgar!"
As I was about to leave the kitchen, he called out again.
"I don't know where you're going, but I know you. Be careful, okay?"
I nodded once and pushed the door open, heading down to the garage.
I turned on the lights and stood there for a moment, deciding which car to take. The best choice was the one that would attract the least attention. I grabbed the keys from the cabinet and got in.