Sevda swore. "Have you lost your mind?"
Hak kept chewing. We were all looking at him.
For a moment nothing happened. Then he swallowed.
The silence in the tunnel grew even heavier.
It was as if we'd all held our breath at the same time.
"Well?" said Poyraz.
Hak looked at the bread again.
There was neither surprise nor fear on his face. Just a short, flat assessment.
"Bread," he said. "Normal."
Poyraz stood there for a moment.
Then he covered his face and let out a short breath.
"Wonderful," he said. "This happened too."
Duru didn't move from her spot.
She'd gripped her branch a little tighter.
"Something's wrong," she said quietly. "It shouldn't be this normal."
Hak didn't take a second bite; he was waiting.
Sevda had knitted her brows.
"You're not going to drop dead right away anyhow," she said. "Wait a bit."
"We'll wait," I said.
I looked at the box again.
The fruit was flawless.
The surface of the bread was still faintly shiny.
It was all so fresh that the freshness itself felt like a threat.
Poyraz rubbed the back of his neck.
"Could someone have come here recently and left it?"
"I don't think so," said Hak.
We all looked at him.
Hak slowly stood up.
He broke off another small piece of the bread in his hand but didn't put it in his mouth.
He looked around the box, at the floor, at the walls.
"Untouched. This box, the floor, everything's covered in dust. If someone had been here, there'd be tracks."
That sentence carried the cold of the tunnel somewhere else.
Sevda's face hardened further.
"So, what?"
"Maybe it wasn't left here."
Poyraz turned to me.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
I leaned over the edge of the box. The dust was on the outside of the lid.
Inside there was almost none.
"It's as if the box was always closed," I said. "And what's inside never spoiled."
Duru shook her head.
"That's worse."
No one contradicted her.
We waited a while longer, all of us watching Hak.
There was no change in Hak. His breathing, his face, were the same.
Sevda grumbled. "Damn it." She picked up an apple.
Poyraz jumped in at once.
"A moment ago you were saying 'wait.'"
Sevda weighed the apple in her palm.
"We waited," she said.
"What if these things really are normal?"
"They're not normal," said Duru.
"Nothing here is normal anyway," Sevda answered.
She sniffed the apple.
Fresh.
The smell reached us too.
Sweet and clean.
It was the most familiar smell we'd known in this damned place.
Sevda took a small bite of the apple.
This time we all watched her.
Her expression didn't change, she just chewed. Then swallowed.
"How is it?" asked Poyraz.
Sevda didn't answer for a short while.
As if she were trying to make sense of the taste on her tongue.
"Sweet," she said at last. "Just a normal apple."
Poyraz tilted his head back toward the ceiling.
"I'm starting to hate that sentence."
He crouched at the box.
His fingers came close to the edge of a loaf but didn't touch it right away.
"If this is poison," he said, "at least let's die from the tasty kind."
"How poetic of you," said Sevda.
"Thank you."
Poyraz took a loaf too.
First he broke off a small piece, touched it with the tip of his tongue, then put it all in his mouth.
For a moment he closed his eyes. When he swallowed, his shoulders dropped slightly.
"Feels like I haven't eaten in months."
I still hadn't touched anything.
I looked at the box.
Not at the food, but at the scene itself.
At the bottom of a tunnel, inside a structure that looked built hundreds of years ago, we'd found unspoiled bread and fruit.
And we'd started to treat it as normal.
That wasn't good.
"You can still back out," said Duru.
She was looking at me.
Hak had finished the bread in his hand.
Sevda was taking her second bite.
Poyraz, shameless, had started tearing off bigger mouthfuls.
Hunger was overpowering reason.
I took an apple too.
The skin was smooth. It wasn't cold, it was warm. As if it had just been plucked from the branch.
I bit into it.
It made a crisp sound. The juice spread over my tongue.
It was sweet. In fact, one of the best apples I'd ever eaten.
For a moment I closed my eyes.
My mind drifted somewhere else despite me.
To the café, the tables, the smell of coffee.
I opened my eyes.
We were still in the tunnel.
"All right," I said. "It's sweet."
With that confirmation, Duru's resistance broke too.
She took something from the box as well; not bread, but one of the small fruits.
For a while there was only the sound of chewing in the tunnel.
Those sounds were strange.
They were the most human thing to come after the silence that follows a battle.
But still, they didn't bring comfort.
After Poyraz swallowed his mouthful, he spoke.
"If there's someone who left this… why?"
"How would we know?" said Sevda.
"This doesn't reassure me at all."
"Me neither."
Everyone had had a bit to eat, and with the ease that comes after filling your stomach we'd sat down on the ground.
I spoke up again: "What do you say we keep going? Maybe further down the tunnel we'll find more useful things like this."
"Works for me," said Sevda. The others didn't answer, but they agreed too.
"Should we take these with us?" said Duru, holding up the bread in her hand.
"Leave it here for now. We'll take it on the way back; no need to carry it now," I said.
And we started moving on.
We walked. This time we weren't in fear, but we were still uneasy.
It didn't take long; our walk paused again.
The tunnel had ended and given way to a courtyard.
We watched the surroundings with our mouths open. Through a hole in the middle of the ceiling, sunlight entered the courtyard and lit its center. Water dripped from the edges of the hole at the same time, making a pleasant sight.
The center of the courtyard was soil. On it grew many flowers, shrubs, and a tree that was most likely a cherry tree. With its pink leaves, the tree made this beautiful place even more beautiful.
Pink leaves drifted about in the wind, sunlight lit the surroundings with reflections, the flow of the water played tricks with the light, and its calming sound soothed the soul.
It was a scene straight out of paradise.
We scattered; everyone examined different parts of the wide courtyard. This place had enchanted us all.
I studied the patterns on the wall. On the cold stone wall before me there were symbols I'd never encountered, various drawings, and many reliefs.
I didn't know whether the symbols, drawings, and reliefs meant anything. But I paid close attention.
There was a symbol of a crow with four eyes. Its eyes were four-cornered.
I recalled that on Earth a crow could carry meanings like sorcery, intelligence, mystery. It might have other meanings too; these were the ones that came to mind at that moment.
Maybe in this world too it could be tied to such concepts.
But I had no idea what a four-cornered eye meant.
While I was trying to make sense of the symbols, someone's voice broke my focus.
Poyraz was shouting.
"Sevda, you said the Old Common alphabet was your specialty, right?"
Pointing to the wall, "You might want to look at this."
We all went over with puzzled looks.
Poyraz was looking up, at the top of the wall.
Sevda's and Duru's mouths fell open.
Hak clenched his teeth.
I wanted to make sense of it but couldn't.
Up above there were sentences in the old alphabet too. I didn't know what they meant, but they were familiar.
And that familiarity was unnerving. Seeing something connected to Earth here was unexpected.
Poyraz said with a smirk, "It's your job now, Madam Translator." But his voice didn't come out strong.
Sevda said nothing and just looked:
"To those torn from their roots…"
She paused and frowned slightly.
"This part could also be translated as 'the one who was torn'; the writer didn't specify singular or plural." Then she went on.
"The one who will show the way knows not the truth he carries.
To trust the holders of the thrones hastens your fall.
The 'End' draws near.
'He' awaits you — so that you may shine in the sky."
Her voice was trembling, and she barely managed to take a deep breath.
"The writer didn't specify singular or plural in the other sentences either. It could be translated both ways."
For a while only the sound of running water was heard. No one wanted to speak.
"To those torn from their roots:
The one who will show the way knows not the truth he carries.
To trust the holders of the thrones hastens your fall.
The 'End' draws near.
'He' awaits you — so that you may shine in the sky."
I repeated what Sevda had said.
"So is this what we've got? A message? To whom? To us?"
Poyraz's questions went unanswered. The mood went cold; the paradise of a moment ago no longer looked beautiful.
Duru's eyes stared blankly at the wall.
Sevda looked at the writing uneasily.
Hak had sat down on a stone and was looking at the water.
I was focused only on the writing and the symbols around it.
'Holders of the thrones.' I remembered the thrones. Eight white, four black, one empty. I'd seen them. We'd all seen them.
Was the message talking about those?
I didn't ask out loud. Someone saying "yes" would have frightened me more.
This place had been waiting for us, and just as expected, we had come here.
As if it were our fate…