That night, silence reigned in their home in Sivan village. Sencer hadn't told his father about the fight, brushing it off with "I fell getting off the minibus." His father Mahmut knew his son was lying, but he didn't question it. He too had been young once, his blood boiled. He just said, "Be careful, son," and withdrew to his room.
Little Elif was fast asleep. Ömer was studying in his room, occasionally looking towards his brother's room, wanting to say something but not daring.
When Sencer retreated to his room and lay down on his bed, his mind was like a battlefield. The moment he closed his eyes, the scenes started again: A gigantic sword in his hand, and facing him, formless, dark monsters. He cut them, tore them apart, but they never ended. More kept coming.
He fell asleep at some point. It wasn't a deep sleep; it was a superficial, restless sleep filled with dreams. He suddenly opened his eyes at midnight. He was drenched in sweat, his sheet soaking wet. Outside, the moonlight was painting the snow-covered peaks of the Bingöl mountains silver. He looked at the clock: 02:47.
His sleep was gone. He didn't think he could sleep again. He thought about that strange electrification he had experienced today. He put his hand on his chest. That warmth… Still there. Not just today, but at every moment. But now it was more pronounced, as if the sword wanted to speak to him.
"The sword disappeared right there," he murmured. In Sari Saltuk's cave, the sword had entered his chest. Right two finger-widths below his heart. "Try to feel it…" he told himself. "Maybe it will react."
He closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. He let it out. He held his breath. He released. He focused his attention on the warmth in that area. As he focused, the sounds of the room faded. The howl of the wind, the ticking of the clock, the neighbour's snoring… Everything fell silent. As if the world had stopped.
Suddenly, he felt a pulling sensation, as if gravity had reversed. As if a rope was tied to his navel and someone was pulling him upwards. No, not upwards, inwards. Into himself. He tried to stop it, wanted to open his eyes, tried to resist the pull with his will. But this pulling force was as strong as a black hole. He held his breath in a moment of panic, then everything went dark.
---
When he opened his eyes, he was no longer in his room in Sivan.
Sencer looked around in astonishment. This place was too real to be a dream, too strange to be a world. Dreams are blurry, hazy, inconsistent. But here, everything was sharp, clear, and solid. Under his feet was about one acre of moist soil, ready to be plowed. The smell of the soil came to his nose; wet, fresh, smelling of rain. He bent down and took a handful of soil. It was moist, real. It trickled through his fingers.
In the middle stood a modest hut made of stones, with nothing inside but a stone bed. The stones of the hut were old, moss-covered, some places cracked. It had no roof, open to the sky. But the sky here was not like the one on Earth.
There was no sky.
Everywhere was covered with thick, grey smoke. This smoke surrounded the boundaries of the field like a wall. As he stepped inwards, the smoke retreated, but when he went to the edge, he came nose to nose with the smoke. As if this universe was a cave carved inside this grey smoke. And the ceiling of this cave did not exist. Just grey, infinite, suffocating cloud.
And right in the middle, that sword floating in the air.
Sencer's breath stopped. The sword was the same as in Sari Saltuk's cave. Its hilt was pointing up, its tip pointing down towards the ground. But here it was different; it seemed alive. It was slowly rotating, emitting invisible waves around it. And as those waves touched the ground, the ground trembled slightly, as if breathing.
Sencer went to the large, black stone inscription next to the hut. The inscription was about two meters tall, one meter wide, a piece of pitch-black marble. The writing on it first appeared as complex symbols; it was neither Arabic, nor Persian, nor Turkish. But as he looked closely, the symbols began to move. They turned into words. And the meanings poured directly into his mind. As if he wasn't reading the writing, the writing was reading him.
"This is the inner world of the Sword of Justice. The more justice its owner dispenses, the more the smoke disperses and the field expands. This universe will grow with your actions. Justice is a sown seed; its harvest is absolute power."
Sencer read the writing once more. "Inner world… Inner realm… So this is the inside of the sword? Or… inside of me?"
At the bottom of the inscription, there were smaller writings:
"The sword resides two finger-widths below the owner's heart. As the owner acts with justice, the sword strengthens. As the owner oppresses, the sword abandons the owner. Justice is the soul of the sword. A soulless sword is just a piece of iron."
Sencer stepped back in horror. "This… this is inside me? Something this big… how can it fit?"
For a moment he panicked. As he wondered how to get out of here, instinctively he said, "I want to go home." And he opened his eyes in his bed.
---
He was out of breath. His heart was beating so fast he thought it would stop. He was sitting in his bed, looking at his hands. Everything was the same. The old clock on the wall, the bookshelf, the withered flower in front of the window… But he had been there a moment ago. He had been in that field inside the grey smoke. He had scooped up the soil. He had touched the stone bed. Was it cold? Yes, it was cold. It was real.
With the skepticism of modern man, he stood up. "It can't be," he told himself. "Things like this don't happen. This is 2026. There's the internet, phones, science. Inner worlds of swords and such don't exist."
But the warmth in his chest was too real to deny.
He took his mobile phone from the table. It was a latest model Android. It had a camera, it could record. "If it's really there, this time I'll have proof," he said. "I'll go in again and record it with my phone. When I come out, I'll watch the video."
He pointed the phone's camera at himself and started recording. His own face appeared on the screen; his lip was swollen, there was a cut above his eyebrow. "I'm Sencer," he said to the camera. "The time is around 03:00 at night. This is a test. I'm going to try to enter the inner world of the Sword of Justice. If this video disappears or gets corrupted, then everything is really real."
He lay back down on the bed, holding the phone tightly. He closed his eyes. Deep breath. He focused on that warmth. That spot two finger-widths below his heart. The warmth gradually increased. Then that pulling sensation again… a few seconds of panic… then everything went dark.
---
When he opened his eyes, he was again in that field of grey smoke.
And the phone was still in his hand. The recording was still ongoing. The time on the screen showed: 00:03:47.
Sencer raised the phone into the air. He panned around the field, showed the hut, showed the sword floating in the air. "This is," he whispered into the phone. "The inner world of the Sword of Justice. Look, there's smoke. There's soil. A hut. And the sword in the middle…"
He tried to approach the sword. But as he got closer, the sword seemed to move away. As if there was an invisible distance between them, no matter how far he walked, he could never reach the sword. Perhaps it wasn't time yet.
He entered the hut. It was empty inside. Just a stone bed, a niche in the wall (perhaps a shelf), and dry grass on the floor. He sat on the stone bed. It was cold. He turned the phone, showed his own face. "I am here. This is real. I'm recording this."
He wandered for a few more minutes, went to the boundaries of the field. He came nose to nose with the smoke. The smoke, as if alive, reached out towards him and then retreated. He wondered what would happen if he entered it, but didn't dare. He turned back.
"Okay, I'm leaving," he said. "I want to go home."
He opened his eyes in his bed.
---
He immediately put his hand in his pocket. His pocket was empty. He looked on the table. Under the bed. The phone was gone.
Sencer's hair stood on end. Had he left it there? Forgotten it in that dimension? Panicking, he closed his eyes again, focused on the warmth. The pulling sensation… And again that field.
The phone was on the stone bed. He lunged and grabbed it. The recording was still ongoing. Time: 00:11:23.
"I want to go home," he said.
He opened his eyes in his bed. The phone was in his hand. He stopped the recording. He opened the video.
And on the screen were the images he had taken. The field of grey smoke. The hut. The sword floating in the air. And his own voice: "This is the inner world of the Sword of Justice…"
Sencer put the phone down on the bed. He covered his face with his hands. He remained like that for a long time.
Then he raised his head and looked at the sky. Moonlight was seeping through the window. "Mother," he whispered. "What is happening to me? What trouble have I gotten myself into?"
No one answered. But the warmth in his chest was stronger than ever. As if the sword was saying, "Don't worry, I'm here."
He didn't sleep again that night. He watched the video on his phone over and over. Each time he watched, he noticed the smoke had dispersed a little more, the field had grown a little larger. Very little, maybe he was imagining it, maybe it was real.
When the morning call to prayer was recited, Sencer was still awake. He got up, performed ablution, prayed his namaz. In his supplication, he prayed for his mother, his father, his siblings.
After the prayer, he looked out the window. The sun was rising from behind the Sivan Mountains, painting the village golden. It was a new day. And Sencer, on this new day, was no longer just a high school student. He was the owner of the Sword of Justice.
And this was only the beginning of his story.