The Cassette: Part 1 of 5

1 

Leo shed his jacket at the office door and made it to his designated desk. It had been a hectic month with all the restoration and digitisation works going on, and they were nowhere near the finish line. The footage they were required to restore and categorise were old police evidence files, or in other words, basically stuff that the police needed in order to reopen cold cases. But even with three technicians on duty today, the workload seemed endless and the pile of cassettes only growing by the second. 

"Damn it!" Sam exclaimed, swivelling his chair around. "Dude, take a look at this. Do you see what I'm seeing?" 

"What is it again?" Leo asked as he reluctantly leaned over Sam's monitor. He had just arrived after nearly forty minutes in traffic, and the last thing he wanted was to be dragged into whatever Sam had found. Unfortunately, that was often the case. 

Sam had a habit of pulling him into things at the worst possible time. Sometimes, Leo wondered if Sam was genuinely oblivious or simply liked getting a reaction out of people.  

"See what?" Leo asked. 

"That's exactly what I'm talking about. There's nothing here!" 

"Dude, I'm not following you." 

But Sam had already stopped listening, continuing to rant under his breath. "Fuck! I should've known when I saw the tape. Can't believe I just spent two hours trying to fix this thing." 

On the screen, a black image flickered occasionally, interrupted by what Leo could only describe as some sort of out-of-tune static. But the footage showed nothing. Literally nothing. Just a black screen. 

"Hey, snap out of it. What tape are you talking about?"  

Sam opened his drawer and pulled out an old cassette tape with a battered casing, as though it had been handled roughly or dropped more than once, handing it over. 

What caught his immediate attention as he twisted and turned the casing was not the damage, however, but the label. There was no title, no case identification as one might expect, save for a string of faded numbers printed on a sticker. 

"That's strange," he murmured.  

"Strange? That's one way to put it," said Sam, adding. "You think someone misplaced their stuff and this somehow got mixed in with the case files?" 

Leo donned a glove and studied the tape closely this time, trying to decipher the fading coding on it without much luck, save from three digits. How was this even possible? There had to be something tangible at least, whether that was a case name or label, that could help them categorise it. But just these digits? They meant nothing on their own. 

"Did you look it up, just in case?" 

"No match. What do you think? A misplaced cassette? Should I call those bastards in the Case Review Unit and tell them to get a grip?" 

"Well, we don't know that for sure." 

"You don't think those bastards are pulling our legs?" 

"Not exactly, no." 

"What then?" 

Leo gestured at the monitor. 

"Looks like somebody went through a lot of trouble to tamper with the footage. Look – it's not completely black." 

Sam's eyes widened as he noticed the screen flicker, revealing a brief snapshot of the real footage beneath whatever had been used to obscure it. 

"You think you can recover it?" 

Leo drew a deep breath. "I mean, I can try. But—" 

"Do you, like, think it's some kind of cursed tape or something? Like in that Japanese horror movie? Ring or whatever." 

"What are you, five?" Leo said, already carrying the tape back to his desk. "Grow up, will you?" 

Behind him, Sam threw his hands up. 

"I'm just saying, dude. Better safe than sorry, right?" 

Although recovering the footage was definitely not their priority right now, especially with the piles of cassette tapes getting only higher, he knew he wouldn't be able to concentrate on the task at hand with his mind full of questions. Besides, recovering the footage would take no less than an hour if he got it right the first time around, and then they would be able to correctly categorise the tape and carry on with their routine. 

What he did not take into consideration was the measure the person who had tampered with the tape had taken to make sure whatever the tape showed remained a mystery. After rebooting the system and software more times than he should have, the restoration process finally gave some result, albeit after four or so hours after he started, which meant it was already time for a well-deserved lunch break. 

"You're not coming?" Sam asked as he got up from his chair, ready to join the others waiting for him at the door, exaggerating his accent at the end of his speech. "Hey, talking to you, Leo. Wang Luo." 

With his eyes glued to the screen where the tape was now seconds from being restored, Leo snapped as soon as he heard the exaggerated accent taken directly from some old Hong Kong noir film. The idiot did not even know the difference between Mandarin and Cantonese, and yet still had the nerve to mock him. 

"Stop acting like a douchebag and leave." 

"What? Just trying to keep my Chinese fresh, you know?" 

Leo turned to face him a soon as he heard this, no longer able to contain his annoyance. "It's Leo, damn it! L-E-O. And you're saying it wrong! I'm from the mainland, you son of a gun! We don't say it like that over there!" 

"Main—what? Never mind. So, does that mean you're not coming?" 

"Fuck off, dude." 

"Uh-uh. Scary," Sam said, raising his hands in mock surrender. "Seems like someone's not feeling it today, guys." 

"Leave," Leo said at last, calmer now, not in the mood to entertain the other. "Just... leave me the fuck alone." 

"All right, all right. Whatever. Let's go, guys." 

He sighed, inhaling deeply to calm his nerves. Sam kept doing that, trying to put him down in front of everyone and then acting as the friendliest guy ever. The double standards, man! The double standards!  

Shaking his head, he once again shifted his focus to the monitor, where a pop-up message relayed that the footage was now restored completely and the digitised file compatible with the computer hardware. 

He clicked on the play button. 

A grainy video of what looked like some kind of interrogation room played on the screen. Apart from the constant glitching and buzzing sound from the static, nothing dramatically caught his attention. Had he not been able to hear the recorder in the background, he would have thought this was an image and not a video. 

After watching the still footage for a few minutes, playing and replaying back and forth to catch anything unusual or something that could help him categorise the file, he turned it off and decided to watch the rest at home now that he knew there wasn't anything on it that required his full attention. Thus, he uploaded the digitised file to his private account as well as on the cloud server and then resumed tackling the huge pile of tapes on his desk. 

Fast forwards five hours later, back in the single-room studio apartment, Leo powered on his computer after downing some beer. 

The rest of the footage was the same as the earlier parts, save from one single detail, one he almost missed had he not played the video back for a double-check. Something was wrong with the angle of the recorder. In the earlier parts of the footage, it was situated in the corner of the interrogation room, somewhere on the ceiling or near it, thus giving a bird's eye view of the room. But at one point, the angled tilted, albeit only slightly. It was a miracle he had noticed it at all.  

What he could not make sense of was... the how. The recorder was out of reach due to how high situated it was. No one had entered through the only door visible, either. None. And even when he considered the low possibility of there being another door out of the recorder's reach or a person somewhere in a dead angle behind the recorder, then he would be able to see shadows at least, wouldn't he? 

He rubbed his chin, thinking hard. Was he missing something? Maybe the light source was too weak? That was why it didn't quite reach all corners and, therefore, did not catch any shadows that showed up behind the recorder? But that high up? No human being could reach that high without a ladder, and the angle of the recorder should've shown him at least some parts of the ladder itself had it been used. So, how was this— 

Ring. Ring. 

Leo jolted from where he sat, almost cursing out loud from the sudden ringing. Before he answered the call, he took a gander at the clock on the wall, noticing that it was past midnight. Although the odd hour was unusual in and of itself, it wasn't this that bugged him as he saw the words on the display. An unknown caller. Who on earth would be calling at this hour? Was it from the nursing home? But as far as he knew, the facility's calling hours were between 10 AM and 5 PM. Unless—a lump formed in his throat at the thought that something terrible might have happened to his mother. 

He took the call. 

"Hello—" 

"Leo, my son! You okay? Why you never call me? Always I call you." 

Frowning, Leo changed ears. 

"Where's Mrs Campbell, Ma? How did you—" 

"Shh! Tā yào lái le!" 

"What? Ma? Ma! Who's coming? Who's—" 

"Bùyào! Don't open door! Don't—bùyào! [inaudible]" 

The call ended, cut off by his mother's screams. 

"Ma! Ma!" 

Panicked and drenched in cold sweat, Leo tried to call the number back, but no one picked up. The screen stayed unresponsive and black, the ringing looping into suffocating silence. For a few moments, he didn't move at all. Could not. 

His hand remained locked around the phone, his grip tightening without him realising it and knuckles turning white. Even his breathing came shallow and laboured. He swallowed once, then again, but his throat felt tight and dry, as though something had physically lodged there. What had just happened? Something was wrong. Very wrong. Why would his mother scream like that? Like she was... like she was... 

He forced the thought away before it could fully form, refusing to give it shape. Instead, with a jerky motion, he unlocked his phone again and scrolled through his contacts. 

The ringing went on for a while before Mrs Riley answered. He knew this was not an ideal hour to be calling her, but he needed someone to go check up on his mother, who had recently been diagnosed with psychosis related to the onset of her dementia five years prior. 

"Hello? Mrs Riley, this is Leo. Leo Wang. It's about Ma." 

"Mr Wang, I'm so, so sorry. I meant to call you as soon as I heard the news of Mrs Wang's passing, but—" 

"P-Passing? I'm not—what did you just say? Passing?" 

"You haven't heard yet? Mr Wang, we lost your mother earlier today. I'm sorry for your loss. I truly am." 

His hands shook and his vision became blurry with the suppressed tears now trying to escape. It took him a moment to calm his nerves and regain his bearing. Dead? That couldn't be true. He just—spoke to her?  

"The staff found her on the floor with a bedlinen around her throat. It looks like she couldn't take the suffering anymore." 

These words snapped him out of his bleak mind and the unanswered questions. "What?" 

"I know this is hard to accept. But—" 

"Hold on. Are you saying she... killed herself? But I don't understand! You said—no, you promised that she'd be under strict surveillance once she—" 

"I know you're hurting, Mr Wang. But there's nothing we can do to change the fact that she's gone. For the better or worse." 

"For the better or worse?" he repeated, completely out of his mind. "How do we know she wasn't killed? That someone—" 

"Listen, I'll be in my office tomorrow. Once you've calmed down and can think straight, you're free to come and we can talk over the details. What do you think? Mr Wang? Hello?" 

He loosened his grip on the phone as a sudden thought hit him. 

"It's impossible." 

"I'm sorry? What did you just say?" 

"I just... talked to her. Heard her voice." 

"How long have you gone without sleep, Mr Wang?" 

His grip tightened again at those words. 

"What?" 

"You said you were working on digitising some files the last time we talked? Maybe—" 

"We never did. Why would I tell you something about my private life?" Then, after a brief pause, quieter now, more wary. "Who... is this?" 

The line went dead and the real Mrs Riley called, but he did not answer – just stared blankly at the display until the ringing stopped and he played the voicemail sent seconds later. 

"Mr Wang? I'm so sorry for calling you at this hour. But I just received the news of your mother's passing. Please, come to the nursing home as soon as this message reaches you. I'll be waiting." 

But Leo did not move. Instead, he curled in on himself like a child, shivering, his arms locked tightly around his body. 

His bloodshot eyes then drifted, almost against his will, towards the ajar bedroom door. In that moment, his mother's voice began to repeat in his mind, insistent and forcing itself into place, refusing to allow him to dismiss what just happened as imagination or hallucination. 

It was not. He just knew, if nothing else. 

"Don't... open the door?" 

What door? 

Neve Emek: Room 102 - Part 15 of ?

15 

When I came back to my senses and the voice inside my head stopped the torture, all I knew was that I had to leave. Now or I would never. What happened earlier I couldn’t explain. I didn’t want to. I just wanted to flee, to get as far away from this place as was physically possible.   

Tucking the blood-soaked photograph into my pocket, I tried to turn the handle to no avail. It was locked. It would be a lie to say I did not expect that to happen. Thus, instead of feeling panic, I scanned the room until my eyes once again fell on the bed, where a dark streak had struck the wall long ago. I tapped along the surface, listening. It was hollow. But not all the way through.  

I traced the edges carefully, pressing down at the corners. It groaned and resisted briefly, then shifted just enough for me to see darkness yawning beneath the skirting board. I did not know what awaited below, only that the air from the gap smelled of damp and something that had been sealed away for years. 

But there was no time for such considerations. I had to exit this place whatever it took. 

When I pried the panel open with bare hands, it revealed a rickety ladder that descended too abruptly. Great, I thought, down we go again. 

I took my chances and steeled himself; then stepped onto the first stair. Each rung of the ladder groaned, threatening to come apart and send me whirling down – a vicious descent straight into the abode of the damned – going deeper and deeper, like there was no end to the madness, no end point at all in sight. And just as I thought I had had enough, the ladder spat me out into a room that made my stomach twist with nausea. I knew this place. It was the laundry room I had only caught glimpses of on my brief tour around the main hall on my first night here. But didn’t I just go downwards? Not up.  

Although none of this made any sense whatsoever, I couldn’t help but feel relief wash over me. The danger was over. At least that was how it felt as long as it lasted. Even that overwhelming fear of not being able to escape Neve Emek perished and I swore I would never wander off again. 

When I scrambled out of the laundry room and stumbled into the main hall, the nave stretched before me in all its mighty glory. Something about the building seemed off, though. At the time I didn’t know why I felt that way, only that I did. But the whole place looked newer, as though I had travelled back in time when it had been newly built. 

But in my panicked state, as I started for the exit, I failed to notice those things. Until I opened my eyes to a place different from what I recalled, that is. 

Sure, I was still at the burial grounds and all that jazz, but it was not nearly as old and abandoned as it should be. Even the village beyond was no longer dead and forgotten, but bustling and alive. 

I froze in place as the unfamiliar sounds in the background slowly changed shape and made sense to me. It was Arabic. How could this be? At the same time, I knew it was possible, that I had not been mistaken, because I was no longer in the present, no longer trapped in the agony left in the wake of the past. But how?  

Still yet, I could not believe what I was seeing before me, dared not believe. Did I really time travel? How, when? Did it start when I first entered the basement? Or when I heard— 

I looked away as a sudden thought disrupted me. What was the date? How long back in time had I travelled? Then another dark thought took up space: what about my missing aunt? Was she here, too? Did she need me? I had to find her, one way or the other. I had to. 

Then, a sudden darkness fell over the settlement and relentless flames rose from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, followed by chilling screams growing louder by the second. I followed the jarring sounds to the threshold between the burial ground and the heart of the village, my breath irregular and coming in short bursts. 

People started running, past me and through me, like I was some kind of ghost they could not see. But I did not notice. All around me, the merciless flames licked the villagers’ skin and erased them from history, like they never existed, and through it all, through the chaos, the familiar dragging sound returned, drawing closer from somewhere behind me, reverberating through the cobbles, through the air, through my aching chest. 

I spun, scanning the lanes swallowed by the fire and reduced to nothing but dust and ashes, and there it was indeed, pursuing me still. But I didn’t wait for it to claim me. Instead, I broke through the heavy smoke and sprinted in the opposite direction, where the flames were fiercer and the masjid still intact.  

The lanes narrowed and shadows leaned closer for every step I took through the inferno, the smoke crawling along the collapsing buildings. I didn’t know where my feet took me, why it was so adamant about going this route when everyone who passed me ran in the opposite direction. All I knew was that something pulled at me, forcing me to follow it through the chaos. 

Before I knew it, I found myself standing at the mouth of a well. 

I hesitated. I didn’t know why. 

Then I saw something resting against the well. 

A photograph. It lay buried in the dust, the edges curled and the paper as brittle as could be from water damage. It was a picture of a classroom, depicting children standing in three rows, their faces turned obediently towards the camera, all so ordinary it hurt. Unaware. 

Until they weren’t. 

I blinked, and the faces hollowed. Sockets gaped where eyes had been, and mouths opened in a grotesque rictus. Then came the sound. At first, it was the wind, high-pitched and shrill, and then, the cries of children pierced through the lanes like a procession of death. It came from somewhere beyond the masjid. I followed the sound to the distance, where a school building lay, the gates swung open and giving me a glimpse of the playground. 

The screams grew louder at once, carried with the wind. 

Then it hit me and my feet staggered back. There were children inside. There was—I dropped the photograph and ran. Just ran. 

Before me, beyond the masjid, what remained of the school building, was now a hellhole. The flames had licked at the building and caused it to collapse completely. There was no way out of this place, no way in. Anyone who failed to escape when the fire first broke out had been condemned to death with no exception. And the children, those poor children, were trapped inside. Helpless. Sentenced to death for merely existing, accused of being terrorists, terrorist who wished for a better tomorrow, who hoped for the bombings to end, for their fathers and brothers to safely return home in the prisons they were locked up in without a proper trial. What for? For resisting the siege on their homeland, of the homes they no longer had access to and was forced out of. 

Those poor, poor souls; angels without wings. Flowers born of agony, born in the desert, raised amidst the olive trees. Innocent blood spilt for nothing but an ugly lie; a murderous scheme to steal when those capable of stopping the murder willingly turned a blind eye. 

I poured water from the well over me and returned to the school, determined to save as many children as I could, covering my mouth with my sleeve as I did so. Even then, the dampness did little to stop the stinging of my eyes or the smoke now finding its way into my burning lungs, not to mention the heat searing my skin. Yet none of those things was not enough to stop me. 

I saw my own daughter in every child who reached out to me, who begged to be saved. If I turned a blind eye, how could I ever dream of a reunion with my daughter and proudly tell her she is the most precious thing to me? I could not. Even if it meant I would die here, in the past, and never see her again. 

I grabbed the first child just within my reach, a limp boy stuck underneath two broken desks folded over one another, before the roof collapsed completely, and dragged him out into the open. When I returned, coughing, the collapsed beams had blocked an entire section, where children pleaded for help. 

Distraught but not one to give up, I scrambled forwards and forced my way through the flames, paving myself another way around the collapsed section. At some point, however, the thick smoke completely blinded my blurry vision and caused me to lose tracks of my whereabouts. When my vision cleared once more, all I could hear was the poor souls shrieking and the groaning collapse of the building, until, one by one the voices faltered and snuffed out in a morbid crescendo, leaving me alone in the suffocating dark, in the deadly silence, before the buckling building gradually forced me out.  

By the time I regained back enough of my bearings to re-enter what little remained of the building, it was nothing but a heap of glowing bones, threatening to take with it whatever dared to enter. 

Still, I did not back off. I knew the children had all perished, that none of them were alive, but I could not help it. Couldn’t make myself stop. 

I stumbled across the wreckage with my arms outstretched, fumbling to find something to hold onto in the dark to navigate, shouting as much as the smoke allowed me, for a sign of life. That was when I saw her. 

It was a girl no older than ten, her skin blackened and singed. Her hazel eyes were wide with terror, wide with the fear of being left to die all alone in the fire. She was crying for her mother in Arabic, telling her she would be a good girl from now on, that she was sorry, that she wanted to go home, that she was afraid, afraid of the dark, of the heat, of the smoke slowly suffocating her. 

I leapt towards her, but before I could close the distance, a plank gave way above me, crashing down across my shoulders, pinning me to the floor. The pain was unlike anything I had ever endured, but worse was the helplessness. 

I could see her, I could hear her, but I could not move. 

I could not move... 

Then, she saw me, and her cries stilled; the tears replaced by a smile, one that told me she was thankful, that she was no longer alone, no longer afraid to die, and something inside me broke. 

I had never once shed tears like these before, never felt such agony in my adult life, such helplessness. And yet, all I could do was watch as the fire claimed her tiny frame, inch by inch. My body shook with the sobs, the heat blistering my skin, causing my vision to swim and blur, until even the flames themselves merged with the darkness closing in all around me – a violent surrender of a body that had nothing left to give. I let it take me, returning her smile, as her heart gave way under the pressure of her liquifying lungs, a mix of saliva and blood spilling down the corners of her mouth. 

The morbid sight would not leave me; I would make sure it never did, like a tattoo, and forever remind me of the cruelty of humanity, the way everyone turned a blind eye to the helpless for the right price. 

A tear trickled down then, tracing a clean line against my soot-strained face, and my heart gave way. And I— 

—gasped. 

The Witch of the Mountain - Part 3 of 3

3

The pouring rain drummed against the windshield, a macabre rhythm falling into cadence with Irmak’s frantic heart as she gripped the steering wheel tight. A frown deepened between her brows at that moment. The wipers struggled to keep pace with the downpour, the view ahead dissolving into a blur and adding to the stress of going there, to Karakaya, against her better judgement. Yet these were not the thoughts occupying her mind at the time.

She could hardly make out the access road stretching before her. Not to mention that every shadow along the route seemed to distort in the corners of her eyes, merging with the heavy rain on purpose to slow her down and confuse her. She did not know what awaited her in the abandoned village, but she knew one thing for certain: she was no longer safe. Something was out there, something not made of flesh and bone like her, and it was waiting for an opportunity to strike.

Mehmet shifted in his seat beside her, the faint scent of cologne failing to mask the damp chill creeping in through one of the open windows. Though she never once looked his way, she could feel his stare, and it began to gnaw at her, raising a cold sweat along her skin. Why did he have to sit in the front with her? Especially after what had happened the other day. She had made her boundaries clear, at least she thought she had, but Mehmet seemed unwilling to accept them, as if persistence might change her mind. It would not. Never.

In the back, Dilara and Bilal were a literal mess, with their beers sloshing over the seats, foam spilling onto the floor mats, and their laughter rising above the howling wind as if nothing beyond the car existed. It was as though they had slipped into a world of their own and everything else had dulled to irrelevance.

Irmak had expected as much, given Dilara’s reckless nature, but something about it began to unsettle her still the same, stirring an odd sense of unease she could neither explain nor shake – a creeping sensation that something was about to happen. With that feeling rapidly spreading in the pit of her stomach, she glanced at the rear-view mirror, trying to catch Dilara’s eye, but the other would not notice no matter how hard and long she stared.

That was when she felt it, a hand creeping along her thigh. She went rigid at once, breath caught in her throat, while Mehmet’s grip tightened. For a split second she could not move, could not think, then she shoved his hand away. It returned almost instantly, more insistent this time, sliding higher despite her protests, and her hands instinctively clenched around the wheel. She was scared witless and panicking, but she could not afford to look at him, could not afford to lose focus.

The downpour had worsened, and the road ahead was barely visible through the windshield now. Even the car lurched beneath her as she fought to keep it steady, her attention torn between the blurred darkness ahead and the hand that refused to leave her alone. The fact that this car belonged to Bilal and she was not familiar with it only added to the dread, as well, making it harder and harder to steer, while being consistently distracted.

For the next few minutes, this repeated itself. She shoved his hand away, and it returned again and again, each time more insistent, more intrusive, until her patience thinned. She turned her head and glared at him, albeit only for a split second. That was when she caught it at the last moment, a figure standing dead in the middle of the road. Instinct took over and she jerked the wheel violently to the side; the tyres screeched against the wet asphalt as the car skidded to a stop and the world turned on its axis.

The impact was brutal. The car slammed into a nearby tree, and the airbags deployed with a loud hiss. For a few disorienting seconds, chaos swallowed everything before giving way to an overwhelming, absolute silence. When she came to, her ears rang and her head spun like a top, her neck aching from what she could only assume was a whiplash injury. Aside from that, she seemed to have sustained only minor injuries. Bilal and Dilara, however, were not as fortunate. The force of the collision had thrown them from their seats.

She scrambled to unbuckle herself, fingers trembling as the seatbelt jammed for a second before finally giving way. Her lungs burned from the sudden exertion, each breath painful and uneven as panic surged through her. She twisted in her seat, straining to look behind her, only to find one of the doors hanging open and Dilara nowhere in sight. Her heart dropped at once, and a cold realisation settled over her before she could fully process it.

Without hesitation, she pushed herself out of the car and into the darkness. The heavy rain lashed her face the moment she stepped outside, cold and relentless, swallowing light and sound alike. The ground was uneven beneath her feet, slick with water and debris, but she kept stumbling forwards into the night.

“Dilara!” She tried again, louder this time. “Dilara! Dilara!”

But her cries were drowned out by the moaning wind and the downpour. Still, she did not give up. She called again and again until her throat ached and her voice cracked, but no reply came from the darkness, as if her friend had been taken by it.

But how was this possible? She had not been unconscious for more than a few minutes at most, so how could Dilara have simply vanished in such a short time? It made no sense! Right then, a sudden thought struck her, and she glanced back at the narrow road where she thought she had seen someone. There was nothing there now. Had she imagined it? Was it the darkness and the rain playing tricks on her eyes, turning shadows into something that was never there? Or maybe—

She whipped around with a gasp, her chest rising and falling in frantic, uneven breaths as her eyes snapped open wider, straining into the dark. A sudden din had broken the silence. It came from the car. Reluctantly, she tore her gaze away from the route and turned back. Bilal was still in the back seat, blood trickling down his temple. His breathing was shallow and his pulse weak – barely there. At this rate, he would not make it through the night.

But it was not Bilal she had heard. Mehmet was awake too and had taken over the driver’s seat, fumbling with the ignition. The motor coughed weakly each time he tried, however, refusing to turn over. He cursed under his breath, tried again, then again, each attempt more violent, more frantic than the last.

“Come on! Come on!” he muttered, slamming his hand against the steering wheel. The car jolted slightly under the impact, making Irmak flinch back instinctively. His breathing grew harsher and frustration soon turned into panic as he twisted the key. But nothing happened this time, either.

“Fuck!” he snapped, striking the wheel harder this time. “Start, damn it!”

It was only then, as he twisted to take a look at Bilal, that he noticed her, and something in his expression shifted and the kind guy she thought she knew turned into someone she could hardly recognise. It was as though he was an entirely new person, worlds apart from the one she had seen up until this point.

“Hey, you okay?”

She staggered reflexively as he turned around completely to see her better. Something about his smile stirred something inside her, a growing sense that she was not safe near him. She had to do something, say something, but no words escaped from her dry lips. Only when he turned around completely, ready to get out of the car and draw closer to her, did she manage to break free from the spell.

“I-I need to go find Dilara!”

She sprinted into the darkness without waiting for him to get out of the car or respond. That, however, was a mistake. He gave a chase. Not to find Dilara with her but for another sinister reason she dared not speak. All she knew was that she had to get away from him, as far as was physically possible, even if it meant she got lost.

With these thoughts fresh in her mind, she passed through what she assumed was a woods connected to the access road, but it was not a complete desolate place. She could see the outline of a faded trail as her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, which meant it led somewhere – either out of the woods or somewhere deeper. She did not mind, either. Only, she did not expect that it would lead her there.

When the trail ended abruptly and the sound of footfall had somehow let up, she too came to a stop and looked ahead. Her brows knitted closer at once, before once again looking behind her with an alarmed look. How did she end up in Karakaya when it was supposed to be on the opposite side? Had she been mistaking, forgot her way around this place after having left it all those years ago? But those ruminations had to wait. The footsteps returned just as abruptly as they had disappeared, only for her to come face-to-face with Mehmet.

“Irmak—”

She stepped back before he could come any closer. His expression changed again. He was no longer trying to hide his true self behind a mask of deceit, and his expression gradually turned darker.

“Why are you running away from me? I thought you liked me.”

“I liked the guy I first met. Not the person speaking to me right now.”

“I’m the same person, Irmak. I’ve always been.” He stepped closer. “You don’t have to be afraid. I like you, too. That’s why I came here, to be with you.”

She shook her head. “I don’t like you anymore. Stay away from me!”

He ignored her, kept inching closer one step at a time. “That’s not what Dilara said, you know that?”

“What?”

“There’s no one here, Irmak, besides the two of us. You don’t have to pretend anymore.”

“P-Pretend?”

“Come on! You don’t think I know you were acting all prudently? I know you want me too, so why not just give into it?”

She staggered back, trying to keep her voice steady despite panic rising in her chest unchecked. She had get away. But the only exit was at that place, the village that had haunted her for so long. Once she stepped foot there, only god knew what would happen. At the same time, staying here was not an option. She could see by the way Mehmet looked at her that he meant every single word. If she did not move quick enough, she might—

They both looked upwards; a flock of crows stirred the trees above, cawing in a foreboding tune, before hovering and swarming overhead. It was the opportunity she needed, so she seized it, and entered the village before the other had time to catch up. She did not fully understand why the crows had suddenly come to her aid, all she knew was that she was fortunate enough to still be in one piece. But the relief was short-lived. She picked up the pace.

“Irmak! Wait! Let’s talk! Irmak!” Then, only seconds later, the soft tone nothing but a grotesque sneer. “Fucking bitch! You think you can just run away from me!? You think you can just—”

But Irmak was no longer listening, too focused on her steps and the path ahead shrouded in pitch darkness. Yet, somehow, her feet knew exactly where to go, which routes to take, as she navigated to the entrance of the village, and later to the very heart of it, until she came to a sudden stop in front of the mosque.

Her brain screamed at her to keep moving, to run, but her limbs would not listen, rooting her in place. Only when she once again became aware of the approaching footsteps did she break free from whatever has taken hold of her, and she sprinted past the derelict holy building, until she stood at the courtyard of her childhood home. All sort of memories flooded back to her at the time, memories she had long since suppressed and forgotten about. It was like opening Pandora’s Box. She did not know what kind of memories lay there, in the darkest chambers of her heart and soul, but she could not afford to look away or turn away now. The only safe place, despite the fragments of memories pressing on from all sides, was this place – and so she entered.

Everything felt different, much more different than she recalled. There was not much left behind from their time here, no photographs left behind, no mattress, furniture, or rugs. Just an empty and hollow space. She passed the living room and traced her steps to her bedroom, from where she had one looked outside in the witching hour and seen the witch. Even the dirty window was smaller than she recalled. For a brief moment, she stood in front of it and watched the world outside. There was no one there, no one that she could see nearby at the very least. Had Mehmet given up chasing after her and left?

As she was about to exit the house, however, an abrupt din broke her off. She turned around and then looked down at her feet, where a framed photograph lay, shattered into pieces. It had not been there earlier, she was certain. She picked it up and turned it around. It was a family portrait.

She frowned, her brows deepening at once. Something was off. Her father’s face was scratched off completely. But that was not as confusing as what her eyes now settled on. Another… person? All her life, she wished for a sibling, so who was this young woman standing next to her? Moreover, why was her face scratched off, as well? She turned the frame around again, taking note of the date. 2008. Only a year from the calamity that fell upon Karakaya. But why was her memories eluding her? Who was this child and why couldn’t she remember a thing about her? Also—she whipped around with a gasp, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

Another noise. The sound of a marble rolling, slow and steady.

She followed the sound past the living room, past the small kitchenette where she had fond memories of baking with her mum, across the hallway, towards a door at the end of it she could not recall for the life of her, and her confusion only grew. Who lived here? Why couldn’t she—the door cracked open. She staggered back at first, her frantic heart thumping loudly in her chest, before starting for the mysterious door, one step at a time. Every step felt heavier than the last, each breath more laboured than the former, and something inside her twisted and turned, causing a pang of ache to rise within.

The room was different than from the rest of the decaying house, the only space which had not been emptied completely, like some sort of time capsule forever trapped in a time long since gone. Someone lived here once, with her family, someone not even worth remembering. Yet still, she racked her brain, trying to recall despite something telling her not to. How could a person just lose her memories like this, only remembering some parts of the past, while not the rest? Someone had tampered with her mind, made her forget! Was it that witch she helped? But… what for? What significance did a mere child have?

“Here you are…”

She snapped. But before she could even take flight, Mehmet lunged and tackled her to the only bed in the room, ripping her chest bare and forcing himself on her. She had never felt this humiliated and vulnerable before, not even once. Not to mention she had yet to get over the chock of her missing memories. But that did not mean she did not fight back. She threw at him whatever her hands clutched around, scratching his face, kicking and thrashing with all her might. But no matter how much she fought, no matter how hard she tried to resist, she could not overpower him.

What had got into him? Could she really have mistaken him for a decent guy? The Mehmet she knew, that she loved, was not someone who would deride and humiliate another person – not like this. Now that she thought it over, it all started back then, when they went to celebrate Dilara’s birthday at the bar. She had felt something heavy inside her, something burning and strange, then she felt something watch her in the shadows. It all happened so quickly that she could not help but dismiss it as her mind playing tricks on her, but then Mehmet started acting out of character. Could there be a connection or was she simply trying to come up with excuses for the other’s behaviour?

That was when another noise broke through, one that took both of them off guard, coming from the abandoned mosque.

“Allāhu akbar, Allāhu akbar. Ashhadu an lā ilāha illā Allāh…”

Yet it was not the call to player that should not exist that paralysed her. In Mehmet’s eyes, in the reflection, she saw another person instead of herself. A young woman. Her face seemed foreign at first but then another fragment of memory pressed on and took over her mind. She knew this child! It was—

Mehmet’s expression stiffened, and his eyes widened as he collapsed onto her. Behind him, Dilara shook – blood sprayed all over her. Irmak slid away from under him and noticed to her horror that Dilara had punctured right through his skull with an axe. They both looked at one another for a moment, their chest rising and falling in sync before Dilara, with shaking hands, covered her bare chest as much as was possible due to how ripped it was, buttoning her shirt up.

“Y-You okay?”

“I’m… fine. Where were you? I tried calling you, but you never replied! I thought—” you died.

“I’m not sure myself. One second I was on the ground, and then… I wasn’t.” She looked straight in Irmak eyes, the confusion in them as clear as day. “How is that possible, Irmak? How can a person just… just… disappear like that?”

“What happened to you? Dilara, look at me.”

“I saw someone. A woman. She kept saying your name, telling me to wake up and save you! Irmak. Why did she do that?”

“A… woman?”

“Uh-uh. She said you shouldn’t be here or something… something like that,” she said. “What does that mean?”

“A woman…” she repeated, briefly looking away as a realisation hit her. “The witch? But how is that possible?”

“W-Witch? What are you talking about? What witch?”

“Remember the witch I talked to you about?”

“You think that’s her I saw?”

“I think so. But I don’t get it. They found her body in the well and buried her, so why is she still here, not at peace?”

They both went silent, deep in their own dire thoughts, when suddenly Irmak recalled seeing a young woman in the reflection of Mehmet’s eyes.

“What if… it wasn’t her they found?”

“What?”

“What if that corpse they found did not belong to the witch?”

“You think it belonged to another person?”

Irmak cast another glance at the unconscious Mehmet before speaking up.

“Listen, I saw someone. A young woman. From what I understand, she used to live her, in this room… with my family. But I don’t remember her! She must have gone missing before the tragedy happened. Someone erased my memories of her. I think it was that witch’s doing.”

Dilara’s eyes sparkled as she realised what Irmak was getting to.

“You think someone else, not the witch, poisoned the villagers? To get away with murder and put all the blame on the witch? But what kind of deranged person would do such a horrendous thing? Killing a mere, helpless chid…”

 Irmak looked away, the words escaping her before she could understand or hinder them, spilling like a tide crashing in all directions within her.

“Dad.”

“Dad?” Dilara repeated before adding as a thought dawned on her. “Now that I think about it, this is the first time you ever mentioned your dad. Not even when you told me about that day, when the soldiers came, did you ever mention him. Why’s that?”

“Because—” Irmak looked up, her glassy eyes giving away her bewilderment. “—he was never there. That morning, when the soldiers came, he was not at home. We even thought he had died somewhere all alone. But then he returned home just hours later, or rather, when the soldiers left.”

Dilara gulped hard. “Not at home? That meant he had spent the whole night somewhere else, right? But you said you helped the witch that night. Shouldn’t you have seen him?”

“I should have. Unless…”

“Irmak?”

“Unless he went out much earlier, sometime after supper or the call to prayer. But he wouldn’t—my dad’s not that kind of person.”

“Was he acting strange the days before all of this happened? Irmak”

“No. I would’ve noticed if that were the—” Her eyes widened as a sudden realisation hit her, her statement turning into a question. “—case?”

The child in the photograph. The reflection in Mehmet’s eyes, his strange behaviour coming out of nowhere, yet coincidentally when she thought she saw something strange at the corner of her eyes at the bar… like something following her. She had to conform it.

Without an explanation, she brushed past Dilara and existed her childhood home, heading straight for the mosque. She did not know what for or what she hoped to find once she entered. All she could think of was that the call to prayer caused Mehmet to come to his senses, and something inside her told her this was not the first time it had come to her aid. In the deepest chambers of her heart, she recognised it. But from where? From which memory she no longer recalled? And what about that child? Who was she? Why couldn’t she remember her? Not even slightly?

As she pushed the gate open and entered, the smell of old wood greeted her. She had vague memories of this place. Her father was not a religious man and the times he took her with her to the mosque could be counted with one hand. How his mother, a devout woman, even put up with him was a mystery to her.

They were the complete opposite. Growing up, she thought that was just how things were, that her parents’ frequent fights were a normal thing couples did. But when her parents separated, she realised that only then did her mother truly find peace. She devoted all her waking hours to prayers and god, living a simple yet humble life until she passed away sometime during winter the preceding year.

She started living with her dad then, before leaving home to study, that is. He was not only cold towards her but also acted as if she was not even his child anymore, and he wore this… expression. It was hard to explain with just plain words, but she always felt like he saw someone else whenever he looked at her, someone that scared him witless. The funny thing about it all? During those years they were in no contact, he had become overly religious, to the point of surpassing her mother. He had even joined a cult, or in other words, a tarikat as the Turkish say. She could hardly recognise him. It almost felt as thought he was trying to absolve himself from a sin by going to the extreme, trying to make up for it by becoming the kind of person he once detested like the plague.

She stepped back without meaning to, her eyes widening at the damning spectacle unfolding before her. There, standing on the minbar, was a young woman. She looked about fifteen years old and not a day older. Her hair was covered loosely, her body turned towards the prayer hall, towards Irmak, while her feet was twisted completely to the side, like her body and limbs were wrongly pieced together, blood running between her bare legs. Irmak was about to follow where her toes pointed, when the young woman suddenly raised an arm and slowly moved it in circles. No, not circles! She was writing something using the Arabic alphabet, but the words were unmistakably Turkish. Irmak spoke the message aloud.

“Git… buradan…”

Get away from here.

She racked her brain, trying to recall. She knew this child, she was certain. But from where? From which memory!? She had to remember! She had to—

“Irmak!”

She turned around. It was Dilara. But the relief did not last. This place was as dangerous as the rest of Karakaya, if not more. Dilara should not be here.

“Return to the car. The sooner the—”

“What about Mehmet? I killed him.”

“I’ll—” she gulped hard, her frantic eyes shifting between the spectre and her antsy friend. “—figure something out. Now, hurry and leave! Dilara, please!”

But the other wouldn’t, instead she followed her anxious gaze to the minbar, the lines between her brows deepening as she suddenly lifted her arm and pointed at the young woman. “It’s her!”—Irmak cut in front of Dilara as the blonde girl was about to start for the minbar, seizing her arm tight and holding her back—”It’s that woman that saved me!”

“Don’t! It’s not…” safe. But she couldn’t finish her sentence, something stopped her. It was that ghost.

Dilara’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the matter? Don’t you want to know what happened that night? That girl can tell us!”

“It’s not that,” she whispered, her mind reeling and spinning. “She just… just told me to leave. We shouldn’t be here. We got to—”

The door slammed shut with a deafening bang, the world around them twisting and rocking in place, as the ghost suddenly burst into a shrill shriek. They both fell to their knees, clutching and covering their bleeding ears, as the whole place started to collapse and fall apart. They locked eyes then, both acutely alarmed and in panic, yet neither of them knew what to do or what was happening.

That was when the young woman started moving, descending the minbar, her mouth an open rictus, caught between screaming and crying, crimson blood spilling all over the place from between her legs and sockets. Her movements were jagged, too, like her joints were misplaced and malfunctioning, and her head cocked violently to the side, barely hanging from her neck – coming towards them. Before they could rise and take flight, however, the young woman charged with unprecedented speed, separating them, causing Dilara to fling across the collapsing mosque and hit her head against the wall, knocking her out.

Irmak stumbled back up seeing this happen, about to run towards her passed-out friend, when the girl suddenly lunged at her and held her in a chokehold, squeezing the air out of her with a force no living thing should ever possess, her feet slowly yet steadily leaving the ground. She fought still to push the spectre away, to survive whatever nightmare this was, when a once-missing memory let itself known to her. She saw a younger version of herself, barely seven years old, holding the hand of a young woman, smiling wide and picking flowers in a sun-kissed open field, and then—

A groan escaped her. Not from the chokehold but from a jarring pain taking hold of her from the inside, spreading violently as the missing memories pressed on and played on a loop in her distraught mind. Right then, a second flashback popped up. She saw a younger version of herself moving to that mysterious room, strange noises rising and falling, of a woman begging for mercy and crying, only for her cries to suddenly die out before returning more violently. Then she cracked the door open, just enough—

“Teyze?”

Hearing this word escape from her lips, the spectre’s expression softened briefly, before once again turning cold and dark, her ghostly fingers tightening around Irmak’s throat, determined to suffocate her. But Irmak did not fight back this time. She remembered now. Everything.

Her maternal aunt had come to stay with them after being kicked out by her grandparents for having a boyfriend, one she had spent the whole night with, only to be accused of being promiscuous and a bad influence for the other young women in their village. Irmak had been only seven years old back then.

Her aunt went missing months earlier the poisoning incident took place. Rumours circulated afterwards that she had visited a clinic with her mother and was with a child, that the identity of the father was unknown. Strangely, it was also during this period that her aunt, Safiye, and Irmak’s mother grew distant. She did not know these details back then, of course, not until she became an adult herself and overheard their relatives talk about her so called promiscuity.

But what was so wrong about a teenager falling in love and having a boyfriend of the same age? In a way, her aunt had suffered the same fate as the witch. Perhaps this was the reason the witch had lured her to the mountain path that night, to avenge another young woman who had perished untimely and whose reputation had been stained for nothing.

Now all those rumours she had heard growing up but forgotten made sense. Yet she couldn’t understand it. How could her father be so cruel? So savage and heartless!? He had not only raped a young, helpless woman seeking refuge at his home, but also forced his wife to turn against her own blood, manipulating her into thinking her sister was the one who had forced herself upon him, causing this vengeful spirit to come into existence!

As the reality of what really happened back then took more space in her mind, she turned her gaze to the spot where the spectre’s feet had pointed towards moments earlier, a lantern flickering on and off, swaying subtly to the absent wind as if to make her realise something. In that moment, the world stopped spinning and the mosque once again became still and abandoned, taking with it the spectre of her missing aunt.

She collapsed, gasping for air. Though she should be relieved the nightmare was over, somehow, something still bothered her and her mind was an utter mess – as were her heart and soul. Yet never once did she take her gaze away from the lantern, where the flickering flames changed shape and took the form of two women watching her, their grotesque faces turning into smiles, as if unbothered by the stain that had smeared their names and made the whole village persecute them. And, surely, had the poor witch and her aunt not intervened and brought Dilara here at the right time, she too would face the same cruel fate and forever be labelled as a promiscuous woman under the guise of preserving honour.

But she couldn’t help but feel there was more to this than what met the eye. Another spirit had possessed Mehmet back then, she could not have been mistaken. What spirit was that? And why did her aunt try to kill her only to give up halfway through? Not to mention the memories that the witch had erased on purpose. But before she could direct these question to the witch of the mountain, the two silhouettes started to perish. She rose to her feet in a panicked state at once, ready to run towards the flickering lantern, when a noise stopped her.

Dilara had stirred.

“I-Irmak?”

Thought reluctant, the questions in her mind too overwhelming to simply ignore, she went back to her friend’s side and helped her back up.

“Are you okay? Does your head hurt a lot?”

She let out a bitter smile. “It’s too obvious, huh?”

“Yeah, it is. Come, I’ll bring us home.”

She wrapped Dilara’s arms around her shoulders and they limped towards the gate. As they were about to exit, Irmak cast a glance at the minbar and then the strange lantern. Something was off. She was missing something, something crucial yet eluding. What was it?

“What about Mehmet? What do we say to Bilal?”

“He’s dead. Don’t look at me like that, I’ll think of something. Besides—” Irmak forced a smile. “—you didn’t do anything wrong. You saved me.”

Dilara returned her smile. “You think an attorney would see it that way? I killed a person, Irmak. There’s no turning back from that.”

“Who knows—” Irmak directed her eyes to the mountain peak, where another flicker of light arrested her. “—other than us two that we came here, anyway?”

“What do you mean?”

Irmak tore her gaze away from the mountain. “Listen, you said Bilal dug up old graves, right? Then there has to be a shovel in the trunk.”

Dilara couldn’t speak, at loss for words for a few seconds before the words blurted out. “What?”

“There’s no CCTV out here except the one that caught us at the intersection four miles back,” Irmak interrupted. “If the police ask, we tell them we drove here for fun but stayed in the car while those two went inside the village. Say that we waited but that they never came back, so we panicked and left.” Her tone remained calm as she continued. “Karakaya already has a reputation. People disappear here all the time. They’ll believe us.”

“What if they bring in cadaver dogs and realise we were lying?”

Irmak glanced at the mountain peak one final time.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “Even if they do, they won’t find them.”

“How can you be so sure? Maybe it’s better to come clean? Explain that we only tried to defend ourselves? No matter how hard I think this through—”

“No.”

Dilara flinched at how abrupt and sharp the word escaped her, and for a moment, neither of them spoke. Irmak’s gaze remained fixed on the mountain peak, her expression unreadable in the dark, though her tone had softened subtly.

“We can’t tell the police the truth, they’ll just twist it into something else and pin it on us, say we whored ourselves out and should have seen it coming.”

Dilara wrapped her arms around herself, visibly shaken and in distress. “But hiding the bodies? That’s insane, Irmak!”

“There’s no other option.”

A cold wind swept through the trees as she said this and somewhere higher up the mountain, a faint light flickered again between the rain and the absolute darkness, pale and brief like a lantern moving through the woods.

Dilara noticed Irmak staring at it, and in that moment, she saw something cross Irmak’s eyes, turning them pitch black for hardly a second. It happened so quickly, however, that she wasn’t entirely sure she had seen right.

“You keep looking there,” she said in a hushed tone, swallowing. “Why? Do you…” She wetted her dry lips, the words sticking to her throat. “…see something?

Irmak did not answer right away; instead, she tilted her head slightly, as though she could hear things the other could not, before finally tearing her glassy eyes away and meeting Dilara’s confused ones. There was no blackness in them, albeit Dilara could sense that something wasn’t right. It was as though she was staring into the eyes of another being, someone other than her friend, but she could not explain those conflicting emotions rising within her.

“We should move before sunrise,” Irmak said, her voice devoid of emotions this time, like a shell without a soul, a fleeting smile playing on her lips, one that curdled Dilara’s blood. This wasn’t Irmak. Her gaze drifted instinctively towards the mountain just as the thought settled in her mind, and somewhere within the abandoned village, a shrill scream tore through the darkness. Dilara jolted. Before she could move toward the sound, however, Irmak’s hand clamped around her wrist.

“We don’t have much time.”

Dilara froze. Her quivering eyes meeting that of Irmak’s, now black as tart and crying crimson, a wicked grin tugging at her lip. Dilara knew at that moment that her friend was gone – that she had been absent from the moment the mosque stopped collapsing and the world returned to normal.

“Who…” Her voice trembled. “Who are you?” Where’s Irmak?

The black eyes vanished, the subtle grin, too.

“It’s me. What’s the matter with you?”

Dilara shook her head. “No…”

Irmak released her grip and for a brief second, all was well and whatever had possessed the other had disappeared. But she could tell nonetheless, that wasn’t the case. This wasn’t her friend. Not anymore. But someone pretending to be her. Was it that witch Irmak talked about, the one they saw in the mosque? Or was this someone else entirely?

“Stop acting all weird, dude!” Irmak drew closer. Dilara stepped back instinctively. “We don’t have time for this! It’s me! Irmak.”

Her breath caught.

She spun around, at least tried to, but before she could fully turn, icy fingers settled onto her shoulder from behind and pain exploded through her skull. At once, her memories twisted out of shape and faces and places all blurred together in a jumbled mess. Something was pulling at her thoughts, rearranging them, forcing them into places they did not belong, and with every laboured breath, the agony worsened until it finally drove her to the ground.

She convulsed violently, clutching at her head so hard her nails tore into her skin, thin trails of blood slipping between her fingers as a strangled cry escaped her throat. Then, suddenly, it all stopped. Just like that. When she opened her eyes again, her breathing shallow and chest falling and rising rapidly, she saw a hand stretched out towards her through the rain.

“Come,” Irmak said softly. “Help me check the trunk.”

Dilara stared at the hand for a long moment, her mind absent of thoughts, of memories, like a machine or puppet controlled by invisible strings.

Then, slowly, she took it, and the grin on Irmak’s face widened.

“Good girl.”