The Witch of the Mountain - Part 2 of 3

2

The lecture hall emptied far too slowly, the murmur of chatter the only thing filling the prolonged silence. Irmak sat at one of the desks in the farthest row, her chin resting against her palm, staring at the chalkboard where her professor had just outlined the following week’s assignments. Several of her notes were laid neatly in a pile in front of her, ready to be packed into her leather bag, and that was that. She waited for her classmates, or the majority of them at least, to exit already so that she too could leave. But it took forever.

So, she shifted her gaze with a sigh. Outside, the dying sunlight slanted through the wall-length windows, catching the dust that floated into the warmth. At that moment, she daydreamed away, imagining a different course of life – one much different from the one she currently led. After all, she had always been somewhat of a dreamer, or a romantic if one could say that. Had she been a Disney princess, she’d be Belle. But daydreams were just that, dreams, and nothing else. Ghosts of the mind, in other words. Maybe she wanted to become a ghost too, live an invisible life far from the plain reality she lived through each and every day. She wanted more; worked harder than anyone else. Still, all she ever amounted to was being this sorry of a person she was.

In the backdrop, conversations about plans for the weekend took over and drowned out all other subjects. It wasn’t like she wanted to eavesdrop or something, only she heard everything by default – even from miles away – as though she was some sort of Wonder Woman. But she didn’t want to. Heck! she even tried not to! It did not work one bit.

She put her hand to rest and let her fingers drum over the desk, faster and faster, until she could no longer take it. Standing upright, she nimbly folded her notebooks and tucked her pens into her bag in a certain order only she knew, all while her mind wandered from the words on the board. She thought of home, of the familiar streets she had left behind two years ago to live in the dormitory, and a small knot of unease curled in her stomach.

“You’re coming, right?” Dilara’s booming voice reluctantly pulled her out of her thoughts. But she paid no attention to the blonde girl and kept packing her stuff. “Hey, do you even see me?”

“I told you, I’m going nowhere. Just hang out with—”

“Come on! You can’t just leave me hanging, can you? Pleeeaasse?”

 Irmak rolled her eyes, drawing a deep breath to steady her nerves.

Who’s Dilara, again? Her friend, or rather, the only person willing to talk to someone like her, an outsider from the rural parts of the country. Though not in the mood to entertain her, Irmak finally broke off and met the other’s pleading gaze. She was literally leaning against the desk, her bare legs crossed in a certain way to accentuate her shape, and her eyes sparkled with mischief, as they always did. Now that she thought it over, Dilara reminded her of a puppy, one that always needed attention. Or she would get all sulky. But Dilara was more than just that, she was what people would call a “hot girl”, the kind that turned heads just by existing.

“Come on! It’s Friday!” she insisted. “We’re going out for drinks to celebrate my birthday! You can’t just stay cooped up in your room like you always do.”

Irmak tugged her bag strap over her shoulder, ignoring her friend’s question, and started towards the exit. “You know I don’t like drinking, and it’s not like my allowance is—”

“It’s just one drink,” Dilara called, hurrying to catch up. “I promise – promise – it’ll be worth it! Besides, it’s on me! You won’t have to pay a penny! I swear!”

There was something in Dilara’s tone that made it impossible to refuse. Reluctantly, she nodded, letting Dilara steer her through the crowd of students and down the packed streets near their university. That silly girl even started dancing in the middle of the road as they crossed it to celebrate her hard-earned victory. Seeing her beam so widely, Irmak couldn’t help but smile, too. Dilara might be a “hot girl”, but she was definitely no “typical girl.”

By the time they arrived, the bar was packed, and the overwhelming mix of alcohol and sweat, together with the strong scent of perfume, made her regret her choices at once and wish she could disappear into the shadows and catch her breath. She wasn’t used to these kinds of places and felt sick already.

Dilara ordered some drinks not long afterwards, and Irmak sipped cautiously from hers, tasting the bitterness of the liquid without letting herself indulge too much. She preferred control, even here, even in the swirl of loud music. It was then that Bilal and Mehmet appeared, weaving through the crowd.

Bilal was one of Dilara’s many flings and was studying history at their university, while Mehmet was Irmak’s crush. When they approached and sat at their table, Dilara winked at her as soon as she sought her eyes, as if she had planned all this beforehand. She rolled her eyes in response. It wasn’t like she could flirt with Mehmet; he had a long-time girlfriend and was a decent guy. And for some reason, Dilara thought that was more of a reason as to why she had to steal Mehmet.

Although she felt out of place at first, as she drank more and more and the night deepened and music grew louder, they were laughing, sharing stories and joking around as though they were more than just acquaintances. Soon, she found herself drawn into the rhythm, tapping her foot to the beat, letting her body move without surrendering her thoughts entirely. From somewhere near the back of the bar, then, just out of reach, a shadow moved against the radiant light. Her gaze flicked towards it from where she stilled on the dancefloor, though she quickly dismissed it as a trick of her intoxicated mind. Yet there was a chill that ran along her spine, nonetheless. She tried to shake it off, focusing instead on Mehmet, who leaned in and brushed up against her, and then, suddenly, he wasn’t that decent guy she thought he was.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, his eyes settling on her lips. “Did anyone tell you that?”

Before she could withdraw, repulsed at having mistaken him for a good guy, he leaned in, his lips inches from hers when—she turned her flushed face away before they could touch lips. She retreated to their table without saying anything and was soon joined by Dilara and Bilal, who had just exited the bathroom after making out in one of the stalls. They were too caught up in one another that neither noticed the distorted look on Irmak’s face as Mehmet too sat down and downed a drink.

At one point, however, things took a drastic turn, one she did not see coming. It was Bilal who broke the ice, after noticing the rising tension that had suddenly fallen over their table for reasons he did not know.

“You guys know Professor Necmiye?”

“Yeah,” said Dilara, sipping from her drink. “What about her?”

“The bitch’s crazy!” he said. “She just assigned us a paper on local haunted towns or some shit. Fucking hag.”

“Haunted towns?” Dilara repeated. “What the fuck?”

“She wants us to prove that so-called “hauntings” are more about poverty, historical tragedy, and neglect than anything supernatural. Man, she’s a total nutjob! Like, how am I supposed to prove that, even?”

“I think it sounds fun, though. Better than our boring assignments on classical literature,” Dilara said, then turned to face Irmak with a glint in her eyes as a moment of acknowledgement passed between them. “Right, Irmak?”

“…Yeah, I guess so.”

“So?” she said, shifting her focus back to Bilal. “Have you found something, then? Maybe we can help.”

“Kind of. Apparently, there’s a village called Karakaya nearby, it’s said to be haunted. A total ghost town.”

The words hit Irmak like a punch to the gut, and her hand tightened around the glass, the cool liquid trembling against her fingers. Karakaya. She had not expected to hear that name, not here, not now.

Dilara’s eyes widened too as she turned to her, all excited.

“Hey, isn’t that… the place you told me about?”

Irmak hesitated. She could feel her heartbeat in her throat, the memories of the abandoned streets and corpses found all over the village. Finally, her voice came out but was quieter than she intended.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea—”

“She’s from that place, actually,” interrupted Dilara.

Bilal’s eyes went wide. “Oh, wow. Really?” he asked, leaning over the table to get closer to her. “Heard a lot about that place from a friend of mine. Are the rumours about the village true? Like, that the whole village had been found dead overnight?”

She paused, swallowing hard. The music, the lights, the laughter around her – all seemed to fade away in that moment and suffocate her. She took another sip from her glass, her hands trembling out of control, gathering enough courage to say the words that lingered on the tip of her tongue.

“…Hmm. But I do not want to—”

Bilal, “Well, if we’re all free this weekend, then why don’t we go see for ourselves? Find out if it’s really haunted or not?”

Dilara exchanged a glance with Irmak before responding.

“Sure! Why not?”

Mehmet, “Fine by me, too.”

The three of them then turned to face her, expecting her to say something. But just the thought of returning to that place twisted something in her gut and made the bile rise in her throat. She wanted to refuse, to retreat to her dorm and the safety of her solitude, but Dilara’s hand pressed gently against her shoulder.

“Please,” she said. “Come with us! We need someone who can take us there, after all. You’re the only one who knows. Right?”

“I-I can’t... I…”

Bilal, “Come on! What’s the worst that can happen?”

Irmak bit her lips. A lot of thoughts weighed her down and meddled with her senses, but in the end, she nodded and agreed to take them to Karakaya. Bilal was right. The soldiers had found the witch’s corpse in the well already, and the entire village had been a ghost town ever since. She had nothing to fear.

So… why did it feel like she couldn’t breathe?

The Witch of the Mountain - Part 1 of 3

1

That fateful night not only brought with it the hush of the undead waiting for Judgment Day still, but also unforgivable sins of the past, of the bygone yet to be paid. It was also that night that the village lay heavy under the guise of that pretentious silence, trapped beneath a force only a few truly understood with their senses. Hah! Even those abysmal stray dogs stopped barking for a change!

The derelict mosque had loomed high in the clear sky, casting the rural village located in the middle of nowhere into a deep and suffocating gloom, and out of that darkness a woman emerged though no one expected her. She walked down the centre of the road, her steps steady and gingerly – all alone yet not at the same time – her obscure face clouded with a sorrow so deep and gut-wrenching that it was nothing less of a sin to look into her misty, ancient eyes. It was as though she had fled something dreadful, as though she carried the weight of a vile curse upon her shoulders, one only a few had experienced – thank god.

Her hands, those wrinkly and fragile hands, were clenched together and trembling – mind, not from the biting cold but from fear in its purest form, somehow, anyhow. No one knew why, no one could say the reason without sounding mad, but one thing was certain: whatever horrors pursued her had driven her here, into the night, to this very town, just as an unknowing girl stirred from her slumber with a gasp, drenched in beads of cold sweat running along her brows and tiny neck.

This was the first time Irmak had ever seen the mysterious visitor, though she had heard rumours of her existence. You couldn’t exactly stop children from running their mouths, could you? But she didn’t know the strange lady would be there too, in that deep darkness, as sleep eluded her without as much as a warning and she found herself in front of the frosted, laced window. She loved to watch the world at night, watch life pass her by and reminisce of another time, one different from hers. Also, strangely enough, whenever darkness fell over their village, it was like it was breathing differently for some reason, pulling at her, drawing her into the depths of the secrets she had yet to uncover.

Sometimes she imagined the shadows carried the shadows of the past, the unforgivable sins of those still alive and kicking, and that if she listened closely enough, she might see the vicious shadows look back at her and whisper something wild back – heck, she wanted that to be the case! But they never quite did, as if they pretended she wasn’t there, lurking in the murk, watching their every move. Nevertheless, she would find herself there, at the window, whenever the call to evening prayer rang and brought with it the darkness that soothed her soul so. But that night, the suffocating silence she otherwise despised so, gave way to something else – something else entirely.

The woman’s feet were bare and her whole body was soaked wet. Her hair clung to her face, caked with dirt, and foul droplets traced her arms as though she had been dragged straight from a river. There was a smell about her too, of damp soil and something faintly metallic. It was clear at first sight that something terrible had happened to her.

Irmak’s first thought was to wake up her parents, tell them that an elderly woman might be needing their help, but then she remembered that they would only scold her for being awake at this late hour. Thus, she dismissed the thought just as quickly as it crossed her mind. Still, she could not leave the woman in such a pitiful and poor state, could she?

She opened the front door just enough to peer out. The woman was there, motionless, as though she knew Irmak was watching her all along. With her heart in her mouth, Irmak then stepped into the garden and onto the narrow, bumpy road, where the woman lingered still until she raised her head ever so slightly. Irmak’s eyes narrowed as she took a good look at the woman, but her wet hair veiled her face and obscured all hints of what the strange visitor might look like.

“Hi,” she gingerly said, waving her hand awkwardly, “I’m Irmak. Do you… need help?”

The woman did not answer. She only stared at the girl, then slowly lifted her arm and pointed into the distance – towards the mountains.

“Is that where you want to go?”

The woman gave a nod.

“Do you want me to help you go there?”

The woman, once again, nodded and confirmed her.

Though hesitant, Irmak stepped forwards and supported the woman, helping her down the bumpy road with her small build. Together they walked into the night, farther and farther away from the heart of the village and closer to the mountains where no sane soul dared to linger in the wee hours.

The woman’s arm felt icy under the touch, and though the night was still, the woman’s hair seemed to stir with a breeze that wasn’t really there. Irmak tried to hum a tune under her breath, to calm her nerves and convince herself that everything was under control – the way she did whenever she was frightened – but the sound was meant to die in her throat eventually.

From time to time, she tried to speak and break the silence with her childish questions, but the woman never replied, and so they walked on in silence until they reached the fork where the mountain path began. Well there, Irmak hesitated for good. Her mother warned her never to take the mountain road, though she never explained why. She knew only what she overheard from the kids in the village, that once, long ago, a witch lived in the mountains and practised black magic, cursing the women so they could no longer conceive and bear children. No one knew why she bore such a grudge against the villagers as far as she knew, but Ahmet, the village fool, said he knew why.

When she was only a child, Ahmet had said, the imam of that time raped her and demanded later that she get rid of the foetus since he planned not to take her as his second wife. The unfortunate thing, however, loved her unborn child so much that she wanted to keep it despite the imam’s threats. And when the imam’s wife and family got wind of what had happened at last, they presumed that poor child had seduced her abuser and forcibly took the infant from her, ripped it straight from her tomb prematurely and buried her alive to save their face and honour.

From that day forth, the witch swore an oath of vengeance; she conspired with the djinn and vowed to bring ruin to the village. The men, terrified, dragged her into the mountains and savagely violated her, hoping to shatter her power and resolve. Even Ahmet, that fool, was forced to take part, though he did not want to at first, out of fear of what the men would do to him should he refuse. Like that, they thought they had defeated her and forever silenced her. And not long after this happened, the women once again began to bear children. Six babies were born in total. Irmak was one of those six babies. But aside from her, no one else survived early childhood. The children who lived in the village as of writing these arcane words leading nowhere came from other, nearby villages in the hopes of keeping the population from shrinking any further.

 People came to believe it was the witch’s doing that too, and so they found her and killed her. No one knew where they had left her body, though, since she was never reported missing by her family, who fled the village overnight that same day. However, people claimed they could hear her cries in the witching hour still, mourning her child who had been buried alive and whispered curses, colliding with the djinn.

Irmak pulled her arm free as these thoughts resurfaced from the deepest corners of her subconsciousness telling her to be careful and not to take a step further than she already had.

“I-I should go home now, it’s getting late.”

The woman spoke at last. Her voice was heavy with sorrow, just like how Irmak imagined it would be, and a chill shot down her spine.

“I am your mother, child. Don’t you recognise me?”

Her eyes narrowed, deep wrinkles forming. She didn’t know this woman, yet the words pierced her heart like a wound torn open for reasons she couldn’t understand. The way she said them… as though she truly believed those words…

“No.”

“Oh, my child… My sweet, sweet child…”

The woman cupped her face, and in her eyes, Irmak saw tears, saw a sorrow so deep it seemed endless. She knew, then. This was her. The witch. The woman who had been raped, who had lost her baby, and who had sworn vengeance against the villagers.

“You’re a witch,” she said, the words escaping her before she could hinder them. “Right?”

The woman lowered her head, shame shadowing her face. Painful memories seemed to weigh her down and take over her bleak mind. Then she looked up again and met Irmak’s quizzical gaze.

“Forgive me, my child,” she said, her voice breaking. “You are not her. Go back to your family now. Don’t look back and… promise me to never walk out at night again.”

The woman then turned towards the mountain path and walked away, leaving Irmak no chance to reply. Instead, she stood watching until the woman vanished into the dark, then returned home as she had been told.

By dawn, before the first light touched the sky, soldiers came with sudden, grim news: the entire village had been poisoned, and no one survived except Irmak and her family. Doors hung open, meals sat unfinished, and bodies lay where they had fallen, some in beds, some in the streets, faces twisted as though they had seen Shaitan himself. Irmak clung to her mother’s skirt as the soldiers told them what had happened, and her small heart hammered out of control as he thought back on her encounter with the witch.

Years later, long after she and her family fled that cursed place, Irmak heard the truth of what really happened that night. Apparently, the soldiers had found the source of the poisoning and wrote off the macabre case as an accident caused by a rotten corpse that had been found in the well the villagers used for drinking water. But there was no update on whose corpse it was or why it had been inside the well – or for how long…

The incident affected her in more than one way. Even as a grown woman, she would wake some nights with her face wet from tears she did not remember shedding. In her dreams, she walked again on that mountain path, always with the woman at her side, always hearing those same swords on repeat: “Oh, my child… My sweet, sweet child…” And when the wind howled and whistled in those harrowing moments, she could hear the djinn echoing those same words from the mountain path she had left behind in her past but never truly escaped. 

The Cull - Still the Wheel Turns (Epilogue)

Photo by Nika lukava on Unsplash

I was discharged from the psychiatry ward three weeks after the police found us. In order to reintegrate into society, we promised to keep our silence about the pilot project and the fate that befell a great many.

They had no idea we caught it all on camera. I saved all the records on a USB drive, just in case history repeated itself – as it always does.

Three years later, I found myself standing in front of a classroom as a teacher. Things went back to normal. But not for long.

I thought it was all over. The project, the experiments, and my own part in all this. I was wrong. Deadly wrong.

“Is your anne taking a nap too? Just like mine?”

Ali’s voice broke the silence as I crouched in front of my mother’s grave. He stood behind me, watching as I tenderly ran my fingers through the parched soil, imagining it was her soft skin.

This was my first time visiting the place where she was put to rest. There was a time when I thought I didn’t deserve to see her. I thought she’d hate to see her murderer pay a visit. But Ali encouraged me to break this train of thought.

I glimpsed behind me and smiled. The cool breeze brushed against my face.

“I hope she is. Are you cold?”

Ali shook his head, carefully, and then mustered up the courage to ask me something that took me by surprise.

I stood there, at a loss for words, unable to find the right way to express myself. I could tell he knew I was having a hard time.

I wondered just how long he had been lost in this thought, contemplating this very question, and what had prevented him from voicing it sooner.

“What… happened to her?”

“It’s… it’s a long story. I don’t know where to begin…”

He squeezed my shoulder.

“It’s okay, Elin. You can tell me some other time.”

Standing up, a lopsided smile slowly appeared on my face. I wrapped my arm around him and kissed his head.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I didn’t take Ali under my wing. Instead of pursuing motherhood, I chose to be a solid pillar of support for both Ali and his brother. I wasn’t cut out for that kind of stuff, anyway.

A young couple reached out with open arms to embrace him and his baby sister. I was grateful towards them. Despite me being a stranger, they entrusted their son to my care.

I had the chance to visit them a few times too and see what kind of life Ali led.

The way they looked at the unfortunate siblings told me that he wasn’t just someone they adopted. He had become their flesh and bone. It was the same for Ali.

“Wanna grab a bite before we catch the train?” I asked to change the topic.

“No, I’m good.”

“I’ve got cash, you know,” I said, my voice trailing off as he shook his head. “How about some ice cream, then? You like ice cream.”

He shook his head again, his hair tousling with each movement. Every time I asked if we should eat something, he would do that.

Not that I was short on cash, but my earnings were just enough to make ends meet, and this little fellow seemed to know all about this. Since when did he grow up this much?

As the clock ticked closer to afternoon, we rushed to catch the train before it departed. It would take us a solid two hours to arrive at the capital, and then an additional half-hour bus ride to reach Ali’s two-storey house.

The train was packed with people, leaving little room to manoeuvre. It was a stroke of luck that we came across two empty seats, perfectly positioned to face each other in the aisle.

I plonked down next to an older man in his fifties, while Ali took a seat next to a girl of similar age. The man’s worn leather jacket emitted a faint scent of tobacco.

Since we had a long ride ahead, I plugged in my earphones and let the heavy metal music drown out the noise of the train, lulling me into a peaceful sleep.

I jolted awake roughly forty-five minutes later when the man lightly tapped me to get off the train. I moved to the window seat, taking in the breathtaking view outside, and then waved Ali over.

But he was engrossed in a conversation with the girl, so I drifted back to sleep. Once again, however, something stirred me awake. A loud, jarring noise shattered the silence.

Someone dropped a leather bag on the seat next to me. I looked around me, hoping to catch someone else’s attention, but everyone seemed too absorbed in their own affairs to pay me any mind.

There was no sign of the owner anywhere. I moved past the bag and scanned the aisle, catching snippets of hushed conversations that floated through the air.

Regardless of which direction I looked, there was no one searching for the bag. I eased back into my seat, my gaze locked on the mysterious leather bag, my thoughts racing with a thousand unanswered questions.

After waiting for nearly thirty minutes, I unzipped the bag to look for the owner’s contact information.

The weight of the bag was the first thing that immediately grabbed my attention. It was surprisingly heavy.

While trying to figure out what could be inside, something else caught me by surprise. The pungent smell.

I jumped back and moved away from the bag. There were several black trash bags inside.

Seeing my distorted expression, Ali asked if everything was all right. When his eyes landed on the leather bag, I zipped it up and excused myself.

I secured the WC door and unzipped the bag again. My hand rose to cover my nose from the pungent odour that hit me. The foul odour was one I knew all too well. So why couldn’t I bring myself to open the trash bags and check if I was right?

A chilling sensation ran through my veins, causing my blood to curdle. I drew a deep breath, my heart racing as I cautiously opened one of the trash bags, only to be overcome by a grotesque scene.

I moved away, my eyes shifting rapidly, consumed by a sense of terror. Every inch of my body shook and my mind became flooded with despairing thoughts.

Inside the black bag was a decapitated, boiled head. Its features were distorted and unrecognisable, but something told me I knew who it was.

With my thoughts scattered all over the place, I mustered the courage to reach inside the bag and place the boiled head in the sink.

 Rummaging through the black plastic bag, I found a blood-stained letter hidden inside it. My name was written on it.

The bag hadn’t been dropped by accident.

I read the letter, absorbing every word as I went through it. My hands were shaking like there was no tomorrow.

Images of the double-decker bus, the three men, and the carnage flooded my mind. The air felt heavy and thick, making it hard for me to take a full breath as my throat tightened.

My chest rose and fell with each laboured breath. My face lost colour as the tears I thought were long gone threatened to spill.

To Elin,

State Library, 1999. The Cryonics Lab.

Let’s finish what we started.

Sincerely, Mark.

The Cull - The Dawn of the Damned

Photo by aboodi vesakaran on Unsplash

As my eyes cleared, I noticed I was back in the cave. How did I manage to come back here? My last memory was a jumbled mess, like a puzzle with missing pieces. I couldn’t remember anything.

To make matters worse, my head throbbed with excruciating pain. How long had I gone without water? I shook my head vigorously, trying to clear the fog that clouded my thoughts.

Then I heard a chorus of voices breaking the silence and I sat upright. The others were huddled in one corner, their voices rising in a heated debate that filled the cave with tension.

Noor was among them. I heaved a sigh of relief as soon as I spotted her. She had made it. A weight lifted off my shoulder.

As I groaned and stumbled to my feet, I approached the others, panic rising in my chest the second I noticed the infant was missing.

The words escaped from my parched lips, slipping away like fleeting whispers in the wind, before I could hinder them. The survivors fell into silence, their eyes wide with fear, as they turned to face me.

But I was too preoccupied by what had happened to the infant to notice this at first. The old woman was the first to brush past me and return to her little corner, followed by Niclas, so that only me, Noor and her dad were the only ones standing up.

“Where is it?” I asked, frantic. “The baby.”

“Don’t worry. Yudes is taking care of it.” Noor said, pointing to the corner.

My frantic gaze scanned the cave until it settled on the old woman, clutching something concealed under a blood-stained fabric. Ali sat right beside her and was sound asleep.

“I found some milk powder while I was looking for you. It’ll keep it alive for now I guess. But it needs breastmilk and a warm place to stay.”

“I know,” I said, my voice trailing off as the pain in my head reached another height. “I know. I-I’ll figure something out.”

“Elin,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. I shifted my focus from my feet to her eyes laced with concern as she continued. “Don’t you have something to tell us?”

“What do you mean?”

She paused for a brief moment before posing another question. I could tell by the way her eyes kept flickering that she was nervous.

“I saw you. You were talking to one of them. I followed you back to the vehicle when you split up. Then you passed out.

“You followed me?”

“Why did he let you go? Elin? Elin, please…”

I scratched the back of my head. Were they literally thinking I was cooperating with those bastards or something? Then again, it did seem like that from the outside, didn’t it?

“Listen, there’s a misunderstanding—”

“You confess you talk them?”

“Not quite like that, Omar. I just… He talked to me. It’s not what you’re thinking. There’s something I can’t tell you, some kind of connection between me and this-this messed-up project, okay?

“But that’s not what matters right now. He told me there was a rat among us, okay? We need to find out who it is and—”

“How can we trust you?” Noor said, adding. “And what’s the connection between you and this project? Elin? You gotta tell us!”

“I-I can’t, all right? You’ll just have to trust me on this one! If we don’t act now—”

“Let’s pretend you’re right. Okay? Let’s just do that for a sec. But why would that murderer tell you something like this, then? Knowing he’ll put one of his own in danger.”

“He…or the person who’s responsible for putting us through this hell knows me. That’s what he said, okay? He was instructed to keep me safe. I- I don’t know why. Don’t look at me like that, Noor! I wouldn’t risk my life if I were one of them, would I?”

“How he know you?” Omar said.

“I’m-I’m not sure. I have an idea but that’s not what’s important right now. We need to find out which one of us is lying.”

“What about the bag?” Noor asked. “Did you find it?”

“I did, sort of. There were no weapons in it though, just gasoline to dispose of the bodies.”

“Dispose of the bodies? Why? Or rather, why now?” Noor said, adding. “You said some of the cadavers were at least a few weeks old. They didn’t dispose of them before, so why now?”

 “I think something didn’t go according to their plan.” I took a deliberate pause, making sure to look at them both in order. “I think the police are on their way.”

“A-are you sure? Elin? Are you—”

“I think so. I’m not sure but… it sounded like that to me. Just don’t say anything to the others for now.”

“Why no?” Omar said.

“We don’t know who the rat is. If that person finds out about the police, they might do something reckless.”

“So what do we do now, just wait or what? What if you’re wrong and the police never come?”

“I’ll go look for something we can use to defend ourselves with – just in case. I think they’re hiding weapons somewhere in the forest. I’ll see if I can find something to eat, too. If we’re lucky—”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No, stay here. Keep these people safe. We don’t know who the rat is yet, Noor. You’re the only person I can trust. Please…”

She nodded, albeit reluctant. “Then stay safe. No matter what. Do you hear me? Don’t do anything stupid and risk your life! We need you here.”

I didn’t reply. I wasn’t going to keep a promise I couldn’t keep. I was already dead on the inside. I was more comfortable with the idea of putting my life at risk than with the alternative.

When I returned to the double-decker bus, I noticed that everything inside the baggage compartment had been emptied this time.

Someone had gone to great lengths to ensure that we would be defenceless, leaving nothing for us to find.

As I nibbled on my dry lips, contemplating my next move, I turned around and gazed up at the looming bus.

It was rocking. Before I could react and make a break for it, the lawyer guy stepped out. The gun he held was steady, its barrel aimed directly at me. How did he know I would come here?

Conrad followed closely behind him, a sinister grin stretched across his face like the wicked thing he was. A living human animal, the first of its kind.

“I think we should start by gouging her eyes out and then shoot her. What’d you think Henrik?”

Conrad approached with outstretched hands. His eyes were wild with delirium. I clutched to the bus, feeling the rough texture of the metal against my fingers as I backed away.

The other guy seized his arm just inches from getting to me. “We don’t have time for that, you dickhead.”

“Come on, dude! You’re seriously gonna let her off that easily? Seriously, after everything we did, after all the fun we had, you’re just gonna shoot her?”

“All right. I’ll give you thirty seconds. But if you fail, we’ll do it my way. You got it?”

So, this was the fate that awaited me? A smirk spread across my face as I envisioned the macabre scene of my eyeless, hollow sockets and rigid corpse consumed by the roaring flames of the bonfire along with the rest of the passengers.

What a glorious end it would be to become a macabre toy in the hands of those, who deserved death more than any other species.

At that very moment, just as Conrad forced my eyes wide open, a surge of greed washed over me. I wanted to know why we were brought to this place and why we were subjected to such merciless treatment.

“Why are you doing this to us?”

Conrad broke off. His grin faded, perhaps annoyed, as if I had interrupted his playtime – his only means of entertainment.

But Henrik didn’t seem bothered by my question; instead, a faint smile appeared on his face as if he found my question entertaining.

“‘Cause you’re part of a project granted by the government. But we already told you that…”

“What government would kill its own people?”

“We don’t go after regular folks who pay their taxes. We’re after people like you who are just a burden to everyone else – people like you who are wasting our resources.”

Burden? It took me a while, but I eventually understood the intention behind his words. It was evident that most of the passengers were devoid of any life goals, their futures uncertain and undefined.

They were forever shunned by the society they lived in, their differences bringing upon condemnation. He was right, we were burdens, a constant source of frustration and resentment to the rest of society.

But we didn’t choose this path for ourselves – this world, this inhospitable planet filled with avarice, starvation, and malevolence caused our demise.

I couldn’t suppress the smirk that crept onto my lips upon hearing this.

“How do you plan on using those resources, then?” I already knew the answer. I was the one who came up with the project.

“It’s gonna be a whole new world after this and you people are the key to this big change.”

“Big change, huh? Sure, if that’s what you want to call this massacre.”

Henrik stepped closer. A wide grin stretched across his face, revealing the excitement brewing in his disturbed mind.

I knew what he was going to say even before he said it. Still, it took me a few seconds to process everything and come to terms with the reality I was now confronting.

 “Do you believe in cryonics, miss?”

A chilling sensation ran through my veins. This word was not unfamiliar to me. Of course, it was not. This place, the double-decker bus, the mayhem, the damn project…

They were all part of the research paper I wrote when I still had my whole life ahead of me. This carnage was my creation. But I never finished it.

Blood splashed onto my clothes, leaving behind a vivid crimson stain. Gasping, I looked up. The dirk knife stuck out right between the lawyer’s forehead, who, still conscious, lost his grip on the gun.

As he turned around to see his murderer, he collapsed sideways, his limbs splayed out in an awkward position. Despite being frozen in one spot, I saw my chance and acted swiftly, leaping forwards to pick up the dagger and plunging it right into the back of Conrad’s skull as he looked in the direction of the ominous forest.

When he fell to his death, I locked eyes with the one who threw the dagger and saved my wretched existence. He really went all out to make sure I stayed alive, huh?

Taking my chance, I snatched the gun and made a break for it, swearing under my breath as I wiped off the blood on my face with the back of my arm.

As I made it back to the cave, panting still and out of it, Noor and the others were yet again huddled together in one corner. I was about to break the news that two of the guys had been killed when Noor cut me off.

I could see a glint of doubt and suspicion in her gazelle eyes. Her voice carried a bitter tone as she accused me.

“You’re the one! You’re really—”

“What…? What’re you going on about? Look, I-I got this gun from one of the—”

“I saw you, Elin!”

“Saw what?”

“He helped you! That-that guy, he helped you!”

“Look, I already told you that there’s a connection between this programme and me! I can’t tell you what it is, okay? Just know that—I’m not what you think I am…”

I stopped mid-sentence as she made a face at me. I frowned, not sure what she was trying to do at first, but then it all dawned on me.

I glanced at Omar without really knowing why and he returned my gaze with a confirming nod. What was going on? It didn’t take me long to figure it out, though.

I scanned the hideout until my eyes landed on the old woman, who now stood upright and was ready to apprehend me. Now that I took a second to study her, she wasn’t as old as I thought she was all along.

Sure, she was at least in her mid-seventies, but not more than that. Wait… It was her? But how did Noor and her dad figure it out? In any case, this was for the better. The sooner we got rid of the mole, the better our chances of survival were.

I decided to play along.

“I’m really not lying. You gotta trust me.”

“You hide something in hand. I no lie. Allah big. Allah see me, how should I lie?”

Oh, that was it. They must’ve seen something under the quilt. A gun? Maybe a knife? But I couldn’t act recklessly. Both Ali and the infant were too close to her.

I took a deliberate step closer to Yudes without taking my eyes off Ali, whose desperate eyes told me he was the one who discovered the mole.

Without completely letting go of the dagger, I shifted my focus to the woman. Our eyes met. That was when Omar shouted something unintelligible but I could tell that he wanted me to take action.

I lunged forwards and felt the impact as the woman shoved me to the wall and tore my cheek open. A knife, it was…

As she went for Ali and the infant, I leapt forwards and shielded them both with my bare hands. The blade cut through my palms and fingers as I held her back just enough for Noor to carry the infant away.

Distracted momentarily by Niclas’s cries, Yudes pushed me against the wall. I shut my eyes, grimacing, as I waited for the fatal strike. Why was she so strong? But it never came.

When I regained back my senses, Omar was stooping over me, shouting at me, but I couldn’t hear what it was until a few seconds later. My mind was a hazy mess.

That’s when I realised what had happened. She took Ali. That darned piece of shit! I rose to my feet and stormed out of the cave and sprinted towards the vehicle down the slope.

I ran with all my might.

Although I was as unfeeling as a stone and as cold as ice, the thought of a little kid dying an unjust death was unbearable to me.

I promised his mum I would keep him safe, and I was determined to fulfil that promise. I had to.

I caught up with her. The distance between us grew shorter with each step until we reached the double-decker bus, where her accomplices were surrounded by a swarm of flies already and rotting. But she didn’t know that.

She came to a sudden halt and turned to face me, positioned on the opposite side of the bus, by the slope, and remained oblivious to the fact that her accomplishes had already met their demise.

She sneered at me, her upper lip curling upwards in a wolfish grin.

“Oh, we’re so gonna wipe you all out! You can bet on that, you little shit! None of you will make it out of here alive, do you hear me!? Human animals like you don’t deserve to live!”

“Ali’s just a kid. The only animal here is you!”

“He’s a Muslim terrorist! He’s going to murder us all! I have to get rid of him!” In a disturbed combination of laughter and delirium, she shouted at the top of her lungs. “He’s going to chop off the heads of forty babies! Forty babies! Forty babies! Forty babies!”

I stared at the poor kid upon hearing this. He trembled. A sharp pang of pain surged through my chest. I looked away. Although he couldn’t decipher her words at such an age, I could tell that he could feel the waves of hatred reverberating from her voice.

The thought of living in a world where the oppressors had control over the oppressed sickened me. If that wasn’t the portrayal of a heartless creature, what else could it be? Spreading lies and twisting the truth with such indifference, with such arrogance!

Forty babies, huh? What a bunch of derailed fuckers. Even a child could come up with a more plausible lie.

“He’s just a kid, whether you see him as one or not. He wasn’t born to be a terrorist, he was born to die at the hands of those who oppressed him!”

She grinned, her wicked eyes growing wider and more sinister.

“You know why I took this job?”

“Because you regretted not murdering more Arabs in order to take over their country for good? The illegal settlement wasn’t enough?”

“It’s not theirs! It was given to us! Yahwe chose my people to rule this land so the Messiah can come! We’re above these human animals!”

“Ah, the Messiah thing, huh?” I said. “So convenient to use religion as a shield, right?”

“That’s what Yahwe wants! We’re the chosen people! We’re above law and reason!”

“Sure. Whatever you say. But that doesn’t mean you can just go around and kill people or distort the truth to get what you want. I’m sure your Messiah would agree with me.”

“You don’t know anything about my people!” she said. “You think I don’t know who you are!? You’re the one who started all of this!”

“I didn’t start anything. You pieces of shit did! Just like you always do by distorting the truth in your own fucking favour!”

“This project was all you, Elin!” With a maniacal expression on her face, she surveyed the surrounding bloodshed and laughed. “Look! You’re just as guilty! You have blood on your hands, too!”

I observed her until she stopped laughing her head off. She was right. I had blood on my hands. I should’ve seen this coming when I first sat down to write that paper. But I didn’t.

I never considered that something I discarded would come back to haunt me. Then again, looking back, there was no way I could have predicted this outcome.

Someone finished my paper. Was it the person who so desperately wanted me to stay alive? Maybe it was. I would probably never know. I was going to die here.

But first, I had to save Ali. He wasn’t a terrorist. He wasn’t a human shield. He wasn’t a human animal. He… he was a child. Just a child.

“They’re all dead,” I began, pausing to see her reaction. “And the police are on their way.”

“The government is on our side! The world is on our side! There’s nothing you human animals can do!”

“This place, what you’ve done to us… It’s all over social media as we speak.” It wasn’t entirely false. We captured every moment on film, but we did not have the opportunity to share it with the world yet. “Even with the heavens on your side, you can’t hide the truth. It’s over. Let the kid go.”

“You think I’d fall for that?”

“Call your accomplishes and see for yourself, then.”

She had Ali in a chokehold as she reached for her phone. As the ringing reverberated from the other side of the bus, she made her way around, never taking her eyes off me.

Seeing them there, lifeless and bathed in their own blood, her eyes grew wide. The confusion etched on her hardened face was easy to read. I could almost hear her thoughts: ‘How in the world did you pull this off?’

“This is your last chance. Let the kid go or rot in prison.”

The faint croak of sirens soon reverberated in the vicinity, announcing that help had come at last. I thought it wouldn’t come. As the noise grew louder, I briefly glanced behind me, trying not to show my surprise.

Yudes released her grip on the kid and made a break for it. However, my heart couldn’t find any reason to celebrate as Ali leapt into my secure arms. He clung to me, his grip so tight that I could feel his fingers digging into my skin as he wept uncontrollably.

Peering into the dense forest ahead, a shiver ran down my spine, fully aware of the lurking presence of the man in the white shirt there.

I smirked. Why was it that, whenever I made up my mind to end my life, fate found a way to keep me alive? What a joke…

The last thing I anticipated was the arrival of the police. I thought I could deceive the woman, put Ali in Noor’s care and then off myself with the gun the lawyer left behind.

Worst-case scenario, I was going to use the bullets on that piece of shit and save one for myself. But she ran away like the coward she was. Fucking human animal.

When the police brought us to safety, they searched high and low, but Amina was nowhere to be found. I scoured every corner, but it was as if she had vanished without a trace.

In the ambulance, when I asked Noor about Amina, she told me something that left me in disbelief. Amina was never there. She was a mere creation of my thoughts and existed solely in my mind – a mirror image of my former self.

I created her as an escape from reality. The death of my mother was too difficult for me to cope with, so I created her as a comfort to my unsound and deteriorating mind.

The Cull - A Mother’s Dua, A Daughter’s Sin

Photo by fitra zulfy on Unsplash

“How work today? Yemek yedin mi?”

I was helping my crippled mother when she asked me if I had eaten at work. I couldn’t help but feel a heightened sense of wariness towards her, which she must have noticed as I peeked at her with a half-hearted smile.

She had laid on her own stool for an entire day, singed and humiliated, yet she still worried about me.

Feeling a deep sense of shame, I lowered my gaze and instinctively reached out for my punctured arm.

“Just another day. Her zamanki gibi.”

I carefully placed her diaper into a black plastic bag, intending to dispose of it with the rest of the trash after dinner.

Although she clearly wanted to inquire further, she stayed silent as I helped her put on her underpants.

Her sombre eyes followed me wherever I went as if trying to uncover my thoughts. I wiped away a tear, its saltiness lingering on my fingertips, as I was about to go to the kitchen.

“You must be starving, anne.”

She grabbed my hand, refusing to release it until I mustered up the courage to meet her gaze.

Her hair, once brown, now mirrored the colour of the snow outside. The passage of time had etched lines and wrinkles onto her once-youthful face. Her lively spirit had lost its spark, leaving behind a sense of defeat and exhaustion.

She was a mere shadow of her former self, a hollow imitation of the woman I once called anne.

“Remember, Allah is bigger than your worries. Always. Unutma kızım.”

I hesitated, feeling a knot in my throat. I dropped my eyes to the floorboards, averting her piercing gaze. I wanted to agree with her, to reassure her I already knew. But the words stuck in my throat.

I gently pushed her hand away, feeling the slight tremor in her fingers, and shambled to the kitchen.

After preparing her favourite soup, mercimek çorbası, I added two 300 mg Gabapentin pills and stirred it in.

My GP prescribed it for my sleeping disorder but I seldom took it. I wanted to be alert at all times, even while in a deep sleep in order to take care of my bedridden mum.

I took a deep breath and arranged everything neatly on a tray before returning to the living room. The authorities turned off the heat a month ago, so the entire place felt chilly.

I placed the tray on the table, the clinking of glasses echoing through the room. Before settling on a three-legged stool, I covered my mum with another layer of quilt.

As I held the spoon to her bluish lips, I noticed a flicker of hesitation in her guarded expression.

She knew, I thought, so why did she take a sip of the soup? As I felt a pang of ache in the depths of my heart, my breathing became laboured and I couldn’t bring myself to meet her gaze.

The touch of her fingers against my cheeks carried a weight of acceptance as if she had resigned herself to the idea of her life coming to an end by my hands.

I didn’t have to say anything. She knew that neither of us would live to see the daylight tonight.

I brushed her hand aside and stood upright. At that moment, the weight of my actions hit me like a ton of bricks. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her.

I fixed my gaze on the only window in our living room, watching my reflection twist and contort with anguish.

What had become of the person I once was? The reflection in the mirror seemed foreign and unfamiliar. My pale complexion, sunken eyes, hollow cheekbones, and stoic expression painted a picture of exhaustion.

I felt like a walking corpse, devoid of any semblance of life and devoid of emotions. I mused over the idea of having been human at some point in my existence.

How ironic, wasn’t it? Once a promising student with a great future ahead of her…

When my mum finally slept, I could hear the soft rhythm of her slowing breath and was lost in my own thoughts. Minutes turned into hours as I stood there, gazing blankly through the window.

The shimmering moon beckoned me to hurry, the twinkling stars pleaded with me to stop.

I shut my eyes. Tears streamed down my face. I turned around and opened my eyes, wiping away the never-ending tears.

I retrieved the stolen syringes and carefully rolled up her sleeve. With every gentle push of the syringe, I marvelled at how peaceful her face appeared.

Then I waited. I gently caressed and kissed her delicate hands, feeling the warmth slowly dissipate until they turned cold. I witnessed her soul depart from her body, leaving only an empty vessel behind.

But I didn’t cry. I didn’t have the right to shed tears for her, not when I was the one who had robbed her of life.

Only three syringes remained. I rolled up my sleeve and inserted one cannula into my arm, followed shortly by the other two. Only then did the tears return.

My cries shattered the tranquillity, reverberating like the desperate cries of a troubled child. I sobbed until there was nothing left but a deep, exhausted sigh. As I emptied the last syringe, my vision blurred and darkness consumed me.

The door swung open, and a voice screaming my name was the last thing I remembered before losing consciousness. The familiar face made me recall something I had long forgotten.

It was my birthday.

This was where my memories ended, like a broken film reel. I bore the guilt of my mum’s untimely demise. I tried to take my own life but fate had other plans.

Like the snowflakes, she melted away, while I stayed, alive despite everything. That day, I should’ve met the same fate and faced the consequences of my sins. But I didn’t.

Day after day, the same question plagued my mind: why? Why did I live? Why me?

I opened my eyes…