For a while we just stood there. It wasn't a wait; we were trying to digest the "nothingness" we were looking at.
Even though everyone was seeing the same thing, our thoughts weren't the same.
Poyraz was the first to speak, his face pale.
"There's nothing here," he said, his voice lost in the wind. "No buildings, no people… forget that, not a single blade of grass, not a single insect."
Hazar said in a hopeless voice, "There's more life than this even in a desert."
They were right. The hill we'd climbed, the mountain range, the area around the lake, the seashore… all of it was empty.
An unsettling emptiness.
I asked, "So what do we do?"
"Let's catch our breath a little, then we'll go back down," Poyraz said.
"And after that?"
Hazar answered my question:
"We could go to the lake, we need water. Maybe we'll find something to eat too."
Poyraz shook his head. "Watersides are dangerous. If there's a 'hunter' in this world, it'll be waiting by the water."
"If there's a hunter," I said. The calm in my voice unsettled them.
There was silence for a while. Once again it was Poyraz who broke it:
"What damned place are we even in!" his voice full of lament and anger.
"I don't know where we are. I don't know what we're supposed to do either. But we need to go down. There are people waiting for us. Right now it's safer to be with the group. This isn't the time to get angry."
"I'm not angry, I just don't know. This emptiness is frightening. Aren't you afraid?"
"I don't know…"
Saying that answer, I wasn't dodging. I really didn't know. And I didn't try to hide it either.
Poyraz looked at me. For the first time his gaze wasn't harsh. It was more like… he was waiting for confirmation.
"I'm afraid. Not of what might happen. Of this feeling of uncertainty and strangeness…"
Hazar exhaled softly. "Yeah," he said. "Me too."
It was that simple. He didn't drag it out. He didn't explain.
For a while no one spoke. But this silence wasn't heavy like before. Something had been shared.
"Still, we can't stay here," I said. "We have to find a way."
Poyraz nodded. "Down," he said. "First we meet up with the group. Then we'll think together."
"Together," Hazar repeated. As if he'd chosen that word deliberately.
"Let's go down," I said.
We went back to the top of the rocks we'd just climbed.
"HSSS!"
I looked down. Hak was still there.
"He's managed to stand—he must have come around."
Poyraz: "I hope so."
"HSSS!"
As we searched for a proper place to climb down, Hazar spoke:
"Do you hear a sound?"
We stopped and listened.
There was wind passing through the stones, but that wasn't what Hazar meant.
"What sound?" Poyraz asked.
Hazar tilted his head slightly.
"You didn't hear it?"
"I didn't hear anything."
"Are you sure? It was like someone hissed."
"HSSS!"
"There, it came again, don't you hear it?"
Poyraz focused to listen for the sound.
While I was listening to them, my eye caught on something, on a rock…
At first it looked like an ordinary rock. But on closer look, those "things" on it became noticeable.
Eyes—small eyes—more precisely, a swarm of small hissing eyes…
For a moment I forgot to breathe.
It was as if the inside of my skull had narrowed. It wasn't a sharp pain, but it was unsettling; like a needle prick. Neither severe enough to make me cry out, nor faint enough to ignore.
I wanted to turn my head, I couldn't.
The eyes were still there, but I could no longer pick them out one by one. Their numbers blurred into each other. Which had looked first, which after… I couldn't tell. It was as if they multiplied the more I looked.
"HSSS!"
This time the sound didn't come from outside.
It echoed within.
It wasn't a joke. It wasn't imagination either. The pain sharpened for an instant; in the middle of my forehead, at the place where thought begins. Involuntarily I brought my hand to my head.
"Tunay!"
The voice was close. But it came from a different place.
I saw Poyraz. He was coming toward me, but the distance had warped. Was it two steps, or five… I didn't know. I felt Hazar's hand on my shoulder, but the contact came delayed, as if I'd been touched first and noticed it after.
"Don't look!!"
I had no idea how the words left my mouth, but I'd managed to warn them.
And yet I was still looking at those eyes.
Then Poyraz and Hazar pulled me away.
The pain receded in an instant. Not entirely; it left a trace. There was still a weight inside my head, but my senses were coming back.
I took a breath. This time consciously.
"Just now…" Hazar said.
His voice was normal but his face wasn't.
"Yeah," I said.
"It passed."
It had passed. But it wasn't as if it hadn't happened.
"What the hell was that?!" Poyraz groaned, wiping his mouth.
"I don't know," I said. The ache in my head had eased but not gone. "But we can't stay here. We're going down right now."
No one objected.
Because all of us, at the same time, had felt the same thing:
This place was more alive and more dangerous than we'd thought.
And so we began to climb down, toward Hak.
Climbing down the cliff had been very easy. So many stones and rocks had fallen while we climbed up that only the firm and safe ones remained.
Thanks to that, we'd been able to descend the cliff without any danger.
When we reached Hak, he was sitting, watching us. Poyraz immediately went to his side and they started talking.
The bleeding from his shoulder had stopped, and he looked quite all right.
"Get up," said Poyraz, taking Hak by the arm. "We're leaving."
Hak didn't resist. He rose like a puppet. "The eyes…" he whispered.
Poyraz froze. "What?"
"On the rocks," said Hak, pointing around with his finger. "They've all opened."
I looked around. And my blood ran cold.
The place we'd come down, that narrow passage… everywhere was covered in eyes. Every square centimeter of the rocks was full of those small, black, blinking eyes.
And all of them were looking at us.
"HSSS!"
The sound was everywhere now.
"Run!" I shouted.
I took Hak, Poyraz supported Hazar. We threw ourselves down toward the flat ground where the group had gathered.
The rocks slipped from under our feet; we fell, we rolled. But we didn't stop. With the weight of those "gazes" on our backs and that buzzing sound in our ears, we couldn't stop.
In the end we tumbled down to the flat ground, to the side of the others.
As we drew nearer, sounds began to reach us. Not conversation, more like shouting… cries and shouts taken up in haste, blurring into one another. I thought I heard someone crying, but the sound was lost in the wind.
When we took the last step, we saw the group below.
They weren't scattered, but they were huddled. They had gathered together, as if without realizing it they'd been drawn to the same spot. And around them…
I paused.
On top of the rocks, inside the cracks, everywhere the ground met the stone, there were small dark shapes. At first glance they looked like shadows. At second glance… no. They weren't shadows.
They were eyes.
There were too many of them. Beyond counting. Some weren't moving, some were slowly opening and closing. They weren't all looking at the same place, but all of them surrounded the group.
"Stop," I said involuntarily.
But they'd noticed us.
Someone in the group below shouted. I didn't understand what they said. Their voice just cracked. Another tried to step back but stopped mid-step. As if they didn't know which way to move.
"HSSS!"
This time the sound didn't come from a single point. From between the rocks, from under our feet, wherever we turned it seeped out. The eyes didn't move, but the space narrowed. We felt it without taking a step.
"We're here!" I shouted down.
My voice echoed through the crowd. Several heads turned to us at once.
Poyraz stepped forward.
"Come to us!" he said. "Run!"
There was a moment's hesitation. As if everyone was trying to decide at the same time. Then someone moved. Then another. In a short while the group started to break apart; people flowed toward us not one by one but like a current.
The eyes changed in that instant.
They didn't tear loose from their places, but the gaps between them closed. The dark shapes on the stones grew denser. It became harder to choose where to step.
"Don't stop!"
There was no first contact. They didn't touch anyone. But someone stumbled. Then another. Feet were landing in the wrong places, distances seemed shorter or longer than they were.
"HSSS!"
This time the sound was inside my ears.
"Right!" Hak shouted at the top of his voice.
I followed his voice. Among the rocks there was a line where the eyes were sparser. It wasn't open, but it was less closed off.
"That way! Don't stop!"
People shoved. I crashed into someone's shoulder. Another nearly fell, but we grabbed and lifted them. The eyes weren't multiplying, but they made it feel as if they were drawing closer.
No one dared look back; we just ran, in fear…
A hundred meters… Two hundred meters…
We ran until our lungs burned. We didn't stop until the rocks were left behind and turned to mere silhouettes.
Maybe the eyes had stopped following, but we didn't know. No one wanted to look back. Because the pain of looking at those eyes was still alive in everyone's memory.
But I thought someone had to look.
Someone had to check.
Pushing past the fear and the pain, for an instant I turned my head back. My aim wasn't to look directly, just to check out of the corner of my eye.
The eyes weren't behind us; they hadn't followed.
"They're not behind us!"
After they heard my voice, someone looked back, then another, and then another still…
One by one they stopped running; everyone was already exhausted.
Their breaths were heavy. Some leaned on their knees to stay standing. One sank to the ground, another tried to lift them but staggered too. For an instant… there was silence.
"Is everyone here?" I asked.
Everyone began looking at their friends. Some nodded, some just stayed silent.
"I think so…" someone said.
They didn't finish the sentence.
Hak raised his head and scanned the area. The eyes weren't visible. Not on the rocks, nor along the line we'd just crossed. They had let us go.
"Is it over?" someone asked.
I didn't answer. But inside me, for the first time, there was the urge to say yes.
One of the girls sat down somewhere. She leaned her back against a large rock.
"I can't run anymore," she said, out of breath.
But as she caught her breath, small drops were running from her eyes.
Someone else took out a bottle. They took a sip, then held it out to the girl from before.
"Slow, don't finish it."
Someone else had gone behind a rock and was emptying their stomach.
Hazar was talking with his friends, asking how they were.
"Are you all okay?"
The orange-haired girl answered:
"Aylin and I are fine. But I'm not sure about Tekin. After all, he's got a delicate little body."
"Is this really the time for jokes?" said Tekin.
Hazar must have been glad they were okay, because he started to smile.
A little behind the crowd, three people stood close together.
The girl had stayed on her feet. She hadn't sat down. While everyone caught their breath, she stood in place; her gaze didn't wander, she kept watching the boy in front of her. As if something would happen the moment she looked away.
"Devran, look at me."
The boy raised his head.
"I'm fine," he said at once.
That the answer came so fast didn't reassure the girl. She took a step closer, put her hand on Devran's arm. It wasn't harsh, but it was firm enough that she wouldn't let go.
"Are you sure, how long did you look at the eyes? Does it hurt?"
"No, it doesn't hurt."
"Did you hit anything?"
"No."
The girl took a breath. As she let it out, her shoulders dropped slightly, but her hand was still there.
"If you're hurting, tell me now," she said. "Not later."
This time Devran didn't answer right away. "I'm fine," he said finally. "Really."
A step behind them stood a third person. Through the whole escape they'd barely spoken. They didn't cut in now either; they just looked around, then turned back to the two of them. As if they were keeping watch over the surroundings while also knowing this conversation shouldn't be interrupted.
"We can't stay here long," they said at last.
Their voice was calm but not rushed.
"Everyone's tired. And where are we even going to go?"
The girl raised her head. For an instant she looked at them.
"You're right," she said.
After everyone had checked on one another, a silence settled.
And it was more unnerving than we'd expected.
The silence stretched on. Breaths were slowly settling into rhythm. No one was speaking, but no one was ready to leave either.
Then Yavuz raised his head again.
"The wind…" he said.
He couldn't finish the sentence; he started looking toward something.
I'd felt it too. The wind that had been blowing for a while no longer came from every direction. It had a single course. It wasn't cold, but it cut inward. As if the air itself were coming at us.
I wondered what Yavuz was looking at and turned that way too.
Behind the crowd, in the place we'd just called "the back," there was something dark.
At first glance it looked like a shadow that didn't move from its spot. But shadows don't stand like that. This wasn't the absence of light; it was a void where light bent.
"There's something there," someone said.
No one answered.
The shape was slowly growing. Our rear was darkening with every passing moment. It made you feel there was no passing through there.
"Stop," I said.
This time my voice didn't rise.
Poyraz looked back.
"This, this… Run!"
As if he had no choice but to say it.
We drew back. One step. Then another.
The right side… had closed off. The left side… wasn't empty. The eyes weren't visible, but we couldn't turn that way.
Only one direction was left.
A narrow opening stretching between the rocks.
We had to move forward…
Without looking back, we headed for the line stretching ahead of us. At first glance the path was ordinary. It wasn't dark, nor was it narrow. The gaps between the stones were open, we could step easily. It was the only place we could have chosen to flee through anyway.
We started to run.
At first we sped up. It felt like the distance was opening up. The shadow left our field of vision but that wasn't a relief. On the contrary, we knew the thing we'd left behind was still there.
But the shadow began to speed up too. The thing that had at first closed the gap by a few meters per second was now moving far faster—maybe tens of meters per second.
It was coming at us with terrifying speed.
It was coming for us.