The running never let up. The ground beneath our feet kept changing, stones slid, narrow passages opened up out of nowhere. No one was pacing themselves; we were running not to keep from falling, but to keep from stopping.
The shadow was always behind us. It wasn't running, but the distance didn't open up either.
We pushed on, without stopping…
Maybe ten minutes, maybe fifteen, I don't know, we ran.
Everyone was barely holding off fainting, lurching forward now.
Our pace slowly dropped.
We could hardly be called running anymore. No, we couldn't run anymore—we were only walking.
No one had the energy left to walk.
But the shadow was still behind us.
Even at a walk the distance was closing. Our feet dragged, our breaths knotted in our throats. If one of us fell, no one had the strength left to lift them.
The passages between the rocks had narrowed sharply too. Now only two or three of us could go side by side.
Just then the ones in front stopped. Some crashed into them.
Tekin, who'd fallen to the ground, shouted, "Hey! Why did you stop?"
Hak was at the very front; he said nothing. He only pointed ahead with his hand.
Everyone looked there.
A narrow fissure. A gap that it would be hasty to even call a cave. The inside couldn't be seen; light went in but couldn't come back out. For an instant everyone's step slowed at the same time. As if we'd come to an invisible line.
We stopped.
This wasn't a rest. It was hesitation.
I looked inside. Nothing could be made out. There was no sound, no movement. Only a cold darkness. The thing coming up behind us, though, didn't stop. It kept on coming. The distance was now too short to measure.
Ahead of us, a fissure with no visible end, its mouth reeking of darkness like carrion. Behind us, that horror that swallowed the light with every step.
There was nowhere to run.
We looked at one another. Poyraz's knees were knocking together, Hazar was clutching his chest as if he'd forgotten to breathe.
Even in Hak's always-calm eyes, for the first time, I saw a crack, like glass breaking.
In that moment all of us felt the same thing: hopelessness.
It wasn't the thought 'we're going to die.' It was the cold truth of 'there's no way out of here' striking us across the face like a slap.
Shouting, I said, "We have to move forward."
Poyraz shouted too: "There's no other choice. Move!"
One of the girls wanted to open her mouth, but she swallowed her words and didn't speak.
Hak and Poyraz started walking.
Then the older sister and her brother, and after them the high schoolers…
The group slowly began to go in. Because the fissure was so narrow, it could only take one person at a time.
One, two, three—and then only two of us were left. Hazar and me.
We stopped at the mouth of the fissure. Cold air struck my face from inside; there was a heavy smell of darkness that didn't match the breath of the outside. I didn't look behind me, but I could feel that the thing at our backs was very close now. There was no such thing as distance left.
"Go," said Hazar, his voice rough. "Now."
I didn't answer. There was no time to answer anyway.
I turned toward the fissure. My shoulder scraped the rock, the darkness closed over me. Just as I was stepping in, the air behind me suddenly grew heavy.
The shadow came.
This time I saw it.
It wasn't shapeless; it had armor forged from darkness, an indistinct silhouette whose edges swallowed the light. With the black sword in its hand, it simply reached out; it didn't even take a step.
Everything happened in the span of a blink.
Hazar tried to turn but he was too late. The shadow's sword swung silently. There was no clang of metal, no impact.
"Ahhh!"
Only Hazar's breath caught short. He'd been struck in the back; he took a step, then his knees gave out.
"Hazar!" I shouted.
I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him inward. As I dragged him, his foot snagged on the rock, but I didn't let him fall.
The shadow took another step but couldn't reach inside.
It didn't advance.
It stayed at the entrance of the cave. First it looked us over, then the cave. After that it did something strange.
It lowered that dark sword in its hand. Its gaze—if it could be called a gaze—slid to the blood. To the warm blood dripping from its sword…
That moment was long. Longer than it needed to be.
Then it drew back.
Without running. Without haste. Melting back into the darkness it had come from, it vanished.
I pulled Hazar all the way inside. When the darkness of the fissure closed behind us, I knew the thing outside hadn't let go of us.
But it wasn't coming after us anymore.
As the inside of the cave narrowed, so did our steps. It was impossible to go forward without turning sideways; shoulders scraped against the rock, breaths jammed inside the stone. When I lost sight of the back of the person ahead, I had to stop. The ones behind stopped too. We were like a chain.
Hazar was behind me.
He was walking, but his rhythm was off. He was swaying. Sometimes he'd stop, then start again. He was still pressing his hand to his back.
In the narrow passage that was hard to do; when he lowered his arm it hit the rock, and his balance broke.
At one point his shoulder slammed hard against the wall. He made no sound. His breath just caught. He stopped for a moment, then went on.
"Are you okay?" I whispered.
He didn't turn his head. "I'm fine," he said, only that. His voice was shorter than I expected.
Because of the narrow space I couldn't get close to him. If I stretched out my hand it would hit the rock. There was no place to hold him. If someone fell here, they'd fall. No one could pull them back.
A step later his foot caught. He nearly fell but braced himself against the wall. The hand he'd leaned on the rock slipped; his fingers left a mark on the stone. I didn't see it in the dark, but I knew it was there.
Blood.
He kept walking. His breathing had gone hoarse. The air he drew in seemed not to want to come back out. Every few steps he'd stop, then start again.
Just then the cave widened a little.
The pressure on my shoulders eased. The rock ahead of us drew back. Those moving ahead stopped on their own.
We stopped too.
He leaned against the wall, and for the first time I saw that he was truly struggling to stay on his feet.
Then he sank to the ground.
The group had collapsed; some had sat down, some had thrown themselves to the floor.
The relentless run had drained everyone.
Poyraz came to the middle of the cave, sweat dripping from all over him.
"We have to keep going. We… we can't stop."
Sevda got ready to open her mouth; her orange hair was disheveled and dirtied.
Before she could speak, I cut in.
"It's not following. It didn't go into the cave, or couldn't. I don't know. After it wounded Hazar it looked at its sword and turned back."
Sevda's eyes went wide; she tried to stand, couldn't. The other pair, Hazar's friends—Aylin and Tekin—ran to his side.
Because of the narrow passage they hadn't noticed; they didn't know.
Aylin crouched beside Hazar. Her hand reached hesitantly toward his back but stopped without touching. Tekin was out of breath; his gaze slid from Hazar's face to his hand, from his hand to his back. The dark stain was no longer hiding itself.
"What happened?" said Tekin. His voice was out of control.
Hazar didn't answer. He'd leaned against the wall but was struggling to lift his head. His breathing was irregular; the air he drew in seemed not to be enough. When he pulled his hand from his back, his fingers were stained red.
Sevda saw it.
She tried to stand, her knees wouldn't hold. She pulled herself up by gripping the wall. "No," she said, in a voice close to a whisper. "No…"
Poyraz took a step closer, then stopped. He looked at the cave ceiling, the walls, then back at Hazar. He seemed about to say something but gave up. There was no right sentence to say here.
Hak stood off to the side. He was silent. His gaze wasn't on Hazar but on the narrow passage leading to the cave entrance. As if it were still there.
"Is the wound deep?" Aylin asked. It wasn't really a question. It was testing a possibility.
Hazar made as if to shake his head, but the motion stopped halfway. He parted his lips. "I'm on my feet," he said. "I can walk."
No one believed him.
A brief silence fell in the cave. Breaths, dripping sweat, the muffled echoes coming from within the stone…
Some were trembling, some were barely holding themselves back from vomiting. Some stared with stubborn eyes at the walls of the dim cave.
In that moment I understood.
No one here knew what to do.
Stopping was dangerous.
So was going on.
As the silence stretched, Hazar's breathing grew even more ragged. Aylin was pressing her hand to his back, but the blood wouldn't stop.
Just then someone stepped forward from the back of the group.
She was quiet. She wasn't in a hurry.
I remembered. She was the owner of the café, the girl who kept checking on her brother—Devran.
No one had asked anything of her. No one had called her. Still she didn't stop. When she crouched beside Hazar, everyone fell silent without realizing it. Her movements were calm; she wasn't rushing, but she wasn't wasting time either.
Hazar tried to raise his head. The woman lifted her hand and stopped him.
"Leave it," she said. "Don't move."
Her voice wasn't harsh. But it wasn't open to argument either.
Hazar was holding his hand to his back. The woman gestured with her head. "Move it."
He hesitated a moment. Then slowly drew his hand away. The blood showed itself again.
The woman didn't grimace. She took hold of the lower part of her garment, paused a moment. Then tore the fabric with a single motion. The sound made a short echo inside the cave.
Aylin flinched involuntarily.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
The woman answered without raising her head.
"Pressure."
She folded the torn fabric a few times. Her hand wasn't trembling. She pressed the cloth onto the wound. Hazar clenched his teeth but made no sound. The woman took a second piece, wrapped it around his back, and tied the knot tight.
It was neat. Not tighter than it needed to be. But not loose either.
Poyraz stepped closer. His eyes were on the woman's hands.
"How do you know this?" he said.
The woman paused for a moment. After tying the last knot, she drew her hands back.
"It's not hard to know," she said. "You close the wound. You restrict movement."
Hak was silent. His eyes were on the woman's face. He seemed to be searching for something.
Devran couldn't stand still. "Is he okay?" he asked. His voice had cracked.
The woman nodded. "For now. He'll walk. But slowly."
Aylin looked at Hazar's face. "Will it open up again?"
"It will," said the woman. "If he pushes himself."
She stood up. She wiped the blood from her hands onto the rock. She looked at Hazar once more but said nothing. Then she drew back and moved next to Devran. As if what she'd done were nothing special.
Hazar took a deep breath. For the first time his breath didn't catch halfway.
"Thank you."
The woman smiled faintly. The girl beside her whispered to her:
"Veda, where did you learn that? I didn't know you knew how to bandage."
"I took a first aid course at some point," she said quietly.
After that no one in the cave spoke; everyone sat staring blankly at the walls.
Everyone had crumpled where they were, gazing emptily at the walls. Breaths were heavy; no one was in any state to pull themselves together.
In that silence my eye caught on the base of the rocks.
There… was something impossible.
A slender little sapling. Black as coal.
It had bent toward the dim light; its roots had driven not into soil but into bare, hard rock. It had no soil to feed on, yet it was growing.
For an instant—just an instant—I wanted to look away so as not to see it. It felt like a threat. A meaningless feeling.
Even so I drew closer. My legs wanted to; I didn't.
A strange shudder rose inside me. This sapling didn't belong here. Just like us. But it had found a way to break through the rock and survive, and had stretched its little branches toward the faint light.
Then I felt another discrepancy.
Here, in a place that should have been dark… the darkness wasn't complete.
I raised my head.
There was light.
It wasn't coming from the entrance. The fissure we'd come through couldn't even be seen anymore. But the inside of the cave was filled with a dim glow whose source couldn't be made out. It fell on the walls, leaving a soft shimmer on the surface of the stone.
I wasn't the only one who'd noticed it. The blond high schooler—Yavuz—was looking somewhere, at a lit place farther into the cave…
Yavuz's gaze was fixed. He'd lifted his head slightly; as if he were trying to be sure of something.
"Do you see it?" he said at last.
Not everyone turned at the same time. Some didn't even raise their heads. But when Yavuz, without moving from his spot, pointed deeper into the cave, the gazes slowly shifted there.
There really was light.
It wasn't bright. It wasn't something that caught the eye either. It was more like… a glow that shouldn't have been there. It wasn't reflecting off the walls, nor coming from above. It seemed to be seeping out from between the rocks, but it had no source.
"This…" Tekin began, then fell silent. He didn't know what to say.
Hak rose to his feet. He moved toward the light, looking for a way through, but couldn't find one. He fixed his eyes on the space between the rocks.
"It's not natural," he said.
I stood up. As I did, several others got to their feet as well.
We approached the rocks, trying to understand where the light was coming from.
After a while we found a passage. We went into it, moved ahead a little, and stopped.
Before us stood what was almost a valley. An underground valley, hundreds of meters wide and stretching far into the distance. A valley with strangely glowing stones…