Sirens wailed outside the apartment building. Uniformed police officers stepped out of their vehicles and entered through the iron gate, greeted by the apartment owner, Hasan. His hefty body was drenched in sweat from both the heat and stress, his white shirt clinging to his back.
“We received a report of a missing person,” the officer said.
“Yes, a tenant's sibling is missing,” Hasan replied, his palms sweaty. The officer noted his distressed state and asked, “Where is this tenant, which floor do they live on?”
“First floor, apartment twenty-five.” As he provided the apartment number, Ayhan, alerted by the siren sounds, had opened his door and stepped into the hallway. The officers headed towards the stairs while Ayhan led them, saying, “This apartment.”
The first thing the four officers noticed as they entered the cramped door was Tarik, who sat motionless on the couch, his eyes fixed on the kitchen table where he had been staring for minutes. Ayhan had called 155 (emergency services) right after Tarik fainted while calling the police, and had revived him by the time they arrived. Since then, Tarik hadn’t spoken a word or had a sip of water despite Ayhan's insistence.
"Whose sibling is it?" The officer’s question hung in the air before Tarik, his voice shaky as an out-of-tune violin, managed to say, "My brother." His words were accompanied by tears streaming down his cheeks.
“How long has he been missing?” The officer continued to ask with all seriousness, glancing around at the plates on the table, the countertops, and into the open rooms. Ayhan sat silently, slumped in a chair, guilt seeping into every cell of his body.
“It’s only been an hour, I was at school. A friend had picked him up from school and brought him home. He went out to buy bread for lunch and left him at home. I came home from school around that time and we met at the door. When we entered, Buğra was gone,” Tarik explained, his voice breaking into sobs.
“I swear I didn’t delay, I bought the bread and came right back. If I had known this would happen, would I have ever left him alone!” Ayhan sobbed, rising from his chair to kneel at his friend’s feet. The officer said, “There’s no need to panic just yet. You wouldn’t believe how many of these calls we get every day. In most cases, the child turns up at a friend's house or somewhere nearby on the street. Maybe your boy went somewhere too.”
Tarik wiped his eyes, trying to maintain his composure, and took a deep breath. “We just moved here. He doesn’t have any friends yet. He just started school today. He’s never seen a big city before, so he wouldn’t just step out on his own because he’d be too scared.”
"Where did you live before? And where are your parents? Why is your brother with you?"
Tarik looked thoughtfully at the officer. He was about to share his entire private life with a stranger, knowing he had to. “For Buğra,” he thought.
“We lived in Adıyaman. After our parents died, I brought my brother here with me. I’m a university student. We have no one else to take care of him.”
The officer, running his fingers through his hair, beginning to show signs of gray at the temples, reflected on the harsh lives people lead.
"Did your parents die at the same time?"
Tarik, looking into the officer’s eyes, asked, “What’s your name, sir?”
The officer, feeling oddly at that moment, replied, “My name is Adnan Yılmaz.”
Tarik, maintaining eye contact, began to mentally prepare himself to share something he hadn’t shared with anyone else. “Mr. Adnan, the death of my parents is currently under court review. Whether it's related to Buğra, I don't know, but you should probably hear it.”
Adnan nodded slightly, indicating he was listening.
“Three months ago, while I was still at school, our neighbors called me. They said...” Tarik paused, giving himself a moment to hold back tears. Once sure he wouldn’t cry, he continued.
“Your parents are dead. I don’t remember how I got out of the dorm, how I got back to my hometown. They had stabbed my mother, killed my father in the same way. Buğra was in shock at a neighbor's house and didn’t speak. When he saw me, he jumped into my arms, crying 'Brother!'”
Tarik couldn’t hold back any longer and burst into tears, Ayhan joining him. Although Ayhan knew the story, hearing it from Tarik was overwhelming.
Affected by the story, Adnan moved from standing to sitting on a chair he pulled up from the
table. As Tarik calmed down, he continued in a choked voice.
“The police, forensic experts, they all came to our house. When I asked who did this, our neighbor and my mother's best friend, Halime Teyze, said it was your father. My mother had run away while pregnant from her biological father and married my dad. The man couldn’t digest the fact; he was already a troubled man. When he found my mother, he came and...” Tarik stopped. The room sank into a deep silence, broken by Adnan’s voice after a long pause. He cleared his throat before speaking to soften his husky voice.
“Was the murderer caught?”
“Yes, they caught him. He had a court session yesterday, and the judge has ordered him to be hospitalized for three weeks to assess his mental state. There’s no chance he can escape from there, but I think his family might have abducted Buğra.”
“Why would they do something like that? Buğra isn't your biological brother, right? There’s no blood relation with them?”
“Yes, there’s no blood relation with them. A man claiming to be my uncle showed up at the funeral. He told me about the past and insisted that my father was innocent, that demons made him do all this. According to him, my father had been looking for buried Armenian golds. He eventually found them but the demons guarding the gold haunted him. At that time, my mother was pregnant with me. The man had gone mad, tormented my mother endlessly, and even refused to let his parents into the house, calling them demons. He sold the golds and bought properties.”
“But what does all this have to do with you, Tarık?”
Ayhan, hearing this for the first time, felt it would be difficult to recover from the shock of these revelations. He wondered how Tarık was managing to cope with all this.
“What does it have to do with me, Ayhan? Their only concern is the property left behind by him.”
Adnan intervened, “Is he listed as your father on your ID?”
“Yes, unfortunately. That’s how he found us. Moreover, not just me, but Buğra also carries that man’s surname.”
“Hold on, young man! This matter is getting out of hand. If what you say is true, they might have abducted Buğra for this reason. But I don’t understand why Buğra would take that man’s surname.”
“My guess is that way, Mr. Adnan. My mother was officially married to that man. I think that’s why she registered us under his name.”
Adnan smiled slightly. The kid who had been so formal at first now called him 'brother.' It always happened. People initially addressed him with respect, and then, as they became more comfortable, they’d become informal. He’d also encountered the opposite types, of course.
“Stay calm and wait. If you get any call or message, call me immediately,” he said, pulling out his business card and handing it to Tarık as they prepared to check the entrance and exit cameras.
“Okay,” said Tarık, taking the card from Adnan’s hand. After Adnan left, Ayhan and Tarık were left alone. Ayhan’s feeling of guilt made it difficult for him to look his friend in the face.
“I’m sorry, brother, this wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t left him alone.”
A pair of green eyes found his pupils. “Don’t be silly, it’s not your fault. I left him alone yesterday morning to get bread too. Plus, you didn’t know about a lot of these things.”
“Forgive me, brother!”
Ayhan couldn't hold back his outcry any longer. He hugged Tarık tightly, letting his tears fall on his friend’s shoulder.
As hours passed in silence, Figen called many times, but Tarık didn’t answer any of them. She also called Ayhan a few times, but he couldn’t ignore Tarık’s command to not answer. “Why?” Ayhan asked. Why wouldn’t he answer, and why was he preventing him from doing so?
“Figen repeatedly told me I couldn’t handle looking after Buğra, that taking on the responsibility of a young child wasn’t easy. What did I do? I didn’t listen to her, and now look what happened. Buğra is gone, my brother is gone, Ayhan. I couldn’t protect him.”
Ayhan remained silent, having nothing to say.
“We’ll raise your brother together,” he had said to Tarık, offering his support. And now, on the first day he was needed, he had messed everything up. He feared for Buğra. What if they did something bad to him? How could he live with this guilt for the rest of his life?
Tarık clasped his head between his hands, listening to the hammers pounding inside his brain. The severe throbbing at the back of
his head reminded him of the night. What were those shadows he had seen? Could they be related to Buğra’s disappearance? Who was the silhouette he had seen in the morning? What if what he had thought was a shadow was actually one of the people who had abducted Buğra? As possibilities chased each other like foxes wagging their tails in his head, he thought he couldn’t endure much longer.
“I should probably lie down; my migraine is getting worse.”
“Take some painkillers, Tarık,” said Ayhan, and as his friend headed to his room, he followed with the medicine he had taken from the cabinet. Tarık swallowed the pill with a queasy stomach and lay down. It felt like his tears had dried up. His numbed mind was far from finding a solution. As he closed his eyes and pulled his knees to his chest, he wondered, “Could the shadows have abducted him?” But as he thought, “No!” a whisper made him snap his eyes open.
“Who are you?” he asked in his mind.
“We are actually you.”
As Tarık’s heart fluttered with fear, he tried to control his trembling voice. “What do you mean by that?” He received no reply and asked aloud, “Did you say something?” Ayhan, peeking his head through the door, asked.
“No, I didn’t say anything,” Tarık replied.
“So they don’t answer when I speak out loud,” he thought.
“You can’t hear us,”
Tarık’s hair stood on end. Had he stumbled upon mind-reading shadows? “Nonsense, I must be developing schizophrenia. I’ve completely lost it; I’m hearing voices in my head. This effect is seen in schizophrenics.”
While one part of his mind tried to prove the existence of the shadows, another part declared him sick. As his head throbbed as if it would burst, convincing himself he couldn’t think logically, he closed his eyes again.
Ayhan, sure that Tarık had fallen asleep, texted Figen. Since she hadn’t received any response to her calls, Figen, worried, was already on her way to the apartment.
“Open the door,” the message prompted Ayhan to rise from the slumped couch and open the door.
“What happened?”
Figen was anxious, her pupils dilated with fear.
“Come in and be quiet, I’ll explain,” Ayhan said as Figen removed her shoes and quietly entered the apartment. She couldn’t help but glance at Tarık’s room as she passed. She hated seeing him curled up, his facial muscles tensed with distress. He was such a good, loving person; he didn’t deserve any of this. “I wish I could help you,” she murmured. When Ayhan said, “Let’s go,” she took her eyes off him and walked. She took off her thin sweater, placed it on the arm of the couch, and collapsed onto the sofa.
“Who would kidnap a little child?” she asked. Ayhan sat down next to her. “We don’t know,” he said.
“Then why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you answer me?”
“Tarık didn’t want to; I think he was embarrassed because he didn’t listen to you.”
“I said that, yes, but I agreed with Tarık after that. I never had a sibling, I didn’t know what it felt like until I saw Tarık and Buğra together. That’s where I saw love. Pure and unconditional love. I wouldn’t leave someone I loved like that, not even at the risk of death.”
“You should have told him that.”
“I would have if the topic had come up. The last time we discussed it was before I came here. When Tarık didn’t accept it, I didn’t bring it up again.”
She tucked her hands between her knees, staring at the tip of her shoes. Her voice was almost a whisper, as if speaking loudly might break something. When someone next to you speaks quietly, you instinctively respond in kind, so Ayhan also whispered in response. When there was a knock at the door, both startled.
Ayhan rose to open the door, but Tarık, bursting out of the room, got there first.
“Please, come in,” Tarık said, his back to Ayhan. Ayhan squinted at the dark stain on Tarık’s T-shirt. He was certain it hadn’t been there before.
Approaching, Ayhan overheard Adnan, the police officer, saying from the open door, “Your brother never left the apartment,” and as he got closer, the meaning of the stain became clear. His eyes widened. Was the dark stain blood?
“How can he not have left? Is he still in the apartment?” Tarık didn’t seem pained.
Ayhan, wanting to be sure of the stain’s presence before causing a commotion, reached out and touched his friend’s back. The dampness
he felt under his palm accelerated his heart rate. Without letting Adnan or Tarık notice, he looked at the wetness on his hand. The redness filling his palm confirmed what he had seen was real.
“There’s no footage in the security cameras. Ayhan, your entries, your exit, your arrival, and your meeting with him—it’s all there, but Buğra hasn’t left this place.”
“How can that be? He’s not in the apartment, so how can the child disappear inside the apartment?”
While Tarık and Adnan talked, Ayhan’s face changed colors. He struggled to contain his urge to scream. Explaining this blood in front of the police would be difficult, and Adnan would certainly want a logical explanation from his friend. Without alerting them, Ayhan stepped back into the bathroom to wash his hand, turning on the light. Just as he was about to turn on the faucet, he made the mistake of looking up at the mirror. There was someone behind him. He spun around quickly, but no one was there. The blood on his hand had already muddled his mind, and the silhouette he thought he saw had turned his face white. “I must be hallucinating, that’s all,” he convinced himself and placed his hands under the water. As the redness swirled down the white marble sink, Tarık and Adnan had already left the apartment.
He dried his hands and left the bathroom. The silence in the apartment weighed heavily on his ears. The image of Buğra, just two days earlier, bursting through the door and jumping into his arms, flashed before his eyes. “He never left the apartment,” the police had said. “Where are you, Buğra?” he whispered as he moved toward the boy’s room. The unmade bed, the clothes thrown on it, the backpack at the foot of the bed, the water bottle on the desk, and the sweatpants hanging on the back of the chair—he was about to leave the room when a thought stopped him. Why were the sweatpants there? He was sure Buğra had been wearing them when Ayhan went out to buy bread. Why had he taken them off? Excited, he thought that if Buğra was going out, he would only change into pants. He rushed out of the room to the front door and almost collided with the cleaner in the hallway. The cleaner’s yellowed teeth, unkempt hair, and shabby clothes contrasted sharply with the freshly polished leather shoes he wore. “Someone must have given them to him,” he thought as he said, “Excuse me, brother, I have something to do,” and passed by the cleaner who stepped aside.
Tarık, Figen, apartment owner Hasan, and Adnan were intently examining the footage. As he approached excitedly, the absence of the stain on Tarık’s T-shirt caught his eye. He closed his eyes, counted to three, and hoped everything would be normal when he reopened them. When he looked again, the people bent over the monitor were the same, and the stain on Tarık’s T-shirt was still absent. He swallowed; a myriad of illogical explanations played tag in his mind. He approached and stood behind Tarık. Looking closely, he almost expected the stain to reappear. There wasn’t even a sweat mark on the T-shirt right in front of his eyes. He placed his hand on Tarık’s shoulder.
“Tarık.”
Tarık momentarily diverted his gaze from the monitor and gave him a brief look. “Yes, brother,” he said.
“Brother, Buğra might have been wearing pants when he left. His sweatpants are just hanging on the chair.”
“So what? Maybe he didn’t feel like wearing sweatpants and wore pants instead.”
“That’s not it. I bet he changed out of his clothes and put on the sweatpants after coming home from school. Look, you know I don’t usually notice clothes, but when I saw the sweatpants on the chair, something felt off.”
Figen, Hasan, and Adnan also witnessed the conversation. Adnan suggested, “He might have changed again if he was going out.”
“But he didn’t go out,” Figen interjected, her head as muddled as the others’. “Then the only possibility we have is that someone in the apartment abducted him or he’s hidden somewhere inside,” Adnan said, “We need to get a search warrant,” and quickly headed for the exit. Hasan had listened to everything, watched the footage together, but hadn’t said a word. He was deep in thought, wondering how all this had happened to him. His worried demeanor was noticeable to everyone. A tiny seed of doubt had sprouted in Tarık due to his behavior.
“Hasan brother, did you see Buğra leave the apartment?”
Startled by Tarık’s question, Hasan wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. “No, I only saw him enter with
Ayhan. We even greeted each other.”
Tarık, without shifting his suspicious gaze from Hasan’s eyes, said, “If you remember anything, even a tiny detail, let me know, brother. It could be a clue.”
“Of course, of course, I’ll let you know,” Hasan’s voice was dripping with anxiety. At that moment, Adnan re-entered the apartment, his steps quick and agile. His appearance belied his age, suggesting a message of ‘don’t be fooled by my age, we’re not done yet.’ His sporty attire also seemed to conceal his age, and Figen thought Adnan chose this style on purpose. They noticed the paper in his hand as he approached. Adnan raised the paper in the air, announcing, “We now have a search warrant. We’re going to search all the apartments,” bringing a slight smile to Tarık’s face. His brother would be found.
Police officers were now entering and exiting the apartments lined up on each floor. After hours of searching with no results, the three friends were becoming increasingly panicked. “We’ve started searching the top floor. If we don’t find anything here, I’ll have to call off the search.”
“What happens then? Will you stop looking for Buğra?” Tarık looked at Adnan with disappointment. Was there really nothing they could do for Buğra? Just waiting helplessly, not knowing what condition he was in, was agonizing.
“We won’t stop the search; we’ll just look outside the apartment. Did you get any calls or messages?”
“No, nobody’s called or asked, brother.”
Adnan looked sadly at the young man whose helplessness was apparent. He now saw little chance of finding Buğra. Without a single record, a single clue... “We need a divine revelation at this point,” he thought. The ground floor of the apartment was crowded with tenants and police. As the team finished searching the top floor and came down empty-handed, the fourteen-story building, including the basement, had been thoroughly searched. Buğra was nowhere to be found.
Tarık climbed the stairs, shattered. Each step was shaky, and he seemed on the verge of collapsing. Ayhan tried to support him by grabbing his arm, but Tarık pulled away. Figen also approached from the other side to help, but the reaction was the same. “I want to be alone,” he said, his voice echoing the agony inside, a silent scream. Ayhan and Figen looked at each other and stepped back, respecting his wish. They had little else to say. Tarık walked on, entered his apartment, and slammed the door shut. Though saddened, Figen and Ayhan reluctantly walked back down the stairs and quietly left the building.
Leaning against the door, Tarık slid to the floor. The empty couch, two plates full of food, the black screen of the television—he watched the silence, the solitude for a while. What would he do without Buğra? When his parents had passed away, he had gone to their graves and promised, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of our brother. We’ll be fine.” He had said it, but here at the outset, he had failed to keep his promise. “Mom, Dad, forgive me!” he said as he slid to the ground. Tears streamed from his eyes, running down his chin to his neck. The tears he had been silently shedding were now mixed with sobs. He lay curled up in front of the door, the tears soaking the parquet, his nose clogged from crying, his left arm aching from the hard floor, but he didn’t care. Night fell, and as the darkness enveloped the city, it also enveloped Tarık. When exhaustion finally closed his eyes, he wished for Buğra’s return. His heart was awake, his eyes sleepy, and the wind that touched his face cooled his burning eyes. He felt relieved as he wondered about the wind’s source. His eyelids opened independently of his will. As he placed his hand on the floor to stand up, the cooling breeze froze his entire body. His teeth chattered, the trails left by tears crystallized. Realizing his hand was stuck to the floor, the creaking of the door caused his pupils to dilate with fear.
The carbon dioxide he exhaled turned to vapor and mixed with the air as rhythmic footsteps slowly approached. Struggling with all his might, he tried to lift his hand from the floor. It was as if it were glued to ice; pushing harder might tear his skin off, exposing raw flesh. He gave up; his body collapsed back to the ground without managing to rise. The footsteps stopped. When his fear peaked, he felt the warm breath of a dark shadow fall over him. The hot breath hitting his frozen body caused him to shiver more.
"Why?" he attempted to say, but his lips refused to part, and his voice did not emerge.
"Find us
."
It felt as if someone had grabbed his heart and was kneading it like dough. The burdens of the world had crashed down on him all at once, aging him not to nineteen but to a hundred and nineteen years. He felt wretched. "How?" he said again without moving his lips. "Please find us!" the whisper begged, as if it were his last chance, his last hope. Tarık sobbed, wondering why he felt this way. His soul was like that of a tormented dead. "Am I dead, maybe?" he thought. No reply came from the shadows; instead, the tap tap of footsteps resumed from right behind him. It stopped; he couldn’t see the feet that had halted, but it felt as if he had known those footsteps, heard that sound for centuries. His soul seemed to ascend to the sky. At last, he had died. "Buğra," he said. Where was he?
As his soul floated upward, his body stood up. Doors, beds, the couch, the kitchen... Everything changed. Time, space... His mind had broken all its bounds. The owner of the footsteps approached his standing body. His body, motionless, accepted its helpless fate. A voice rose from his body. "Please, don’t touch him! I’ll do anything you want." The owner of the feet let out a raspy voice into the darkness. "Do you love him that much?" he asked, and choked on his laughter as if drowning. His trembling body sobbed, "Please, he’s just a child!"
"So you don’t love him, then?"
His body knelt, bowed its head to the ground. The owner of the feet grabbed him by the nape of his neck. His body whispered, "More than my life, more than myself, if you touch him, I am more than your guardian of blood."
He woke up; his body soaked in sweat was curled up at the door. His chest heaved rapidly as if it would break through. He straightened up, leaning his back against the door, pulled his knees to his chest, and wrapped his arms around them. Had it been a dream, or should he call it a nightmare? He wasn’t sure. He felt as if he had died but was also alive at the same time. That man, the owner of the feet, was evil. He would do terrible things if he got inside his body. He enjoyed it, and it was so clear and so vile that his stomach turned. As he left the door and rushed to the bathroom, he emptied whatever was in his stomach, feeling a chill on his back. His eyes met the mirror as he rinsed his mouth. There, right behind him, stood his own body, its neck bent. Blood leaked from its bruised lips, tears streamed down its sunken cheeks, and a purple ring around its right eye showed he had been beaten recently. Choking on the water in his mouth, he heard a voice say, "Brother," as the hand of his body reached for his back. When the hand from the mirror touched his shoulder, he turned around screaming. The darkness turned into a bright white, his chest rose and fell, his breath insufficient. Two shadows in the white extended their hands. "Find us!" they said.