The sky had just painted its colors blue. Most of the land on the iron mountain was
barren, people lived in famine. The yellow dim lights reflected from the blue and grayish
clouds in the sky were dancing with each other, making the people who were exposed
to this dance thirsty at the same time.
A young man in his twenties with black hair, a thin and long build, with brown eyes and a
shining face, was carving the branch he was holding with a knife in his hand with great
care and sharpening it thoroughly. Later, he added a new one to the stick crowd.
"Anyway, I'd better finish chipping those sticks before noon and brush up on the traps
I've set."
The forest where he was was desolate, and despite the suffocating humidity of the
barren air, the young man was overwhelmed but did not reflect it to the outside. He
encountered living species that he was not used to, observed them from afar as much
as he could, and took care not to take risks. An ecosystem he was not familiar with was
a major threat to him. That's why he set traps and tried to explore his surroundings, nine
days had passed since he was sent here, for the first three days he thought that he
would die completely in this suffocating forest, but in the evening of the third day, he
met a hunter with a good physique, long hair, and a composite bow on his back, who
was crossing the path where he was, and tried to contact him. Despite this, he made
the hunter nervous because he could not communicate properly, awakened his instinct
to protect himself, and fell into a situation that would be very misunderstood with the
first person he contacted.He paused a lot, even a little afraid, because the old patched linen clothes on the hunter in front of him were from long before the modern age he
came from.
With some effort, he communicated with the hunter with his body language
and then allowed the hunter to tie him with the help of a rope. After following him for
three kilometers, he encountered a village straight out of the Middle Ages, which made
him very nervous. Seeing an unfamiliar ecosystem and species for three days
convinced him that he was not in his own world anyway, but after seeing the village in
front of his eyes, realizing that he was not even his age anymore made this young man
feel uncomfortable.
Later, Hunter called a little girl to him and talked to her. The young man, who could not
perceive a single word from this speech, was surprised that this language was a
completely different language, and that he did not know him at all. Even if a highly
successful linguist examined the forms of expression, phrases and sentence structure,
the conclusion he would reach would be that this language is not from the world they
live in. After Hunter finished his conversation with the girl, he quickly entered a building
made of mud bricks with small steps. The young man roared with his inner voice.
"Where am I?"
A few minutes later, an old man came out from inside. The hunched
backed, very frail, emaciated old man with a cane opened his mouth, said a few
sentences, swung his cane and slammed it on the ground.
The young man, who did not even understand what was happening, was quickly
dragged back to the forest they came from and abandoned there. The young man, who
could not make sense of this situation, cursed the situation he was in with his hands
tied. Then he tried to untie the ropes in his hand by rubbing them against the sharp rock,
but then suddenly a strange entrance opened in the rock, suddenly gravity reversed and
the dent in the rock swallowed the young man. After the young man checked his whole
body with his hands, he wanted to understand where he was, it was dark and damp. He
was just about to move, though.
"Oh! The ancient one had stood for thousands of years, crumbled, in our homes in the
fog-covered lands. We are still waiting for news. I'm holding a piece of it here."
The young man was stunned, he couldn't believe his eyes. An extremely strange
incident was taking place. He could translate and understand words from a language
he did not understand at all in his mind. This was a ridiculous situation, almost
impossible.
"What can this be, wait, why is this sticking to me."
On his wrist was a thin but wide bracelet mixed with black and gold-like colors. Seeing
the bracelet, the young man panicked. He started running to the place where the light
was reflected. He was breathing deeply, as if his lungs in his ribcage were going to let
him down. He ran and kept running. He was looking for the exit, running to the light, but
he could not approach the light in any way.
"So our promise will almost be completed. A war, a war waged by those abandoned by
the Ancient, from which no lord can escape. Oh rise, the Unowned one! Living but still
dead. Heed the call of the long-lost ancient. Cross the unrecognizable, Unowned, fog
and reach the land. To confront the ancient!"
The colors on his wrist, which looked like gold and black, started to dance with each
other in an eye-catching way. The bracelet, which was separated from his wrist, rose to
chest level. Black colors swallowed gold. When it least expected it, it entered his
ribcage like a sharp dagger. It stabbed into his heart. In an instant, an indescribable
pain spread throughout his body. This pain was so great that there was nothing to bear.
He lay on the ground and closed, his pupils turned upside down. He even started biting
his tongue in pain. He pulled his hair with his hands and drew his face with his nails. He
struggled desperately, and that's how he died.
------------------------------------------
In the intensive care unit of the hospital, a tall, black-haired, slim young man was
putting the documents he was holding in his hand on the list on the computer. The table
was very messy, coffee cups, scattered documents, a few plastic wrappers, keychains.
The bags under the young man's eyes were so prominent. Clean skin, hard facial
features, a slide-like nose structure and slightly slanted eyes that catch a beautiful
shade of brown. He looked a little younger than his peers, and he was not satisfied with
that, he also had a handsomeness above the standards. The young man turned to the
blunt-haired girl who was standing at the table next to him.
"I can leave when I finish these papers, right, Naz?"
The blunt-haired woman was not even aware that she was being called, she was so
influenced by the loud music playing from the headphones in her ears. He even forgot
where he was.
The young man sat up, did a few stretches and stood up. He was even starting to get a
little grumpy because he was awake for long hours. He reached for his black jacket
hanging on the hanger and was about to put it on when a hand touched his shoulder.
"Is this how you respect you little scumbag senior, tell me, did you plan to go without
me?"
The young man swallowed, and even his ears reddened a little. It bothered him to be so
close.
"Senior means duh. Hey, you realize that if we both leave, there will be trouble, right?
Let me leave early today. You have already haunted me with those crazy men. Because
of you, I will have to prepare a world for tomorrow."
The blunt-haired woman hit the young man on the back with her hand and said, "Come
on, don't whine so much. What is better than camping with a team."
The young man looked at the woman and smiled. "Hey, let's talk about my forced
inclusion in this sometime, how about it?"
The woman chuckled, responding with a beautiful smile. "Okay, I guess you're right. But
only this is daily."
The young man knew that if he continued to talk any longer, he would end up wasting
more time here. Without saying a word, he put on his jacket and left the unit with quick
steps. The blunt-haired woman calling out to him from behind.
"Han, you really don't have any respect, you know that, right?"
The young man did not care, he quickly walked out of the unit and walked towards the
locker room. After changing, he put his bag on his back and left the hospital. He turned
on his music through his headphones and walked to the subway station. Along the way,
he traveled with the tones of music that filled him. He soon arrived at the subway
station. He started to complain about the crowd of the station, but the subway finally
arrived. He tried to get on the subway quickly, standing out from the crowd, it was
disturbing that people were getting stuck in this iron box in a hurry, People were pushing
each other. Although it was a cramped and uncomfortable journey, he finally arrived at
his home. His house was not very big. The studio apartment was small but enough for
her, although she wanted to live in a larger apartment, she did not have the money to
afford it. The room was tidy with armchairs, beds, carpets on the floor and desk in the
corner. It was small but enough for one person. Despite the tiredness that descended
on him, he turned on his computer, which was on his desk. After looking at the emails
he needed to handle and the time he needed to spend on his second university, he
thought a little, "The Lands Between: 2 is finally out, should I play it?" Although this
idea was tempting, he realized that he had no energy left to spend on it. His eyelids
were getting heavier. He rubbed his eyes with his hands and reached for the cigarette
pack on his desk. He opened the lid and took a cigarette from it. He got up from the
table and walked towards the balcony. He lit his cigarette with the lighter in his hand
and inhaled a deep cloud of smoke. He fell into thought.
He has always been restless since he left his family for education. His brother was
going to start university this year. His parents' financial situation was not very good.
Both of them were already unwell, the woman had suffered from her kneecaps while
spending twenty-five years raising her two children, and the man was operated on for a
heart condition that occurred at the end of twenty-five years and then could not work
for two years. As he looked at the past, he remembered the field work he went to with
his mother and the construction work he went to. Those were difficult days, both
education, work and social relations with his peers overwhelmed him. And as if this was
not enough, a large-scale virus called Covid-19 emerged in the first year he was going to
university, aggravating the economic and health conditions in most of the world, and as
if that was not enough, the treatment for the epidemic started to be applied collectively
only two years later, and in this process, this family of four, which was already in a
difficult economic situation, was able to leave with their heads held high due to very
heavy financial difficulties. He thought, "Oh, now our period of comfort begins, after the
promotion I will receive in two months and the bonus that will come, I will be able to
cover all of my brother and my education expenses with the money I have saved with
my premiums." Saying that this is enough for this day, he went to bed softly, and
although he was still worried about the future before falling asleep, most of the
conditions were at a wonderful level compared to three years ago. There were already
camp preparations that needed to be taken care of, those preparations could wait for
tomorrow. Now is the time to sleep.
A young man who had no disturbances in his sleep, and that's how he died.