Chapter 1

Had unleashed his servants of death upon me. My breath was mingled with the breath of fear. I was running. My legs, bruised from the sharp branches, moved incessantly. My chest rose and fell, and I could feel my heart pounding in my throat. My shaky steps in the darkness caught on a blind spot, and my body collapsed to the ground in one swift movement. The thorns digging into my knees sent a heart-wrenching scream through my lips. Worse was the sharp shiver that the approaching footsteps sent through me.

"Help! Someone help me!"

When I pressed my palms against the dried leaves, the rising crunching sound grated on my ears. I wanted to get up, but I felt that same stirring in my stomach again. There was something inside me, I didn't know where it came from or how it was with me. It was stirring helplessly, just like me. With trembling fingers, I touched my stomach. I turned my wet face towards the depths of the desolate forest and screamed louder.

"Help! Someone help us!"

I started running again. I could feel the blood flowing from my knees down onto my bare feet. My body, barely able to stay upright, collided with a tree. The moment I found myself lying on my back, my eyes widened in fear. What I had collided with wasn't a tree, but the hard trunk of a stranger. But he was as tall and well-built as a plane tree. While the darkness skillfully concealed all his details, it betrayed his silhouette and the expressionless gaze he cast upon me.

I tried to get up on my elbows. That was it, I had no strength left.

"Y-you..."

He took a step forward. His large, scarred fingers extended towards me.

"You wanted help, right?"

If his voice had a color, it would definitely be black. His voice was nothing but a broken black, its light fading. I had no other choice in the devil's unjust game. I was helpless. As I placed my trembling hand in his cold palms, his face, leaning over me, momentarily emerged from the darkness. I saw his eyes. His narrowed sapphire eyes were seized by a tremendous danger. His gaze was far more merciless than the eyes I was trying to avoid.

He wasn't just a fire chasing me, he was fire itself.

Life was a strange game, entirely monopolized by fate.

My nineteen years of life experience had often whispered in my ear that I was just a miserable, unlucky girl. But ever since my dreams got involved, everything had become more unbearable and heavy. Strange, frightening, and mysterious dreams that crept into my sleep every single night...

Even nightmares had a limit; they had to. But every time I closed my eyes, I found myself in the exact same hell, making me realize that what I was seeing went far beyond a mere nightmare.

I would find myself running out of breath in a bleak forest. The trees, the leaves I crushed under my feet, and even the sky were dressed in a bitter, crimson red color. Someone, whose identity I didn't know, was chasing me. I was running without stopping, feeling the fear deep in my bones, but what truly shocked my mind was my belly, which was growing larger by the second!

I knew this dream so well that I could tell how many steps I took in that crimson forest, and in the end, I made a huge mistake by telling my best friend, Gupse, all about it.

"You must have lost your mind, Rozelin! This always happens from overthinking," she said, putting a diagnosis of her own before adding with a smirk, "You, who have never even held a guy's hand in real life, are seeing the one who gets you pregnant in your dreams?"

That very second, I dropped the subject and retreated into my shell like I always did. Yet, Gupse was right about one thing; I was truly about to lose my mind from overthinking.

My name is Rozelin.

Rozelin Demir.

I am the eldest of five children of a construction worker father, and last year I won a full scholarship to one of Izmir's elite universities.

We used to be a happy family. Until three months ago...

My dear father, who always treated me and my siblings with the same love and devotion, had an accident exactly three months ago at the construction site where he worked uninsured. Because he injured his lower back, he had been confined to the house since that day. His gray beard was no longer adorned with his warm smile. Ever since the money left from selling his car—which he sold for his treatment and our routine expenses—started running low, he had turned into an angry, brooding man.

None of us were angry with our father, nor did we hold a grudge against him. Because we knew; my father had a huge heart. This new state of his was just out of the panic and helplessness of not being able to provide for us.

My mother had been going to houses for cleaning for three months now. I also started working part-time at a cafe in my university's neighborhood. We were trying to manage somehow, but we had another heartache that broke our spirits. My five-year-old youngest sister, Gülnur, was a special child. Aside from the special education covered by the state, we could no longer afford the paid additional training she had been receiving since she was two years old. I knew this was the exact situation that wore my father and mother down the most. I had been thinking about these things every day for three months. I was looking for solutions inside my head, but I kept spinning around and getting stuck at the same point of helplessness.

I let out a troubled breath and left the campus. I was sleep-deprived and hungry. I had resisted sleep until morning just to avoid seeing that terrifying dream one more time. With the first light of day, I drank a huge mug of coffee and headed to the cafe.

As my rushing steps turned into the street of the cafe where I worked, I guessed the identity of the person calling me persistently with pinpoint accuracy.

"Yes, Gupse."

She had some news. I knew her well enough to tell from her rapid breathing. "Rozelin, we need to meet right away. I'm going to take you somewhere."

"I know you're still not used to it, but I have a job I need to go to after school."

"Oh, no, I didn't forget, but this is really important. Can't you get permission for just one hour?"

I took a loud breath and said, "I don't think there's anything more important than my job right now," to my only friend, whose mind was always in the clouds. "Why are you in such a panic?"

Gupse had never been a calm person, but this time her excitement was completely different.

"Listen to me. I found a charity foundation. They say they provide serious support to girls who are studying. Even though it hasn't been long since it was established, they've already helped a lot of girls! Rozelin, they won't find anyone in a more desperate need for help than you. Just think about it! Maybe you won't even have to work anymore."

To be honest, I needed help more than enough, but I got stuck on one detail. "They only help girls, do I understand that correctly? Why is there such a distinction?"

She didn't delay in flaring up. "Oh, Rozelin! You can just ask them yourself when we go there."

"Like I said..." My steps slowed down. "I'm going to work now, but tomorrow is my day off."

"Fine, I'll pick you up after school tomorrow."

"See you later," I said, and after hanging up, I looked at the clock; I had seven minutes left before my shift started. I quickened my pace and caught up with my job, which was of vital importance to me, and worked like an ant until it grew dark. This small and, unfortunately, not-so-cute coffeehouse-style cafe was very busy at all hours of the day. And another unfortunate thing! Ninety percent of the customers consisted of strange characters. My bad luck kicked in at this exact point... as there were those who acted as if they were seeing a woman for the first time in their lives!

I don't know if it's because I'm the older sister of four small children, but I am always strong. I am brave enough to headbutt a man who "accidentally" touches my hip while serving, and vengeful enough to dig my nails into his ugly face.

At the end of another day like this, I returned home in the evening. When my mother opened the door, she was smiling, but her exhaustion was obvious from the dark circles under her eyes. I hugged her with the same exhaustion and a matching smile. The wonderful smell of "şırdan" (a traditional Turkish dish) had enveloped our home, which was the ground floor of a four-story apartment building. The house had two rooms and a living room. Since we were a crowded family, the main living room served as a bedroom, while the square, wide entrance hallway became our living room.

Even though my mother complained about it from time to time, I liked it this way. As soon as I entered the house, seeing all the household members, the set table, the running television, the window directly opposite the door, and my father sitting on the old divan right in front of it... encountering all of this was priceless to me. It was enough to make me happy.

Especially if my mother had made the şırdan!

I took six-year-old Murat into my lap and kissed his red cheeks. Gülnur had fallen asleep. When my twin sisters, Rojda and Rojin, who just turned twelve last month, waved from in front of the television, I waved back at them and headed to the bathroom. After a quick shower, I put on my white, short-sleeved nightgown. My white arms almost competed with the color of the dress. Moving in front of the mirror, after ridding myself of the towel on my head, I threw a displeased look at my hair, which could easily rival a sailor's knot. It ended a little below my shoulders and became frizzy the moment it dried. My dark blue eyes could be considered slanted. My eyebrows were thick, but since they were blonde just like my hair, it couldn't be said that they drew much attention. My upturned nose resembled my father's, and my lips, which didn't take up much space on my face, resembled my mother's.

My favorite physical feature was my height, which was a few centimeters over one meter seventy; I guess I took after my father in that too. "Thank goodness I did," I thought to myself. My mother, who was from Izmir, was a petite woman, barely one meter fifty tall. I loved every trait that would make me look strong.

Leaving my room, I took my place at the table where my father sat at the head. My father wasn't smiling, but that grateful and dignified expression I was used to was on his dark, handsome face that years couldn't age. "How are you, my rose garden?" he asked, referring to the meaning of my name, which I loved so much. "Did you get tired at work?"

I smiled. My eyes must have disappeared again, and my father looked like he was about to smile too. He had loved my eyes that squinted when I laughed since my childhood. "I'm fine, my handsome, but how are you? You had physical therapy today, did you go?"

"I went, I went but..." With a troubled shake of his head, he looked at my mother, who was filling our plates with food. "It doesn't seem to do any good, the damn thing."

"Can such a thing be? It must be doing some good. You were going to give it your all, remember we talked about it?"

"I am, my daughter." His accent made me feel his hometown, Urfa, right under my nose. This never changed. "How could I not? My only concern is to get well as soon as possible, pull my Ayşe's hands out of those dirty waters of cleaning houses, and take you out of work. You've been shuttling between school and work with your fragile body for months."

His deeply fallen face touched my heart. I placed my hand over his working-class hand on the table and stroked it firmly. "Giving up doesn't suit you, Master Halil. I swear, tomorrow I'll go to the construction site and tell them everything you just said word for word. You'll even become the talk of the town for Mason Iso, let me tell you."

He placed his hand over mine and tapped it repeatedly as if patting it. "When my first child turned out to be a girl, our folks wore black out of sorrow." His black eyes looking at me were filled with gratitude. "Could the most auspicious male child even hold a candle to you, my Rozelin?"

I wrapped my arms, which my mother called twigs, around my father and leaned my head against his broad chest. "You are my family. I am doing my part, father, nothing more."