Chapter 3

The inside of the foundation was just as mystical as its outside. As we advanced through the narrow corridor, the paintings hanging on the blood-red walls caught my eyes. Each contained strange figures, semi-abstract bodies, and creepy signs I didn't recognize. The colors blended into one another, blurring my mind as I looked. Incense was burning inside large niches, its smoke curling and rising toward the ceiling, spreading a dense smell of burnt sugar into the air.

At the end of the corridor, a wide waiting room opened up before us. It was illuminated with dim lights; many girls around my age were sitting on black sofas positioned at certain intervals. Some were looking blankly ahead, some were biting their lips, and some couldn't take their eyes off the dark paintings on the wall.

I examined them with sadness. Who knows what kind of broken stories they had?

A short while later, a sour-faced woman in her forties came up to us, handed a number into my hand, and walked away. Apparently, we were being called by number. Maintaining my silence, I began to wait. I was nervous and Gupse was aware of it. While listening to the absurd memories she told to comfort me, the woman from earlier called out.

"Number twenty-two!"

Gupse patted my back. "Come on, be relaxed. We're in a safe place."

I followed the woman's steps. She made me wait at the entrance of the room and went inside herself.

"Rozelin DEMİR."

She must have received the confirmation she was waiting for, as she invited me inside. When I entered, she went out and closed the door.

The room was almost as wide as the house we lived in with seven people. Those strange paintings in the corridor were hanging on the walls painted in a dark color again, but the ones here were much larger, much more magnificent. I felt squeezed between naked bodies, complex signs, and figures whose eyes looked at you. In such a wide space, there was nothing but a brown desk and three leather chairs; the void collapsed upon the person, cutting off their breath. As the weight inside me increased, my gaze involuntarily shifted to the woman sitting at the head of the desk. Her eyes were darker than everything else in the room.

"Hello." I involuntarily folded my hands in front of me.

The woman slowly stood up. She was tall and thin. She wore a dress that camouflaged her entire body, and even though the dress was loose, her bones could easily be counted.

"Hello, won't you sit down?" She had a full and thick voice for a woman. I sat on the left of the two chairs opposite her.

She sat down with me.

After writing something in the black-covered notebook in front of her, she began to turn the fountain pen between her fingers. Meanwhile, her dull gaze, which found my face, began to examine me without rush.

"How are you?"

I gave that classic answer to the question she asked out of courtesy. "I'm fine. You?"

She didn't answer.

"How old are you, Rozelin?"

"Nineteen."

"Do you have any health problems?"

"No, I don't."

"Have you been married before?"

I was surprised. I couldn't establish a connection between the help they promised and the questions they directed. "No."

One of her thin eyebrows, which looked like a single line, went up. "So you've never given birth to a child."

I shifted uncomfortably. "No, I haven't, but why are you asking this, ma'am?"

She smiled. The sincerity of her smile was debatable, but her explanation could be considered logical. "Our institution provides aid by dividing women with children and studying women into two separate categories."

I couldn't help myself and asked, "Why only women?"

She leaned back. Her tied-up hair revealed the veins bordering on purple on her white face. "Our foundation owner is one of the considerable philanthropists who wants his name to remain secret, and you can be sure, this is not the only foundation under his auspices. We are a deep-rooted organization that has been serving in many countries for many years."

I shouldn't have asked at all. What was I expecting?

"Thank you for your explanation. What do I need to do to apply?"

She joined her hands on the desk. "You already did."

"What do you mean? Am I not going to fill out any form?"

She stood up with her dull smile. "We do not turn away anyone who comes to our foundation. Let's not lose time with details, a small favor you will do for us will be enough."

I don't remember being surprised this many times in a row. "What can I do for you?"

She approached. Thanks to this, I noticed that there were many wrinkles on her face. "We want you to leave a blood sample for our organization."

When my lips parted, she explained the situation without allowing for a new interrogation.

"As I just mentioned.... Our aid is not in a single branch. At the same time, we make blood donations to the hospitals we are contracted with in line with their requests. In urgent situations, we are notified of the blood type, and we select and direct the appropriate ones from among our girls."

With the woman's words, I felt a disturbing relaxation. This foundation and the woman sitting opposite me had a strange effect. Still, I couldn't deny that what she explained was a truly wonderful idea.

I stood up and extended my hand. "As someone who regularly donates blood, I would gladly do what you said. By the way, I forgot to ask your name."

She looked at my extended hand. While her eyes narrowed with a pleased expression, she shook my hand with her bony fingers. "Nerin."

I tried to smile with that name I heard for the first time. "Nice to meet you, Ms. Nerin."

She withdrew her hand, sat back in her place, and directed her attention back to her black-covered notebook.

"Your blood sample will be taken care of in the next room. Leaving your contact information before you leave will be enough." She looked at me from under her sparse eyelashes. "Goodbye, Rozelin."

After leaving my blood sample as Ms. Nerin requested, I left the Safornikon Foundation.

When I returned home, I came face-to-face with an unexpected chaos. My mother was trying to break up a verbal fight that broke out between my father and our landlord. While Gülnur was crying curled up by the door, Murat was holding the leg of our landlord, who was walking over my father. The fight taking place in front of the building had brought everyone out to their balconies.

They were watching the crushing of a father of five children as if watching a movie.

The landlord was angry because he hadn't received his rent for two months. He kept saying that if all the debt wasn't paid within two days, he would throw us out of the house. While my father's clenched fists sat on my heart like a stone, I lunged at the man with all my strength and started pushing him. The man couldn't even respond to me out of surprise. My mother tried to hold me, but I was so angry that I continued to push and curse at the man until I got him away from front of his own house.

No one spoke that night. My father didn't even leave his room. After reading Gülnur and Murat their favorite fairy tale and putting them to sleep side by side, I collapsed on the edge of the bed and buried my head in my knees.

The next morning, coming to the classroom sleepless, I couldn't give my mind to any of the classes I attended. My mind was constantly trying to produce solutions but failed every time. After starting work in the afternoon and finishing my shift around ten, I opened up about my situation to the cafe owner. Far from helping, he cut my words short and started talking about how bad business was going.

As I walked toward the house with hopeless steps, I had gone stiff because I couldn't cry. One side of me was praying to God to help us, the other side was desperate because the last door had closed in my face. When I looked at the lamp of the desolate street I was walking on, I noticed that the rain had started to drizzle finely. The weather was as bleak as my inside, and the soot smell of the cold was damp and sharp. As the pavement under my feet got wetter and wetter, I continued to walk under the flickering light of the street lamp.

A little later, the sound of my ringing phone accompanied the sound of the accelerating rain.

Private number.

"Hello?"

No sound came.

"Who is this?"

I was about to hang up the phone, grumbling about the response I couldn't get, when I heard a familiar voice.

"Rozelin Demir."

My eyebrows went down with the surprise of the moment. "It's me, go ahead."

"I am Nerin."

"Ah, Ms. Nerin. Excuse me, I didn't recognize your voice. Is there a problem?"

I could hear her heavy breathing in and out. "You must come here. Right away."

"I-I didn't understand."

"You must come here, Rozelin. A patient needs your blood."

I looked at the clock. It would hit midnight in an hour. "It's quite late. Tomorrow..."

"Urgent!" she said in a sharp voice that wasn't loud. "The patient's condition is critical."

My gaze scanned the desolate street, wondering what to do.

"Find a taxi and come, urgent Rozelin. You must come here right away."

"But..."

The phone went dead.

What should I do? I had gone there of my own free will and accepted their conditions. Now maybe someone who was about to die needed my blood.

Going seemed like the only option. I ran to the top of the street and got into the first taxi I found. After leaving the first twenty minutes of the road behind, remembering that I should inform my mother, I pulled out my phone.

"Shit!"

My charge was dead.

I could call my mother from the foundation before giving blood. She was used to me being late because of sudden overtime. I didn't think it would be a problem, but this night was so heavy and quiet that I felt I wanted to return to my home as soon as possible.

At the end of the minutes passed with unease, I got off in front of the foundation. Frankly, since I gave all the money in my pocket to the taxi, I wanted to reach the help coming from the foundation as soon as possible.

On the other hand, the area where the foundation was located was very dark, there wasn't even a single street lamp.

As I started climbing the stairs with hesitant steps, I noticed that the guards were not there either.

There was no sound at all.

"Hello."

My voice echoed in the empty corridor.

The dim light, which wanted to meet the darkness, prevented me from seeing two steps ahead.

"Is anyone there?"

The incense was brushing a bitter smell against my nose this time.

Flinching with a momentary shiver, when I turned around, the black door I entered closed upon me with a loud bang.

I jumped, I stumbled. I saved myself at the last moment from falling by holding onto the wall.

As I wrapped my arms around my torso, my widening eyes looked around with the hope of seeing someone.

"Is nobody here?"

My voice came out weak this time.

The clearest thing I heard was my thumping heartbeat.

No, I didn't want to advance another step in the dark corridor in front of me. I ran and tried to open the door. The handle didn't even budge! I threw my bag to the ground and started kicking the door. The more it didn't open, the angrier I became; the angrier I became, the harder I hit; the harder I hit, the more I hurt myself.

The same command kept spinning inside my head; Run. Run. Run!

My fingers broke the glass but couldn't get past the iron bars beyond it. Because my brain was focused only on getting out of here, my body was in continuous motion.

When the drops of blood flowing from my palms dripped onto my toes, a voice coming from deep pronounced my name.

"Rozelin..."

My trembling gaze slowly turned behind me and reached the end of the corridor.

Nerin was there.

She was wearing a very long dress again, but her feet were bare. Her stance there was creepy like a shadow. And her eyes were locked on me like two faint stars shining inside the darkness.

"You..." My breath got stuck in my throat.

I wasn't a coward, but now fear was circulating like a flow running directly to my brain, enveloping my entire body. Something had frozen inside me, and my heart was beating away in my chest. I felt the emotion called fear in its purest form in the corners of my mind.

"It's you." She raised her head and smiled.

With the shaking I felt, the ground slipped beneath my feet.

The walls cracked.

The incenses slipped and fell to the ground one by one.

Her enchanted laughter echoed in the walls, in my brain, piercingly.

For a moment, two bodies appeared next to Nerin.

They were in all black and their faces were not visible.

The moment Nerin extended her arms to me, those two bodies began to glide toward me.

"It's you, Rozelin. You are the only girl who can carry our master's baby!"