Chapter 7: What Grows from the Crack
That morning, the sun seemed hesitant to rise between the mountains. The sky was not clear; a pale, gray mist hung low, drifting silently over the village. The birds were singing, but faintly... As if, rather than singing, they were trying to warn of something.
Aytekin paused, holding the water jug in his hand. His mother stood by the well, the scarf on her head fluttering gently in the wind.
"The water feels colder this morning," she said. "As if the earth beneath us trembled all through the night..."
Aytekin gave no answer. He gazed into the depths of the well. On the black surface of the water, his reflection stared back — and yet, it felt as though it belonged to someone else. The face was familiar, but the eyes were not.
From the northern meadows, Bayram came running with a startled cry. Aytekin set the jug down and turned toward him.
"What happened?"
"There's something there," Bayram panted. "A bird... but strange. Like a bat. Its wing is broken, its feathers burned. I've never seen anything like it."
Aytekin walked toward the place his brother pointed. Indeed, there was a creature writhing among the bushes. Was it a crow, or a hawk? Hard to tell. Its beak was split, one eye blind. Its feathers smelled of soot, as if it had met fire not long ago.
Aytekin crouched. He reached out his hand. The creature flapped its wings with the last of its strength — but it could neither fly nor flee.
Bayram whispered from behind:
"Is the sky burning too, now?"
---
That day, a few more strange things happened in the village. The foal of a mare, long awaited, was born lifeless. Cracks appeared in the stones of the bakery oven. A young man working in the fields claimed he'd found charred bones beneath the soil, but no one took him seriously. Only Dervish Mehmet went silent at the news — he recited a long prayer, but no one could hear its ending.
That night, Aytekin climbed to the roof of their home. There was no moon. Even the stars seemed distant this time. Bayram joined him, sitting quietly at his side.
"Brother," said Aytekin, "when the sky falls so silent, know that too much has already been spoken on the earth."
Bayram didn't understand, but he nodded. There was a weight in his brother's voice — not from words, but from the silence that surrounded them.
"I had a dream," Bayram said after a moment. "But when I woke up... it kept going."
---
At that very moment, on the winding path outside the village, a rider was moving silently forward. His face was veiled. Behind the saddle hung a sack, stained with blood. With every step, the horse's hooves struck the earth like sealing stamps. The path led to the village.
And when morning came, just as the first rooster crowed, three ravens rose into the sky — circling, circling higher.