A cold pile of metal was shadowed among the cables. It was black. Like a mouse. There were decreasing numbers in its digital, small rectangular cutout. 24 hours. Instantly, the number dropped to 23:59. Anger and curiosity mingled. At first, I thought it was 24 minutes. It wasn't. It was a whole day. The blue, green, yellow, and red cables resembled colored blood taken from veins.
The first thing that came to my mind as soon as I saw the cable was to see how close I was to death. Even though I waited for death on pins and needles every day, I could never have imagined that my life would be stolen from me so suddenly, right next to a living piece of evidence.
A time bomb.
It was in eye contact with me. Fierce and fearless.
That screen had pinned everyone to where they stood. As time passed and the timer decreased second by second, we were pinned to our spots, perhaps wishing to see the sun one last time. It wasn't happening; that sun had promised to withdraw itself from us. I thought for a moment. What had Tarık felt while he was dying? The license plate in the photos of that accident moment came before my eyes, covering them with tears rolling down my cheeks.
"A time bomb," Mert whispered. He was the first to shake off the effects of the shock.
Was t-this... the game? Was it four choices, four cables?
I watched him lean toward the ground with fear. After glancing at the cables, I realized that the number on the screen made him uneasy too. When I swallowed hard, with difficulty, breaking through the miraculous wall of death, he murmured, "I am an engineer." He didn't make contact with even a single person from the crowd gathered around him. It was as if he possessed a wealth of knowledge, but even in that state, he believed he couldn't solve this problem.
Sis clasped his hands together, withdrawing them as if he had handed over his reign to someone else. The anxious expression in Mert's eyes gave way to a paler victory.
Were we going to die here? Would this mean anything to them if they were the ones who set up this mechanism? I didn't think so.
While all of our shadows covered the screen, suddenly the number on the screen paused.
"W-what is happening?" I stammered.
Sis immediately turned to his left, toward me, at this outburst of mine. It was as if I saw a ghost from the past in his eyes. N-no, how could I see that? I didn't even know him. Besides... he had been sent by the mechanism to kill me.
Something passed across the screen in tiny letters. Since I am nearsighted, I couldn't see clearly; I leaned in slightly and tried to read the text written on the screen.
"Who are the four faces of the mechanism?"
There was a keyboard with small, touch-sensitive letters on the screen. This... was a question. A riddle. A death riddle that put more people than necessary under stress. By reflex, as if we knew each other very well, Sis and I looked at each other.
"Four faces?" I whispered.
Hülya and Mert automatically questioned each other.
Hülya's gaze had pitched a tent over me. While taking me under her shadow, she asked, "Do you know what this means?" I avoided eye contact. While the emotion dominating Sis's pupils was a hidden anger, what was imprisoned in my gaze... was fear. Wasn't that person me? I turned to Sis again so he would speak, but as if he didn't want to answer, he stood up and slipped away from us.
Hülya had to repeat her question word by word. "Do you know something, Aysal?"
Her gaze was simultaneously following Sis, who was going to the other corner of the ramparts.
"N-no," I said with my voice coming out weak.
Mert, as if he had no business left, said, "This is a question-answer bomb. There is nothing to be done with the cables. Besides, there are no materials or anything..." As he let out a long, deep breath, the line on his forehead deepened even more. There was only one thing from which I could learn something about this. Perhaps a letter. Or a single crumb of information I would steal from Sis.
I felt the cold breath of death on the back of my neck.
The bomb rose above the square.
When I turned left to approach Sis, he immediately turned around as if he had heard my footsteps. "Don't ask me anything!" His voice sounded more like he wanted to understand than a command. "I don't have an answer."
Without hesitation, I asked, "Is that me?"
"The mechanism had addressed me like that..." The vibration in my voice made my eardrum ache.
I was burning intensely.
"Do you think I haven't thought about it?" he asked with a facial expression as if he were belittling me.
"Doesn't everything show that it's me?" I questioned. "The mechanism warns me like this, the tattoo on your finger..." I paused as I was about to say something else. U-unless... "Wait a minute," I murmured. "You are the one carrying that seal. Why wouldn't it be you?"
Finally, he looked away as if I had said something more logical.
"Then why did it call you four faces?" he asked angrily.
The fear-filled gazes of Hülya, Mert, and the two people right next to them turned toward us.
The mechanism had called me four faces when I resisted it.
"Who is the one who resists?" I said, looking at Sis.
He shook his head from side to side as if I had gone mad and was talking nonsense. I knew he would do that anyway.
"When I resisted that day, they called me four-faced," I reminded him. He looked at me as if I were solely responsible for what remained in my memory or as if I were making it up. When I couldn't get a clear expression from Sis's face, I turned back and looked at Hülya and Mert almost screaming. "Don't you remember? The gun... I mean the moment I held it to my head."
Hülya's sharp gaze softened: "You should rest a bit, Aysal. Look, I don't want to say this... but those who come here definitely see hallucinations."
Waving my index finger threateningly, I said, "W-wait a minute! What are you talking about? I-I. I held the gun to my head and defied the mechanism." I looked at each of them one by one as if I wanted to make them digest it. "Are you saying I didn't do that?" The mechanism had truly addressed me. Yes. Why was the voice of that 'yes' inside me becoming increasingly inaudible? U-unless... The sentence that the lamp-man said echoed in my head:
"Everything is happening in your head."