HAANI

Episode15

HAANI

Episode 15

London's night was unusually quiet.

Rain continued to fall outside the old Johnson family house. Drops of water slid down the windows while the yellow streetlights reflected faintly on the wet road.

Haani stood silently, looking toward the upper floor.

Eric's face no longer carried the usual hardness. His eyes were fixed on the staircase.

"You heard that too, didn't you?" Haani asked quietly.

Instead of answering, Eric placed a finger to his lips.

"Quiet."

Maya, Sophie, and Emma stood behind them.

For several moments, everyone remained silent.

Then a faint sound came from upstairs.

It sounded as if someone had stepped onto the wooden floor.

Eric immediately moved toward the stairs.

Haani tried to stop him.

"Don't go alone."

Eric turned toward her.

"You don't need to worry about me."

Haani replied seriously, "It's not worry. It's caution."

Eric said nothing.

Finally, Maya, Sophie, and Emma followed them upstairs.

At the top of the stairs was a long corridor. Old portraits of members of the Johnson family hung on both walls.

Eric stopped in front of one portrait.

It showed a young man.

Small letters beneath the portrait read:

Edward Johnson — 1887

Eric stared at the picture.

"This is him..." he whispered.

Haani looked at him.

"You've seen him before?"

Eric immediately looked away.

"No."

But this time, there was not the same certainty in his voice.

Maya stepped closer to the portrait.

"Wait..."

She examined the wooden frame.

"There's something written here."

Everyone moved closer.

Very faint words had been carved into one edge of the frame:

"Truth was never meant to belong to one family."

Haani quietly read the sentence.

"The truth was never meant to belong to only one family."

Silence filled the corridor.

Eric spoke softly.

"My father's diary had this sentence too."

Haani looked at him in surprise.

"Why didn't you tell us before?"

"Because I didn't know what it meant either."

For the first time, Eric admitted that he did not completely understand the mystery himself.

At that moment, a faint light appeared from the last room in the corridor.

Sophie whispered,

"Someone is in there."

Everyone stopped.

Eric slowly approached the door.

It was slightly open.

He pushed it open.

The room was empty.

But a lamp was burning on the desk.

And beside it lay an old book.

Eric stopped.

"This..."

He walked closer.

It was the same book his father had mentioned when he was a child.

The book his father had once told him:

"Never open it."

Eric picked it up with trembling hands.

Haani noticed the same symbol on the cover that had appeared on the 1887 key and the old documents.

Maya said,

"That's the same symbol."

Eric opened the book.

The first few pages were blank.

Then one page contained a heading:

Edward Johnson — Private Record

Eric turned the next page.

A date was written there:

17 October 1887

Underneath it were the words:

"Today, five of us stood before a decision that would change the lives of generations to come."

Haani held her breath.

"Five people..."

Maya whispered,

"The same five people we've been following all this time."

Eric turned the next page.

But suddenly the book slipped from his hands.

It fell open by itself.

One sentence was written on the page:

"Yusuf knew the truth."

Haani stared at it.

"Yusuf knew the truth."

Eric closed his eyes.

"That name..."

Haani looked at him.

"Why are you so disturbed whenever Yusuf Rahman's name comes up?"

Eric didn't answer.

Maya examined the next page.

There was another sentence:

"Yusuf Rahman did not betray Edward."

Haani looked at Eric in surprise.

"Then what really happened?"

Eric remained silent.

The next page contained another sentence:

"Edward chose silence to protect a life."

Maya read it carefully.

"Edward chose silence to protect someone's life."

Haani immediately asked,

"Whose?"

There was no answer.

The next page had been torn out.

Only a few words remained:

"...the child..."

Eric saw the words, and his expression changed.

Haani immediately noticed.

"You know something."

Eric looked away.

"No."

"Eric."

"I said I don't know anything."

This time Haani did not argue.

She became silent.

But a new question had already formed in her mind.

Who was the child?

After a while, Maya found another piece of paper hidden inside the book.

It was extremely old.

Five names were written on it:

Edward Johnson

Yusuf Rahman

Thomas Johnson

Michael Carter

The fifth place was blank.

But beneath it, someone had written in red ink:

"The fifth knew about the child."

Eric stared at the paper.

His fingers slowly tightened into a fist.

"That's enough."

Haani looked at him.

"Enough for what?"

"We need to leave."

"Why?"

Eric didn't answer.

Suddenly, the door behind them slammed shut.

Everyone jumped.

Emma nervously said,

"Someone is outside!"

Eric immediately left the room.

The corridor was empty.

But a white envelope lay on the floor near the stairs.

Eric picked it up.

Only one name was written on it:

MICHAEL JOHNSON

Eric stared at it for several seconds.

Then he opened the envelope.

Inside was a short letter.

He began reading.

"Michael,

If you have found this letter, then you already know that the story your family told you was incomplete.

Do not blame Yusuf.

Do not trust the records.

And above all...

do not tell Eric what happened until he is old enough to understand why."

Eric's hand nearly dropped the letter.

Haani looked at him.

"Your father received this letter?"

Eric slowly raised his head.

"This letter is about me."

Haani became silent.

Eric read the letter again.

At the bottom was the same symbol.

The 1887 symbol.

And beneath it was one word:

"Forgiveness."

Eric stared at the word for a long time.

The anger on his face had been replaced by confusion.

Haani spoke softly.

"Maybe you were never given the chance to question whether everything you were told was the complete truth."

Eric looked at her.

"What if it wasn't the truth?"

Haani replied,

"Then finding the truth becomes necessary."

"And what if the truth is painful?"

Haani thought for a moment.

"The truth isn't always easy, but you can't build an entire life on a lie."

Eric said nothing.

Her words remained somewhere in his mind.

On the way back, London's streets were almost empty.

Rain had started falling again.

Eric sat silently in the car, looking out of the window.

His father's letter was still in his hand.

He took out his phone and asked himself a question for the first time:

"If my father hid the truth from me, then what exactly have I spent all these years hating?"

He remained silent for a few moments.

Then he opened the same search he had been reading over the past several days:

"What does Islam really teach about forgiveness?"

This time, he didn't just skim through the information.

He stopped and read carefully.

And for the first time, a thought entered his mind:

Maybe everything he had always heard about Islam had never been the complete picture.

Meanwhile, Haani stood beside her bedroom window.

The 1887 key, the old photograph, and the mysterious paper were lying in front of her.

But now, the most important question wasn't a name.

It was:

"Who was the child Edward Johnson chose to protect?"

At that exact moment, a new message appeared on her phone.

Only one line:

"You are finally asking the right question."

Haani's expression became serious.

A few seconds later, another message appeared:

"But the child is not in the past."

Haani froze.

She immediately picked up her phone to reply.

But the sender's number had disappeared.

For the first time, Haani realized that the mystery of 1887 wasn't simply a story about the past.

Perhaps part of it was still alive.