HONOR, DIGNITY, AND PRIDE

Honor, Dignity, and Pride 13

Final Seconds on the Countdown

Time had ruthlessly trickled away, reaching 00:30 seconds. Hundreds of photos from all over the salon had been unmounted and stacked like mountains atop the seven scale platforms. The partners were completely drenched in sweat, blood, tears, and hatred. Shirts were shredded, fine silk caked in dirt and dust.

Everyone waited in front of their scales, panting heavily, glaring at one another like wild beasts.

"We moved everything... Nothing was missed!" shouted Cevdet the Ferret, his chest heaving rapidly.

The mechanical voice boomed one last time from the dark ceiling of Room 3:

"Time is up. Now... everyone step onto their scale platform. Remember, on the balance of this court, the person with the heaviest sins—or anyone who intentionally left a sin behind—will be silenced forever. Step onto the platforms!"

Driven by the terrifying fear of an imminent explosion, the seven monsters began placing their trembling feet onto the digital scale platforms.

CHAPTER 9: ROOM 3 — THE WEIGHT OF SINS (The Balance and the Bloodbath)

The digital display locked onto zero: 00:00.

"Now... everyone step onto their scale platform!"

The echo of the mechanical executioner's voice reverberated off the steel walls of the room.

The seven partners, gripped by the terrifying fear of an explosion, pressed their trembling feet onto the digital scale platforms. As their own body weights combined with the mountain of 5kg sin frames they had stacked, the digital display on each scale flashed with harsh red light:

• İLKAY: 145 kg...

• SEVGÜL: 110 kg...

• MARUT: 165 kg...

• CEVDET: 155 kg...

• SÜPHAN: 180 kg...

• PETEK: 75 kg...

• GÜRKAN: 240 kg!

Everyone stood with heads bowed, pouring cold sweat from behind their masks as they stared at their own sin displays. Their necks were bent beneath the shame; the vile acts they had committed and the faces of the oppressed lay stacked in mountains beneath their feet. Yet their repulsive aristocratic pride and selfishness resurfaced within seconds. Silent regarding their own sins, they began screaming like wild beasts upon seeing the numbers on their neighbors' displays.

"Gürkan! What the hell is 240 kilograms?!" Mr. İlkay roared, spitting from inside his mask. "You moved half the room onto your scale! You turned the holding into a brothel, you sewer rat! You are the heaviest, you are going to die!"

Manager Gürkan stood trembling violently on his scale in his ruined shirt, drenched in sweat.

"I... I had no choice, Mr. İlkay! I didn't do it all!" he began weeping hysterically. Tears and mucus clogged his mask filter. "Look at Grandpa Süphan! 180 kilograms! That old man ruined his own grandchild's life! Look at Marut! He drove people to suicide! Look at yourselves before talking about me!"

"Shut your mouth, you p*****t!" screamed Mrs. Sevgül, trying to gather the shredded pieces of her emerald gown on the scale. "It was fine when you were ruining those girls' lives, Gürkan! Now take your punishment!"

Gürkan lost his mind completely when he heard the rhythmic, accelerating ticking sound of the explosive charge beneath him. Collapsing to his knees, he raised his hands into the air, screaming toward an unseen camera:

"Please stop it! I beg you, stop it! I am a scoundrel! I admit it, I am a scoundrel! Didn't I explain everything?! Save me!"

"Pleadings do not alter the balance of the scale, Mr. Gürkan..." said the mechanical voice. "The anguish of those twenty-two girls whose dignity you stole weighs heavier than your vile body."

With a terrifying roar, the industrial scale beneath Gürkan detonated. The violence of the explosion shook every fluorescent light in the room. Within milliseconds, Manager Gürkan’s ambitious, lustful body was torn into flesh and bone fragments, launched violently into the air.

In an instant, the harsh white light in the room was painted entirely red. Gürkan’s warm, metallic-smelling blood and flesh splashed across the soaked shirts, luxury dresses, and gas masks of the other six partners. Every single one of them was showered in blood. As Mrs. Sevgül gagged in horror, suffocating sounds echoed through her mask microphone.

Before they could even process the shock of this horror, Mrs. Petek’s scale display in the corner abruptly turned from green to blood red, displaying giant text:

FALSE DECLARATION! DECEIT DETECTED!

Petek’s eyes widened in terror. "No... No, I gathered everything! I have no other sins!" she screamed, weeping.

The mechanical voice intervened from the speakers in an icy tone:

"Did you forget, Petek? While portraying yourself as an innocent victim, you forgot those secret hours locked in that holding office on Saturdays with Mr. İlkay... The millions and the diamond watch you stole from İlkay's safe... You forgot that while Gürkan was ruining those girls' futures, you remained silent and complicit in that filth purely for your own career and money. But this scale does not forget."

Mr. İlkay stared at Petek in shock from behind his mask. "You... You were the one who robbed my safe, you b***h!" he screamed.

Before İlkay could finish his sentence, the platform beneath Petek detonated with a massive roar. The young woman’s glamorous dreams blew apart into the air alongside the stolen watches and money. A second wave of blood slammed against the remaining five executives of the holding like a whip.

The million-lira tuxedos and emerald dresses they wore were completely gone. The thick layer of fresh, warm, metallic blood clung to their skin like a physical mark of the depravity and sins in their souls. They were literally painted in their sins.

The heavy steel door of the room swung open to both sides with a massive metallic sound, leaking dim green light from within.

The remaining five people—İlkay, Sevgül, Marut, Cevdet the Ferret, and Süphan—began sprinting toward the open door like madmen as hot red blood dripped onto the concrete. They shoved and trampled one another.

At the very back was Cevdet the Ferret. He darted toward the door on his short, sly legs.

At that exact moment, the room's automated system issued the command to close the door. The giant steel door began closing at incredible speed with a heavy screeching sound. The moment Cevdet realized the door was shutting, driven by pure fear of death, he threw himself onto the floor, slithering forward across the concrete like a snake.

When the door slammed shut with immense force, the corner of one of the 5kg steel frames behind Cevdet caught in the gap, shattering into dust. The door sealed tight, missing the back of Cevdet’s tuxedo and his heel by a fraction of a millimeter. Lying face down on the cold concrete, Cevdet wept hysterically inside his mask, wetting himself in terror. He had escaped death by milliseconds.

All five of them—bathed head to toe in their victims' blood—were now face-to-face in the dark, new hell of Room 4. The red lights on their masks began flashing with an even more lethal rhythm.