HONOR, DIGNITY, AND PRIDE

Honor, Dignity, and Pride 17

CHAPTER 13: Corpses Beneath the Masks (The Aftermath of Room 5)

The muzzle flash from the single-bullet revolver Marut held to his temple reflected hundreds of times simultaneously in the giant stainless-steel mirrors of the room. When that deafening, relentless c***k slammed against the steel walls and echoed through the gallery, time seemed to freeze.

Mr. İlkay and Mrs. Sevgül opened their eyes in absolute horror from behind the bars of their narrow steel cells. In the mirror reflections, they watched Marut’s lifeless body collide heavily against the wall of the narrow cabin before collapsing to the ground. Marut’s warm, dark, fresh blood spattered violently against his own reflection in the mirror. That red river trickling down the glass sealed the end of the holding company’s most loyal, marble-faced executioner.

Shaken by muffled sobs coming from beneath his mask, Mr. İlkay sank to his knees. “Marut... Marut is dead,” he groaned. His voice crackled through the microphone and echoed throughout the shelter. “He did it all... I had no idea.”

Mrs. Sevgül wept uncontrollably, clutching the torn hem of her emerald dress. The glass of the heavy, bolt-secured gas mask on her face was fogged up from the heat of her rapid breaths inside. “He’s gone... Everyone is gone, İlkay,” she wailed. “Gürkan, Petek, Erman, Cevdet, Süphan... They’ve all turned into pieces of meat beneath the earth. What are we trapped in?”

The massive steel locks on both of their cell doors opened laterally via a mechanical system. The iron bars retracted across the tracks with a loud noise. As all strength drained completely from their legs, İlkay and Sevgül collapsed out of those narrow cabins onto the filthy concrete floor. They lay side-by-side, face down, just centimeters away from the pool of warm blood oozing from Marut’s cabin.

The room fell into a deathly silence. The only sounds remaining were the flickers of the single, harsh fluorescent light overhead and the ragged, irregular breaths coming through their mask filters. The blood of the victims was smeared across them, mixed with shelter dust and floor grime. Their multi-billion-dollar false splendor was in its final death throes, two levels underground in the basement of a fertilizer factory.

Crushed by the physical toll of hanging upside down for minutes inside those cells, enduring electric shocks, and inhaling the throat-burning sourness of sulfuric acid gas, neither could move. The shoulders of Mr. İlkay’s custom-made Italian tuxedo were ripped open, his white shirt drenched in sweat, footprints, and blood. Sevgül’s emerald dress—celebrated everywhere—was shredded, its chest and waist cutouts caked in shelter filth. Her hair was matted, and the lavish makeup on her face had run into mud with her tears.

In twenty years of marriage, they had never seen each other like this. This husband and wife—who woke up every morning in stylish robes at their mansion, rode to the corporate headquarters in luxury executive cars, and stood before cameras like flawless statues—were now underground, looking at each other’s battered, torn, bloody, and foul-smelling bodies with pure disgust and terror. The glass castle beneath their masks was shattered into pieces.

“Get up...” grunted Mr. İlkay, trying to push himself up on his elbows. His fingers sank into the damp dust on the concrete. “Get up, Sevgül... It smells here. Marut’s blood is drifting this way.”

Mrs. Sevgül raised her head, sobbing. Her hazel eyes behind the mask bulged as if ready to pop out from fear. “I can’t believe my eyes, İlkay,” she said, her voice trembling. “Look at us. When... when did we fall into this sewer pit? Who is this man? Who is doing this to us?”

“I don’t know,” shouted İlkay, clenching his teeth so hard he felt his jawbone c***k. “But after hearing the filth Erman, Gürkan, and Cevdet spewed in those rooms... Whoever did this was right, Sevgül. While we lived like gods up above, we created a complete hell down below.”

Slowly, without helping each other, they pulled themselves up by holding onto the stainless-steel mirrors along the walls. With every movement, their bones ached, and the freezing pain left by the electrodes on their temples scorched their skin. The massive steel door at the end of the room opened laterally with a heavy metallic screech. A green, foggy light filtered into the mirror room from the far end of the corridor.

The mechanical, soulless voice of the executioner boomed from the ceiling of Room 5 one last time:

“Room 5 is sealed. The executioner’s shadow has been erased by his own trigger. Now, to the final two surviving partners... Advance to Room 6 carrying the crimson color of sin upon your souls. You don’t have a single mask left to look at each other’s faces with. Walk!”

With fresh drops of blood dripping onto the concrete, Mr. İlkay and Mrs. Sevgül began walking through the open doorway into the foggy corridor. Their steps were uneven; both stumbled as if they might collapse at any moment.

Madness Along the Path and Unheard Truths

As they moved through the green, foggy corridor, the stench of ammonia and worm fertilizer leaking from the steel pipes on either side burned their nasal passages. But in both their minds, all that replayed was the repulsive filth spewed in the previous rooms by those close colleagues whom they had considered honorable, decent, and visionary up above. This walk was a march toward awakening from a grand lie.

“Erman...” Mrs. Sevgül began, leaning against the corridor wall as she walked. Her voice echoed dully through the mask’s internal microphone. “Senior Manager Erman, who slammed his hand on the table at every morning board meeting to lecture us on morality, shouting, ‘Discipline is the foundation of this company’... Turned out to be a complete sewer rat. Did you hear how he forged budget reports just to ruin that innocent boy Can’s life, İlkay? On top of that, he used corporate funds to bribe judges and prosecutors. We handed that man the keys to the holding company!”

Mr. İlkay let out a bitter, harsh laugh as his torn tuxedo jacket dragged behind him. “You should look at Gürkan, Sevgül!” İlkay roared. “That white-collar, slick-haired Human Resources Manager who bowed at forty-five degrees in brown-nosed submission... Did he feel no shame as he coerced those poor minimum-wage intern girls and cleaning staff in dark parking lots, dimly lit restrooms, and dingy workshops, threatening their careers and livelihood to get them into bed? Plus, he stole 4.5 million liras from corporate accounts as ‘hush money’ under the guise of ‘consulting expenses’! We entrusted that man with the company’s integrity and the safety of our employees. The bastard turned the firm into his personal hunting ground!”

“And what about Cevdet the Weasel?” Sevgül sobbed, tears streaming down her bloody cheeks. “That sneaky Security Director who lurked in corridors rubbing his hands together... He personally deleted the server logs and computer records that proved Can’s innocence. Cevdet burned that boy’s future just to get holding shares from Erman! As if that weren’t enough... He filmed you through the air vents while you were screwing that foreign banker woman in your locked office, and dropped the footage in front of me for blackmail! Everyone was digging graves behind each other’s backs, İlkay! While we sat in our glass castles sipping diamond champagne, everyone around us was waiting like hyenas to tear off our flesh!”

“The most painful part is Mr. Süphan... ” said Mr. İlkay, his voice suddenly dropping, pure terror appearing in his eyes. “That white-haired old man with his amber prayer beads, whom I called my relative, my ‘Grandpa Süphan’... He confessed in his own words how he destroyed down to the penny the casualty reports of twelve workers whose lungs rotted away from that industrial gas leak in the accounting room. Just so global wholesalers wouldn’t cancel the contract and our worm farm wouldn’t halt production, he bought off twelve lives and the cries of their families with an 18-million-lira bribe! And... on top of that... he used holding shell companies and import networks to procure disgusting masochistic apparatuses to abuse his own biological granddaughter, an innocent child! That man wasn't a grandfather; he was the foulest monster this earth has ever seen, Sevgül!”

“We aren’t clean either, İlkay!” screamed Mrs. Sevgül, stopping as they reached the massive door to Room 6 at the end of the corridor. She turned to her husband, the pain of that great marital breakdown visible in her eyes for the first time. “Petek... That glamorous face of our advertising campaign... Did you hear how she screamed on the scale that she locked your office on Saturdays to sleep with you, stealing cash and diamond watches from your safe? You were the corporate chairman while cheating on me with those secretaries and ambitious girls! And I ran from your freezing silence straight into Marut’s arms! I set up ‘Mar-Seu Investment’ to tank the company stock on Monday morning and throw you out onto the street! In reality, we were all each other’s murderers!”

Mr. İlkay looked at his wife’s face—at her bloody mask—with pure disgust. “Yes, Sevgül,” İlkay said, his voice cold as an executioner’s at that moment. “We are all scumbags. But when this room’s door opens... Whoever’s sin is heavier, the scales beneath this earth will hand down their sentence. Walk.”