HONOR, DIGNITY, AND PRIDE

Honor, Dignity, and Pride 12

CHAPTER 8: ROOM 3 — THE WEIGHT OF SINS (Identification and Transport)

Passing beneath the fleshless, terrifying skeleton of Mr. Erman—still dripping onto the concrete floor while live worms wriggled across it—the seven partners stepped into Room 3 amidst sobs, groans, and vile curses hurled at one another.

With a heavy boom, the steel door sealed shut behind them.

This was the raw materials classification warehouse of the fertilizer factory: a massive, industrial salon enclosed by freezing steel panels. In the air, the scent of sulfuric acid was replaced by the sting of ancient dampness, mold, and the suffocating dust of aged paper. But what was truly shocking lined the walls and floor of the salon.

Hanging everywhere—from ceiling to floor—were hundreds of high-resolution photographs.

They were headshots. Elderly factory workers, young female interns, pregnant janitorial staff, former accountants leaving the holding in tears while clutching their cardboard boxes, tearful mothers... Hundreds of innocent faces of people trampled, robbed of their dignity, and ruined over seven years by these seven monsters in the corridors, workshops, and warehouses of Tekton Holding stared back at them under the harsh white fluorescent light.

Spaced far apart across the floor were seven massive industrial platform scales featuring digital displays. Above each scale, a name was written in bold red letters: İLKAY, SEVGÜL, GÜRKAN, MARUT, PETEK, CEVDET, SÜPHAN.

The mechanical, soulless voice rose once more from the center of the room, cutting through all the weeping like a blade:

"Room 3: The Room of the Weight of Sins. Facing you are hundreds of faces—the people you stepped on and ruined while sitting in your ivory towers above for seven years. The rules are simple. Every one of you will inspect the hundreds of photographs in this room, one by one. Whoever violated a person's rights will unmount that photograph from the wall and carry it to the scale platform bearing their own name. Each photo frame weighs exactly 5 kilograms. If you leave even a single photo behind, or if you fail to recall your own sin and attempt to shift it onto someone else, that scale will become your grave. Your time is exactly 10 minutes. Once all photos are moved, everyone will step onto their respective scale. And on the balance of this court... the person with the heaviest sins—whose scale weighs the most—will be blown to pieces by the explosive charge beneath them! Let's see whose sins you carry. Remember!"

On the giant digital display in the room, a ruthless countdown began in red digits: 10:00 minutes... 09:59... 09:58...

The seven partners stared at each other in terror from behind their screwed-on gas masks. Driven by the terrifying fear of death and drenched in cold sweat, they began sprinting toward the photographs. The first massive, tearful, and desperate hunt had begun.

The Battle of Carrying Pictures

1. Manager Gürkan (The Archive of Lust)

Gürkan, trembling like a hyena in his ruined shirt, stood beneath the harsh white light. Approaching the wall, his eyes nearly popped from their sockets. Almost half the pictures on the wall belonged to the female interns and janitorial workers he had cornered in the garage and restrooms.

"No... No, this is Ayşe... This is Meltem..." Gürkan groaned, his fingers shaking as he ripped the heavy 5-kilogram steel frames off the wall with successive thuds. "I did these things to protect my position... Mr. İlkay gave me permission!"

He wept hysterically as he cradled those heavy frames, carrying them toward his own scale. Every frame felt heavy enough to tear his arms off, but he ran desperately to escape the explosive beneath his feet. As he threw the pictures onto his scale with a heavy bang, the digital display began climbing: 5 kg... 10 kg... 25 kg...

2. Cevdet the Ferret (The Balance of Secrets)

Cevdet moved among the pictures, rubbing his hands together in absolute fear. His sly, shifting eyes locked onto the photograph of Can—the boy whose life he had destroyed alongside Erman. Can’s pure, innocent eyes stared right at Cevdet.

"Can... and his mother..." Cevdet muttered, his voice muffled by a slick horror. "The IT kid whose log files I erased is here too... Damn it!"

Cevdet broke his fingernails pulling down the photos of the people whose lives he had personally destroyed and whose blackmail tapes he had erased; blood from his fingertips dripped onto the frames. "İlkay! Marut! You take the picture of Can’s father! You ordered me to frame the kid!" he screamed, clutching a frame and sprinting breathlessly toward his scale.

3. Big Boss İlkay (The Victims of Profit Margins)

Mr. İlkay scanned the walls, ignoring the shattered glass of his diamond watch, the veins at his temples bulging. Facing him were pictures of elderly workers whose lungs had failed due to toxic gas leaks in the raw materials warehouse—workers İlkay had silenced with bribes and fired.

"I had to... The company's profit margin couldn't drop, our stock market shares would have collapsed!" İlkay roared, spittle coating his mask. "Gürkan! Don't try to make me carry the pictures of those secretaries whose lives you ruined in the garage! Those are your sins!"

Mr. İlkay ripped those heavy frames off the wall with rage and carried them to his scale, glaring with hatred at his wife, Sevgül. His scale display climbed rapidly toward 50 kg... 70 kg...

4. Mrs. Sevgül (The Price of Luxury)

Mrs. Sevgül walked weeping, stepping on the torn hem of her emerald gown. "I didn't violate anyone's rights! I only attended charity galas!" she shrieked.

Just then, she came face-to-face with the photo of Can’s tearful mother—the woman Sevgül had thrown out on the street, telling her security guards: "Get this low-class trash away from here, she's going to scratch the paint on my car." The woman's gaze pierced Sevgül’s soul.

"No... No!" screamed Sevgül. Her pristine hands couldn't pull the heavy steel frame off the wall, and it dropped onto her foot with a loud crash. Groaning in agony, she dragged the frame across the concrete toward her distant scale. "Marut Help me! I’m dying, Marut!" she wept.

5. Marut the Silent Partner (The Cold Faces of the Stock Market)

Mr. Marut identified the pictures with cold composure, swallowing the cold sweat on his temples without altering his marble-hard face. Facing him were pictures of small investors and former partners who had lost all their savings and committed suicide in front of the holding due to his stock market manipulations.

"Losing is simply the nature of this business," Marut whispered, his voice coming through the microphone icy cold. Showing no signs of remorse, he methodically unmounted the frames and dropped them onto his scale. Yet internally, his heart beat like a war drum from the terror of the explosive charge. "If any are missed, the system will detonate... I must collect them all," he muttered.

6. Süphan the Cute Monster (The Ledger of Perversion)

Mr. Süphan crawled on his knees through the scattered amber prayer beads, his white hair disheveled and his chubby cheeks hollow with fear. The moment he looked at the pictures on the wall, his narcissistic and masochistic world crumbled. On the wall hung photographs of innocent children paid off with silence money from accounting under "import expenses"—and worst of all, the weeping face of his own abused grandchild.

"Forgive me... God forgive me," Grandpa Süphan began sobbing uncontrollably. His sweet facial expression was completely gone. Mucus and spittle clogged his mask filter. When he cradled those frames, his aging body couldn't handle the weight. "İlkay... You’re my relative, help me, I can't lift it!" he shouted.

Mr. İlkay didn't even turn around. "Rot in your own filth, you old freak! Are we supposed to clean up the foul things you did to your own grandchild?!" he screamed. Süphan dragged the frames along the concrete, groaning as he crawled toward his scale.

7. Petek the Glamorous Victim (Witness to Fear)

Mrs. Petek could barely find any pictures among the hundreds in the salon. She had not ruined anyone's life. But in the far corner, burdened by the guilt of staying silent out of fear—thinking, "My career will be ruined, these wolves will destroy me"—she looked at Can’s photo from the moment she overheard his framing without going to the police.

"I... I was just afraid," Petek wept. She unmounted Can’s frame with respect, handling it gently before carrying it to her scale. Hers was the lightest scale in the salon, yet she felt the weight of her complicity down to her soul.