Girls and prison

The ceiling was too white to be real. Aya stared at it for hours, watching the stillness, waiting for it to change, to blink, to c***k. It didn't. It stayed there—flawless, like the beginning of a lie. Her lips were dry. Her throat was raw. She blinked slowly and tried to sit up. A faint scent hung in the air... a warm, masculine perfume, faint like a distant memory. As if someone had been here, so close to her pillow, and then left... deadly quiet. Pain radiated down her spine. Her hand shot to her neck. A small, rectangular bandage was taped behind her ear. Her pulse picked up. The sheets beneath were silky. Cream-colored. Soft. Expensive. Where was she? She looked around the room, her eyes wide open. Everything was clean—painfully clean. Four white walls, a fluffy carpet, a frameless mirror, and a closed wooden door with no handle on the inside. There were no windows. No phone. No clock. No sound. Just her breath. Her breath. And maybe someone else's. Aya tried to remember the last thing she'd seen before this. She was walking down Istiklal Street, her camera slung around her neck, her shoes sticky from melted ice cream on the sidewalk. There were lights. Tourists. Laughter. And then... A whisper. A smell—something sweet and metallic. A sharp prick behind her ear. And then nothing. Her stomach lurched. Is this a hospital? No. A hotel? No. It was too quiet. Too controlled. She stood, her legs cold. She was wearing a long, pale blue dress she didn't recognize. Her headscarf was gone, her earrings were missing, her silver ring—gone. Aya walked over to the mirror. Her reflection stared back at her, pale and unfamiliar. On the dresser, a single folded piece of paper in black ink: Welcome to the shelter. You are safe. Don't try to leave. Your story will begin soon. The words made her throat tighten. Safely. Why did she feel threatened? She thought to herself, remembering the empty stories she'd heard about. She always imagined someone who loved her would kidnap her, but what was this mess she was in? She looked in the mirror. There was something strange behind her—a shadow? A carved line? She reached out to touch it. Knock. She froze. Another knock. This time it was sharper, from outside the door. Her voice trailed off as she called. "Hello?" No response. Just the sound of a lock being turned—slowly, as if the person behind the door wasn't in a hurry. As if they had all the time. The door creaked open. A girl entered. She was taller than Aya, with snow-pale skin and lips the color of old wine. Her posture was perfect. Her eyes were unreadable. Her hair was tied back in a neat braid that didn't move, even when she moved. Aya thought, "Beautiful. Masha'Allah." The girl studied Aya silently, then closed the door behind her. "You're awake," she said coldly. "Good. That means five." Aya backed away in confusion. "Five... what?" The girl didn't answer. Instead, she walked over to the mirror, erased a line on the corner of the glass, and whispered something Aya couldn't hear. Then she turned to her, her gaze sharp. "You're Algerian, right?" Aya blinked. "Yes. How..." "Your accent. And your name. Aya..." Aya's blood froze. She hadn't told anyone her name. The girl folded her arms. "They said you were just a tourist. Just a girl with a camera. They said you weren't part of the plan." She paused, her eyes narrowing. "But they brought you anyway." Aya's heart was pounding. "Who are you?" The girl didn't answer. Instead, she walked over to the door and opened it halfway. Light footsteps echoed in the hallway. She looked over her shoulder at Aya. "They brought us all here for a reason," she said. "But you? You're the wrong one." Then she was gone. The door closed behind her. The lock clicked. And Aya returned alone again - with her heart pounding, and thousands of questions screaming in the silence. But what if she wasn't the fault? What if she was the key? Aya sat curled up in the corner of the bed, her arms around her knees, trying to make sense of a place that didn't seem real. Shelter. But there were no windows. Then they heard another knock—this time faint, hesitant. Before she could answer, the door opened and three girls entered. Aya stared at them like shadows from a movie she didn't remember watching. Each one seemed out of place, as if they'd come from different parts of the world, but stitched into the same nightmare. The tall girl spoke first—the same girl from before. Her voice was like cold silk. "This is Aya. She's... unplanned." The girl next to her rolled her eyes. She was sharper, with bronzed skin and a jagged scar running down her jaw. Her eyes glittered like broken glass. "What is this, boarding school now? They're rounding up girls like we're postage stamps." The third girl, quieter than the others, walked over to Aya and knelt beside her. She looked... nice. Gentle. But there was something in her eyes. "I'm Shams," she said softly. "You don't remember how you got here either, do you?" Aya shook her head. "I... was walking. In Istanbul. A few days ago. I think." The girl called Shams smiled sadly. "That's what we all thought." Another voice came from the hallway. "You should meet Lara." Aya's breath caught. "Who's Lara?" They didn't answer. The door opened again. This time, the hallway light poured into the room like liquid gold from the sunlight, and she entered. Lara. She was the kind of beauty that hurt to look at—tall, sharp-boned, and covered in black silk. Her lips were exposed. Her eyes, crinkled like coal. She walked with her shoulders back, even in her silence. She looked at Aya. A look. A judgment. A rejection. Then she turned to the others. Lara said, "They said there's dinner tonight. In the Red Room. There will be." Aya thought, "Wait, the Red Room. What? Is it the one where they cut people up, eat their flesh, and torture them?" In an instant, negative thoughts surged in a quarter of a second. The atmosphere changed. Aya looked around. Everyone stopped moving. Even the sharp girl—who had been laughing at everything moments before—went pale. Aya swallowed. "Who is he?" Lara didn't look at her. She stared out the windowless wall as if she could see right through it. "My husband," she said. One of the girls frowned. "I thought you said he—" "Dead?" Lara's voice was sharp as a sword. "Me too." Several hours later That night The Red Room lived up to its name. Walls painted the color of dried roses. A long wooden table. Silver cutlery. Candles flickering in a faint breeze. Aya thought this table looked like the ones in movies. Aya sat at the edge of the table, wearing a new, long, black dress she hadn't chosen. She kept tugging at its sleeves. She felt like a guest at her own funeral. She wore a green veil, as dark as a forest at night. The other girls sat in silence, dressed in doll clothes. Lara sat opposite her. Steady. Unblinking. Then the doors opened. He entered. Tall. Cold. Handsome, like someone is handsome before they kill you. He was wearing a navy suit, no tie, no smile. His eyes scanned the room as if planning how he would kill the people in it. When Aya saw him, he looked exactly like a mafia man. When he saw Lara... he stopped. And smiled. "You look fine, my love," he said in a low voice. "Sadness suits you." The other girls kept staring at the wall or something, as long as they weren't seen, but Aya kept looking at Lara. Lara stood up slowly. Her hands were like fists. "I'm dead." "No." He leaned closer. "I let the world believe I'm dead. To see who's sad... and who's gone." Aya was talking to herself inside her head, and she said, just like in the movies. Her expression changed, as if she was excited for the rest of the conversation. He glanced at Aya for a moment. Then he turned back to Lara. "And what did you see?" he whispered, leaning close enough to touch her. "A bride trying on new dresses... as if I were just a spot on her white dress." Lara didn't tremble. "You were never a spot," she said. "You were a prison." Shams put her hand on her head and turned her head away. Everyone else turned their heads so as not to look or hear them, but Aya kept looking at them as if she were watching a TV series. It was her luck that she'd learned Turkish from TV series so she could understand what they were saying. His smile widened. "And you still came back, didn't you?" Aya watched, her heart pounding. Nothing made sense. Tourists don't end up in prisons with queens and ghosts. Wives don't talk to their dead husbands. And girls like her don't live long in stories like these. But if this was a story... maybe she wasn't just a part of it. Maybe she was the chapter that changed everything. Aya thought she was just a girl who had taken the wrong path in Istanbul. But no one in this room knows exactly why she was chosen. And they're not done yet.