Girls and prison

short conversation

Aya remained silent for twenty minutes.

Not because she was afraid.

But because she felt like she was stuck in a TV series.

Or worse.

Flames danced slowly in the center of the long table. Untouched plates of food steamed between the crystal glasses. The people at the table... didn't eat. Didn't laugh. Didn't speak.

Aya was hungry, but she wondered if there was poison in the food, so she didn't touch it.

They watched each other.

Lara sat directly across from her, her eyes straight ahead, her expression inscrutable. Her husband—the man who was supposed to be dead—slumped casually in his chair.

Aya couldn't stop staring at him.

There was something off about his calm, as if this was just an ordinary Tuesday.

He raised his wine glass.

"To old lovers..."

He looked at Lara.

Lara didn't reply. She sliced ​​into her steak as if slicing into her memory.

The silence was broken when Jodi, sitting near the end of the table, slammed her fork down.

"You brought us here for this?" she said sharply. "Candlelight dinner and ghost stories?"

The room froze.

Aya looked up from her food and waited for someone to kill someone.

The man—Lara's husband—slowly turned to her.

"You're the reporter, aren't you?"

"A former reporter," Jodi spat. "Thank you."

He chuckled. "You still write things you shouldn't?"

"You still kill people who tell the truth?" she snapped back.

A sharp voice rang out from the side—Nour.

"Sit down, Jodi. This isn't the time."

"Do you think this will ever be the right time?" Judy snapped. "They took our lives. And we're just supposed to eat duck and say thank you?"

Aya blinked. Duck? She hadn't even noticed what was on her plate.

The man stood slowly, his weight heavy in the air.

He said, "You're here because each of you carries a piece of something that belongs to me. Whether you know it... or not."

Noor was handed a velvet envelope mid-dinner. She opened it and froze.

Aya approached Noor and saw the paper: a bank transfer form with her father's name on it.

"That account no longer exists," she whispered.

The man just smiled.

"No, Noor. You no longer exist. Unless you sign."

Shams suddenly dropped her fork. She looked pale, sweating. She stood and stepped back from the table, her hands shaking.

"I saw this room," she whispered. "In a dream. I was tied to this chair."

Aya stared.

"Did you dream?"

Shams looked at her.

"No. It wasn't a dream. It was a memory."

Sireen didn't speak the entire time. Until the man leaned forward and said,

"How is your sister, Siren?"

Aya saw it—the slight twitch of Siren's chin.

"Don't talk about her," Siren said through gritted teeth.

"You should have thanked me. If I hadn't taken you... you'd be in a body bag."

Sireen lunged across the table. Noor grabbed her.

Aya, still watching.

Aya sat frozen, her spoon still half-raised.

This wasn't dinner.

It was a chess game between people who hated each other but couldn't escape.

Secrets disguised in suits and blood between the lines of every sentence.

She kept staring from face to face—as if watching a perfectly scripted drama:

The grieving wife who wasn't grieving.

The dead husband who wasn't dead.

The heiress blackmailed for her father's sins.

The fighter mourning his sister.

The girl with shattered memories.

And then... Aya.

Just a tourist.

Or so she thought.

Suddenly, the man clapped his hands twice.

The doors opened. Two guards entered. Between them... a woman in a torn dress.

Her face was hidden beneath her tangled hair.

The girls gasped. Even Lara blinked.

The man looked at them all, then smiled at Aya.

"Since you're the newest here... why don't you meet the first one?"

He reached out and tugged back the woman's hair.

Aya's breath caught in her throat.

The woman's face was horribly burned. Her lips were torn. Her face was scarred.

She looked directly at Aya. She whispered, "Run."

Aya grabbed the edge of the table, her heart pounding.

Who was this woman?

And why...

She looked just like the girl Aya had seen in her dream the night before?

Aya hadn’t moved.

The woman’s face — burned, hollow, familiar — still hung in her mind like smoke in her lungs.

“Run,” she had said.

But Aya’s legs wouldn’t move.

The guards dragged the woman away, her sobs echoing down the hallway until the red room returned to its ghostly silence.

Then came the voice that cracked the stillness like glass:

“You look shaken, Aya.”

The mafia boss — Lara’s husband — was watching her.

She didn’t answer. Her jaw clenched.

He took a slow sip of his wine, then placed the glass down with precision.

“She looked like someone you know?”

Aya flinched. How did he…?

He stood. Walked slowly around the table. His footsteps echoed like gunshots.

She could feel the tension tighten in every girl’s shoulders.

“You’re not like the others,” he said, stopping behind her. “You weren’t supposed to be here.”

He leaned close. Too close.

“You were just a little poet with a camera, weren’t you? A ghost passing through Istanbul, humming about the sea...”

Aya’s heart thundered.

He leaned closer — his voice like a blade against her skin.

“Tell me, Aya … what did you see the night before you blacked out?”

She turned to face him.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t remember.”

“Liar,” he said calmly. “I see it in your eyes. You saw something. And you’ll tell me. Either with words…”

His hand lifted.

“…or with blood.”

The Moment

Aya’s body reacted before her brain did.

SMACK.

Her palm connected with his cheek — sharp and loud.

Time stopped.

Even the candles seemed to pause mid-flicker.

The guards drew their guns instantly. Metal scraped.

Sirin stood so fast her chair fell over.

Noor gasped.

Judy whispered, “She’s insane.”

Shams covered her mouth, eyes wide in horror.

Lara…

Lara didn’t blink.

She watched like a woman at an execution.

The man turned his head slowly, a faint red print blooming on his cheek.

Aya’s chest rose and fell — furious, terrified, shaking.

“Touch me again,” she said, voice cracking, “and I’ll make sure you lose more than your pride.”

Silence.

Then —

He laughed.

A low, twisted sound.

“She has fire,” he said, turning to the guards. “I like fire.”

He leaned down so only she could hear him.

“But fire, little poet, always dies in water. And I am the ocean.”

He stood straight. Adjusted his jacket.

Then turned to the others as if nothing happened.

“Dinner is over.”

The guards lowered their weapons. Confused. Unsure.

Sirin pulled Aya behind her. Noor stood between them and the door. Judy muttered something in Arabic Aya didn’t catch.

The boss gave Lara one last glance.

“You picked a brave friend this time,” he said.

Lara didn’t respond.

He walked out of the room, leaving the tension behind him like a storm that promised to return.

The girls surrounded Aya instantly.

“Are you crazy?” Judy hissed.

“You just slapped him,” Noor whispered. “No one touches him.”

“You could’ve been shot,” Shams breathed.

Aya sat down suddenly, her knees weak.

“He touched me,” she said simply. “He lost that right the moment he locked us in this cage.”

For the first time… Lara spoke directly to her.

“You just became part of this war,” she said quietly.

“And I hope you’re ready to bleed for it.”

In that slap, Aya hadn’t just defended herself.

She had declared war.

...............Aya wasn’t tired, but her legs moved slowly — as if her body were dragging behind her mind, still processing everything she had just done.

She had slapped a man who made guards flinch.

A man whose name wasn’t spoken.

A man who smiled when he threatened.

And somehow… she was still breathing.

The girls walked in silence through the palace’s east corridor, their heels echoing over marble so clean it reflected the chandelier's light like a frozen lake.

Aya kept looking — not just walking — watching.

She began to memorize everything:

The exact shade of crimson in the hallway rugs.

The pattern in the ceiling moldings.

The rhythm of the light fixtures — one chandelier every 6 meters.

The faint hum behind the walls, like there were wires… or voices… hidden inside.

She counted the turns.

Left, left, right, straight, down one step, then left again.

If I ever get the chance to escape, she told herself, I need to know every shadow in this place.

*The Room of Velvet and Smoke*

They returned to a massive room at the end of the west wing. The door groaned open like it hadn’t been used in years.

It wasn’t a bedroom. Not a dining room. Not a lounge.

It was… a place between places.

Huge arched windows (sealed shut). Velvet curtains. A piano that hadn’t been played. Paintings of people with no names.

The girls settled into armchairs like queens waiting for a war report.

Aya stood by the window and stared at her reflection in the black glass.

Then she turned.

Aya finally sat down. She crossed her legs. Her mind burned with questions. So she asked the one she feared the most.

“Why us?”

Judy looked up from the glass she hadn’t sipped.

“I’ve asked that every day since I got here.”

Shams fiddled with the hem of her sleeve. Her voice was soft.

“Maybe we all have something he needs.”

“Like what?” Aya asked.

“Weakness,” Noor said flatly.

“Or secrets,” Sirin added.

Everyone turned.

She had spoken from the corner. Standing. Alone. Wrapped in shadows like armor.

Aya asked quietly, “And what did you give him?”

Lara met her eyes for a long, painful second.

“My soul,” she said. “And he gave me diamonds in return.”

For a while, no one spoke. The chandelier light flickered.

Aya walked to the piano and opened the lid. The keys were slightly dusty.

She pressed one.

It sang — soft and sad.

She sat on the bench.

Pressed another key. Then another.

It wasn’t a melody. Not yet.

But it was a beginning.

“Play something,” Shams whispered.

Aya paused.

Then let her fingers wander. Slowly. Like memory.

Each note echoed through the room like secrets being unburied.

Aya didn’t know what tomorrow would bring.

But tonight — for a single fleeting moment — they weren’t prisoners.

They were just five broken girls,

in a room full of ghosts,

trying to remember what freedom sounded like.