NIGT TIME

Mental Hospital, Day One. The case, where no evidence could be found, was cleared up with the testimony of someone whose identity was concealed. One of the suspects turned out to be the perpetrator, and with the evidence presented by the lawyer to the court, it was decided that the perpetrator was mentally ill and the perpetrator was put in the hospital. The only thing that colored the hospital room, which was covered with white walls on all sides, was the flower in front of the window. The room was mostly white and gray, and the flower in front of the window created a contrast to this room. The young man lay on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. The drugs he was forced to take had made his shoulder heavy, and even though it was his first day in the hospital, this weight he was carrying made him feel as if he had been here for years. He could not digest being put in the hospital despite not committing any crime, he was under the influence of a deep shock. The only scene playing in front of his eyes was the moment when the court would decide that he would be put in the hospital. Afterwards, the looks full of pity thrown at him here and there came to his mind. He had only told them that he was not crazy, what was pitiful about that? Even when the door was knocked, the man did not turn his focus. The door opened slowly; a young woman in a nurse's uniform and a mask walked in. The man understood from the sounds the woman made that she had brought his food. He slowly stood up. The nurse left the food on the table next to the bed. The metal plate contained some rice, some salad, a few slices of bread and water. A few packages of medicine were tucked into the spoon. "You will take these medicines half an hour after you eat your food," the nurse said in a neutral voice. "I am not crazy," the man said in a dry voice. That was the first thing he said when he came out of shock. "I am not crazy," he said once more, but this time his voice was louder. "Why are you treating me like a crazy person? I am not crazy." "Every crazy person thinks they are healthy," the nurse said, the tone in her voice not changing even a little. She had been working at this hospital for years and was experienced enough to know that every crazy person is in deep denial in their early days. "Don't make things harder for yourself by saying you are not crazy. Just try to get better, kid, you are still young." The nurse turned around and started to leave the room, but she paused and turned back when she heard a voice rising from behind her. The young man had overturned the table, the food had spilled everywhere. The anger in the man's eyes was perhaps the fire of a rage so strong that no one else could have it. "I'm not crazy!" he shouted once more, this time his voice was like a scream. "They lied! I'm not crazy! They lied!" The man, who was in crisis, was neutralized by the intervention of the nurses who entered the room with the call request. All the nurse on duty did was silently watch the shouting man. She looked at the food scattered on the floor with a grimace, and did not deign to look at the man or look at him once more. After all, every crazy person thought they were healthy. ______•——— "We won't be here for two weeks," said my mother, putting the fork and knife in her hand on the table. She looked at my brother and me respectively. "You two will be alone in the house for two weeks." My hands froze at my sides, when my eyes found my mother with both surprise and anger, I opened my lips to speak, but my brother acted before me. “Why?” He asked harshly. “You, who can’t stop checking on us every hour, where are you going while I’m staying alone in this house with my brother?” My mother turned her cold and distant gaze to my brother Nico. She was like that, a mother who always kept her children distant and drew thousands of lines that they should never cross. “Your father and I have a meeting to attend,” she said coldly. “And your mother is sitting across from you, not the hooligans you hang out with on the street. Be careful with what you say and what you say.” “If you want me to be respectful to you, you have to earn my respect first, mom,” my brother said, slamming his hands on the table. Nico and my mother never got along, and they were on very bad terms. My brother was nineteen, but my mother wanted him to show a maturity that someone so young could not show. “Brother.” I said in a soft voice, I gently touched his swollen biceps and smiled calmly. I loved him and my mother and I didn't like their conflicts at all. When the two of them clashed, our already tense home became even more tense. My brother slowly sat back down, bowed his head angrily, but said nothing. "Children and my life," my father said into the kitchen. He pulled his chair and sat across from me, next to my mother. "Welcome, my dear," my mother said without taking her eyes off my brother. "I told our children that we were going abroad for two weeks," she said and started cutting the meat in front of her with her knife. While putting the piece she cut into her mouth, she said, "There's a problem with Nico, how about you take care of your son?" My brother looked at my mother angrily, while I sent my father a look to either silence my mother or calm my brother down, my father calmly turned to my brother. "What's the problem, my son?" he asked softly. My father, my mother He was the opposite of that, he wouldn’t keep his distance from us. “There’s nothing wrong dad, except that the problem is my mother.” My brother said in an icy voice. My mother opened her lips to speak but my brother didn’t give her a chance and said “Enjoy your meal.” and quickly got up from the table and left the kitchen. “You’re being too hard on him.” I said to my mother, I had lost my appetite too. When my brother couldn’t eat, I couldn’t eat either, when his mood got bad, mine got bad too. “Enjoy your meal.” I said slowly and got up from the table. As I was leaving the kitchen, my mother said “Ivy.” “Our flight is in an hour.” “Have a nice trip.” I said without turning to either of them, and started walking towards the stairs to go to my brother. The Next Day “Are you stupid, brother?” I said, rolling my eyes, while wiping the countertop that was wet from the water he drank like an animal. “We’re not taking the water from your hand. Drink it like a human being.” My brother rolled his eyes at me and lowered his voice to mimic me. I threw the wet cloth in my hand at his white t-shirt. When he screamed, “Ivy!” I started running, feeling with my sibling instinct that he would drop me in a moment. “Ivy!” he shouted again, but I had already left the house and reached the car waiting for us. I threw myself into the car and greeted Isla and Kai, who were on their phones. I was also trying to tie up my long brown hair because I was warm. “Hi,” Isla said, not taking her attention away from her phone. She was probably texting Freya. “You’re shooting again,” Kai, who was sitting in the driver’s seat, said, referring to my brother’s red t-shirt and black shorts. I grinned at him and said, “I’m advertising my brother’s clothes.” When I said that, he laughed and nodded. His black hair was messy with sweat. He was wearing a white t-shirt like my brother wore, and the tattoos on his arms were shiny with sweat. My brother entered through the opened door, I grinned at him cutely as he turned around and glared at me. He was wearing a red shirt like me instead of the white shirt he couldn't wear. "Yeah, where's the destination?" Kai asked as he started the car. Isla looked up from her phone and said to her brother, "We're going to Freya's house." She pulled her blonde hair from the back of her neck with one hand and blew her neck out. "Ronan hasn't come home yet, we'll stop by their place for a bit." "Okay." Kai said and we slowly started walking towards Freya and Ronan's house. "I'm so bored." I said to everyone, swaying back and forth in the rocking chair. "When is Ezra coming?" We were in the living room of Ronan and Freya's house. We were sitting under the air conditioner, drinking lemonades made by Freya. We had been waiting for about an hour for Ezra, the other member of our group, to arrive because he hadn't let us know since he was working out. Ronan smiled and put his arm around his brother's shoulder and said, "He'll be here in fifteen minutes." "And don't worry, beautiful, I found a fun activity." "What's that?" I said when the doorbell rang. Isla said, "I'll check." and got up from her seat, Freya said to me, "We're going to Arielle's neighborhood." "Shouldn't we stop messing with them?" My brother said, probably upset. There was a big feud between him and Arielle and her brother Axel, and he didn't like them at all. "Hello, young people." Ezra entered the living room, his brown hair was messy and he was wearing a sports tank top. "Who are we not messing with anymore?" he asked as he threw himself right next to me. "With Arielle and her brother." Ronan said, although he was a little more serious, he was taking great pleasure in Axel and Arielle's anger. "Those cowards?" Ezra said sarcastically. By cowards she meant not just Arielle and Axel, but their other friends Zara, Elara, Roman, Elias, Milo and Dominic. “The last thing I remember is that you were the ones being cowards.” Isla said mockingly as she looked at the boys. Axel and the boys in his group had played a prank on our boys and recorded it and shared it on the school website. When Axel and the others saw us at school, they made fun of us by calling us the ‘Cowards Group’ and made us the laughing stock of the school. “Don’t remind me of that girl,” Ezra said, even though he was making fun of us, his anger was visible on his face. “I was scared when I saw that clown. Damn that day.” “That Dominic,” Ronan said, agreeing with him. “One day I’m going to pull some strings somewhere. I live with the dream of that.” When he said that, we girls laughed. Actually, my brother, Ronan and Ezra were friends with Axel and the other boys before. They had all known each other since childhood. My brother had testified in the case of Arielle and Axel's brother, and their brother, Cedric, had been put in a mental hospital. Axel and Arielle couldn't handle their brother being put in the hospital, and they accused my brother by saying that he had committed perjury. However, my brother didn't retract his statement, and he had also fought with Axel in court. Nico and Axel's friendship, who were close friends, ended that day. Ezra, Ronan, Kai and my brother were already childhood friends and they were on good terms. They had always stood by Nico. That's why Axel had taken a stand against them too. Axel he had left when he was young, and when he came back she met Roman and Dominic. When Axel started hanging out with them, my brother Nico had distanced himself from both of them, and had broken off his ties with his friends because of Axel. Because of this, they had gotten into a fight one day, and that fight had ended. Ariel and I were also close friends. However, every time I tried to be there for her because of Cedric's situation, she blamed me too. Over time, we had also grown apart. The rest were the other girls and boys in the neighborhood that we didn't like anyway. Some parts of the neighborhood were our territory, they weren't in our territory unless they wanted to mess with us. We weren't in their territory unless we wanted to mess with them. "I still don't like messing with them," Isla said. "What if they go too far?" "They don't have the courage to go too far," Freya said harshly. She frowned hard, "Don't fill your mind with nonsense, Isla." Isla shook her head. “I mean, what if Axel goes too far? Arielle’s brother and his brother are in the mental hospital, Freya. We put him there.” “Yeah, because he was crazy,” I said, cutting in harshly. “Let’s not talk about those days, Isla.” She looked at me sadly. “It’s been two years, yes, but what if Axel still has a desire for revenge deep inside him? We put his brother in there. I’m afraid they’ll go even further and one of us might get hurt.” “Nothing’s going to happen, Isla. No matter what they do, we’ll get back at them.” Kai said. “Then our next target is the Floral Cafe!” Freya said with a grin. We all grinned at each other and set off. Ten minutes later, we were at Arielle and her brother’s favorite place. We’d been coming here a lot lately, and the fact that we weren’t in each other’s space and making a move was keeping them on their toes. They thought we were going to make a bigger joke than them, so they felt threatened when they saw us around. There weren't many people in the cafe. We sat next to the window where we could easily see who was coming in and out. "Oh my God, there's a world." Isla said, pulling her blonde hair that she insisted on not tying up over one shoulder. Ezra grinned, "Tie your hair up then, it's curly." He said and reached out and ruffled Isla's hair. When Isla turned to Ezra angrily and started a verbal argument with him, Kai reached out to Ezra and said, "Don't mess with my brother." Freya, who went to order, sat in the empty chair next to me. She quickly started braiding her red hair. Our orders arrived a few minutes later and we chatted among ourselves for a while. Just as Freya was about to say something, the door opened. Our eyes turned in that direction. The voices slowly got louder. Those familiar laughs, exaggerated speeches, curses uttered between laughter… I looked towards the door with a grin, my ice-cold milkshake in my hand. Ariella walked in. Then Zara, Elara, Elias, Milo and—of course—Axel. My throat went dry at that moment, my heart skipped a beat. My brother noticed them immediately. He fixed his gaze on Axel as he had memorized it. Kai tensed immediately. Ezra had thrown his arm back slightly, Ronan had sat down harder in his chair. They were probably still under the influence of their latest prank. Isla tensed, Freya continued to look at her phone without reacting. They saw us too. And they immediately walked towards us. “What a coincidence,” Axel said, his voice cold. “You’ve exhausted yourself all the way to our neighborhood.” Isla tried to intervene. “We just—” Ariella cut him off. “You’re just spreading like leeches in our place. We get it.” I stood up. My mouth moved before my hand. “What are you saying?” Axel took a step towards me. “Don’t you understand, Ivy? Every time we cross paths, someone gets their share.” Nico slowly got up from his seat and stood in front of Axel. “What’s that, Axel? Haven’t you gotten over your tailbone pain yet?” he said sarcastically as he pulled me behind him. Axel’s smile slowly faded, anger forming in his eyes. “You,” he hissed angrily. “I’m going to make you suffer so much, Nico, that it won’t even be half the pain I suffered.” “Be careful what you say,” Ezra said, slurping his drink. “We’re recording what you say, don’t be locked up in that hospital like your brother.” When there was a moment of silence, Kai laughed and said, “You said something very wrong, Ezra.” “Is that what you say when the guy in front of you is in mourning?” When he said that, Ronan and the two burst out laughing. Axel looked at Nico with anger on his face and said, "Be careful with your brother Nico." He said in a threatening tone. "Maybe I'll take it out on him instead of you." When he said that, my brother laughed mockingly. "You," he said. "You can't do s**t. Nothing will happen to my brother when he has a brother like me." He said, emphasizing the word brother. What he meant was that he has a brother, unlike you, his brother is with him and holding his hand, unlike your brother. Axel tilted his head slightly to the side at that moment He frowned, plastered a sly smile on his face, and glanced at me. “While we’re all gathered here… I have a suggestion.” “What?” Ronan said, his voice cold. Axel grinned and spoke in the middle of the cafe, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Since you’re talking like you’ve had enough… let’s test your courage. That abandoned factory outside the city… Let’s stay there for two days. Two groups. The rules are simple: no going out. Whoever stays, wins.” There was a moment of silence. Ezra turned to me and whispered. “They’re crazy.” I narrowed my eyes. “What about us?” The words that came out of my mouth surprised even me. “Okay,” I said. “We accept.”