There is nothing stronger than a sister’s love
My sister’s room smells of medicine and bleach, her heart monitor is beeping incessantly. I need to leave this place or I’ll go crazy.
I still can’t understand how it happened. One second, we were arguing about her stealing my clothes and the next, I was pressing down on her neck to stop the bleeding, begging people passing by to call for help. No one did. I’m still in shock at the amount of blood that can fit into a person, I mean she’s so small, to the point that we used to tease her as a family about her height. How can that much blood be in someone?
Patients and loved-ones alike look at me in confusion as I walk around the hospital hall, trying to find an exit for a much-needed smoke. An ambulance is outside, the paramedics are running inside carrying what seems to be a young boy on a stretcher. His parents are running after them in tears, trying to comfort the little boy.
“Puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?” I turn towards the voice, it’s a tall and elegant older woman wearing a black dress with assorted gold bangles and a pearl necklace. I imagine she lives in a fancy mansion with one of those really puffy white cats that doesn’t leave her lap.
“What do you mean?”
She chuckles, “That boy is going to die.”
I almost dropped my cigarette. “Do you have a light?”
“It’s unhealthy to smoke,”
“It’s also unhealthy to lose this much blood,” I show her my sleeves, “Do you have a light?”
She shoots me an exasperated look and pulls out a gold lighter engraved with floral patterns and someone’s initials. I admire it for a few seconds before flipping it open and taking a long drag. The static noise in my head died down for a few seconds as I felt the smoke fill my lungs, with another puff, the migraine that had been making me want to scoop my eyes out with a spoon disappeared almost instantly.
I hand the lighter back to her, “Thanks, you’re a lifesaver.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that” she reaches into her purse and takes out one of those golden cigarette holders you see in old movies. “So whose blood is that?”
I stare at the floor, “My younger sister’s, we were attacked on the street.” She nods in acknowledgment before pulling out a werther’s candy from her purse and hands it to me. “I didn’t take you for that kind of old lady.”
She chuckles and tells me it comes with age.
“Why are you here?” She looked incredibly out of place with her styled hair, manicured nails, jewellery and very expensive dress, but I guess even the rich are struck with tragedy at times.
“My husband went into cardiac arrest.”
“The doctors here are really good, I’m sure that he’ll be fine.” I don’t know whether I was trying to comfort her or myself, a cardiac arrest is better than substantial blood loss but then again, her husband must be quite old, I don’t know if his body can take whatever treatment she needs.
Before the old lady could respond, doctors and nurses around us started running inside as the words “Code Blue” echoed around the hospital. I ran in with them. I must’ve flown across the hospital, I don’t even remember how I got to my sister’s room but all I could see was a team of doctors and nurses huddled around her, prodding her with needles and getting the defibrillator ready. I froze as I watched the machine pull at my sister’s chest. I tried to go inside the room, to hold her hand in her last moments but nobody let me in. I tried to barter with the nurse guarding the door, to offer her money I didn’t have, making threats I knew were empty. She told me to stay out of their way or they’ll remove me from hospital grounds, I wanted to bite her throat out.
Blood boiling, tears running down my face, I punched the wall before sitting down and praying for the first time in my life. I prayed to Allah that my sister would be safe, that the doctors would manage to save her life and we’d be able to laugh about this someday, I prayed to God that this was a nightmare, that I’d wake up in a second and all would be well, I googled different deities of medicine, begging them to save my sister.
The sound of a long and continuous beep chilled my blood. Doctors and nurses walked out of my sister’s room with a look of defeat on their faces. The doctor in charge of my sister walked towards me and said the words I’d been dreading “We did everything in our power, I’m so sorry for you loss.”
I don’t really know what happened next. All I know is that my knuckles are sore, there is a needle mark on my arm, I’m strapped to a bed and the police will be here soon. It doesn’t matter, my sister is still dead, that quack doctor and his stupid, unqualified team killed her.
A nurse walks in, he’s hesitant and clutching a platter with rice, a beef and chickpea stew and ayran. He sets it down in front of me before leaving the room. I stare at the food in front of me, I couldn’t eat it even if I wanted to.
Another nurse walks in, “Nobody unstrapped your arm?”
I give her a deadpan look, “I’m not hungry,”
She glares at me for a split-second before her expression changes into a fake smile, “We had to sedate you, you might feel nauseous and tired for the next few hours, you’ll be discharged tomorrow and the police will take it from there. Is there anyone we can call to inform them of your situation?” She reached down to untie my right arm.
“You mean of how you failed to save my sister and called the cops on me?”
She turned to me before leaving, “You’re lucky the hospital isn’t pressing charges.”
You’re lucky I didn’t fucking kill you.
I reached for my phone to find seventeen missed calls from my parents. Fuck. How am I going to tell them that Fidan is dead? How am I going to tell them that I couldn’t do anything as that man sliced my sister’s neck? We were literally arguing for god’s sake, we were arguing about clothes. We’re not even kids anymore, who cares if she takes my clothes from time to time, we’re both adults, who care about clothes.
My shoulders sag, I feel my lips tremble as hot tears fall into my platter. What am I going to do? The old lady from earlier walks in, she has a sombre expression on her face as she sits down next to me. “I’m sorry for your loss, may she rest in light.”
I let out a bitter laugh, my voice is coarse and my hands are shaking. “What she’s resting in is a fucking body bag in the hospital morgue.”
My phone rings once again, it’s my mom. I answered it only to hear my mother sob, I guess the hospital found a way to notify her. “Are you at the hospital too? Are you injured? Did you see the attacker?”
“I’m in room 406, I’m sorry.” My parents hung up the phone, I could almost hear them getting in the car, pressing on the gas pedal and missing every red light to get here.
“I might know a way to help,” said the old lady. “But you’d have to trust me.”
I shook my head, “She’s already dead, there’s nothing you can do.”
“What if I could give you an opportunity to save her?”
“What, are you going to find a way to magically take me into an underworld that doesn’t exist?” Maybe this old lady’s husband didn’t go into cardiac arrest, maybe she’s senile, or maybe it’s both. At least I got a good laugh out of it. I press the little blue button at my side, waiting for a nurse to come and take my plate of untouched food.
A sudden breeze robbed me of my warmth. I instinctively reached for my covers, I could hear rushed steps closing in on my room down the hall and prepared myself to face my parents. My door flew open, I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to see their expressions, not wanting to hear their cries. But that moment never arrived, in fact it was like they were frozen in time, as if the old lady and I were the only people in the world to be breathing at that moment.
“What the fuck?” I turned to the old lady, only to find what I can only describe as a bag of skin, bones, blood and muscle on the floor. In her place sat a strange shadowy figure, like a black flame ready to engulf me at any second.
I didn’t want to believe it at first, the paranormal had just been fiction to me up until that moment. I had never been religious, hadn’t even prayed up until the moment of my sister’s death, and now stood in front of me what I can only describe as a jinn, demon or perhaps even death itself. Surely it must be some sort of cruel joke, a fucked up flash mob that would end with my sister jumping out of the crowd to reveal that she was in fact alive, that this was some elaborate prank she had organized to teach me a lesson. Of course, that wasn’t the case. Death had stolen her from me and was now laughing in my face.
I reached for the figure, which moved back instinctively. “Do you always try to touch people you’ve just met?” Its voice was cold and gritty, like the sound the soil makes when you stick a shovel in it.
“Only the ones that shed their skin suit in front of me.” I lunged at the thing, whatever it was was my only hope at getting my sister back. “What are you?” I wrapped my hands around it, only to grab nothing. It didn’t have a physical body. All I felt was the same chilling breeze that left my hands numb.
“It’s rude to grab people without asking, you know.”
“How do I get my sister back?”
“Why, by dying of course.” What I assume to be the figure’s shoulders shook as it let out a laugh-like noise. If I knew whatever it was that killed it, trust me when I say that I would’ve.
“I’m not making my parents suffer through the loss of a child twice. Tell me how to get her back.”
“I have nothing to gain from telling you,” it was like the creature was taking pleasure in my suffering.
“You offered to help.” I was well past the point of hiccupping, I had cried all my tears and all that was left within me was rage. I got down on my knees. “Please tell me how I can bring her back.” It was crazy to expect this thing to help me, after all, I didn’t know it in any way, all we had done was exchange a few words before it shed its skin and revealed its identity as a shadowy monster to me. But putting all of that insanity aside, this thing was proof that I was either going insane, or that the paranormal is real.
If I’m insane, my sister is gone for good and I’ll have lost her forever. Despite it being a slim possibility, I want to believe that the paranormal is real, that I can save my sister, that I can see her again, laugh with her again and argue about stupid shit again. I want that possibility to be real.
“Get off your knees, you’re getting blood— my blood, all over you.” The thing went back into its disguise and pulled me up. I still want to puke thinking about the scene. “I’ll tell you how, but you cannot be upset with me when you inevitably fail.”
“Thank you,” I kiss her knuckles and bring them to my forehead, “Please tell me how I can repay you.”
She pulled her hand out of my grip, “You have nothing I want, your failure will provide great entertainment.” She waved her hand across the floor. Wind hit me from every direction, breaking windows and sending shards of glass all around the room. I ran to shield my parents from the impact. Once the gust died down, I walked back to the old lady only to almost fall into the massive hole she had created across the hospital floor.
“Don’t worry, it’ll close up once we jump in and everything’ll go back to normal,” she chuckled. “Do you want to go first or should I?”
I still wasn’t sure what this thing was, it could be a malevolent spirit trying to trick me into my own premature death but it’s not like I had anything left to lose. “Lead the way.” The thing jumped in and I followed suit. Strangely enough, it didn’t feel like I was falling at all, in fact it reminded me of the warm embrace a mother gives her child after it has a nightmare. We had a soft landing on a field with a stone path that led to a lake below a weeping willow. Not at all what I imagined the underworld to be.
“Is this Heaven?” I asked as I stared at my reflection.
“Heaven doesn’t exist,” said the thing. “Neither does Hell.”
“Whatever you are exists, surely they must as well.”
The creature sighed in exasperation and pulled me back, “Don’t stare at it for too long, we’re only going to be here for a short while if we can help it.”
“What do you mean? How long are we staying?”
“However long it takes for you to regret your decision.” The thing sat up straighter and puffed out its chest. In that moment, it really resembled a crow. “Aren’t I so merciful, giving you an opportunity to change your mind before you make the worst decision one can possibly make.”
I clenched my fists, trying to hide my frustration. “Please, take me to my sister.”
The thing sighed, “Fine, it’s your funeral— literally” and pushed me into the lake.
The weight of the cold water crushed me as I tried to swim up. I started to panic once I realized it didn’t work. This can’t be how I die. I know how to swim, I used to swim in the Bosphorus as a kid, there’s no way this is how I die. I grab at the water, desperately trying to pull myself out.
The old crone laughed as I felt my lungs try to jump out of my chest. She had tricked me, I’d die here before ever finding my sister, my parents would suffer twice because of my stupidity. The last thing I saw before losing consciousness was a pair of hands pulling me further below.
I awoke in a cave with the uncomfortable feeling of water in my lungs, I tried to cough it out, only for black, tar-like substance to come out. That’s what I get for smoking all of those cigarettes.
“That’s normal” said the old lady, squeezing water out of the dress, “How do you feel?”
I lunged at her, wringing her neck with my hands and squeezing tight. She laughed at me, clearly unaffected. “What the fuck was that?” I growled, “You tried to kill me!”
“And I succeeded,” She shrugged, “at least temporarily. This is the only way you’ll be let into the Underworld.”
I tried to feel for my pulse to no avail. “Couldn’t you put me in a near-death situation or something, like those people that get visions one?”
She snorted, “Those people are liars. Being dead for a few seconds isn’t what’s going to bring you here,” she stared at her watch, “You’ve been ‘dead’ so to speak, for seven years yet you’ve just awoken.” I guess she could see the panic on my face because she continued on, “Time is still frozen back in the land of the living, if you go back, it’ll be like nothing ever happened.”
“Wait, why seven?”
“That’s how long it takes to get your hands on one of these,” she flashed a stack of papers at me.
“Don’t tell me I need a visa to die,” I groaned, “does my passport strength also determine if I end up in Heaven or Hell?”
“I already told you, Heaven and Hell don’t exist. This grants you access into the underworld, that’s all there is to it.”
“You can’t tell me we all go to the same place after we die.”
“I can and I am. Punishment is a human concept, you’re already dead, nothing here can hurt you,” she sighed after seeing my confused expression. “While you were ‘drowning’ did it hurt?”
I took a minute to think about it, it didn’t necessarily hurt. I used to dive as a kid and had experienced breathlessness more than once. This time, it had just felt like my lungs were caving in on themselves without the pain that came with it. I was strangely aware of each of my organs, which was uncomfortable to say the least, but not painful.
“All are equal in death then,”
“Precisely.” She dragged me deeper into the cave, she narrowed her eyes at me with a terrifying smirk. “You’ll learn that soon enough.”
I ignored her, there’s no way I’m leaving this place without my sister. “So you’re like a grim reaper?”
“More like a tour guide,” she precised. “I don’t kill people, I just get their travel documents ready and send them off to the Underworld. It’s grunt work, really.”
I reached for my papers but she batted my hand away, “What’s in those papers, anyway?”
“Just general information about you, who you were as a person, your actions and how they affected people. Classic stuff.”
“But if there’s no Heaven of Hell, why do you care?”
My tour guide sighed, “I don’t care about anything, Death on the other hand, likes a more hands-on approach when it comes to dealing with humans. They say it helps them assign a fitting setting for a soul’s next life.”
“So you do punish bad people.”
“No, we send you into familiar environments that’ll help you thrive and be the best person you can be, if we punish you for things you committed in a previous life in the next, we’re no better than those who believe the sins of the father are those of the sons.”
“That’s bullshit.”
My guide shrugged, “There is no such thing as justice. You die and after that, you get a new life. If Death takes a liking to you they’ll give you a more pleasant one, if they don’t, you’ll get stuck with a normal or bad life like the rest of ordinary people. You’ll continue this cycle until the end of time.” She shrugged. I noticed that with each step we took deeper into the cave, her wrinkles softened and faded. While she had looked to be around sixty when we first met, she now looked to be in her mid to late forties.
We walked for what felt like years until we finally arrived at a dead end. “How did we manage to get lost on our way to the Underworld, I thought you were supposed to be a tour guide.” I reached for my pocket to light a cigarette, only for them to have been swept away while I was drowning in the lake.
“We’re not lost, we’re early,” she crossed her arms across her chest and started tapping her foot to the ground, “Need I remind you that you’re not supposed to be dead yet?” She sighed, exasperated once again. “We don’t even have an appointment. Give it a minute, Death is coming.”
Sure enough, a horse-drawn carriage appeared behind me almost immediately after. A skeleton in a trenchcoat walked out of it. I had to hold in my laughter, this was probably the most ridiculous thing I’d ever seen, it was like staring at a caricature of death instead of the person itself. I swallowed my laughter, straightened my back and extended my hand for them to shake.
“Oh trust me, you don’t want to do that.” The woman pulled my hand back.
Death turned to her, “What is she doing here?”
“Trying to cheat you.”
They laughed like this was the beginning of a joke they’ve heard several times throughout the eons.
“Please stop talking about me as if I’m not here,”
They turned towards me, I don’t know how but I felt like Death they were smirking despite their lack of facial muscle. “So, who do you want to rescue? A friend? A pet? A lover?”
“My sister.”
They walked back to their carriage, “Alright let me see what I can do,” suddenly, our surroundings changed. I found myself in an office with dozens of creatures similar to my guide exchanging workplace banter and gossip by the water fountain.
We walked into a secluded room where Death filled their cup with what I assume to be coffee and gestured at me to sit. “So, you want to bring your sister back to life. Why?”
I stared at them, dumbfounded, “What do you mean?”
“I mean just that: why?”
“Because she’s my sister? And she was murdered?” The answer seemed obvious to me, her life was stolen from her, of course I wanted to get it back.
“What about all the other people who were murdered? Should they come back too?” They asked, bemused.
“I don’t really care about them, I just want my sister back.”
“I’m just curious, if your sister had died of old age, would you be here?” Death asked, leaning in as if impatient for my answer.
“Of course not, I’d be the one that died first and it would mean that nature took its course.”
Death chuckled before resting their head on their hands. “Wouldn’t you say that nature took its course in this situation as well? Isn’t this what survival of the fittest is all about? Your sister simply didn’t make the cut.” Their voice was cold and cutting.
I could feel all of my pent up frustration making its way to my fist but it was like an invisible power was holding me back from punching them. “That’s not how it works.”
“I don’t care, and clearly it works since your sister ended up in one of my files, let me see…” They reached into a cabinet and flicked their fingers over the files, searching for my sister’s. “Ah yes! Here it is.”
Death handed me the file. I stared at it in shock, my sister’s life was summarized in that tiny little thing. It wasn’t nearly enough to encompass everything we had discussed. Every joke, every argument, every time we went into each other’s room to vent after one of our parents yelled at us… There was no way her life could be summarized in just three sheets of paper.
“You’re in luck,” said Death, pulling me out of my train of thought. “You’re actually the second person to try something like this.”
I felt a spark of hope within me, “Did they succeed?”
Death let out a hearty laugh, the kind that you let out after hearing a knee slap-worthy joke. “Of course not and neither will you.” I felt my shoulders sag, “But I’ll tell you what, you get the same requirements as the last guy except if you fail, you won’t be able to find your sister in your next life.”
I felt a lump form in the back of my throat. The stakes are too high and I don’t want to risk not being able to meet my sister again. At the same time, who’s to say that Death’ll hold off their end of the bargain anyway? Who’s to say this isn’t just entertainment for them— No it is, that crone had said so herself before taking me here.
“You can think about it for as long as you’d like. In fact, take a year or two.” They gestured at my guide, “My dear employee here will arrange a place for you to stay.”
“No it’s okay, I accept your terms.” I don’t care about the next life. I don’t remember my previous life, if I had a sister or not, anything about it. The knowledge that my sister will be with my next life means nothing to be if I won’t remember everything we went through in this one. The comfort Death provides is just temporary.
Death sighed, exasperated. “Just remember that you chose this.” They stretched and snapped their fingers. Almost instantly, my sister appeared before me, alive and well with no visible wounds and a smile on her face.
“İpek!” I ran to hug her but my guide held me back. I trashed against her, kicking and screaming at her to let me go. My sister ran towards me and pulled at her arms, trying to pry the old woman off me.
“I’d be careful if I were you, you didn’t even hear my terms yet.” Death chuckled before snapping his fingers again, İpek vanished into thin air back to wherever she had come from. They reached into their cabinet and pulled out a contract. “Your challenge is to walk out of this cave until you reach the lake you drowned in without communicating with your sister in any way. You aren’t allowed to speak to her, to sign, to whisper, to write, or mime. Any means of communication will lead to you being sent back to the Land of the Living and a note on your file that your and İpek’s souls are not to be placed together in your next life.”
I nodded, it seemed easy enough so far. “You will not be attacked by any of the creatures here while you try to leave, you will each be given a talisman that protects you against any and all harmful beings in the Underworld.” They handed me a necklace with a gold pendant and turquoise stone at the center. The shape reminded me of the nazar bead. I put it on immediately.
“While you’re down there, your human perception of time will be returned to you, you will not age physically but will feel every effect of it mentally.” Death continued, “Your sister will not be made aware of any of this and you are not allowed to tell her.” They handed me the paper along with a quill “Sign here.”
I reread the contract, looking for any loophole, anything that would allow me to let my sister know of my deal with Death. “I know what you’re thinking and there are none,” said Death, “As I said, you’re not the first person to try this.”
Defeated, I signed the papers without a second thought and was transported back to the dead end. İpek was already waiting for me there. She yelled out my name and ran towards me, I evaded her and started walking down the path, wishing I had paid more attention to my surroundings when I had first been brought here.
I tried to think about everything that could’ve gone wrong with the first person that tried to cheat Death. I mean at the core of it, this is pretty easy. All I have to do is not communicate with my sister in any way until we get back to the lake. It should only take us a couple hours, maybe more if we get lost along the way but that’s not crazy. I remembered what Death said about our perception of time and felt a pit form in my stomach. How long did getting to Death’s office actually take?
The first three days of walking were the easiest, İpek pestered me about not speaking to her but ultimately tied it to me being too traumatized from her death. Two weeks passed and she started getting angry, throwing pebbles at my head to get a reaction out of me and threatening to throw bigger rocks when I ignored her. In the third month she started crying and begging me to answer her, threatening to stop following me unless I spoke to her. The possibility of that terrified me, but having her stay dead was worse. I kept walking, hoping she was following me. She tripped several times, making me almost turn around. There were times where she was completely silent, those were the scariest.
I don’t know how but Death made it so İpek’s footsteps were completely silent so I couldn’t hear if she was following me at all. The voice of doubt whispered that she had simply stopped following me, that she had strayed off our path and gotten lost or that worst, she had taken off her talisman and was getting attacked by a monster. I continued in complete silence until finally, İpek sneezed, confirming that she had been with me this whole time.
Maybe it’s not her, maybe it’s the old crone and Death is just trying to teach you a lesson. My doubt was loud, and unfortunately for me, making sense. I kept marching on. Even a one percent change of saving İpek was enough.
My sister started acting out again a year into our journey. She yelled at me, asking why I had bothered to come get her if I wasn’t going to speak, that this was torture, to please just acknowledge her. She started questioning her own existence, wondering if maybe she was a figment of my own imagination. I must say, I wondered that too. She had no idea how much I wanted to just turn around and hug her, to tell her not to worry and that we’d get out of here without any difficulty. But no, because of Death’s stupid rules, I must ignore her until we reach the end, for everyone’s sake.
Six months into the first year, I saw the end of the tunnel. I ran towards the light, faster than I had ever ran. I could hear my sister following behind, running after me, screaming questions unheard into the wind. I heard my sister following closely behind yelling at me to wait for her.
I was halfway out of the cave when I heard my sister let out a bloodcurdling scream. I instinctively turned around and grabbed her. She had slipped on the algae that coated the floor and was about to fall but I caught her. I felt a pang at my chest, my eyes widened, and tears filled my eyes as I realized what I had done. “İpek, I’m so sorry. The contract—” I’m so stupid. I’m so unbelievably stupid. How could I turn around? How could I do that despite knowing the consequences?
“Cansu what are you talking about, what contract?” I couldn’t explain, I simply hugged her, apologizing over and over again, telling her how much I loved her, how happy it made me to be her older sister, that I would find a way to find her in my next life even if we weren’t sisters. I could feel her start to fade as I squeezed her harder.
“İpek, I love you so much, okay? Please remember that. I’m so sorry I ignored you for so long, I was trying to save you. I made a deal, I—” I tried to explain, before she disappeared forever I had to explain. “I signed a contract, I couldn’t tell you but then you fell and I—”
“Save me? How could you ever save me, Cansu, I was already dead,” she laughed. “I love you too, I’m not mad,” she hugged me tighter, “I’m glad we get to talk like this. I know you won’t be able to find me in our next life so leave the searching to me, okay?”
I woke up back in the hospital bed with both my arms restrained and my parents sitting by my bed. Their eyes were puffy, my mom was holding my hand, my father was holding my sister’s clothes, hugging them tight. Once they noticed I was awake, they hugged me and I sobbed. I cried like a baby, hiccuping, body trembling like a leaf, and unable to speak. I cried until I passed out and dreamt of a better world.
My sister’s burial was the next day. The few weeks that followed were some of the worst of my life. People came over to mourn my sister, my parents and I had to make helva amongst other foods for the guests, a tradition I hate more than anything. My sister is dead, why should I cook for you? I was so angry at the world, my sister’s killer was at large and even if he was caught, given the Turkish justice system, he’d be out of prison in less than a week to make more space for journalists.
It’s absurd, there really isn’t much left to say. Life has no meaning, neither does death. We all simply live, die and repeat.
© 2025 C. H. Gökdemir. All rights reserved.
Cece: Unfiltered 
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