A lump formed in the back of my throat, hard and jagged, making it bleed with each gulp. I can’t risk not being able to see my sister again. Furthermore, who’s to say that Death will hold up their end of the bargain? 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, “Aldacı can 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, what she was like. Who cares about a future I won’t even get to see. 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.
I could almost see Death furrowing his brows, despite them being non-existent. “Just remember that you chose this.” They snapped their fingers and within that same second, my sister appeared before me, alive and well with no visible wounds and a smile on her face.
“Fidan!” I ran to hug her but Aldacı held me back. I trashed against her, kicking and screaming at her to let me go. My sister pulled at the crone’s arms, trying to pry her off me.
“Enough!” Death snapped his fingers again, Fidan vanished back to wherever she had come from. Death 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 Fidan’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 centre. 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 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 loopholes, anything that would allow Death to screw me over. There were none, the thing was iron-clad, though I guess it was foolish of me to think I could cheat something that’s always existed. I’m no scientist, no doctor, I can’t invent a cure for death. I’m just Cansu, a random office worker in a marketing company. I can’t change the rules of existence!
Defeated, I signed the papers without a second thought and was transported back to the dead end. Fidan 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, Fidan 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 continued to ignore her. In the third month she started crying and begging me to answer her, threatening to stop following me unless I spoke. 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. What if she had fallen in a pit? What if Death hadn’t done good on their promise and let the creatures attack us afterall?
I don’t know how but Death made it so Fidan’s footsteps were completely silent. Another reminder that she’s dead, no doubt. When she was alive, there was a constant pitter-patter of her footsteps behind me. It used to bother me as a kid but I would kill to hear that sound again. A whisper 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, Fidan sneezed, confirming that she had been with me this entire time.
Maybe it’s not her, maybe it’s the old crone and Death is just trying to teach you a lesson. My scepticism was constant, and unfortunately for me, logical. I kept marching on. Even a one percent change of saving Fidan was enough.
My sister started acting out again a year into our journey. She yelled at me. Why had I bothered to get her if I wasn’t going to speak? Why did I refuse to even look at her? “Cansu, it’s torture, please just acknowledge me!”
She started questioning her own existence, wondering if maybe she was a figment of my own imagination and then my own. Perhaps she was in a coma and I was just her dream-sister and not the real one. I must say, I wondered that too. I wished for nothing more than to just wake up in a warm bed with my sheets wrapped around me, to have breakfast with my sister again.
Six months later, I saw the end of the tunnel. I ran towards the light, faster than I ever had. I could hear my sister following behind, running after me, screaming questions unheard into the wind. “Wait! Why are you running?!”
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. “Fidan, 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.
“Fidan, 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 cried out, I could hear the anger in her voice, silently calling me stupid for ever trying. She was right. “I love you too, I’m not mad,” she hugged me tighter, “I’m glad we get to talk like this. Leave the searching to me for next time, 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 mum was holding my hand, my father was holding my sister’s clothes, hugging them tight. Once they noticed I was awake, they hugged me tighter than they ever had. I started sobbing immediately, like a baby, hiccuping, 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? Why do I have to get out of bed and act normal when my entire world was turned upside down? 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, really. There isn’t much left to say. I was robbed of a sister and that’s an emptiness I have to carry for the rest of all my lives. I stared outside my bedroom window, a crow had landed at the edge of my windowsill, one I used to feed before everything happened. In its mouth was a shiny rock, it placed it down before flying away and I managed to get a closer look at it. At first, I thought it might be the talisman from the Underworld but no, it was just a random coin. Besides, the doctors had confirmed I was in a heavy medically induced coma so that was probably all some fucked up dream anyway. I had tried telling them about the crone, Death and Fidan. “Grief psychosis” they had said. A severe mental health condition that causes hallucinations when one is struck with grief.
Maybe that’s for the best, perhaps that would mean I never signed the contract, that I wasn’t doomed to an eternity without Fidan’s soul alongside mine.
© 2026 C. H. Gökdemir. All rights reserved.
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