Arafta : Kalbin Fısıltıları

Prologue

I watched this drama while I was sick, and though there are still a many episodes left for me to watch which I will soon complete but I've already seen the spoilers, so I know how it is going. And now I can't stop thinking about what might happen if he had truly completed his revenge and the thought of Mercan's father receiving the punishment of death, and Ateş mother being held accountable for the crime of killing his parents, and what if he gets to know that Eyül was alive.

Murat, of course, would face the consequences for his other misdeeds, and Ateş would finally come face-to-face with the gravity of his own mistakes: the way he manhandled her, the harshness with which he treated her, the coldness that masked the heart beneath. How would he confront the consequences of all that he had done, and how would he confront her, the one whose life he had upended in pursuit of vengeance? See I understood his character and his pain, but still that can never justify him manhandling her. I love her character because she was all innocent and stayed with him, and he kept on lying even after knowing that she loved him since childhood.

I've thought about it endlessly, because honestly, I wanted to read a story like that one that explores the aftermath of revenge, the pain, the regret, and the fragile, complicated emotions that remain but no one has written it yet. So, I've decided to write it myself. This is my version of the story, the one I've been craving, and I hope you will enjoy the prologue.

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The courtroom emptied slowly, leaving behind only the echoes of gavel strikes and footsteps fading into silence. Ateş remained on the cold marble floor, his palms scraping against it as if the roughness could somehow hold him together, as if the world would stop spinning if he stayed down long enough. He had finally seen Hyder taken away, chains biting into the man's wrists, the sentence that had consumed his every waking thought finally pronounced.

Justice, he thought. Finally, justice. And yet, the victory that should have filled him with triumph felt hollow, like a wound that had been stitched shut only to burst open again. His chest burned, tears filled his eyes, and he let them fall freely, hot and scalding, unashamed in the emptiness of the room. He had lived for this moment, built every day of his existence around it, and yet now that it had come, he realized the cost of winning had been far greater than he could have imagined. He got what he dreamt of and now what he is going to do now? How he is going to face Mercan who he hurt in all this process. Who lost her family because of his thirst of revenge and how he is even going to tell her he loved her since childhood? Will she believe him? How he will tell her that Tahir who he claimed dead lived with her all along

187 days, 187 days of revenge finally got justice and now he have no idea what he will do now. How he will live with her. How he will face her when his whole body is breaking. His sister is alive but he have no idea where, his mother whom he believed the most killed his parents, everybody he believed ditched him. And the one who stayed by his side is the one who suffered the most

Mercan stood a few steps away, frozen by the sight of him. Her instincts screamed at her to run forward, to hold him, to press her warmth against the cold despair that clung to him, to tell him it was over, that no matter what happened, he wasn't alone. That she was his family and for a moment, she took a step toward him, but memory stopped her: the hands that had gripped her too tightly, the sharp words that had cut her soul deeper than anyone else ever could, the nights she had spent fearful and silent, the days that had felt like cages.

What if he hurts her again because he is still broken? What if the fire in his eyes, the same fire that once demanded obedience and punished her for every imagined betrayal, flares up again, leaving her defenseless in his storm? What if he doesn't see her as the woman she is, but only as the person tied to his past, a reminder of what was lost and what must be avenged? What if he grips her arms tightly, as he once did, his hands a cage she cannot escape, and she feels the weight of fear crushing her chest all over again? What if he shouts, his voice slicing through her like a knife, accusing her of things she never did, blaming her for the fury of a world she never chose to inhabit?