Betul did not touch the blue line stretching from the wall to her chest.
Even so, the line glowed as if it were moving beneath her skin. The thin light extended between her ribs toward her heart, and with every pulse, the eye-shaped mark on the cover of the metal book answered.
“Betul,” Ilber said, “don’t move.”
“That’s not helping at all.”
Arif gripped the iron handle with both hands. “Is the line hurting you?”
“Not yet.” Betul slowly exhaled. “But it feels like it’s calling me somewhere.”
Esra looked at the screen of her device. The readings kept changing. “This isn’t a rise in temperature. It’s going up and down like a pulse.”
The shadowless man stood in the doorway, silently watching them. The darkness that did not fall to the ground remained motionless at the base of the wall, like a stain.
Ilber turned to him. “How do we stop Betul?”
“You can’t.”
“You started this.”
“No. I only realized she was here.”
For the first time, Betul looked directly at the man. “How do you know me?”
A tired expression appeared on the man’s face. “I don’t know you. But I know the mark left in you.”
“What mark?”
“The mark left on those who pass through the gateway.”
Arif took a step forward. “Betul hasn’t passed through any gateway.”
“Not yet.”
That single word changed the air in the room.
Ilber set the book on the table. “Everyone stay calm. First, we need to figure out what this is.”
“You don’t have time to figure it out,” the man said. “The security footage is about to be erased. Other people will be here within minutes.”
Esra raised her head. “How do you know about the security footage?”
“Because I shut down the recording system.”
“You don’t work here.”
“Not anymore.”
The book suddenly opened. Its pages flipped rapidly, and new marks appeared on the intact page before the missing section. A short sentence settled between the lines of Old Turkish:
“The gateway will not awaken until the fourth mark returns to its carrier.”
Betul’s face tightened. “What does carrier mean?”
The man looked at the book’s cover. “Your body carries the part of the gateway that was left outside.”
“What’s inside my body?”
“A memory.”
“I don’t remember anything.”
“That doesn’t mean the memory isn’t inside you.”
An image appeared in Betul’s mind. A broad, dark stone chamber. A blurred voice that seemed to come from her childhood. Then blue light, and a long-fingered hand reaching toward her.
Her knees gave way. Arif caught her.
“Betul!”
“I saw a room,” she whispered. “There were stone walls. Someone was saying something to me.”
“What were they saying?” Esra asked.
Betul closed her eyes. The voice came from the bottom of a distant well.
“Don’t forget us.”
The same sentence echoed from inside the book.
The shadowless man lowered his head. “So it’s starting to return.”
Ilber zipped up the bag. “We’re leaving.”
“If you leave, the mark will go with you.”
“We’re not running from the mark. We’re taking our friend somewhere safe first.”
The man stared at Ilber for a long time. “Gohan said the same thing.”
This time, Betul was the one who fell silent. “Did you really see Gohan?”
“I did.”
“Niyon too?”
“Both of them.”
“Who were you?”
The man’s gaze darkened. “One of those sent to separate them.”
A metallic sound came from outside the depot. The corridor lights flickered on and off one by one. Esra approached the door and looked outside from around the corner of the wall.
“Someone’s coming.”
In the distance, they could hear two people talking.
“Who’s in the depot at this hour?”
“I don’t know. The lights inside just went out.”
Arif raised the iron handle. “Where’s the back exit?”
Ilber looked at the shadowless man. “Show us the way.”
The man did not answer immediately. Then he walked to one of the old shelves beside the wall. When he pressed his hand against the stone surface, a dry clicking sound came from behind the shelf. The stone wall split in two, revealing a narrow passage.
Betul stared into the passage. Cold air flowed from within. It carried the smell of metal and wet earth.
“This passage isn’t on the excavation maps,” Esra said.
“Because the Anunakis didn’t put it on the maps,” the man said.
“How do you know the Anunakis’ language?”
“You don’t have to be one of them to know their language. Listening to their lies for long enough is all it takes.”
The voices outside were drawing closer.
Ilber made his decision. “Inside.”
Arif led Betul into the passage first. Esra followed. Pressing the book against his chest, Ilber took one last look at the depot. The shadowless man stood beside the door, waiting for the approaching workers.
“Aren’t you coming?” Ilber asked.
“I have nowhere to go.”
“Why are you protecting us?”
The man answered without hesitation. “Because once, I failed to protect the people I was supposed to protect.”
Ilber asked no more. He entered the passage. The stone door closed behind them.
In the darkness, the only thing visible was the blue line on Betul’s chest.
“I’ve seen this path before,” Betul said.
“In a dream?” Esra asked.
“No. When I was a child.”
Arif stopped. “Have you been to Göbeklitepe before?”
Before Betul could answer, a voice rose from inside the wall.
“You have.”
The voice did not belong to the shadowless man. It was older, deeper, and came from the stone itself.
Betul brought her hand close to the wall. Before her fingers touched the surface, blue light spread through the stone. Four images opened across the wall: Gohan’s face, Niyon’s orb of light, the gateway’s four sockets, and a child carrying metal pages in both hands.
The child raised their head.
Betul held her breath.
The child looked like her.
“That’s not me,” she said.
Esra’s voice trembled. “Betul... the child in the image is wearing the same clothes you are.”
Betul touched the small silver necklace around her neck. An eye-shaped mark she had never noticed in all these years was etched into the pendant.
“My mother gave this to me,” she said. “She said I’d had it since I was born.”
The book trembled again inside the bag. This time, the sentence did not appear in writing. It formed in Betul’s mind:
“The fourth person returns not through blood, but through memory.”
At the same moment in the past, Gohan withdrew his hand from the central eye-shaped mark on the gateway. This time, the dark socket did not go out. A small human face appeared inside it.
Niyon recoiled when he saw the face.
“That’s impossible,” he said.
Gohan looked at him. “What did you see?”
“The gateway opened the future.”
As the Anunaki lights at the entrance to the tunnel drew closer, the gateway’s fourth socket lit up completely. The stone gate opened slowly. Beyond it was not merely a blue passage; the memories of thousands of people drifted through the darkness filled with stars, each one like a point of light.
Gohan grabbed Niyon’s arm. “Bring the humans inside.”
Niyon stared at the lights beyond the gateway. “This nexus isn’t just an escape route.”
“What is it?”
“A gateway that carries all the memories outside.”
“Who opened it?”
Niyon’s face went deathly pale. “The fourth person.”
In the present, Betul’s necklace cracked. A thin piece of metal fell out. The instant it touched the ground, a page took shape in the blank space where the metal book’s missing section should have been.
The page was incomplete. Only a single line could be read:
“When Niyon refused the mission, the person sent to stop him...”
The sentence broke off.
Footsteps echoed from the end of the passage.
The shadowless man had caught up with them.
Betul turned around. “This line is about you.”
For the first time, fear changed the man’s face.
“Close the page,” he said.
“We need to read the rest.”
“No. If that name is read again, the gateway will call back not only the memory, but its owner as well.”
Four blue lights ignited simultaneously in the walls of the passage.
Far away, beneath Göbeklitepe, a mechanism that had been waiting for centuries began to move.
And in the space where the metal book’s missing pages belonged, a single name appeared:
“Niyon.”