Ece had left her in a dark room of a dark inn. There was nothing wrong with the room actually; it could even be considered beautiful in its own way. However, for Xea, everything here was filled with gloom. There was no sun, no Chinese roses, no nature. There were only perpetual night along with human buildings, inns, and markets. Everything was a product of the human mind, and the absence of anything else was frightening to an unfamiliar eye.

Waiting... Waiting... But how long to wait? For days she waited for news from Heralga, from Ece, or from someone else. She was beginning to think she had been forgotten. Only a little money came to her, and she invested this money in mescaline. But this drug didn't give her pleasure either; it seized her perception, imprisoning her in a hell where shapelessness reigned. When she escaped from mescaline's schizophrenic effects, she would find herself in a miserable state, soaked in blood and sweat, but she didn't know how else to escape from the void she had fallen into.

As the days passed like this, a woman came to her door and asked if she could share the room with her. This was common in such inns; people would go door to door looking for roommates to reduce room expenses. Xea looked the woman over—though she had no idea how to choose people, she didn't seem like a bad person. She had curly blonde hair and blue eyes, and was also tall. A complete Cypriot... She had tanned from burning under the sun. This meant she had either never lived underground or had returned after a long break. Underground people always appeared pale and white-skinned, just like corpses. This tan, however, was a source of beauty for Xea.

She invited her in, and they had a brief conversation over plain coffee. Her name was Merih. She had found a new job underground but was looking for a place to stay. Their mutual friend Ece had recommended Xea's room to her. This reference freed Xea from suspicion. She had told Ece many times that she was overwhelmed by loneliness, so apparently she had arranged something like this for her. The only problem was that there was only one double bed in the room. If sharing this bed wasn't a problem for Merih, she could certainly stay.

At first, they didn't talk much. Merih would go out in the morning—morning according to the surface—and return quite tired toward evening. When she came back, she always did the same things. She would take a shower, then stand by the window with cognac in her hand, watching the view and dozing off. Sometimes she would wake up and move to the bed, sometimes she would sleep like that until morning.

Although Xea was initially severely bothered by the smell of cognac, she got used to it. In fact, she came to love it over time. But why did this woman drink such heavy alcohol every night? She wondered this with a childish impulse. She received this response:

"It'll sound strange but... I can't sleep from exhaustion. Only in alcohol do I forget my tiredness." "Do you work too much?" "Quite a bit." "Where do you work?" "At a bar around here. I mostly do fetch and carry work. Bring the beer, take the wine, bring the hookah. Sometimes so many people come. So many people come that after a point I see everyone as the same person. As if the same man drinks his beer, leaves, and comes back again a minute later."

Under the dim, yellow light of the lamp, they talked for a while, lying turned toward each other in bed. The topic continued about where she worked for a while. Actually, it wasn't an innocent enough place to just serve beer and wine. Drugs were also involved, and the hardest drugs coming to Cyprus were distributed from there. She somehow endured it, but those who came to commit suicide ruined everything. Every day someone's body who had hit the golden shot would be taken out of there, and it fell to Merih to carry them to the dumps. At first she was very scared, but over time she became indifferent enough to make fun of them.

After telling these things, Merih fell asleep within a few minutes. Perhaps Merih had just unburdened herself, but for Xea this conversation had more value. Because after Merih fell asleep, she would wander around the inn a bit to get Mescaline and Codeine. However, Merih had described dissatisfaction and the death that comes with dissatisfaction. She had made the wrong choice to fill the nothingness she had fallen into. But what would she put in its place?

She hugged Merih's body tightly and tried to suppress with Merih the deprivation that tortured her throughout the night. Even when Merih woke up from her sleep and saw Xea clinging to her like a nightmare, she said nothing. She had no idea what was happening, but even without an idea, when she saw Xea crying silently, she sensed that she needed this.

The next day Merih quit her job. While telling Xea about the work she did, she realized how meaningless her work was. When she had lost life itself in a routine from exhaustion, when her mind was overflowing with death scenes, she found it senseless to endure these things for the few pennies she would earn. She would earn money some other way, preferably in a way that wouldn't make her forget she was alive.

When she returned early because she had quit her job, she caught Xea's breakfast, who had made it a habit to wake up late. Again under the same lamp, again on the same bed... Since there was no sky underground, everything would remain as it was left. Xea was exactly as she had left her at night. She lay down next to her with a smile and watched Xea take big bites from her bread. Even watching her was enjoyable.

"What are you eating?" "Whole wheat bread." "I can see that, dear. What's in it?" "How so?"

The only food Xea knew was dry bread. When she was very hungry, and at the same time didn't know how to get through this, she had found a bakery and suppressed her hunger with dry bread. Since she didn't know how else to fill her stomach, she had accustomed herself to eating dry bread every day with disgust. Now this strange habit had been exposed.

Merih taught her how to make the dishes she knew. This both challenged and greatly entertained Xea. It challenged her because she would make all kinds of clumsiness even when cracking an egg. Because of this, Merih concluded that she was the spoiled daughter of a merchant family. Thinking about it, it was a more reasonable explanation than being born from a water-filled cabin last month. On the other hand, it also entertained her because she had never done anything like this before and it greatly interested her.

The following days they spent time together. Merih couldn't find a job, and even when she did, she could only find busy places just like the venue she had left. She was getting a few pennies from somewhere, and when this money combined with the money coming to Xea, it was quite enough for both of them. Thanks to this, they had devoted all their attention to each other.

Their first conversations were led by Merih. Merih had many memories, some from the times when she did accounting for merchants, some from where she worked. One way or another, as a single woman on this copper island, she had experienced many things. Some were fun enough to make both of them laugh for minutes. Some were... Only and only tragic. Merih had seen many deaths and still carried a bitterness inside because she couldn't do anything. The only thing she could do was to wet the lips of dying people with clean water. Some weren't even that lucky.

There were plenty of these dark memories, and as she told them, both Xea's and Merih's hearts darkened. Instead of this, they spent several days playing around with the violin. Although Merih wasn't considered a wonderful violinist, she knew a few songs that would bring her some money here and there. She tried to teach Xea too, but she couldn't manage it at all. No matter how elegant her fingers looked, when she tried to use them, they became as clumsy as wood. And then Merih realized that Xea didn't have a profession that would earn her money. She was the clumsiest of the clumsy; it was obvious she had never worked in her life. As a last resort, Merih tried to teach her fortune telling, and eventually Xea had grasped this thoroughly. No matter how abstract the subjects became, Xea grasped everything in a single explanation. At that moment Merih understood that no matter how bad Xea was at practical and concrete work, she had a very strong intelligence; she believed that she was a woman of philosophy.

However, for Xea, learning things or chatting wasn't enough. She thought this whole relationship needed to transform into a deeper form, because her heart was overflowing with feelings that darkened her soul because they weren't expressed. One night, with the courage that alcohol gave her, she stretched into the lap of Merih lying in bed, caressing her hair that reached down to her waist, and said what was going through her mind. These might not have been the best words to express her feelings, probably too cheap for Merih. But she had wanted very much to let out what was stuck inside her.

"Before you, my life was just a void. There was no night, there was no day. Just emptiness. The day I saw you at the door... I found the sun in your silk-yellow hair, and the moon in your breasts. Since the first moment I saw you... I only think of you. Can you take me, me as a Chinese rose that has caught fire for you, into yourself?"

Merih didn't understand what Xea wanted to express at first. Then when Xea grasped Merih's chest and clung to her lips, her hair stood on end. Xea seemed enchanted as she clung to her lips. But should she allow such a thing?

Merih's feelings weren't in the same direction, but... She allowed Xea to do what she wanted to her. By surrendering herself to her, she allowed all the things stuck inside Xea to come to light. Then she too became part of this enchantment. Her mind was lost in the face of Xea's raw feelings, her logic was lost. Both became blind in each other's light.

When they woke up the next day, both first looked at each other bashfully, then both started giggling. Merih had experienced the most beautiful event of recent times. Xea had won the victory of her desire against the darkness that had accumulated inside her. And from that day on, the sexuality between them had created paradise for them in the underground atmosphere.

Still... Xea distanced herself from Merih. She feared her more than anything. When she saw the mask and cloak used by temple servants in her bag, she almost lost her mind. Xea acted as if she hadn't seen this, but in a secret moment she wrote a letter to Heralga saying she wanted to leave here, and sent it through a Karagül agent inside the Art Dictator. The reason she used a letter was both that she didn't know how to access the LoRa network, which was Karagül's main network, and that she wasn't sure whether the spies in the LoRa network had been cleaned up or not.

In her letter, Xea didn't tell Heralga much about what had happened, only said she wanted to get out. She didn't give more details because all her experiences had a very personal side. Heralga also told her that she had solved the problems on the surface and had already arranged a house in Arabahmet.

So far so good. But suspecting Merih... This was one of the things that challenged her own feelings the most. Had she served the temple or the hierarchy with Heralga's change until now? If she had, why didn't she do anything? Paranoid feelings surrounded Xea. But the moment she saw Merih's face, she would calm down too. Even if she didn't understand anything, she tried not to think about this. Even if she was a temple servant, she had to believe in her pure intention. Otherwise, the realm of emotions would turn into a wreck, and she might not be able to escape from that wreck. Therefore, even if she left, she couldn't leave her silently. She said goodbye.

"So... Will we see each other again?" "I'm not sure. I have a secret I need to tell you." "What is it?" "I'm a Karagül member. I had to hide underground and now they're calling me back. So..." "Oh... You never mentioned it..."

Merih's eyes fixed on her feet for a while. Then she kissed Xea on the lips and expressed her words with a guilty feeling:

"Oh Melek... Then I'll have a request from you." "What is it?" "There's the Degli Liberta camp in Mesarya. They don't let anyone near their camps, and you need to know their language to be able to speak anyway. But they let Karagül members in. My lover... was a Degli Liberta member. He was so devoted to his ideology... He became one of them." "Do you have a lover?"

Xea wasn't actually offended by this. Although she felt a bitterness, she was even pleased, because confessing such a thing was evidence that she was well-intentioned.

"Yes... Believe me, I miss him very much. He disappeared, probably we'll never see each other again. But there's a chance, you could investigate my lover. I even want to send the writings I wrote for him. If you help, I'll be so happy..." "What can I do?" "You can find a connection with the Degli Liberta members. I mean... There must be people you can consult, I think. Please, do this."

And from a bag she reserved only for her letters, Merih lined up all the envelopes in her hand. When she saw the autumn papers in colorful ornament-laden covers infused with soul, she was both jealous and moved. Letters whose words were carefully drawn with intense feelings, waiting impatiently for their destination... What a bitter memory it was. She took them all, then left her side.

The house Heralga had arranged in Arabahmet was an old house with bay windows, squeezed between other buildings like herself on Zehra Street. It was incomparably more luxurious, spacious, and comfortable than her room at the inn. The furniture was also antique, some even from the British era. She didn't need this much; she would be happy even if they gave her a tin house. Daylight was enough for her.

When she was bored, like every Cypriot city, she would go out to the streets of green-eyed and blonde Nicosia, going wherever her steps took her. Colorful flowers had surrounded narrow streets, decorating yellow stone houses. The smell of coffee would always spread from both sides of the Albanian pavements. When the sun leaned toward the horizon, people scattered like sand on the streets would withdraw; and the streets would clear their heads too.

In this new life, she couldn't forget Merih either. The woman's letters came to her mind, but when she sent these letters, she would also send away the memories left from her. However... The aged feelings in these letters deserved at least one day of her time.

For this job, she called Heralga to visit when she was available, and this offer wasn't refused either. Heralga could only come at sunset. She hosted her on the terrace and set a table in front of her with the dishes she had learned from Merih. Heralga told what she had done while eating her meal. Since she left, she hadn't rested at all and did everything she could for Xea to be able to walk safely on the surface. But the list of what she had done was so long that Xea yawned while listening. Then she told about what had happened to her, somewhat implicitly.

"...so when I got really bored, I wanted to come to the surface too." "You did well. Your address underground somehow fell into the hands of temple servants. I don't remember the name but the surname stuck in my mind. Have you ever met anyone with the surname Hakan?"

She must be talking about Merih. She immediately denied it. She didn't want any harm to come to her.

"No." "Well, that person belongs to the hierarchy, and he reported your address. So if you hadn't wanted to leave, I would have called you." "Well, can they find me here?" "They can find you but they can't do anything in Suriçi. There are people here protecting you. Let the sons of donkeys try to kidnap you if they dare." "Oh Göksel, forget about that, I'll have a request from you." "What is it?" "Do you know anything about the camp in Mesarya?" "What are you going to do?" "Someone gave me lots of letters to send to Italy. To deliver to a friend he can't see. When I said I was from Karagül, he asked me to meet with the Degli Liberta members. I couldn't refuse." "Good... We'll go together." "When?" "I should have gone a long time ago anyway, I have business there too. You'll get your job done, I'll do my own job. What do you say?" "Sure, of course..." "Good then, come to Köşklüçiftlik stop around six tomorrow evening. We'll go down underground from there."