The dream was different this time.
Not a battlefield.Not a speech hall.Not a memory.
A mirror.
He stood in front of it—bare-chested, breath slow.
His reflection looked back at him, but not exactly.
The face was his.
But the eyes were... watching.
And behind him, not one shadow—but dozens.
Flickering.
Like memories testing the edge of form.
Then one spoke.
"You're carrying more than me now."
He didn't reply.
Couldn't.
He just stared.
And the mirror didn't break.
It breathed.
—
He woke briefly.
The candle beside his bed had burned low.His chest was tight.
But before he could reach for his notebook, something pulled him back under.
Sleep took him again.
And this time, it brought pain.
—
He stood on a ridge.
Dust in his mouth.Smoke in his eyes.The sea glimmered behind the hills—but here, it was war.
Gunfire cracked from below.Turkish soldiers crouched behind sandbags, thin with fatigue.
Emir looked down.
A uniform.
But not his.
A body that moved differently.
He wasn't himself anymore.
He was someone else.
—
"Conkbayırı," a voice said behind him."August. 1915. I was thirty-four."
He turned.
And there he was.
Mustafa Kemal.
No marble. No myth.
His face was darkened with sweat, dust, and something deeper—something that lived behind the eyes of a man who had stood too long at the edge of death.
—
A sudden burst of bullets screamed from the ridge.
A sharp thunk—and Emir staggered backward.
Pain tore through his chest.
He looked down.
Shattered glass.A silver pocket watch, cracked, embedded in his uniform.Smoke rising from it.
He couldn't breathe.
Kemal stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"That bullet was meant to kill me.It didn't.But it reminded me how close all of this truly was."
He looked Emir in the eyes.
"You read about consequences.I lived with them in my chest."
The wind blew again.
The ridge faded.The smoke dissolved.
And Emir was alone.
Back in his body. Back in his bed.
His chest still ached.
—
He sat up gasping.
Looked at the candle.
Still burning.
Looked at his chest.
No wound.
But the pain lingered like memory pressed into the flesh.
—
He opened his notebook. Wrote:
"He showed me how close it came.He showed me the cost of one heartbeat.The burden of surviving when others don't."
He paused.
Then added:
"He didn't tell me to be brave.He reminded me that bravery hurts."
—
In the mirror, later, he stared into his own eyes.
They were still his.
But something behind them had shifted.
— "I won't become something they control."
"Good."
"But you also can't become what you fear."
— "Then what do I become?"
"A man who understands what that bullet meant.And walks anyway."
A long pause.
Then, with a faint smirk:
"And yes, Emir... I can do far more than just show you a memory."
—