The envelope was already on his desk when he arrived.No one had been in the store that morning.No bells. No footsteps.
Just a plain white fold, sealed without glue.
He opened it cautiously.
Inside, a single sheet of thick, coarse paper.Typed, old ribbon marks still visible.
One sentence.
"Zaman dolmak üzere."(Time is running out.)
No name.No context.No instructions.
But it was written in state syntax.He recognized the spacing.The cold precision.The way each letter sat like it was waiting for permission to exist.
And something else—
A smudge in the lower left corner.A fingerprint?Or... ash.
He showed it to no one.
Not even the Circle.
That night, he sat by the bookstore window.
He didn't turn the lights on.
Just watched the street breathe.
The sentence echoed in his mind, louder with each repeat.
Zaman dolmak üzere.Zaman dolmak üzere.Zaman dolmak üzere...
Until finally—
"It's not your time that's ending," Atatürk said softly."It's theirs."
"They're warning you as if you were the intruder.But they're the ones who know the floor beneath them is about to vanish."
—
— "Then why now?" Emir asked aloud.— "Why tell me?"
"Because even falling empires want someone to remember they once stood tall."
—
Later that night, Emir went to the train station.
He didn't board.
He just stood on the platform.
Watching passengers.
Faces.
Shoes.
Eyes that refused to meet his.
And then he saw it—
A man across the platform.Plain coat. No expression.Holding a folded newspaper.
On the corner of the paper:a hand-drawn circle.But not closed.Left open—deliberately unfinished.
The man did not wave.He simply nodded once.
And walked away.
Emir stood frozen.
Because the man wasn't signaling loyalty.
He was signaling urgency.
And Emir knew what it meant.
"This is the last quiet before the thunder."
—
In his notebook, he wrote:
"I was given a warning.But not for myself.For those I have yet to stand in front of."
And below it:
"If time is running out—then so must we."