Even before their eyes met, Barış knew he was being watched.
He stood in an open part of Love Valley. Past the fairy chimneys, the valley widened suddenly. The sky opened above him, and the white rock faces held the morning light with a faint glow.
But nothing inside him widened.
Yesterday, the dog had not run.
And today, it did not run either.
Instead, it stood at the center of the valley, as if it had known in advance where Barış would come.
Wind moved the dry grass. Sand gathered along the edges of his shoes. A bird called somewhere far off, but even that sound seemed thin inside the valley.
Barış took one step forward.
The dog did not move.
Another step.
Still nothing.
The fear he had carried until yesterday had changed shape.
He was afraid.
But not only afraid.
He wanted to know.
Why did this dog appear only before him? Why did it never run? Why did its shadow always come closer whenever he thought of his father?
Barış steadied his breathing.
Then the dog slowly lifted its face.
Their eyes met.
Only for a moment.
But in that moment, the sounds of the valley moved far away.
The wind, the bird, the footsteps of tourists—
all of it seemed to disappear.
The dog’s eyes were not sharp.
Not gentle either.
Only quiet.
They did not blame him.
They did not ask for anything.
They only seemed to look silently at something deep inside him.
Barış could not move.
It was not his face being seen.
Not the reason he had begun the journey.
Something deeper.
The tightness in his chest whenever he heard his father’s name.
The bitterness left behind by his mother’s silence.
The way he had looked away from Deniz’s anger.
All of it seemed to be placed there.
“Stop.”
The word never became a voice.
The dog had done nothing.
It had not come closer.
It had not barked.
It was only looking.
And still, Barış could not bear it.
Sometimes being watched in silence is harder than being blamed with words.
There was no answer in those eyes.
But there was no way out either.
Barış looked away.
The whiteness of the rocks stung his eyes.
Sweat had gathered in his palm.
What was he afraid of?
The dog?
His father?
Or the part of himself that said he was searching for his father,
while not truly wanting to know anything?
The wind grew a little stronger.
Sand moved low across the ground and lightly covered the dog’s feet.
Then the dog took one step closer.
Barış went still.
But the dog stopped there.
Not too close.
Not farther away.
As if it knew the distance at which Barış would not break.
That distance stayed with him.
It was not only fear.
There was a strange quiet inside it.
Barış looked at the dog again.
Their eyes met.
This time, he did not look away.
Only a few seconds.
That was enough.
Something moved slightly inside him.
This dog was not cornering him.
But it was not comforting him either.
It was only standing quietly before the things he had tried not to see.
The moment he understood that, the ground beneath his feet looked different.
The white rocks of Love Valley.
The dry wind.
The thin shadows.
None of it was only scenery anymore.
Barış let out a small breath.
“What are you looking at?”
The dog did not answer.
But its silence was closer than yesterday.
Slowly, the dog turned its face away and looked deeper into the valley.
In that direction lay the way toward Zelve.
Collapsed caves.
Traces of old lives.
Spaces that remained after people had gone.
Barış looked that way.
For some reason, something stirred deep in his chest.
The dog looked at Barış once more.
Its eyes seemed to be asking something.
Or saying nothing at all.
Then the dog slowly began to walk.
Not fast enough to flee.
Not slow enough to invite.
Only at a pace Barış could follow.
Barış stood there.
He should not go.
That was what he thought.
But if he didn’t, he would never know what those eyes had seen.
The valley wind pressed against his back.
Barış took one step after the dog.
That step was heavier than yesterday’s.
And harder to return from.
