Constantinople's Cherry

III - 36. Affetmek

Third chapter this week, and EdSer reunion !!

....

"Kiraz, my sweet daughter,

If you're finding this, it's probably years after I am gone. And that will be soon, I don't feel like I can fight my body much longer.

I love you a lot baby girl, but there is one thing I need you to know, and not be mad at me from hiding all these years.

You're not my biological daughter, even thought, I fell in love with the angel you were as soon as my eyes fell on you.

You were an adorable baby - "

****

5th Decembre 1923.

Arev and Serkan were in a hurry, the children were slower than them and the soldiers seemed to be awake and enraged, they had set fire to the entire village.

This was a disaster, Serkan never wanted to save children at the price of the massacre of locals. But the soldiers seemed to have no mercy, they were the same that had killed his parents and burned Armenian communities, they hadn't changed. Today, they were ready to even harm their own, the Turks, if they suspected they helped innocent children.

Arev had been mad at his decision but Serkan had taken the risk to go back to the village, they had ransacked everything and burned the entire place down. He fought flames to help people survive. He saw horrors he could never name.

It's wounded children, who's houses and parents are burned that added to their group, and Serkan had hurried back because indeed, if he wanted to save these children they had to go now, he couldn't risk the horrors he saw, the supplice he witnessed happening to them.

One hour later, he met Arev back with the additional children he had saved. "Come on, let's go now, let's go." He shouted.

Arev looked at the children and carried a terrified toddler in his arms, the baby seemed in shock. "What happened ?" He whispered to Serkan.

Serkan only shut his eyes and shook his head painfully, the horrors were undescribable.

They began leaving distance between them and the village, when Serkan, at the back of the group of children, while Arev led it, heard a voice.

"Wait!" Came the weak croaking.

Serkan turned to see an old priest's limping figure.

"Father ?" Serkan watched the old man limp.

"I heard...you were saving Armenian and Greek children..." He groaned with difficulty.

Serkan nodded. "Yes, father do you need help ?" He didn't seem in a good shape.

He opened his arms to reveal a tiny baby wrapped in blankets. A newborn, most probably. Her skin still peeling and umbilical cord wound fresh.

Serkan noticed blood, her forearm wrapped in a make bandage, one he didn't know was made of a thorn piece of Eda Yıldız's dress, the baby was wounded.

"I found her in the church, someone must have left her at my porch to save her life. Maybe her mother, but they burned the church." The priest cried, and that's when Serkan noticed the horrible burns on the man's arm, and the knife in his stomach.

"Please, save her." Were his last words as Serkan reached for the baby and the man collapsed.

Serkan breathed, seeing the smoke in the horizon behind the trees, he had no time, no time to dispose of the priests' body or fix this baby right now. She wailed with discomfort and Serkan felt a strange ache and swelling in his chest at the feel of her in his arms.