999 By Ilhan Barutcu (TOP)

Elias’s lungs burned. The air grew thinner, smelling of ancient dust and the salt of the Marmara Sea. He passed the small windows that looked out over the city. Each time he reached this height, he saw a different version of himself in the glass. Sometimes he was a child holding a red balloon; sometimes he was an old man with eyes like clouded marbles. Six hundred and sixty-six.

Elias reached the final landing. Before him stood a heavy wooden door, carved with the numeral . It was the same door he had reached nine hundred and ninety-eight times before. Every other time, he had turned the key, walked through, and found himself standing back at the base of the tower, the rain still hanging in the air, the count reset to zero. 999 By Ilhan Barutcu

He reached for the handle. But this time, he remembered Ilhan’s sketch. The circle that didn't close. Elias’s lungs burned

Ilhan Barutcu, the man who had given Elias the key, had told him only one thing: "The truth isn't at the top. The truth is the climb." Elias took the first step. One. Each time he reached this height, he saw

The air grew silent. The city sounds—the ferry horns, the shouting vendors, the hum of traffic—faded into a singular, vibrating drone.

The rain in Istanbul didn’t fall; it hung in the air like a damp curtain, blurring the edges of the Galata Tower. Elias stood at the base of the spiraling stone stairs, his hand resting on the cold, sweat-slicked railing. He had been here before—exactly nine hundred and ninety-eight times.

He continued. His boots clicked against the stone, a rhythmic metronome of penance. Nine hundred and ninety.