The Birth of Darkness

The Birth of Darkness: The Return of Belkıs of Bitlis

Nurten Hanım was a retired nurse. She had reached the autumn of her life, having

grown accustomed to the peace of days spent reading books and cherishing her

grandchildren. But that night, everything was shattered by the sound of the telephone

cutting through the silence. It was ten minutes before midnight when her landline rang.

On the other end of the line was a high-pitched, crackling woman’s voice mixed with

sounds like sharp screams, speaking in broken gasps.

“Please... the birth has started... the child won’t come out... So much... blood...

Please... come here... help!”

The voice came from a forgotten village in Bitlis, tucked away between the mountains.

Yet, Nurten Hanım didn’t recognize the voice at all. Still, her conscience, coupled with

years of professional responsibility, weighed heavily upon her. She had attended

countless births, saved so many lives. Perhaps this was fate calling her to witness the

beginning – or the end – of a life one last time. The panic and weakness in the woman’s

voice whispered that waiting until the next morning would be heartless. What if the

woman didn't make it until morning?

She immediately and quickly packed her bag. Instinctively, she shoved the most

essential supplies and her old nurse’s ID into her pocket. The air outside was pitch

black, but she didn’t hesitate. After the call ended, she had to leave that very night. The

village’s name was hard to find even on lists: Gölçukuru. It was a place blurred on

maps, reachable only by a dirt road, isolated from the rest of the world.

As she set off, the darkness wrapped around her like a shroud. Except for her car’s

headlights, everything was utterly silent. Along the way, things began to take on an

unsettling quality. As she neared the village, her mobile phone losing signal entirely, the

thick, suffocating black clouds covering the sky, and the car radio suddenly breaking

into deathly static, all instilled a cold, primal fear in Nurten Hanım. Her heart began to

pound rapidly.

By the time she reached the village square, the sun had long set, and even the moon

seemed hesitant to show its face. The surrounding darkness deepened the shadows of

the houses. The streets were silent as a tomb, not merely deserted, but as if their

inhabitants had evaporated in an instant. No human sound, no dog bark, no sound of

any other animal could be heard. As she drove past stone houses, many of them

dilapidated, she noticed a shadow seeping out from a door left slightly ajar. A single old

woman, her face wrinkled and eyes hazy, peered out from the gap and whispered:

“You... did you come for that woman? Because the darkness called?”

Nurten Hanım flinched and stopped. “I was called for a birth. They called me... They

said it was an emergency.”

The woman slowly shook her head from side to side, the movement eerily heavy. “No

one called here... No phones come here... But you came... now you cannot turn back.

It... chose you.”

An unspeakable fear and an irrepressible curiosity seized her simultaneously. Was this

the right place? Who had called? “Where... where is the woman in labor?” she asked,

her voice trembling but trying to maintain her resolve. The old woman pointed with a

bony finger towards a narrow, dim path overgrown with weeds leading out of the village.

The finger was bent and discolored like a corpse’s digit.

She followed the path. At its end, a dilapidated, rotten wooden house stood, which

even the moonlight couldn’t illuminate. The windows were black and empty, the door

slightly ajar, as if breathing in and out. Nurten Hanım, hesitating, stepped inside, where

she was met by a suffocating smell that burned her lungs. It was a mixture of blood,

rotting flesh, mold, and something else she couldn’t identify – sickeningly sweet.

The inside of the house was even darker than the outside. In the dim light, there were

dried bloodstains on the floor, torn, bloody rags, strange symbols resembling Arabic

letters drawn in blood on the wall, and dried animal heads with gouged-out eyes

hanging from the ceiling. The hairs on her arms stood on end; she found it hard to

breathe. Just as she thought about turning back, about fleeing, she heard a thin, pain-

filled moan from within. A woman’s voice.

She headed towards the room the sound came from. Inside, on a wooden bed, lay a

young woman. Her belly was abnormally swollen, as if about to burst, and her eyes

were hazy with pain, expressionless. Nurten Hanım quickly went to her side. Her pulse

was weak, very weak. But there were physical signs that labor had begun. She acted on

instinct. She washed her hands, opened her bag, prepared her instruments. But

something was horribly wrong: there was no movement from the baby. The woman’s

belly was hard as stone, but there was no slightest stir, no kick within.

As the labor pains intensified, the howling wind outside suddenly turned into a sharp,

high-pitched sound resembling human screams. The house shook violently, as if its

foundations were being rattled. The rotten wooden planks in the ceiling began to groan

and creak ominously. As Nurten Hanım tried to understand what was happening, the

eyes of the woman on the bed suddenly turned completely white, her pupils vanishing

entirely.

The woman began to speak, but the voice wasn't hers. It came from her throat, a thick,

deep, metallic, and muffled sound:

“Belkıs has returned... Her child... Now her child... You will birth it... You will help...”

Nurten Hanım recoiled in horror. At that moment, she understood: This was no ordinary

birth. This was a terrifying ritual. A thousand-year-old curse was reawakening.

Just then, whispers rose from within the house. It was as if voices were speaking from

within the walls, from under the ground, from far away – incomprehensible but demonic

sounds. “Belkıs... Belkıs... Belkıs...” echoed from every corner.

The lying woman suddenly sat up with unnatural strength. She sat cross-legged on the

bed. Her belly still swollen, unnervingly still. Black, viscous tears streamed from her

eyes, leaving repulsive trails on her cheeks. And then... from the darkest corner of the

room, something emerged from within the shadows.

That thing... It tried to resemble a woman, but it was not human. It was Belkıs. The

forgotten witch of Bitlis. Its body was crooked like rotten planks, its back hunched like a

sack of bones. Its face was covered by a black, shiny, oily veil, as if stretched in agony,

but even beneath the veil, it was clear that where its eyes should be, there were only

empty, dark, bottomless pits. When you looked into these pits, it felt as if they were

sucking all the light out of you. On its hands, at the tips of its bony fingers, were black,

shiny, obsidian-like claws that curved and were as sharp as razors. It didn't walk; it

moved by gliding, undulating, like a being whose joints didn't bend like a human's,

slithering along the floor. As it moved, the smell emanating from it intensified,

thickening the air. The only sound it made was a wet, nasal rasp, like an old animal’s

guttural wheeze.

Nurten Hanım’s feet were nailed to the floor. Her body had turned to ice. She couldn't

take a single step, nor could she utter the slightest scream from her throat. Belkıs

glided to the side of the laboring woman and leaned over her face, whispering in that

muffled, rasping voice:

“You called me... You fulfilled your promise... Now I take it... What is mine...”

And then... with a horrifying sound, the lying woman’s belly suddenly tore open as if it

had burst. From within, a hideous creature was born, coiled like a large snake, its skin

covered in scales, damp and pitch black, writhing. It didn’t cry. It only let out a high-

pitched, ear-splitting hiss. Belkıs grasped the thing with her long, bony arms, pulled it

beneath her black veil, and slid back the way she came, slithering and undulating,

vanishing into the darkness.

Everything stopped in an instant. The whispers ceased. The howling wind fell silent. The

terrifying tension in the house suddenly drained away. The woman lay on the bed, her

belly torn open, like dead.

Nurten Hanım tried to regain her composure. Her entire body was trembling. It was

impossible for her to grasp what she had seen, what she had experienced. Stammering,

stumbling, she went outside. The village was dark, utterly dark. Not a single light was on

in any house. She ran back to her car in the square. With shaking hands, she turned the

key in the ignition. The engine started. Without even looking back, she sped away from

that horrifying village.

Three Months Later

Nurten Hanım couldn’t tell anyone what had happened. Even when she tried to speak of

it, the words would catch in her throat. She received psychological support, but no

treatment could explain what she had witnessed. She couldn’t sleep at night. Every

night, in her dreams, she saw that black-veiled, hunched figure, Belkıs. In her ears,

those whispers, that rasping voice, still echoed. She would wake up screaming every

night.

One day, she saw a short news report about a deserted village in Bitlis. Gölçukuru. It

said that the village, which didn’t appear on any official records or maps, had been

completely evacuated. According to the news, the gendarmerie stated they couldn't

find any information about the incident, nor any records about the identities of the

villagers who lived there. It was as if the people in that village had never existed.

And in the last line of the news report, there was a sentence that chilled Nurten Hanım

to the bone:

“The only trace found during the investigation in the village was the same word written

on the walls in blood or an unknown substance: BELKIS.”

The curse of Belkıs of Bitlis is not merely a legend... Perhaps she is still out there, in the

darkness, waiting for the return of her horrifying child. And perhaps one day, with the

sound of a telephone, she will appear again to call another life...