It was 2016. Me, my brother, a friend and his mum went to a barbecue restaurant in the rural area of Buca district of Izmir. On the way back, it got pretty dark. So my friend confused the road and we arrived at a residential area with 30, 40 households near there.
When we realised we were lost, we decided to ask someone for directions. We stopped the car and asked someone we met on the road for directions. The man we asked for directions looked at us with disgust for a while and then left without answering. To some extent, it was reasonable for a man not to want to talk to strangers he met in the middle of the night. However, that disgusted look was not only unnecessary but also a very strange reaction. We found it strange, but we didn’t dwell on it too much; we had more important problems at that moment.
Anyway; we asked someone else a little further but he gave the same reaction as the man before. We had to keep going and look for someone else to ask for directions. Then we entered a field-like place. There was nothing around. When we went on for a while, we found ourselves in that village-like place again. Again, we asked someone we saw for directions. This time, the man just pointed ahead with his walking stick without speaking.
It was quite strange that nobody spoke to us. It was as if they were trying to make us feel that we were not wanted there. It was not only the behaviour of the people we met that was strange. The dogs in the neighbourhood also started to growl when they saw us. The people we asked questions to had already disappeared when we took a second look at them. This was a second strangeness, but I think we were ignoring this situation in order not to frighten ourselves unnecessarily.
We started to go towards where the man pointed us. We went for a few kilometres, but the places we went were always the same. It was as if we were trapped in a labyrinth with invisible walls. My friend, me and my brother started to get scared. We started to recite the prayers we knew. At some point we saw a road. We turned there. We saw that there was a municipality bus on the road. We started to follow it. We said at least we’ll get to the main street.
The bus was stopping and we were stopping. Passengers were getting off; they were looking at us and their eyes were wide open as if they were surprised or scared… This situation continued like this for a few stops. At some point the bus had to make a turn. So we could see the inside of the bus from the side. When we looked in through the windows of the bus, we could not see anyone inside.
However, when the bus stopped at the next stop, a lot of people got out of the door of the bus. Lots of people getting off the empty bus! When they got off, they gave the same frightened and surprised reaction as the previous ones. When we turned our heads to look at them a second time, they had disappeared. Since we had no other choice, we continued to follow the bus, but scared… There was no direct threat to us, but the successive oddities created a tension in our minds. I think it is actually instinctive, the sense of the unknown brings the subconscious fears to the surface. It makes you feel threatened.
During the chase, the bus turned to the right and we did the same, but the bus had disappeared. It was a municipality bus, the huge bus was not in front of us. So we started shouting and crying. On the one hand we were praying, my friend was on the accelerator like crazy. After a few kilometres we reached the street and our fear and panic subsided a little. This lasted about 2 hours and finally we reached a normal street. Then we reached home. We couldn’t get over the fear of that night for a long time. I still get scared when I drive through deserted places at night.
