Prologue
Sometimes a journey doesn’t begin with a step – but with a glance.
A photo, torn from a magazine and forgotten on a breezy windowsill.
Or a breath you suddenly hold, without knowing why.
Efendi stood by the window, gazing at the mountains. Life in Alaya was unchanged – sheep in the valley, clouds above, the scent of smoke and fresh bread in the air. He didn’t know he had already begun walking. That his heart was already on the move.
The photograph slipped out of an old album like a stray ticket.
A girl – unknown, unnamed – with a face you couldn’t look away from. Not conventionally beautiful. Just… a gaze that held something he hadn’t realized he was missing.
And in that moment, Efendi understood: he had to find her.
Not because he knew her. But because he recognized himself.
That was how the journey began.
First – outward. Then – inward.
Chapter 1. Efendi: The Path to Love
In a mountain village called Alaya, nestled among snowy peaks and crystal-clear springs, lived a young man named Efendi. He had just turned eighteen—the age when the heart yearns for love, and the soul begins to search for a great dream. He was a simple boy: hardworking, kind, with a clear gaze and a nature as pure as the mountain air.
One evening, flipping through old magazines in his uncle’s library, he stumbled upon a photograph. And from that moment, something within him changed forever. In the picture was a girl—Cindy.
Her image was caught in golden light, almost frozen in time. Her hair—ash-blonde, with hints of silver—looked like moonlight on snow. Soft waves cascaded over her shoulders, giving her an ethereal grace. Her eyes—gray-green like a mountain lake in morning mist—looked at the camera with a quiet confidence, as if she already knew that somewhere, someone was destined to find her. Her face was clear and radiant, with a faint freckle near her left temple, and her lips—like they had just been kissed by a gust of wind. Not a trace of arrogance. Only light. And silence.
Efendi stared at the photo, unable to look away. She wasn’t just a girl—she was his future, his fate.
“She’s the one,” he whispered. “I’ll find her. I’ll win her heart. I’ll do everything, so that one day she smiles at me—not from paper, but right here, under our sky.”
From that day, his great journey began—not only across lands and roads, but along the path of the heart. He had no map. Only a goal. A dream. And a name he now repeated like a prayer:
