Robed Nightmares | A True Horror Story

True Horror Story | A businessman from Sakarya pays the price for his family’s cursed fortune through nightmares. He tries to unravel the secret of the treasure his father found and the robed figures. Here is that terrifying story.

I’ve lived in Sakarya almost my entire life. I was once a very prominent businessman, but now I’m more small-scale. I run a small timber factory. I don’t want to use my real name or company name. Sakarya is a small place; there isn’t anyone here who doesn’t know our timber factory.

I come from a large family. We were seven siblings: two older brothers and four older sisters. Now, only one older brother remains. My sisters are alive and well, with no troubles because they didn’t touch the money left by my father. I am 44 years old and by far the youngest of the siblings; there’s a 10-year age gap between me and the next oldest. We had construction projects and timber factories in many cities, including Istanbul. We had vast business networks. We were numerically small but a large family, powerful, very powerful. Today, almost all that’s left is a small factory in Sakarya. Sometimes I say it’s better this way. It really is better this way.

My father was a good man. He was well-known and well-loved in Sakarya. As far as we know, he never wronged anyone; he was a respectable, charitable person. The people here knew my father very well; they always remembered him with respect. My mother, however, is harder to describe. She was generally good too, but she had occasional crises, attacks. When I was a child, everyone would leave the house, and only my mother and I would stay. I was very young, but I remember; it’s impossible to forget. When everyone left, my mother would scream “Oh God, Oh God!” until someone came home. When they returned, she would either withdraw to her room for the whole evening or continue her life as if nothing had happened. As for me, sometimes I cried, sometimes I didn’t know what to do. I was terrified. Shortly after, my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. After that, following a few difficult years, she passed away. I don’t want to go into too much detail; those familiar with this disease know.

Ours is a cursed family. Rich, but perhaps cursed precisely because of this money. Ever since my father died and the management of the money passed to my older brothers, no one in this family has smiled for even a moment. There was a 12-year age gap between my younger older brother and me, meaning I had no say in anything; I was a child. My brothers, on the other hand, were both irresponsible, only spending money, unable to run the factories, putting people into debt with the construction projects, and not quite mentally sound. Until that day…

I was 16 years old. Both of my older brothers were married, each with two children. My older brother, who seemingly had a happy home, was actually not happy at all. Despite being married, he had bankrupted the factory he ran by spending money in nightclubs (pavyon) and had come to the factory run by my younger older brother. Here, he gave my younger brother no peace, acting as if this factory was also his. Not only that, it’s difficult to say, but my older brother wanted to possess my younger brother’s wife, even his entire family. You’d have to be blind or stupid not to see that my older brother envied my younger brother’s family. However, my younger brother couldn’t say anything to his older brother. Despite warning his wife repeatedly, he didn’t want to cause trouble for his brother. One day, my older brother came drunk to my younger brother’s garden and said incomprehensible things to my younger brother’s wife. Then he passed out there. Imagine the scale of the incident.

Finally, my younger brother’s eyes were opened too, and he started distancing himself from his older brother. But my older brother had no intention of giving up. He constantly drank and called my younger brother, cursing and fighting over the phone. This went on for a few months. Finally, one day, the day none of us can ever forget, my older brother called my younger brother. To this day, nobody knows what they talked about, but at the end of the conversation, my younger brother left the house without saying anything to anyone. It was around 9-10 PM when he left. I remember him coming back around 4 AM. Again, without saying anything to anyone, he went up to his room; everyone else was already asleep.

The next day, as I did every day, I went to the factory around noon. The workers – and by workers, I mean people who had been with us for years, whom we knew well – were sitting in the yard, smoking. “What are you doing, why aren’t you working?” I asked. After all, I was the ‘little boss’; that’s what they called me. “The door’s locked,” they said. This was very strange. Even stranger was that my older brother’s car was parked at the door. Meaning my older brother should be inside. I found it odd, but since my older brother drank constantly, I didn’t dwell on it. I reached for my key and opened the door. As soon as I opened it, I was confronted with that scene. It was such a scene that I don’t think even the workers could ever erase it from their minds.

There was a small two-seater sofa in the entrance; he used to nap on it occasionally. My older brother was sitting upright on that sofa. The first thing we all saw was the same: not the bloody skull, not the gun in his hand, but the huge smile on his face! Yes, my brother looked like he had shot himself, and on his face, that dead face, was a massive smile. If the workers hadn’t seen it too, I would have thought I was hallucinating, but we all saw it. His eyes were wide open, and his mouth was grinning, showing all 32 teeth. It’s impossible to express what I felt in words; fear, shock, and above all, horror.

We immediately called an ambulance. There was no chance of saving my brother, but we had no other number to call. First, the ambulance arrived, then the police. On that hellish day, my younger brother was nowhere to be found. The police spoke to each of us individually. The incident looked like a suicide, but where was my younger brother? What had they talked about on the phone last night? Why had he come home so late? Why had he not come to the factory today, which was unusual for him? Believe me, I still haven’t been able to get the answers to these questions from my brother, even today. Had my older brother committed suicide? Or had my younger brother, unable to bear his disrespect any longer, finally snapped? We still don’t know. Although we were uncertain, the case was officially ruled a suicide, and my younger brother, after giving his statement, was released like the rest of us.

After that day, he barely spoke to me. He’s retired now, and after closing that big factory, I run this smaller one we opened. He doesn’t interfere with anything, doesn’t take a single penny from here. He distanced himself from the family and the family money, just like my sisters did initially. Understanding why he did this happened almost immediately after everything fell to me.

The first week I took over the factory management, I started having dreams. Actually, they were almost identical dreams, so much so that I could say they were the same. In my dream, I was at our factory; not the current small new factory, but the first factory, the one from my father’s time. The factory where my brother killed himself. I’m all alone. All the machines are stopped, there’s a biting cold. Four figures enter through the factory door in sequence. They are dressed in black from head to toe. In the already dark factory, they surround me. I can’t see their faces; they wear black robes over their heads. In unison, they say only one thing: “Pay your debt!”

At first, I dismissed it as a nightmare, didn’t take it seriously. But the frequency of its recurrence increased day by day. While I used to have these dreams once a week, once a month, eventually I started having them every day, yes, every single day. The same dream: I’m in the factory, all alone, suddenly the doors open, and these four robed men enter, surround me, and tell me to pay my debt. I started going crazy. “What debt?” I’d wake up in fear. Imagine having the same nightmare every night and waking up like this every morning. Every night, “What is this debt?” I couldn’t sleep anymore. I became afraid to sleep at night.

“What debt?” I thought it was the factory’s debts. I called the accountant. “List them,” I said, “all the debts, receivables, payables.” He did. We owed no one. I mean, businesses always have debts, but there were no debts that were due, past due, or even approaching their due date. But my dreams didn’t stop. A few days later, even at the cost of putting the factory at a loss, I paid off the debts that weren’t even due yet. I made early payments on all of them, didn’t shortchange a single penny. But no, no, the dreams didn’t stop! I’m in the factory, all alone, four robed men enter and repeatedly, incessantly, say only one thing: “Pay your debt!”

I started not being scared in my dreams anymore, even getting angry. “What debt?” I yelled at them. “I paid! I even paid debts that weren’t due yet!” I yelled. “I have no debt!” I yelled. And truly, I had no debt. Neither the factory nor I personally owed anyone anything. But my dreams never stopped. I was really about to lose my mind. I would reluctantly fall asleep once every 4-5 days. When you’re sleep-deprived, your days pass like a dream, and you struggle to distinguish these dream-like days from actual dreams. That’s what happened to me. I couldn’t tell when I was dreaming and when I was awake anymore.

I tried everything. I went to the doctor, got prescriptions for lots of medicine. These medicines only made me sleep more, but I never wanted to sleep anymore. Even if I napped for 5 minutes, I was always in that dream. I started giving large amounts of money to beggars. I provided all kinds of help to needy families here. I even gave a brand-new house from our own construction project to a homeless worker. But it didn’t work; my dreams didn’t stop. The thought “Am I going crazy?” started occupying a huge space in my mind. Was I going crazy? Was this why my brothers went crazy too? Which brother’s fate would be mine? Would I be murdered? Would I become a murderer? Or would I kill myself? Whatever this debt was, whoever it belonged to, I had to find it immediately and pay it.

My dreams still continued; they never lessened or ceased. Four robed men enter the factory and tell me in unison, “Pay your debt!” And I would wake up in fear, terror, and anger. One morning, it occurred to me: Who were these robed figures? You can’t think as clearly in a dream as you normally do, and after waking up, you don’t really remember your thoughts from the dream. But I would have plenty of chances to ask, “Who are you?” After all, I had the same dream every time I slept. After a few attempts, I managed to ask them. I screamed in anger: “Who are you?” They didn’t answer. They either just stood there or repeated what they had been repeating for years: “Pay your debt!”

I brought the factory to the brink of bankruptcy. I couldn’t borrow from anyone, couldn’t do business on credit. Not doing business on credit means reducing your business volume to a tenth. But I couldn’t even bear to hear the word ‘debt’ anymore. I paid no heed to what the workers or the accountant said. During this process, I changed accountants 6 times, so you can understand the situation.

Again, I’m in the same dream. I was alone in the factory, and again those four damned robed men come, surround me in the freezing cold, and speak in unison. “Who are you?” I said, tearing myself apart now. You feel it even in a dream, you feel yourself… The moment I was sure they would never answer, they fell silent. One of them slowly lowered his hood. Have you ever felt boiling water poured over your head in a dream? I did. Under the hood was my father. My own father, my father who died years ago. Then the one to his left lowered his hood. The water pouring over my head got hotter, more scalding each time. Under the second hood was my older brother; the deceased one, the one who killed himself. Then the one to his left lowered his hood, and under it was my younger brother; the younger brother I hadn’t seen or spoken to since I was 16. And then I woke up. Although it’s very obvious today looking back who was under the last hood, I would have this dream countless more times without knowing who was under it. My dreams didn’t stop despite everything. Yes, there was progress, but they didn’t stop, didn’t lessen.

Maybe he was a murderer, but I had nothing else I could do, no one else I could call. I called my younger brother. We had a warehouse just outside Sakarya where my father kept his business documents. We hadn’t used this warehouse since the old factory closed, perhaps even since my father died. The key to this place was with my older brother. But somehow, I knew this key was now with my younger brother. First, I asked how he was; we hadn’t seen each other for almost 20 years. “I’m fine,” he said, but it was clear from every sentence, every pause, that he didn’t mean it, that he didn’t want to talk to me. I had no intention of prolonging the conversation either. I asked him for the warehouse key. “I’ll drop it off at the factory tomorrow,” he said, but I didn’t have the patience to wait a night. “No! Give me your address, I’ll come and get it!” I said. He gave it. I went and got the key. Even though it was late at night, I drove all that way and got the key from him. Now I would drive another 2-3 hours and check that warehouse. Maybe we owed someone from the old days. I would sift through those hundreds of documents from a bygone era, again and again if necessary, find out who we owed, how much, even if it was just a penny, and pay it all back, with interest.

I took the key and, just as I said, went straight to the warehouse. I arrived at the warehouse towards morning. I hadn’t been here since childhood, and even as a child, I had only come perhaps two or three times by chance. I went inside; the lights were still working. Inside, there were only shelved libraries, and in the libraries, only blue document files. There were so many documents. Imagine a 100-square-meter room filled only with documents. I would look through each one, find out what we owed. Without wasting any time, I started from the far left corner and spent hours carefully examining every page in every document, every line on every page. There was nothing noteworthy here, nothing at all. Towards the middle, I started losing hope. I was getting very sleepy; I hadn’t slept in days, and it was almost morning. I fell asleep.

Again, the same dream. The same factory, the same four robed men, and the same sentence: “Pay your debt!” “Who are you?” I screamed now. I was yelling at the top of my lungs in my dream: “Who are you?” Again, they started lowering their hoods from the left. First hood, my father; second, my deceased older brother; third, my estranged younger brother. It was the fourth one’s turn, and this time I didn’t wake up suddenly. The second I realized I hadn’t woken up, I jumped up furiously and grabbed the fourth one by the collar. “Who are you? Who?” I yelled at him. He gently took my arms, pulled my hands from his collar, and slowly lowered his hood. Oh my God! It was me! The fourth robed person was me. I froze, my breath caught, I couldn’t breathe. In my dream, I was looking at my own dead face, at myself. It was me. My father, my brother, and my younger brother, the other robed figures, were no longer in the dream. There was only one robed figure, and it was me. I was looking at myself with dead eyes. This time, he grabbed me by the collar and said the same thing again: “Pay your debt!”

When I woke up, I was in the warehouse. I had fallen asleep on the floor amidst the documents. Did I faint or just fall asleep? I don’t know. Since I could only sleep once a week, I no longer remembered the moments I was awake, the moments I slept, or the moments I fell asleep. I continued checking the documents for a few more hours and finally found what I was looking for. A note gently fell to the floor from inside one of the documents. The floor was covered in papers and files, but this note fell right in front of me, right in my line of sight. It was impossible to miss. I picked it up but couldn’t read it. The note was in Arabic, and I didn’t know a single word of Arabic. But I knew this note would solve my problem, perhaps because I had no other choice but to believe so. “This note will end my dreams,” I said. Thank God, it did.

I took the note and brought it to a man here whom I knew was Arab. This man wasn’t a friend or anything; we had done business a few months ago and were satisfied. He was the first person who came to mind, and without wasting any time, I immediately headed to the man’s workshop. When I arrived, the man wasn’t there, but his son was. I tried not to show my state too much, but the boy must have realized I was going crazy because he seemed quite startled. “Can you translate this?” I asked him. The boy fearfully said, “Sir, I was born here, I don’t know Arabic, I can’t read it.” “When will your father be back?” I asked. “I don’t know, sir,” he said. “Call him,” I said. I realize now that I really scared the boy, I was rude. He spoke to his father and came back, saying, “Sir, he says it will take an hour or two, maybe don’t wait if you don’t want to.” “No,” I said, “I’m waiting here.” They offered tea, coffee, water, food, all in turn. I didn’t eat or drink anything. I was waiting impatiently. Hours, minutes, seconds dragged on. Checking my watch every 2 minutes, I waited for the man for exactly 2 hours and 45 minutes.

He finally arrived. Before he could even say, “Sir, how are you?” I thrust the note into his hand. “Tell me,” I said, “what does it say here? Tell me right now!” I demanded. The man was stunned, naturally. Like a madman, I had first scared his son, then waited for hours in his shop, fidgeting restlessly, and grabbed the man by the collar the moment he arrived. The man glanced at the paper. “Sir,” he said, “calm down.” I don’t know if he understood or not, but after looking at the paper, he acted as if he understood my situation. “This is a treasure map, sir,” he said. Or rather, directions. “Where does it describe?” I asked. We struggled a bit, but eventually, we figured out the location described was our first factory. At least, I understood. “It describes the type, amount, and location of the treasure,” he said. I had him translate it down to the smallest word, the letter, multiple times. The treasure was right under our first factory, and it was gold.

“How do you know?” you’ll ask, but I swear, at that moment, I understood everything. I said “Okay” to the man, thanked him, took the note from his hand, and left. I knew exactly what to do, and what had happened. Neither my dreams nor anyone else told me this, but I knew. My father had found this treasure, and that’s how we became rich. The curse of this treasure first drove my mother mad, then my father, then my older brother, then my younger brother. Now it was my turn. But I would never allow it. My sleepless, crazed years were over.

Whatever the current value of the gold written here was, or even if it was worth more, its value on that day, I would distribute a fortune of that amount, no matter what, to the needy people I knew here. There were workers in difficult situations, struggling to make ends meet. Some of them had been working with us since my father’s time. I told our accountant the value of the gold written there. “Find someone who understands this, calculate exactly how much it is, down to the last penny,” I said. “Okay,” he replied. A few days later, he found someone. Can you believe it, neither during those few days nor afterwards did I have a single dream? Not just that dream, but no dream at all. I wasn’t dreaming anymore. Since that day, I haven’t had a single dream, good or bad.

The calculated amount was equivalent to more than half of the assets remaining to me, but it didn’t matter anymore. My dreams had ended. Without a shred of regret, I distributed a large portion to my workers. Most of them quit, of course, it doesn’t matter. I distributed the remaining part to the needy people I knew here. My father was an honorable, dignified man, but he hadn’t reached this point through his own efforts, and he hadn’t fulfilled the desires of the treasure that brought him to this point. My brothers, having grown up rich, didn’t even know what it meant to be needy. I don’t know if my brothers or my father had these dreams, but I’m almost certain they did. I did what they couldn’t do, and I paid my debt.

I’m deliberately not writing the amount, but believe me, it’s staggering for a normal person. Did I do the right thing or the wrong thing? I still don’t know today. But since that day, I have never had a dream again.