The Pale Procession

I was born in Bern, Switzerland, but my family is originally from Istanbul. My name is Elif, and I’ve always felt caught between worlds. The story I’m about to tell you happened when I was seventeen, in the autumn of 2016, and it still stalks my dreams.

Every morning, I took the same route to my gymnasium: a short walk from our apartment to the tram stop, a twenty-minute ride through the old town, and then a brisk ten-minute walk up the hill to the school gates. That particular Thursday, a few friends and I had decided to wear white, a kind of silent protest against the gloominess of October. There were four of us: Gül, whose parents were from Ankara; Hana, a Bosnian refugee; Sofia, half-Russian, half-Italian; and me. We were a motley crew, bound by our outsider status in this orderly country.

As we gathered at the tram stop, shivering in our light jackets, Gül laughed nervously. ‘We look like a wedding party without a groom.’ Hana, who knew a thing or two about graveyards, said, ‘In my country, we wear white for the dead.’ A shadow crossed her face, but the tram arrived, and we piled in, the high-pitched whine of the rails drowning out our chatter.

We got off at the Mattenhof stop, which was usually bustling with office workers and students. But today, as we stepped onto the platform, there was a strange stillness. The autumn air was colder than usual, and a fine mist coiled around the lamp posts. We walked up the cobblestone lane that led to the school, but something felt different. The street was empty. No cars, no pedestrians, not even a stray cat. The only sound was our footsteps echoing off the old buildings.

We rounded a corner, and there it was: a procession coming down the middle of the road. At first, I thought it was a funeral, but there was no hearse, no mourners in black. Instead, a line of people, all dressed in white, walked slowly, their heads bowed. They carried no flowers, no candles. They moved in perfect silence, their faces hidden under wide-brimmed hats that cast shadows over their features. My friends stopped, and so did I. We watched, frozen, as the procession drew nearer.

They were not human. Not exactly. As they passed us, I looked at their hands. They had too many fingers—six, seven, each one longer than the last—and their skin was the color of old parchment, stretched too tightly over protruding bones. The white fabric of their robes seemed to flap against their bodies, but there was no wind. And their feet, oh god, their feet did not touch the ground. They glided, a few centimeters above the cobblestones, leaving no marks.

One of them, a tall figure at the front, turned its head toward us. I saw its face: not a face, but a smooth, blank mask of bone. No eyes, no nose, no mouth. But it seemed to see us, because it stopped. The entire procession halted. Gül let out a strangled whimper. Hana grabbed my arm, her nails digging in. The tall creature raised a hand—a hand of pale, boneless fingers—and pointed at us. And then, all of them, in unison, let out a sound: a low, resonant hum that vibrated in my chest.

The sound was not threatening, not exactly. But it came with a smell, like wet earth and something sweet, like rotting flowers. And with that hum, the world around us began to change. The colors of the buildings drained to gray. The clouds above swirled into a tight spiral. My friends and I felt a pull, as if the hum was calling us forward, into the line. I tried to speak, to scream, but my voice was gone.

Gül moved first. Her eyes went vacant, and she stepped into the procession, taking her place behind the tall stranger. Sofia followed, then Hana, each one joining the silent march as if guided by an invisible hand. But when the creature turned to me, I felt a sudden, fierce resistance from within me. I was not going to follow. I bit my tongue, tasted blood, and the pain snapped something in my mind. I turned and ran, or tried to, but my legs felt like weights. I stumbled back, away from the procession, and the front of the school gates loomed ahead.

I reached the gate, but the procession had now filled the entire street, blocking my view of my friends. The hum grew louder, and I saw the white-clad figures begin to drift backward, toward me. I threw myself at the gate, somehow forcing it open, and tumbled onto the school’s gravel path. As I lay there, gasping, the hum finally faded, and when I looked up, the street was empty again. The sun came out, weak and watery. My friends were gone.

The police never found them. Three girls disappeared on a Thursday morning in a quiet Swiss town. They searched the woods, the river, the mountains. Nothing. But I know where they are. I see them every time I look out my window at night. The procession still walks, in the gray spaces between this world and the next, and my friends are leading it now, dressed in white, waiting for the day when I will join them.

I’ve since moved to Istanbul, far from that cursed street, but the procession found me here. Last week, I saw Gül in the crowd at a bazaar, wearing a white scarf, her eyes dark and empty. And now, as I write this, I can hear a low hum outside my window, rising and falling like a breath. I know they are coming. And I know that, this time, I will not be able to run.