The door to Asha's hostel room clicked shut, muffling the roar of the city, but it couldn't quiet the noise inside her head.
She stood in the center of the cramped space, breathing in the familiar scent of cheap floor cleaner and damp walls. Her hostel was a place for people in transit, people who were "almost" somewhere else. For Asha, it felt like a cage she had built for herself.
She didn't come from money. She didn't come from a name that could open locked doors or a family that could catch her if she fell. She was middle-class. Ordinary. Invisible.
Asha walked to the small sink and splashed cold water on her face, staring at her reflection. Every line of her face was earned. Every step she had ever taken forward came with a shadow of fear attached to it. She didn't know how to rest. Staying still felt like a sin, a dangerous luxury she couldn't afford. If she sat down for more than an hour, the guilt would crawl up her throat—reminding her of the family depending on her, of the younger sister she loved too fiercely to ever let down.
Her sister was already thriving in the tech industry, a beacon of success that Asha used to measure her own failure. I can't be the weak one, she whispered to the cracked mirror. I can't be the burden.
She was an interior designer by trade, but her soul lived in the blueprints of buildings she would never be allowed to build. Architecture was the dream, but dreams were expensive, and reality was a landlord who demanded rent on the first of the month.
She opened her laptop. The screen glowed, illuminating the dozens of "Thank you for your interest, but..." emails. Each rejection felt like a personal slap, a cold reminder that she wasn't wanted. Anxiety had settled into her bones, making her joints ache.
What if I end up jobless? What if I vanish?
She reached into the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out a small, cheap bottle of whiskey. It wasn't for the taste. It was for the silence. It was to kill the hunger she felt after skipping lunch to save a few coins. It was to forget that the hardworking woman she once was had turned into someone merely surviving.
She had no close friends. No one to call when the walls felt like they were closing in. Pride, fear, or perhaps just a deep-seated shame stopped her from asking for help. Love? Love wasn't an option. It was a distraction for people with full stomachs and clear futures.
Then, she looked at her phone.
The contact "Roy" stared back at her. Her mind flickered to the morning—to the smell of jasmine in Roy's house and the terrifying, protective intensity in Rohan's eyes. For a moment, she felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the alcohol.
But then, the darkness returned.
She walked to the window and pulled the curtain back just a fraction. There, across the street, near the dim streetlamp, stood a shadow. A man. He didn't move. He just watched.
The stalker.
As if life hadn't been cruel enough, it had given her a predator to match her poverty. She let the curtain fall, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Asha didn't know it yet—but the careful, lonely balance she had built just to stay alive was already gone. The world of Night Heaven, the masked singer, and the arrogant playboy had already begun to bleed into her gray reality. She was no longer invisible. And in the dark, being seen was the most dangerous thing of all.