The ICU smelt faintly of antiseptic and plastic, a sterile quiet broken only by the rhythmic beeping of machines. The sound was steady, almost metronomic, as if it were counting something precious and finite.
Hidayah lay propped slightly on the bed now; sedation was reduced enough for awareness to return in slow, heavy waves. Consciousness did not come back all at once. It arrived in fragments: the weight of the blanket, the dryness in her throat, the dull pressure across her middle.
Her body hurt in places she hadn't yet mapped.
Her abdomen was wrapped tight, pressure bandages firm and unmoving, a foreign presence that made her acutely aware of every breath she took. Each inhale tugged at something deep inside her, not sharp pain, not yet—more like a warning, a reminder that her body had been opened and carefully, painstakingly put back together. The pain was dulled and distant, kept at bay by the clear line of the IV drip at her side.
She blinked slowly, grounding herself in the ceiling lights, in the steady beep, and in the simple fact of breathing.
Alive.
That thought came first. Not fear. Not anger. Just the steady, disbelieving awareness that she was still here. The memory of what had happened hovered at the edges of her mind, mercifully blurred, as if her body and brain had conspired to keep it from her for a little while longer.
A nurse noticed her stirring and approached immediately, footsteps soft, voice softer. "You're doing well," she said. "Your vitals are stable. No talking yet, okay? Just nod or shake your head."
Hidayah nodded, the movement small but deliberate.
The nurse adjusted something, checked a monitor, then stepped aside.
A moment later, the curtain drew back slightly.
Khairul stood there.
He had been sitting before—she realised this from the way he rose too quickly, as if he'd been holding himself in one position for far too long. He looked the way he always did in uniform: straight-backed and controlled. But his face gave him away. There were shadows beneath his eyes, and something tightly held in his expression.
"You're awake," he said. Relief was unmistakable in his voice, though he tried to keep it steady and contained.
He didn't rush to her. Didn't crowd her. Didn't touch her without permission. He just stayed where she could see him, as if he needed to make sure she was real.
She lifted her fingers weakly, a small, uncertain gesture.
He took her hand instantly but gently, as though she might break. His palm was warm and solid. Grounding.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Khairul swallowed. He had faced too many things that were meant to be frightening, but none of them had prepared him for the sight of her lying here, wrapped in tubes and bandages, still and pale and almost lost.
He tightened his grip just a little, careful not to hurt her.
And Hidayah, feeling the steady warmth of him, let her eyes close again—this time not from exhaustion, but from the fragile, overwhelming relief of not being alone.
----------
Officer Shahrizal Othman waited outside the curtain until the nurse gave a small, professional nod. Only then did he step in, accompanied by another officer in plain clothes. Both of them carried themselves with the quiet formality of people who had learnt how to enter rooms where something fragile was still trying to hold together.
The ICU smelt the same as it had all morning—clean, faintly chemical, impersonal. Shahrizal took in the scene quickly and without staring: the monitors, the IV line, the bandages across Hidayah's abdomen, the way she lay propped up rather than flat. He noted Khairul at her side, their hands joined, and the tension in the man's posture that did not quite leave even when he was standing still.
"Hidayah, Khairul. " Shahrizal said quietly. His tone was warm and familiar but careful. "Good to see you both again. I'm glad you're awake."
Hidayah managed a small nod.
Shahrizal stepped slightly to one side. "This is my partner, Officer Gabriel Lim. He'll be assisting with the case."
Officer Lim inclined his head in a brief, respectful greeting.
"We won't take a full statement today," Shahrizal continued, returning his attention to Hidayah. "Only confirmation of key facts, if you're able. If you feel tired or unwell at any point, we'll stop immediately."
Her fingers tightened slightly around Khairul's hand, not in pain, but in something closer to instinct.
"I'll be right here," Khairul murmured, leaning in just enough for her to hear.
She took a slow breath, feeling the pull in her abdomen, the reminder of stitches and damage beneath the bandages. Then she nodded again.
Shahrizal took out a small notebook. His pen hovered, ready but unhurried.
The questions were brief. Precise. Designed to establish structure where memory was still scattered.
"Do you recognise the assailant?"
"Yes," she said. Her voice came out hoarse, thinner than she expected. "Hi is Michael Ng Kok Hui."
Saying the full name made something in her chest tighten. It made him real again, not just a blurred shape or a shadow at the edge of recollection.
"Did he say anything before the attack?"
She closed her eyes for a moment. The room felt too bright, too quiet. The memory surfaced not as images, but as fragments of sound.
"He… said I was supposed to remember," she said quietly. "That I was lying to him. That I was pretending I didn't know him."
Shahrizal's pen paused for half a second before moving again.
"Did he threaten you verbally?"
"Yes."
"Was there any provocation on your part?"
"Yes."
The word landed heavier than she expected.
"What did you do when you saw it?"
"I tried to stop him." Her fingers curled slightly against the blanket. "I tried to grab his arm. I thought… I thought I could push it away."
Her breath came a little uneven now, and she waited for it to settle before continuing.
"I didn't realise he'd stabbed me," she said. "Not at first. I thought he'd just shoved me. It didn't hurt like I expected it to."
Shahrizal looked up at her. Just for a moment.
"When did you realise you were injured?"
"When I felt something warm," she said. "And then my legs started to feel strange. Weak."
"Did he say anything after that?"
"No. He just… looked at me. I remembered people trying to hold him."
"Was there any provocation on your part?"
"No."
The answer came more firmly this time.
Shahrizal nodded once, as if that answer fit into something already forming in his head.
"That's all for now," he said, closing his notebook.
He glanced briefly at Khairul, then back at Hidayah.
"Given the severity of the offence and the breach of the PPO," he continued, "we will be recommending remand and further psychiatric assessment. Bail is unlikely."
Khairul exhaled slowly, his shoulders loosening just a fraction, as though he had been holding something in place by sheer force of will.
Hidayah did not feel relief exactly. What she felt was something closer to safety being put back into the world in small, procedural steps. Paperwork. Recommendations. Locked doors.
"What happens next?" she asked, her voice barely more than a breath.
"He's currently in custody," Shahrizal replied. "We will return for the full statement when you're medically fit. There may also be a victim care officer who will follow up with you regarding protection measures and court proceedings."
She nodded again, though the words blurred together at the edges.
Shahrizal hesitated, then added, "Your existing PPO will be strengthened. We'll also liaise with your family, if you consent."
"Yes," she said. "Please."
He acknowledged it with another small nod.
"If you remember anything else—anything at all—tell your dad or Khairul; they have my contact details."
He did not offer comfort. He did not offer platitudes. Only process. Only structure.
And somehow, that was enough.
When the officers left, the curtain sliding back into place, the room seemed to grow quieter, as if it had been holding its breath.
Hidayah realised her hand was trembling.
Khairul tightened his grip gently. "It's over," he said, though he did not quite sound like he believed it himself.
She looked at the ceiling, at the steady, unchanging lights, and thought not of endings, but of the strange, careful machinery of survival—how it moved forward not in leaps, but in steps. Reports. Signatures. Quiet assurances.
And for now, that was what held her together.
----------
The witnesses came next.
Two men — strangers — who had intervened without hesitation.
They were interviewed in separate rooms, each with a cup of water they did not touch, each still carrying the restless, leftover adrenaline of people whose bodies had not yet accepted that it was over. They had held Michael down despite the blade, called the police, pressed their hands against Hidayah's wound with shirts and trembling fingers and a kind of desperate steadiness.
They told the story in pieces.
Not in the same order.
Not with the same emphasis.
But the shape of it was the same.
"She tried to walk away," the first man said. "He grabbed her. She blocked him. Like she'd done it before."
The second said, "She kept putting herself between him and the crowd. Kept pushing him away from other people."
Both described how it had started as shouting. How some students had slowed. How others had stopped. How no one had quite understood, at first, that this was not just an argument.
They described her movements in different words.
"Very controlled."
"Very fast."
"Like some kind of training."
They described Michael as getting angrier. Sloppier.
"He kept rushing her."
"He didn't care who was around."
One of them remembered the knife more clearly than anything else.
"I heard it," he said. "The click. Everyone heard it."
The other remembered the crowd.
"It was like a wave. Everyone tried to get away at the same time."
They both remembered her not running.
They both remembered her stepping in instead.
"She grabbed his arm."
"She kneed him."
"He didn't drop it."
They remembered the knife flying away. They remembered thinking it was over.
They were wrong.
"He tackled her."
"They went down."
"She got back up first."
They remembered him coming again. Wilder. Grabbing. Shoving.
Dragging her into the barrier.
"She kept hitting his arms. His shoulders. Trying to keep him off people."
They remembered the fencing screaming when it bent.
They remembered shouting.
They remembered someone yelling for help.
And finally, they remembered the moment her jacket went dark.
"I thought it was dirt at first."
"Then she looked down."
They both remembered her saying it.
Not screaming. Not crying. Just—
"Oh.
They both remembered her knees giving way. They both remembered catching her before she hit the ground.
The video came from a student's phone.
It did not show the beginning.
It started late, with shaking hands and bad framing and someone breathing too loudly into the microphone.
It started with the knife already in Michael's hand.
No sound was clear enough to make out words, but the shapes were unmistakable.
The sudden backward surge of the crowd.
Hidayah stepping forward when everyone else stepped away.
Her hands on his arm.
The struggle at the barrier.
The knife flashing once, twice.
Then gone — skidding out of frame.
Michael driving into her anyway.
Both of them disappearing briefly behind a wall of bodies.
Then her again, back in view, upright, moving.
Then faltering.
Then the dark spreading across her side.
Then someone screaming.
Then the phone dropping, the image spinning wildly, and the recording cutting off.
It was not clean.
It was not complete.
But it was enough.
Shahrizal watched it twice.
Gabriel watched it three times.
Neither of them spoke during the third viewing.
Afterwards, Gabriel set the phone down carefully, as if it might break.
"She didn't freeze," he said.
"No," Shahrizal agreed. "She closed the distance."
He looked at the paused frame: Hidayah half-turned, one arm up, one foot braced, the crowd packed tight behind her.
"She wasn't trying to win," Shahrizal said quietly. "She was trying to contain him."
Gabriel nodded.
"And she didn't even realise she was stabbed," he added.
"No," Shahrizal said. "Not until it was already done."
----------
Later that afternoon, the hospital room grew quieter again.
The visiting hours lull settled in — that strange in-between time when corridors emptied and voices lowered, when even machines seemed to hum more softly. Hidayah drifted in and out of sleep, exhaustion pulling her under in slow, relentless waves. Each time she surfaced, it felt like wading through thick water. Her body was heavy. Her thoughts came and went without order.
When she woke this time, it was to the sound of low voices.
Khairul stood near the window, his back half-turned to the bed. The late sunlight cut across the floor in a pale, slanted band. Officer Shahrizal stood facing him, posture formal but no longer stiff. Kamari was with them, arms folded, his expression drawn but steady.
"IMH will conduct another assessment," Shahrizal was saying quietly. "Given his history and the prior evaluation, the court may direct treatment alongside incarceration."
"And if they say he's unfit?" Khairul asked.
His voice was controlled, but Hidayah could hear the tension in it even through the fog in her head.
"Then he'll be detained under the Mental Health Act," Shahrizal replied. "Either way, he will not be free."
There was a brief silence.
Kamari nodded once. "Good."
The word was flat. Not angry. Not relieved. Just final.
Khairul didn't speak. His eyes remained on the floor, jaw set, as if he were holding something in place by force alone.
Hidayah closed her eyes again. The effort of listening felt enormous.
When she woke next, the light had shifted. The room was dimmer, the edges softer. The officers were gone. Her father was gone too. The ward had returned to its quieter, night-bound rhythm.
Khairul was back at her bedside.
He had pulled the chair closer. He looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with lack of sleep — the kind of tired that came from holding yourself together for too long.
"You did everything right," he said softly.
She turned her head just enough to look at him.
Then she shook her head.
The movement was small. Careful.
Tears slid silently from the corner of her eyes, tracking into her hair.
"I didn't even see it coming," she whispered. Her throat felt tight, raw. "I thought… I thought it was over."
Khairul didn't answer immediately.
He leaned forward and rested his forehead briefly against the side of the bed, just below her hand. The gesture was small, private — something he did not seem to realise he was doing.
"It wasn't your failure," he said. "It was the system's."
She breathed out, the sound catching halfway.
"I was so tired," she said. "I just wanted to go home."
"I know."
He reached for her hand, careful of the IV line, careful of everything.
"And you will," he said. "We'll get you there."
For a while, neither of them spoke.
The machines continued their quiet, steady work.
Hidayah stared at the ceiling and thought about how strange it was — that her body was here, contained by sheets and wires and bandages, while her mind kept circling a place she had not meant to return to.
"I saw the knife," she said suddenly.
Khairul's fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around hers.
"I thought I could stop him," she went on. "I really thought I could."
"You almost did," he said.
She shook her head again. "I didn't even realise he'd stabbed me. I thought he just… shoved me. It didn't hurt at first."
Her voice wavered.
"I only knew when I looked down."
She stopped.
Khairul did not push her to continue.
He sat there with her, steady and silent, like a guard at the edge of something that could not be allowed to come any closer.
"You don't have to fight anymore," he said finally.
She closed her eyes.
"I don't think I know how to stop," she said.
He had no answer for that.
Outside, night settled over the hospital in layers — over the carpark, over the quiet roads, over the windows that reflected only darkness and faint interior light.
Inside a holding cell elsewhere in the city, Michael Ng Kok Hui sat alone under fluorescent light.
The room was small. Bare. A bench bolted to the wall. A steel toilet in the corner. Nothing else.
He sat with his hands clasped loosely between his knees, staring at the floor.
The noise of the lock closing earlier still rang somewhere in his head.
The story he had been telling himself for months — about her, about what she owed him, about what he was entitled to — had collapsed in the space of a few minutes.
The illusion had shattered.
But the consequences had only begun.
He lifted his head and looked at the wall.
He did not see it.
He saw her.
Not as she was.
As he had decided she should be.
And for the first time, the distance between those two things felt very, very far.
----------
Kamari did not go back into the room.
He stood at the end of the corridor instead, where the lights were dimmer and the floor reflected only a dull, broken line of white. The ward was quiet in the way hospitals always were at night — not silent, but carefully, respectfully subdued.
He placed one hand against the wall.
Just to steady himself.
He had held himself together all day. Through the explanations. Through the paperwork. Through the sight of his daughter lying too still under too many machines.
Here, alone, with no one watching, the strength finally gave way.
His shoulders sagged.
His breath came once, twice — then broke.
He did not sob. He did not make a sound. He simply folded forward slightly, forehead resting against the cool wall, eyes closed, as if holding himself upright had suddenly become too difficult.
For a long moment, he stayed like that.
Then he straightened.
Wiped his face with the back of his hand.
And went back down the corridor.