Die For Me

The Wrong Room

"Fifty thousand rupees. By tomorrow evening, Aaira. Otherwise, we will have no choice but to discharge her."

The doctor's voice was completely devoid of emotion, a stark, clinical contrast to the violent storm of panic raging inside my chest. I stood in the crowded, suffocating corridor of the City General Hospital, my worn-out sneakers feeling like they were glued to the cheap, sticky linoleum floor. People rushed past us—crying relatives, exhausted nurses, ward boys shouting instructions—but to me, the world had just come to a terrifying halt.

"P-please, Doctor," I stammered, letting my voice crack, a desperate plea clawing its way out of my throat. I clutched the crumpled medical file to my chest, my knuckles turning white. "I just need a little more time. I am working double shifts at the cafe... I will get the money. I promise. Please, just don't stop Grandma's treatment. She won't survive the journey home."

Tears welled up in my eyes, hot and stinging, blurring the harsh fluorescent lights above. It wasn't hard to cry. When you have absolutely nothing in this world but one sick grandmother, crying is the only luxury you can afford.

The doctor sighed heavily, rubbing his temples as if my poverty was giving him a migraine. "Look, Aaira, I sympathize with you. I really do. But this is a private hospital, not a charity trust. The surgery she needs is critical and requires expensive equipment. Arrange the money by tomorrow, or take her home. I'm sorry."

He didn't wait for my reply. He simply turned on his heel and walked away, his white coat disappearing into the chaotic sea of misery.

I stood there for a long moment, my chest heaving as I fought back a sob. I wiped my damp cheeks with the frayed sleeve of my oversized, faded cardigan and took a deep, shaky breath. *Crying won't pay the bills,* I reminded myself. Plastering a brave, innocent smile on my face, I pushed open the heavy double doors of the General Ward.

The smell of cheap disinfectant, illness, and despair hit me instantly. I walked down the narrow aisle, dodging IV stands and moaning patients, until I reached bed number 42 in the far corner.

There she was. My Grandma.

Her frail body looked impossibly small amidst the stark white, heavily starched hospital sheets. Clear tubes ran across her bruised, wrinkled arms, and the heart monitor beside her beeped in a slow, agonizingly weak rhythm. I gently took her cold, fragile hand in mine.

"Aaira, my sweet child," she whispered, her voice barely a dry rasp. Her cloudy eyes tried to focus on my face. "You look so pale... so tired. Did you eat anything?"

"I'm fine, Grandma. I had a big sandwich at the cafe," I lied smoothly, keeping my voice soft and sickeningly sweet. "The doctor said you are getting better. We just have to do one small surgery, okay? Everything is going to be perfectly fine."

She offered a weak, trembling smile before falling into a dry, painful coughing fit. I panicked, reaching for the plastic jug next to her bed to pour her a glass of water, but it was completely empty. Not a single drop.

"I'll get you some warm water, Grandma," I whispered, urgently picking up my worn-out canvas handbag. "Just rest. Close your eyes."

"Don't go too far, child," she wheezed.

"I won't. I'll just be a minute."

I stepped out of the crowded ward, scanning the hallway. The water cooler on our floor had a 'Out of Order' sign taped to it—it had been broken for a week. A passing nurse, annoyed by my questioning earlier, had rudely told me that if I wanted warm, filtered water, I would have to go to the cafeteria in the West Wing.

The West Wing. The VIP section. The place where the billionaires, politicians, and the city's elite were treated.

I tightened my grip on the empty plastic bottle. I didn't belong in the West Wing with my torn shoes, messy hair, and clothes that screamed poverty. But for Grandma, I would walk through fire.

Taking a deep breath, I turned away from the chaos of the general ward and started walking.

The transition from the general hospital to the VIP West Wing was like crossing a border into another dimension. The noisy, chaotic corridors slowly faded away, replaced by thick, plush carpets that swallowed the sound of my footsteps. The harsh fluorescent tubes were swapped for soft, warm ambient lighting. The air here didn't smell like bleach and sickness; it smelled faintly of fresh lilies, expensive air fresheners, and unadulterated wealth.

The silence was deafening. It was an intimidating, heavy silence. Every large, mahogany door I passed was firmly shut. There were no crying relatives on the floor, no rushing nurses. Just pristine, flawless luxury.

I swallowed hard, feeling hyper-aware of how dirty my sneakers looked against the spotless marble borders. I hugged my bag closer, suddenly feeling very small and very lost. The nurse had said the cafeteria was at the end of the hall, but the corridor seemed to fork into an endless maze of identical, intimidating hallways.

Panic began to bubble in my stomach. I had been walking for ten minutes. Where was the cafeteria?

I turned down another quiet hallway. At the very end, a heavy, dark oak door stood slightly ajar. A sliver of bright, crisp light spilled onto the dark tiles. There was no sign above it, but I could hear the distinct sound of rushing water.

*Maybe it's a staff pantry? Or an extension of the cafeteria?* I thought, my desperation for the warm water overriding my hesitation.

I slowed my pace, my heart fluttering nervously. I cautiously stepped closer, pushing my face into the sliver of light to peek through the crack.

My gaze bypassed the entrance and landed straight on the massive, wall-to-wall mirror that hung above a row of polished black marble sinks.

And then, every ounce of air violently evacuated my lungs.

He was standing at the farthest sink. He wore a custom-tailored, pitch-black suit that seemed to absorb the light around him, the fabric screaming a price tag I couldn't earn in three lifetimes. He was leaning heavily over the washbasin. His broad, muscular shoulders were incredibly tense, the fabric of his suit stretching across his back. His powerful hands were gripping something out of my line of sight—shoved deep down into the sink.

The golden faucet was running on full blast, the loud, chaotic rushing of water echoing off the cold tiles of the room.

I had expected a doctor. Or a janitor. Instead, I saw a man who looked like he owned the shadows themselves. There was something deeply, instinctively terrifying about the way he stood. A heavy, suffocating aura of violence radiated from his frame, chilling the very air in the corridor.

Suddenly, the man stopped moving.

His broad shoulders stiffened. As if sensing the exact moment my intrusive gaze landed on him, as if feeling the weight of my eyes through the thick oak door, his head snapped up.

Our eyes locked through the mirror's reflection.

Pitch-black, bottomless eyes collided with mine. A cold, violent chill rushed down my spine, paralyzing my limbs. It felt like being caught in the crosshairs of a lethal sniper. In a split second, my eyes widened in pure, unadulterated shock. I pulled my shoulders in, instinctively shrinking myself under the crushing, suffocating weight of his stare.

He didn't blink. He didn't flinch. He didn't look like a man who had just been caught doing something private in a washroom. He looked like a king whose domain had just been breached by a peasant.

Time stopped. The rushing water faded into white noise.

He just stared at my reflection, his gaze piercing straight through the glass, through the crack in the door, and straight into my soul. It was a calculating, dark, and utterly consuming look. His face was a mask of devastating perfection—sharp jawline, aristocratic nose, and lips that rested in a cruel, straight line. He looked so devastatingly calm, leaning over that sink, yet his aura screamed pure, unadulterated danger.

I couldn't breathe. My lungs screamed for oxygen, but I was entirely captivated, trapped like a terrified little prey under the paw of an apex predator. A deep, embarrassed flush slowly crept up my neck, painting my cheeks a bright, humiliating red.

Realizing I was staring at a strange, terrifyingly handsome man in what was clearly an exclusive men's washroom, my act of innocence took over my genuine terror. I let out a soft, high-pitched gasp of panic.

"S-sorry," I murmured, my voice trembling so violently I barely recognized it.

The man didn't say a word. The corner of his mouth twitched, the ghost of a dark, chilling smirk threatening to appear.

Before he could turn around, before he could fully register my face, I spun on my heels.

I ran.

I scrambled away from the door, my worn-out sneakers squeaking against the pristine marble. My heart pounded against my ribs like a trapped bird desperately beating its wings against a cage. I sprinted blindly through the maze of the VIP wing, not caring who saw me, not caring how much noise I made. I just needed to put as much distance between myself and those pitch-black eyes as humanly possible.

I didn't stop running until I burst back through the double doors of the General Ward, the familiar smell of cheap bleach hitting my lungs like a welcome embrace.

I collapsed against the dirty tiled wall near the entrance, gasping for air, clutching my chest as if trying to keep my heart from exploding out of my ribcage. My legs felt like jelly, trembling uncontrollably.

*What was that? Who was that?* The sheer intensity of his gaze was burned into the back of my eyelids. Every time I blinked, I saw him leaning over that sink, completely shrouded in darkness despite the bright lights.

It took me a full minute to regulate my breathing. I wiped a drop of cold sweat from my forehead, slowly pushing myself off the wall to head back to bed number 42. It was only when I looked down at my trembling, empty hands that the final wave of realization hit me.

My plastic bottle was gone.

In my blind panic to escape that monster in the mirror, I had dropped it somewhere in the VIP wing. I had returned completely empty-handed.

A fresh wave of frustration washed over me. I couldn't afford to buy a new bottle of mineral water from the overpriced hospital pharmacy. That cheap, battered plastic bottle was all I had to fetch water for Grandma.

*I have to go back.* Cursing my own stupidity, I turned around and forced my trembling legs to walk back towards the intimidating silence of the West Wing. I retraced my steps, keeping my head down, praying I wouldn't run into that terrifying man in the black suit again.

As I turned the final corner leading to the men's washroom, I froze.

He was standing there. The man from the mirror. He had just stepped out of the washroom, adjusting his expensive silver cufflinks with an air of absolute, arrogant perfection. And right near his shiny, custom-made Italian leather shoes lay my battered plastic bottle.

I was about to step forward and quietly apologize, to ask for my bottle back, when I saw the look of pure disgust flash across his flawless face.

He didn't see me. He just stared at the bottle on the floor as if it were a diseased rat. With a slow, calculated move, he picked it up with two fingers—treating it like absolute trash—and casually tossed it into the sleek, silver dustbin nearby.

Something inside me snapped.

Maybe it was the stress of the hospital bills. Maybe it was the exhaustion of my double shifts. Or maybe it was just the sheer, unapologetic arrogance of this billionaire treating the only thing I had like garbage.

My carefully crafted innocent persona cracked. Pure, unadulterated anger flared in my chest, burning away every ounce of fear I had felt earlier.

Before my brain could tell my legs to stop, I was marching down the hallway. My worn-out sneakers stomped against the marble floor, loud enough to make him turn around. His dark eyes narrowed in slight surprise as he recognized the 'terrified girl' from the mirror, but I didn't stop.

I walked right past him, the scent of his expensive, dark cologne wrapping around me like a warning, and stopped right in front of the silver dustbin.

I reached in and pulled out my crumpled bottle. There was still a quarter of old, stale tap water left inside it.

I turned to face him. He was looking down at me, his tall, imposing frame towering over my small one. His pitch-black eyes were cold, mocking, and filled with a dangerous kind of amusement, as if waiting to see what the little peasant would do next.

*Big mistake.*

Without a single second of hesitation, I unscrewed the blue plastic cap. My hand moved in a blur.

*SPLASH.*

The stale water flew out of the cheap bottle, hitting him squarely in the center of his chest. The water soaked into the expensive, dark fabric of his custom-tailored suit, leaving a glaring, humiliating wet patch over his heart.

The silence that followed was deafening. It was the kind of heavy, suffocating silence that falls right before a bomb detonates.

The amusement in his eyes vanished instantly.

He looked down at his ruined suit, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle ticked in his cheek. Then, in agonizingly slow motion, he raised his head.

His eyes locked onto mine. There was no terror in my gaze anymore, only raw, blazing defiance. But what I saw in his eyes made the temperature of the room plummet to freezing. It was a look of pure, lethal fury. A promise of absolute destruction.

We stood there in the silent VIP hallway, an impoverished girl clutching an empty trash bottle, and a dangerous billionaire dripping with stale water, locked in a furious, unblinking war of stares.

And in that moment, I knew I hadn't just crossed a line. I had declared war on the devil himself.