A Meeting

The hunger did not just claw at my stomach; it ate at my identity. For the last seven days, food had been a non-negotiable perquisite to my sanity, a luxury my empty pockets and spineless body could no longer afford.

Rightfully so!!

Sympathy didn't pay any bills. Neither did pity!!

Still, I dragged my feet along the silent, shadowed lanes of Ratangadh, and felt less like a man and more like a draft of a person left out in the rain.

The midnight fog hung low over the asphalt, thick and suffocating, swallowing the dim glow of the streetlamps. Muscles felt like baseless water, unable to hold the weight of my own frame.

If someone right now had pointed at a ragged scarecrow rotting in a barren field and compared it to me, I would not have denied it. I was a hollow shell, an echo of existence drifting through a city that didn't care whether I drew my next breath or not.

Around me, the crumbling brick walls of the city whispered a name. 'Rivayat Hafza.' It was painted in jagged, hurried strokes of charcoal and spray paint on every brick facade, every decaying alleyway.

A masked entity. A shadow known for daring burglaries that left the wealthy sleepless and the authorities baffled. The graffiti mocked me from the darkness: a symbol of absolute power and fearlessness ruling the very streets where I couldn't even afford a single piece of stale bread.

I stared at the black letters and let out a dry chuckle that rasped against my throat like sandpaper. What a joke! The city trembled at a mere name, while I trembled simply because the midnight wind blew a little too hard through my clothes.

If the great, terrifying Hafza came to loot me, he would go away with a headache himself, for trying to rob a zero. There was nothing left to steal from a man who had already lost his soul to the pavement.

I finally reached the Mehraan ledge, the concrete precipice that offered a cosmic view of the city lights below. From up here, Ratangadh looked like a constellation of fallen stars, a grid of wealth and warmth that was entirely out of my reach.

I stood at the edge, the cold wind whipping against my face, and the universe shifted. The lights below blurred, spinning into a vortex as my exhaustion threatened to pull me down into the abyss.

My vision, dark at the edges from sheer starvation, only registered a pale, ethereal blur before she collided straight into my chest. The impact forced a ragged gasp from my lungs.

She didn't yell or apologize. Instead, her arms wrapped tightly around my waist, burying her face into my shirt as if I were the only solid object left in a collapsing world.

"Have you eaten baby?" her voice gasped out, trembling with an intensity that didn't match the emptiness of the street. "Are you fine? Tell me you're fine. I was looking for you."

"What the-get off me!" I rasped, my defenses kicking in. I tried to push her away, my weak, trembling hands gripping her shoulders, but I saw her eyes. They were wide, terrified, and fixed with absolute dread on something behind her.

I looked over her shoulder, past the veil of her shawl. Three men had just turned the corner into the alleyway below the ledge. Their leather boots crunched against the gravel, their faces completely obscured by the shadows of their hoods. The malicious intent radiating off them was enough to shatter the silence of the night. They were hunting her.

An electric jolt of adrenaline bypassed starving muscles. Fear of a stranger did what food couldn't, it made me move.

"Come on," I muttered, the instinct taking the wheel as I grabbed her wrist. I dragged her through a dark shortcut I didn't even realize I knew, cutting through a broken chain-link fence, navigating the shadows, and plunging down a steep flight of stairs that led into the fluorescent light of the nearby metro station.

The heavy iron gates were open, the distant, mechanical hum of the tracks vibrating through the concrete floorboards. The men didn't follow us into the light. They lingered at the edge of the stairs, cursing in the shadows, unwilling to step under the cameras.

Safe under the white tubes, she let go of my hand and took a deep breath. Her skin was pale, almost translucent under the lighting, but her eyes held a strange depth that caught the glare like shards of glass.

"Thank you," she breathed, adjusting the dark shawl around her shoulders. "You saved me. Please, join me. Let's take the next train."

I stood there, the reality of my pathetic condition crashing back down now that the adrenaline was fading from my system. My knees buckled, and I had to lean against a tiled pillar for support. I pulled my pant pockets inside out, showing her the gray lint and the absolute lack of a single coin.

"I can't join you anywhere, lady. I don't have a single rupee to my name. I'm just going to sit here on the floor until the security guards kick me out into the cold."

She didn't flinch or look away. Instead, she looked at them with a knowing smile that made my chest tighten. "Then the ride is on me. Let's go."

I hesitated, my masculine pride telling me to turn around and walk back into the night. But the phantom smell of bread and the agonizing weakness in my legs made me yield.

I nodded, following her past the turnstiles as she tapped a sleek card against the sensor.

We sat in the near-empty metro car, the rhythmic, clack of the wheels against the iron tracks filling the silence between us. The train sped through the dark tunnels, the blackness outside the windows reflecting faces.

I wanted her to explain who those men were, why they were chasing her, or what kind of trouble she was in. Instead, she leaned back against the hard plastic seat, tilted her head, and looked at me with a calm, calculating gaze.

"Those men," she started, her voice smooth and entirely devoid of the panic from minutes ago.

"They are checking the stations. They are looking for a muslim woman traveling alone. Because maybe their boss ..... But they won't look twice at a couple. Can you... can you please? I need you to play a part for the next few stations. Be my boyfriend, please. Act like we're deeply in love or something like that, and once we reach my stop and I'm safe, I will pay you fifteen thousand rupees."

I let out a cynical, bitter scoff, leaning my heavy head against the cold glass of the window. Fifteen thousand? It sounded like a cruel mirage to a man who was actively starving to death.

"You want me to fake a whole relationship? Lady, look at me. I haven't seen a single crumb of food in a week. I look like a corpse, and I don't have the emotional energy to play the doting boyfriend for your little game."

"Then let me make it easy for you," she countered, leaning closer. Her voice dropped to a hypnotic, rhythmic whisper that seemed to completely drown out the roar of the train engine.

"I am an expert astrologer. I have the power to draw the happiness, the warmth, and the food written in your future, say, a period of twenty years, and manifest it right now.

Tonight. It will make our facade completely real, completely believable to anyone watching. But a fake relationship needs a convincing anchor. A physical connection to bridge the gap and trigger the alignment. Do something that makes our souls look like one, just for a moment."

"You're completely crazy," I muttered, shaking my head in disbelief, making a sudden move to stand up and walk to another train car. "I agreed to sit next to you for the money, I didn't agree to whatever psychological mind games you're running."

"Please," she begged, and for a split second, her pale, bare hand brushed against my forearm. The moment her skin touched mine, a violent wave of inexplicable, overwhelming warmth rushed through my veins.

It was intoxicating. It felt like walking into a roaring fireplace after spending a lifetime freezing in the winter snow. My muscles stopped aching. The gnawing hunger in my gut vanished, replaced by an intoxicating sense of comfort.

I froze, completely paralyzed by the sensation.

My gaze fell to her lips, and against every logical, rational thought screaming in my brain, a desperate, starving hunger of a completely different kind took over my body. If this was the price for my survival, for this beautiful, impossible warmth... I would pay for it.

I leaned in, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird trying to break free. I pressed my lips to hers to seal our fake arrangement.

The exact moment it happened , her eyes snapped wide open, a wicked, triumphant smirk playing at the very corner of her mouth. She didn't pull away; instead, she gripped the front of my shirt and began to whisper rapidly, a low, rhythmic chanting of ancient, forgotten mantras that vibrated violently against my skin.

The metro car dissolved.

The white fluorescent lights overhead stretched into blinding, infinite lines of pure silver. The mechanical sound of the train turned into a deafening, roaring wind, and suddenly, time didn't just move, it sprinted forward like a runaway train.

My eyes flew open, and I wasn't sitting on a hard plastic metro seat anymore. I was standing in the middle of a small, sunlit kitchen. The rich, mouth-watering aroma of freshly baked bread and hot, spiced Thai curry filled the air, so potent and real that it made my mouth water instantly.

I looked down at my hands. They weren't thin, baseless, or trembling anymore; they were strong, calloused, healthy, and full of life.

"You're going to let the food get cold, love," a soft voice giggled from behind me. I turned around, my heart skipping a beat. It was her. But she wasn't wearing a heavy dark shawl or looking pale. She was wearing a simple, bright yellow sundress, her hair tied back in a messy bun, a brilliant, genuine smile lighting up her face.

"Where... where are we?" I stammered, backing away in sheer panic. "What did you do to me? Where is the train?"

"Silly boy," she laughed, walking over with absolute familiarity and wrapping her arms around my neck: the exact same hug from the dark alleyway, but this time, it felt completely natural. It felt like a warm, comforting routine we had practiced for years.

"We've lived in this house for two years now. Did you look at the calendar wrong, or did you just forget your own home, babyboy?"

Before I could even process the terror of the illusion, a massive, crushing wave of heavy memories suddenly flooded my brain, settling into my consciousness as if they had always belonged there. The amnesia of my starvation shattered. I knew the exact creak of the wooden floorboards in the hallway. I knew the exact shade of her favorite lipstick on the vanity.

I knew her name, though my lips couldn't articulate it to the empty air, my heart recognized it completely. We weren't faking anything. We weren't playing a part for guards. We were together. We were madly, deeply, unconditionally in love.

The fabric of time warped violently again, rushing forward like a film reel on fast-forward. I saw us walking hand-in-hand through endless fields of golden wheat, the summer sun warming our skin. I felt the stinging, biting cold of a winter morning as I slipped a simple, elegant gold ring onto her finger in front of a small, crackling holy fire.

We got married. There were no grand guests, no wealthy elite, just our shared laughter bouncing off the walls of our beautiful, small home.

I blinked away the happy tears of the fast-forward, and suddenly, the sharp, piercing cry of a newborn child shattered the quiet of a rainy night. I was standing in a hospital room, holding a tiny, fragile bundle wrapped in a soft pink blanket.

Tears of absolute joy streamed down my face, while she watched me from the hospital bed, her pale face glowing with absolute pride and exhaustion. We had a child. We had a daughter.

We had a life.

Every single pocket of emptiness, bitterness, and starvation in my soul was filled to the absolute brim with unconditional joy. I had completely forgotten the scarecrow in the field. I had forgotten what it felt like to be a starving nobody. I was a man who loved deeply, and was loved fiercely in return.

Then, the sunlight vanished in a cruel blink.

Another few years passed instantly, replaced by the suffocating, heavy gloom of a darkened bedroom. The beautiful smell of fresh food and home was completely gone, replaced by the bitter, sharp, medicinal stench of antiseptics and human decay.

She was lying in the center of the bed, her beautiful body withered to bone, her skin an ash-like, deathly gray. A sickening, incurable disease was eating her alive from the inside out, stealing her breath. I was kneeling by the bedside, clutching her frail, bony hand against my wet cheek, sobbing so violently that my chest felt like it was physically cracking open under the weight of the grief.

"Don't leave me," I begged, the raw agony in my voice tearing through my throat like broken glass. "Please. I can't live without you. I don't know who I am without you. Take me with you. If you die, I die!"

She looked at me through heavy, half-closed eyelids. The beautiful warmth and love in her eyes were gone, replaced by a cold, calculating, and detached stare.

"The hour is up," she whispered. "What?" I choked out through my blinding tears. "What are you saying? Stay with me! Fight it!"

"The hour is up," she repeated, her voice suddenly losing all its physical weakness, becoming clear, resonant, and entirely emotionless.

She snapped her fingers.

The agonizing pain of grief in my chest shattered like glass. The dark bedroom exploded into fragments of flying shadow, and with a violent, gasping breath, my body slammed backward against a hard, plastic seat. The rhythmic, deafening clack of the metro wheels immediately filled my ears.

The harsh, white fluorescent lights burned my eyes, forcing me to squint. I blinked wildly, my chest heaving up and down as I looked down at my hands. They were trembling, thin, baseless, and dirty.

My stomach roared with the exact same vicious, empty hunger from an hour ago. The kitchen, the marriage, the child: it was gone. I looked across from me.

She was sitting right there on the opposite seat, calmly adjusting her dark shawl around her shoulders, her facial expression completely blank and serene, as if she hadn't just spent a beautiful lifetime loving me, as if she hadn't just died in my arms.

"What did you do to me?!" I screamed, lunging forward, my voice cracking with a terrifying mixture of residual grief and absolute horror. "What kind of black magic was that?! My children! My wife! My life! I watched you die! I felt it!"

She smirked, a cold, transactional, and deadly look entering her eyes. She stood up gracefully as the train began to slow down, approaching the next sterile station. "It was just a demonstration of fate," she said carelessly, extending her open, pale palm toward me.

"Our deal is done. Our fake date has reached its destination. I gave you a lifetime of love and food in the span of sixty minutes. Now, pay me. My fee is fifteen thousand rupees."

"Pay you?!" I roared, tears of anger and confusion blurring my vision as I clutched my chest, where the phantom pain of her death still lingered.

"You ruined me! You played with my mind! You put visions of a life I'll never have into my head, and you want money?! You were supposed to pay me for helping you hide!"

"Then we are done here," she said with a dismissive shrug, turning her back on me as the metro doors slid open with a sharp, metallic chime.

"You monster!" I cursed at her, my voice echoing through the empty, tiled station as she stepped off the train. "Curse you! Curse the time I ever bumped into you on that ledge!" She didn't look back. She just walked out into the terminal, leaving me entirely alone in the car.

I couldn't take it anymore. The walls of the train felt like they were collapsing on me, suffocating me with the ghosts of memories that weren't mine. Haunted by the vivid, agonizing images of her smiling, her holding our child, her dying.

I practically stumbled out of the train at the next stop, running blindly up the stairs and back into the silent, shadow-drenched lanes of Ratangadh, trying to escape the ghosts she had trapped inside my fractured head. But the nightmare wasn't over.

As I turned a sharp corner into a dark alleyway near an abandoned, rusted warehouse, the same three heavy shadows stepped out from the darkness, cutting off my escape.

Before I could even raise my hands to defend myself, a heavy wooden club slammed violently into my ribs.

The bones cracked. I collapsed onto the cold gravel, groaning in sheer agony as heavy, steel-toed boots began to rain down relentlessly on my spine, my face, and my stomach.

"Where is she?!" a rough voice roared, a powerful hand grabbing a fistful of my hair and yanking my head back with brutal force.

I looked up through the warm blood dripping into my eyes. It was the men from earlier. The ones who had been chasing her to the metro.

But they weren't wearing hoods anymore.

Under the moonlight, I recognized their scarred faces. They were the muscle, the elite enforcers of the Rivayat Hafza gang.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" I choked out, coughing up thick blood onto the dirt. "I don't know her! Leave me alone!"

"Don't lie to us, you spineless piece of trash!" the lead enforcer yelled, slamming my face against the rough brick wall.

"We saw you play with her being her little boyfriend in the metro! You hid her! The boss wanted that girl alive, and she ended up dead at the bottom of the ledge because of your interference! You killed her by letting her escape our grip!"

"I didn't kill anyone!" I screamed, tears of sheer physical torture and mental exhaustion spilling over my bloody cheeks. "I swear to God, we were just faking it! It was an arrangement! A fake date! She's a con artist! An astrologer! She's alive, she just asked me for fifteen thousand rupees on the train!"

"She's been dead for three hours, you idiot!" another man yelled, kicking me squarely in the throat, cutting off my air.

"Her body is sitting on a cold steel table in the city morgue right now! Who the hell did you meet?!"

They dragged my broken body inside the abandoned warehouse, tying me securely to a rusted iron chair in the center of the damp room. For what felt like hours, the torture didn't stop.

They burned my skin, they systematically broke my fingers, demanding answers about a girl I knew absolutely nothing about; a girl whose ghost was currently driving my mind into insanity.

"Please," I sobbed, my spirit completely broken, my mind fracturing under the combined weight of the physical pain and the supernatural horror.

"I don't know who I am... I don't know why this is happening... I just want to go... let me die... let me go..."

And then, as my heart began to fail, as the agonizing physical pain reached a threshold where human consciousness simply snaps to protect itself... something inside my brain shifted.

The fog didn't just clear; it dissolved into a terrifying, blinding, and absolute light.

A massive flood of real, unadulterated, and horrific memories broke through the walls of my amnesia like a tidal wave, completely crushing the illusion of the "spineless, starving nobody" I thought I was.

I didn't lunge away from the hot iron or the clubs anymore. My head fell back against the rusted chair, and a deep, low, menacing laugh began to rattle through my bloody chest. The enforcers stopped, lowering their weapons, looking at each other in utter confusion and sudden fear.

I raised my head, staring directly at them. The fear, the tears, and the weakness were entirely gone from my eyes, replaced by a cold, deadly, predator's gaze that they knew all too well.

"You absolute fools," I whispered, my voice no longer raspy or weak, but dripping with absolute authority, dark power, and malice.

I wasn't a scarecrow. I wasn't a starving bystander.

I was Rivayat Hafza.

I remembered it all now. I didn't randomly bump into a beautiful stranger tonight. I had been tracking her for weeks like prey. I had caught sight of her from afar, never seeing her face under her veil, but noting the curve of her body, the elegant, proud sway of her walk and those plump lips.

I wanted her. I wanted to own her, to conquer her, to add her to my private collection of stolen treasures. Four hours ago, I had cornered her on the high cliffs overlooking the jagged, sharp rocks of Ratangadh's old quarry: the Mehraan ledge. I had stepped out of the thick shadows, masked, ruthless, and armed, demanding she submit to my will for fifteen thousand rupees.

But she hadn't cowered. She hadn't begged for her life. With a fiercely defiant, burning look in her eyes, she lunged directly at me, grabbing the collar of my jacket, and using my own aggressive momentum against me, she threw both of us off the edge of the cliff.

I fell. I remembered the freezing wind rushing past my ears. I remembered the sickening, final crunch of my bones against the jagged rocks below as the fall killed my physical body instantly.

And I remembered my men, watching from the ledge above, opening fire in a blind rage of revenge, riddling her falling body with a dozen bullets before she even hit the ground. We were both dead. We had been dead since the sun went down.

The starvation, the empty pockets, the physical weakness, it wasn't a physical reality at all. It was the horrific state of my wretched, starved soul entering the afterlife, instantly stripped of the wealth, weapons, and power I had brutally stolen in life.

The pale girl hadn't conned me on that train. Her pure soul had used the raw, uninhibited power of the afterlife to force a connection, to weaponize our "fake relationship" agreement, showing my dark, objectifying spirit what real love and humanity actually felt like.

She made me experience a lifetime of devotion, marriage, and the agonizing, soul-crushing grief of losing her, just so I would finally understand the true, irreversible weight of the beautiful life I had so carelessly destroyed on that cliff. This entire warehouse, the torture, the enforcers, it wasn't a real place. It was my own guilt, my own immediate karmic reckoning turning my dark soul inside out for eternity.

"Destiny and fate," I whispered into the empty, decaying air of the warehouse, as the illusions of my men began to fade away into gray mist.

She had promised to give me what was written in my fate. She had turned our fake agreement into a horrific, permanent reality. She had forced a heartless monster to love her in death, turning my eternal punishment into a haunting, endless cycle of desperately missing a woman I had murdered.

It was a soul's connection. A brutal, poetic destiny, making us meet again and again in the dark, forcing the monster to fall deeply in love with his victim for all of eternity. |°...................................°|