Her designer purse lay abandoned on the marble floor, its contents scattered chaotically—an exact reflection of the turmoil inside Andien's head. Overwhelming panic clogged her throat like a wad of dry cotton. Her heart pounded brutally against her ribs. With violently trembling hands, she reached into the hidden pocket of her dress and pulled out her smartphone.
She tapped the emergency contact labeled “My Husband.” One second... two seconds... only the mechanical ringing tone sounded before the AI operator's voice shattered her hope.
“Call redirected. The destination number is currently in Do Not Disturb mode.” DND mode. Andien slapped her own forehead. Bisma always turned it on whenever they were spending time together. He rejected every kind of interruption for the sake of his family. But now, that sweet habit had transformed into a nightmare, trapping her in agonizing ignorance.
Andien spun around, ran through several still-confused guests, and immediately grabbed the collar of the security guard's uniform in front of the elevator. “Who is it?! Who's the victim?!” Andien screamed, her voice shrill with hysteria. “Tell me who was stabbed in the lobby?!” The guard looked startled but maintained his rigid expression. “I'm sorry, ma'am. We're not authorized to release information about the victim. That's private information, and the proper authorities are handling it.” “To hell with privacy! My husband and child are in that lobby! Open this elevator now!” Andien pounded the guard's chest with her weak fists.
“The elevator's magnetic system is still under locking-protocol calibration, ma'am. You can't use it. If you absolutely must go down, the only access is through the emergency stairs in the east wing. However, I recommend you stay—” Andien didn't wait for him to finish. She spun around, kicked off her high heels that would only slow her down, and sprinted barefoot across the restaurant's glass floor. Her elegant evening gown was now disheveled and hiked up unevenly. She ran toward the emergency-stair door, ignoring the hotel staff shouting for her to stop.
The moment she shoved open the heavy metal door to the emergency stairs, true hell greeted her. The narrow emergency stairwell, lit by flickering fluorescent lights, was packed with dozens of reporters and cameramen who couldn't use the elevators either. The air was painfully thin, stifling, and reeked of sweat and metal. When they saw Andien—the wife of the highly sought-after pro-government scientist—enter the area, the mob turned vicious.
“Mrs. Andien! Do you know your husband is under investigation?” “Was this stabbing carried out by one of Mr. Bisma's competitors?!” “Ma'am, is it true that the embezzlement money really exists?!” Andien shut her ears to them. Her bare feet were already beginning to blister from rubbing against the rough concrete, but she descended one step at a time. Sixty-five floors. It was a physically punishing distance. Yet the pain in the soles of her feet was nothing compared to the agony in her chest. Her breathing came in ragged gasps, her lungs burning, but she kept forcing her way through the crowd. Her shoulders slammed into people's bodies, while ink-stained hands tugged at her arms.
Every floor she passed felt like a descent into the depths of hell. Loaded questions rained down on her without mercy. Camera flashes blinded her in the dim stairwell, nearly sending her sprawling several times. The heat radiating from the bodies packed into the cramped space choked her, but Andien kept pushing, clawing, and forcing her way downward for Bisma and Baim. At last, her violently shaking feet stepped onto the landing on the fifteenth floor.
There, her progress came to a halt. The access door leading to the next flight of stairs had been completely blocked by a thick barricade of tactical police and building security officers. Protective shields were raised, preventing anyone from passing.
“Move...” Andien hissed, gasping for breath. Sweat poured down her face, washing away her beautiful makeup. “Let me through!” “The area below is on lockdown, ma'am. No one is permitted to go down until the forensic team has secured the perimeter,” the guard commander said coldly.
Andien bit down hard on her lower lip as a wave of worry nearly split her head apart. The metallic taste of blood pooled on her tongue from her own bite. “My husband is down there! My child is seven years old, and he's sick! I have to get to them! Please, let me through!” Andien began to lose her temper, her voice clashing with the reporters' deafening din behind her.
“This is a direct order. Step back, ma'am!” the guard shouted just as loudly, adamant about giving her not an inch of space. Andien was driven backward by the shout. Her body slammed against the cold concrete wall. At that moment, the cameras of the media employees focused directly on her face. The moment she was refused, the moment she argued and lost, was recorded without the slightest trace of empathy.
Suddenly, Andien's strength gave out. Her knees buckled, and she slid down onto the filthy concrete floor. Her defenses crumbled completely. Andien sat frozen, staring blankly at the floor, until her sobs finally broke through, tearing into the air.
But the cruelest thing about this world was that even when she was at her most vulnerable, camera flashes continued to rain down on her. The vicious questions kept coming.
Andien seemed to sink into a sea of despair. Her tears fell like shards of shattered window glass scattered by a storm, strewn everywhere with no one caring enough to pick them up. Grief squeezed her heart like the hand of an invisible giant, ripping apart her solar plexus. Andien was nothing more than a broken-winged bird amid a flock of starving crows feasting on her suffering. Her tears were the first rain on parched earth, yet no one welcomed them with an umbrella—only with the ravenous snouts of camera lenses baring her sorrow for all to see. Amid the height of her sobbing and despair, a sharp whistle shrieked from below.
“Make way! All of you, move back! Clear the path!” A group of police officers forced their way up, separating and forcibly dispersing the vicious reporters. One police officer approached, lowering himself and shielding Andien's face from the remaining cameras.
“Mrs. Andien? Come with me. We'll help you get downstairs,” the officer said softly but firmly. Andien asked no questions. Her head was too dizzy and empty. She merely nodded weakly like a lifeless doll, then rose unsteadily on her bare feet and followed the officer's guidance down the final flight of stairs toward the ground-floor lobby.
When they reached the main lobby area, the cold air from outside pierced her skin. Police tape had been stretched around the area leading to the VIP parking lot. Just before the lobby exit, the police officer guiding her stopped.
“Ms. Andien... I think this is far enough,” the officer said in a soothing, overly polite tone. “You have to stay strong. Please remain in this area because the situation ahead isn't safe for you.” Andien knitted her brows, swollen from tears. Her eyes widened in confusion as she tried to protest. “What do you mean? Why do I have to stop here? I want to go to my car. My husband and child are waiting there. They need me!” The officer looked flustered as he gently tried to hold Andien by the shoulders. “It's best for you to stay here, ma'am. Calm down. In a moment... a police vehicle will come pick you up and take you to the hospital...”
Hearing the words that had slipped from the officer's mouth, Andien's body froze completely. The hospital? The word struck her ears like lightning in broad daylight. Andien swallowed hard.
Her throat felt flayed raw. If her husband had only gone downstairs to get allergy medicine, why would he need to go to the hospital? Her terrible premonition exploded into hysteria. With the last of her strength surging from absolute terror, Andien violently yanked her arm free from the officer's grasp.
She sprinted like a madwoman through the doors toward the place where her white maglev car was parked. She was stunned to see dozens of fully uniformed police officers standing guard tightly around the area, forming a circular barricade. When they saw Andien running toward them, several instinctively moved forward to restrain her.
“Hold her, miss! Easy, miss! Please don't come any closer! Hold her back!” the officers shouted over one another. “Let go! That's my car! Let go of me!” Andien thrashed, kicked, and forced her way forward with the last of her desperate strength. It was enough to break through a gap in the officers' arm-barricade. Her feet stopped right at the edge of the police line. When her eyes looked toward the floor beyond the forest of forensic officers' legs... Stabbbb.
An invisible pain stabbed her solar plexus and pierced through her ribs. On the white marble floor, now transformed into a pool of deep crimson, her husband's muscular body lay rigid. His luxurious navy suit was torn by a single precise, deep stab wound in his back. His heroic face had gone pale, and white, foamy fluid seeped from between his lips. Bisma was dead.
“BISMAAAA...!!!” Andien screamed hysterically, her broken voice ripping through the night air. Her knees gave out completely. Her body went limp and crashed onto the cold marble floor. Her vision blurred with shock and tears. Before she could even process the emptiness that had swallowed her life, everything went pitch-black. Andien fainted, unconscious amid the collapse of her world.