The fluorescent lights hummed a constant, sterile note that seemed to seep into the very concrete of the walls. In the old building, where they kept the patients deemed too dangerous for the main wards, the air was thick with the smell of antiseptic and something else, something older—despair. Cell 1009 was at the end of a long, silent corridor, a number stamped on a heavy steel door like a verdict.

Behind that door, Wuhan took a slow, measured breath, the case file cool against his palm. The head doctor’s words echoed in the quiet hall. Most dangerous psycho around asia. The title The Mamba was scrawled in red ink on the file’s cover. He’d volunteered for this. While the other doctors had balked, their fear a palpable thing in the meeting room, something in the clinical, detached description of Patient Selina had snagged his professional curiosity. It wasn’t bravery; it was a quiet certainty that the file was wrong.

He turned the key. The lock groaned, a heavy, metallic sound that shattered the hallway’s silence. The door swung inward to reveal a space that was less a room and a more concrete box. A single, dim yellow bulb hung from a wire in the center of the ceiling, casting long, dancing shadows. And in the center of those shadows, suspended by chains that ran up to a rusted hook, was a woman.

She was asleep, or pretending to be. Her head was tilted to the side, dark hair obscuring most of her face. The posture was unnatural, strained. The chains kept her wrists pulled above her head, her ankles similarly bound, leaving her in a perpetual, half-standing slump. She was beautiful, in a way that felt sharp and dangerous, like a shard of polished glass. Even in the poor light, Wuhan could see the delicate lines of her profile, the defiant set of her jaw even in sleep.

He moved quietly, pulling the heavy door closed behind him. The sound of the bolt sliding home was final. He took the single wooden chair that was bolted to the floor and sat, placing the file on his knees. He cleared his throat, the sound soft but distinct in the quiet cell.

Her eyes opened immediately. There was no grogginess, no slow blink into awareness. Her gaze was instantly focused, sharp and cold as it locked onto him. The chains around her wrists rattled faintly as she shifted her weight.

'Selina',he said, his voice even, devoid of the fear or condescension she must have been used to. The dim light caught the sharp planes of his face, shadowing his dark eyes. He held her gaze without flinching, one hand resting calmly on the file, a pen held loosely in the other. “I’m Wuhan, your attending psychiatrist. We’ll be having daily sessions starting from today.”

Her lips curled. “I don’t need any session. Leave from here.”

It wasn’t a request; it was a command, laced with a venom that could curdle milk. Wuhan closed the file with a soft click and leaned back in the chair, the wood creaking under his weight. He didn’t stand. Instead, he crossed one long leg over the other, settling in. “I don’t leave until the session is over. You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to” his eyes didn’t waver from hers, “I’ll sit here until the time is up.”

A low sound escaped her, something between a growl and a sigh of pure frustration. The chains clattered more loudly this time as she jerked against them. “Don’t stay here,” she snapped, the metal links singing a sharp, protesting note.

He didn’t even blink. A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched the corner of his pale lips. It wasn’t mocking; it was… patient. “The more you snap, the more I’m convinced you need this session. I’m not going anywhere, you can’t scare me off that easily.”

"Don’t you understand, you bug? I Don’t need any session. Leave me alone.” Her voice was rising, the words spat out like bullets.

He tilted his head, the ghost of that smile still playing on his mouth. He tapped the case file with his fingertips, a slow, deliberate tap-tap-tap. “I’ve been called worse things than ‘bug’ by patients. You’ll have to try harder than that if you actually want me to leave.”

Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Try harder, what, huh? You think I will dirty my mouth for a useless man, doctor?”

A low chuckle rumbled in his chest. He flipped the file open again, his pen hovering over the first page. His eyes scanned the words for a moment before lifting back to hers. The calm was unnerving, a still lake in the face of her hurricane. “I didn’t come here to fight with you. I just want to know what really happened that night. Did you really do anything? or there's something else hidden behind this little murderer?” He lean forward to meet her eyes.

The fight seemed to drain out of her for a second, replaced by a wall of ice. “Nothing happened. Believe what everyone believes, don’t bother me.”

*Click.* The file closed again. He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, bringing himself closer to her space. The dim yellow light softened the angles of his face, made his dark eyes look deeper, less like a doctor’s and more like a man’s. “I don’t believe you,” he said, his voice dropping. “If nothing really happened, you wouldn’t be sitting here tied up right now. I’m not going to stop bothering you— I’ll be back tomorrow, same time.”

A frustrated, wordless sound ripped from her throat. “Ugh!”

He stood slowly, tucking the file under his arm. He walked to the cell door, his steps measured. But he paused with his hand on the handle, looking back at her. Her head was turned away, her body a rigid line of tension. “Get some rest,” he said, his voice gentle but firm. “I’ll bring you the black coffee you like tomorrow— I saw it in your file.”

That got a reaction. Her head whipped back toward him, her eyes flashing. “File? If you read that much, then you would know that I don’t take anything from men’s hands.”

He huffed a soft laugh, his hand still on the cool metal. He tilted his head, a dark lock of hair falling across his brow. He looked at her with a faint, unexpected amusement. “Then I’ll just leave it by the door. It’s your choice whether you drink it or not— I’m not forcing you.”

She turned her face away sharply, severing the connection. The dismissal was absolute.

He didn’t push. He just gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod, turned the handle, and locked the door from the outside. His voice filtered back through the small, barred window, faint but clear. “See you tomorrow, Selina. Sleep well.”

Sleep well. The words were a mockery that echoed in the sudden silence after he left. Sleep well? Her wrists were raw from the cuffs, her shoulders screaming from the strain of being held up all day and night. The chains ran up to the ceiling, allowing no respite, no chance to lie down. This was her punishment. This was her parents’ solution for the daughter who had become an inconvenience, a secret they couldn’t bear. *That night.* The memory was a shard of glass in her gut, a truth so terrible she had to bury it under layers of rage just to survive each moment. The anger was a shield, the only thing between her and the crushing weight of betrayal. As the deep night hours crawled by, the chill of the concrete seeping into her bones, exhaustion finally pulled her under, dragging her into a fitful sleep while still suspended, a butterfly pinned to a board.

The next day, the door opened before the usual time. Wuhan stood there, a paper cup steaming in his hand. The rich, bitter scent of black coffee cut through the cell’s stale air. He stopped just inside the threshold, his dark eyes taking in her position, identical to the night before. A flicker of something—not pity, but a sharp, clinical displeasure—crossed his features before his professional mask settled back into place.

“They tied you like this all night?” he asked, his voice steady but with an undercurrent of something hard. “No one changed your restraints like they were supposed to?”

Her gaze was venomous. “Don’t show pity.”

His lips pressed into a thin line. The emotion in his eyes banked, replaced by neutral focus. He placed the coffee carefully on the floor by the door, well within her line of sight but out of her reach. Then he approached her, his movements slow and deliberate. The key jangled softly as he unclipped it from his belt. “Alright, no pity. I’m just following the facility rules— patients should be able to rest properly. Let me loosen them a little.”

“As if you’re doing a great honor to me,” she sneered, her body tensing as he came closer.

He didn’t rise to the bait. He simply reached up, his fingers brushing against the cold metal of the clasp near her wrist. The click of the lock opening was soft. He loosened the chain, just enough slack for her arms to drop a few inches, for the strain on her shoulders to ease marginally. His fingers, warm and surprisingly gentle, accidentally grazed the bruised skin of her wrist.

A jolt, like a static shock, went through her. She yanked her hand back as far as the new slack would allow. “Don’t touch me.”

He withdrew his hand instantly, his expression unchanging. He tucked the key back into the pocket of his white coat and took two measured steps back, re-establishing a professional distance. “Got it, I won’t touch you without your permission next time. The coffee’s still warm—go drink it if you want.”

“I don’t want it.”

He nodded, a simple dip of his chin that showed neither disappointment nor pressure. He pulled out the chair and sat, the file rustling as he opened it. His dark eyes found hers again, calm and expectant. “That’s fine. It’ll still be there if you change your mind later. Now— shall we start today’s session?”

“I don’t need any.”

He closed the file again, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest. He didn’t push. He didn’t cajole. He just watched her, his gaze steady, a faint, unreadable curiosity in the depths of his eyes. “Like I said yesterday, I’ll sit here until the time is up. You can do whatever you want, I won’t bother you.”

And he didn’t. For the next fifty minutes, the only sounds were the faint whisper of turning pages and their shared, silent breathing. He read through her file with a focus that was absolute, occasionally making a small note. She remained stubbornly silent, staring at a crack in the opposite wall, every muscle in her body coiled tight. When he finally closed the folder and checked his watch, the silence felt like a physical thing that had grown between them.

“Session time’s up,” he said, standing. “I’ll be back the day after tomorrow, same time.”

And so it began. A pattern. A strange, silent dance that stretched over a month. He came. Sometimes with coffee, which she never touched. He sat. He didn’t force conversation. Some days he read the file; other days he just sat in silence, his presence a constant, unwavering fact in her confined world. She never spoke to him during the session hours, her stubbornness a fortress wall. She would give him nothing about *that night*, the secret festering inside her, fed by her anger.

Then, one day, he arrived with a small, brightly colored box instead of the paper cup. He placed it gently by the door—a box of the expensive, fruit-filled candies she had loved in a life that felt like it belonged to someone else. He sat down, but today was different. He opened the file and then closed it almost immediately, leaning forward. The usual professional distance in his eyes was gone, replaced by a direct, unnerving intensity.

“You don’t have to keep hiding it,” he said, his voice low, cutting through the ritualistic silence. “Whatever it is, I won’t judge you. I just want to help you get out of here.”

The familiar, automatic denial was on her lips. “It was nothing.”

He leaned back, and she saw it—a slight tightening of his jaw, a minute tell of frustration he’d never shown before. He folded his hands in his lap. His voice, when it came, was quieter, softer, carrying a thread of something that felt dangerously like genuine concern. “I know you think saying ‘it was nothing’ will make me leave, but it won’t. I’ve spent a month here— I know you’re not a monster. You’re just scared.”

The word was a match to gasoline. “I’m not scared of anything!” she snapped, the chains rattling with the force of her outburst, the anger flooding back, a familiar, comfortable armor.

He didn’t flinch. He held her furious gaze, his expression not hardening but softening further. He stood up slowly and walked toward her, stopping just beyond the reach of her chains. He was closer than he’d been since that second day. “You can snap at me all you want, I still know you’re scared. I’m not here to lock you up forever— I just want to help.”

“I don’t need your help,” she bit out, turning her face away from the disarming softness in his eyes. “I’m fine here locked up.”

He tilted his head, studying her averted profile. A faint, sad smile touched his lips, a world of understanding in that small expression. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his white coat, the gesture somehow making him look less like a doctor and more like just a man. His dark eyes were unwavering, their gaze gentle as it rested on the tense line of her shoulder.

“You’re not fine,” he said, his voice so quiet it was almost a whisper in the dim cell. “No one is fine locked up like this, tied to the ceiling every night.” He paused, letting the truth of that hang in the air between them. Then he delivered the final blow, the words landing not as an accusation, but as an absolution. “I know you didn’t do what they say you did.”

The words came out like broken glass, sharp and defensive. "I don't know what they said about me, but believe whatever they said." I kept my arms crossed tight against my chest, the sterile white of the hospital gown feeling more like a shroud than clothing. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everything in a flat, unforgiving glare.

He didn't flinch. Instead, he took a small step closer, the distance between us shrinking from impersonal to intimate. The sadness in his dark eyes deepened, but his voice stayed firm and sure, an anchor in the sterile emptiness of the room. He didn't look away from me for a second. "I don't believe what they say. I only believe what I see, and what I see isn't a monster. It's a person who's been hurt and abandoned by everyone they trusted."

A bitter laugh caught in my throat. "Don't show pity. I'm whatever they say."

He shook his head slowly, a sad smile touching his lips as he took one more careful step closer. The air between us shifted, charged with something I couldn't name. His voice was low and steady, no pity in it—only quiet conviction that felt more dangerous than anger. "This isn't pity. I mean it. I've read every single page of your file, and what they wrote doesn't match the person I've sat with every day for a month."

My heart hammered against my ribs. The file. They'd reduced my entire life to clinical observations and cold facts. "And what they wrote about me? What I did?"

He swallowed softly, his expression tightening slightly as he mentioned the case details. His tone was careful, gentle, like he was handling something fragile. "They wrote that you killed your own older brother on the night of your birthday. But like I said, I don't believe that's the full story."

The admission tore from me, raw and ugly. "It's true I killed him. I stabbed him four times."

His brows lifted slightly in faint surprise, but there was still no fear in his eyes—only quiet attentiveness. He didn't step back, just kept looking at me steadily, waiting for me to say more. The space between us felt charged, electric. "I know you did. But why? You've never told anyone the real reason why you did it, have you?"

"No one needs to know the reason. I'm a murderer, that's enough." The words tasted like ash.

He moved then, slowly reaching into his coat pocket. The sound of fabric rustling seemed loud in the quiet room. He pulled out a folded old photograph, holding it out to me gently. His dark eyes were soft, no trace of fear or judgment. "I don't think that's enough. I want to know the reason. You've carried it alone long enough...."

My eyes widened when I saw the picture of me and my older brother smiling widely, our arms slung around each other's shoulders. A lifetime ago. I snatched the picture from his hand, my fingers trembling. "Where did you get this?"