"People call me Mrityu like it is a threat. But Mrityu is the only inevitable truth."
("Mrityu" is a Hindi word for "Death".)
The room was dark. Minimalistic. Haunting in a quiet, deliberate way. It was already small, but now it felt like it was shrinking. Every second pressed in tighter, like the walls were inhaling the fear. The silence screamed. Not in sound—but in weight, in the kind that made even the bravest flinch.
But the woman on the chair? She didn't flinch. She was far too trained for that.
She didn't belong to this setup—not in the way they thought, at least. She wasn't here to confess crimes. She sat still, arms relaxed. The crease of her saree looked sharp enough to cut. Her wrists were cuffed to the arms of the chair, but they meant nothing. Not to her. Because they couldn't contain her.
She was the one who contained.
Her expression was stoic. Not defiant, not scared. Just... inevitable.
The door creaked open, disturbing the silence just long enough to remind them time still moved. A man entered—mid-forties, tailored suit, sharp haircut. He walked like someone used to power, someone who belonged in rooms like these. Interrogation. Negotiation. Manipulation. It was all the same game to him.
Until he saw her.
Until their eyes met.
That was when he faltered.
Suddenly, the suit felt like a costume. The posture, a practiced act. He wasn't a man anymore. He was a child playing king. A shadow pretending to be light—just like the moon.
He paused, hesitated longer than he should have, then pulled the metal chair across from her. The scrape on tile was loud. Too loud. Desperate, almost. He sat slowly. Too fast, and he might provoke the predator.
He tried to steady his breath. It didn't work.
"I've been told you're death," he said, sliding a thick file toward her. His voice trembled, even if just slightly. The practiced calm was nowhere to be found. "But your record says otherwise. You save more than you kill."
She didn't blink. Not even once. Just tilted her head slightly, voice soft—too soft for the words she delivered.
"And yet," she said, "you're trembling."
He blinked. Surprise flickered across his face—followed quickly by something darker. Fear.
Real fear.
She had that effect on people. Even the ones who didn't believe in monsters—until they met her.
They called her many things: agent, spy, traitor, saint, seductress, savior, death.
But the file in front of him had only one name bolded in black ink:
CHHAYIKA MISHRA
Codename: Eagle
Alias: Fatima Khan
Internal Classification: Mrityu – The Inevitable Truth.
They brought her in after Istanbul. After the Khan bloodbath. After the loose ends began to strangle people.
But here was the truth no one said aloud—she wasn't caught.
She came.
On her terms. Not just now, but always.
The officer leaned forward, trying to pretend he still had control. Even if it was fake. Even if he knew it was slipping.
"You crossed the line," he said. The words were meant to be sharp. Accusatory.
She smiled. Faintly. A dangerous smile—for those who knew what it meant. It didn't reach her eyes.
"I erased it," she said.
Silence again.
Not the peaceful kind. No, this one made men sweat and gods curious. The kind forged in battlefields and broken hearts. A silence that clung like humidity, slow and unbearable.
He cleared his throat. It didn't help. Still trying.
"Why Mrityu?" he asked, voice quieter now. Trying for cold, but it came out cracked.
She didn't lean forward. She didn't need to. She was already there—all of her—collapsed into that one moment, wrapping around him like a vice.
"I didn't call myself anything," she said flatly. "They did. My enemies. Just before the end. That's when it started—the name, the whispers, the begging."
Her eyes finally locked onto his.
And for a second, just one second, he saw it.
The void.
The calm inside chaos.
The woman who stared death in the face because she wasn't different from it.
"You think it's a compliment?" he whispered.
"No," she said softly, her voice brushing across the air like it remembered pain.
"It's a mirror."
He swallowed. Hard. The lump in his throat had been there for a while. Now it refused to be ignored.
He looked at her again. Still not fully believing.
But belief was never the point.
She was Mrityu.
And Mrityu was never asking for belief.
The words were a forecast, and their weight could be felt in the air. Everything about the way it was said, the tone, the expressions, the speed, everything made it look like it was a soothing melody, a stark contrast to what it really was.
And then, with a sharp, final disturbance to the existing silence, the chains broke. Everybody in the room flinched except for one. She didn't react at all, just stood up powerfully, like she was saying, I bound the bondage, it can never be the other way round.
She looked towards the people who were supposed to move, to chain her again. Her gaze, a warning which no one accepted, they knew what she could do to stronger men. Anyone who has fought her, is not breathing anymore. There is a reason she is called death, the innocent inevitable truth, one that no one can deny, no one can fight, no one can stand. And the guards, the interrogating officer, the surveillance team maybe wanted to live, moreover, they somehow knew that she can't do what she is accused of. There was no second thought that whatever was happening was a predetermined play, one that started even before she entered the room. The kind of play that is called protocol in formal language.
Her eyes drifted towards the door, but no other movement apart from that. Then finally she parted her lips, and spoke, and this time the coldness of her voice stood unmistaken, "You wanted death?", a lingering pause, "You invited her in." With that she walked out without order, clearance or permission. Breach of protocol.
No one dared to stop her. In that moment, what mattered was not that she didn't have any weapon, but that she was the weapon, the most lethal walking weapon, known by the code name of Eagle, death herself, Chhayika Mishra.
✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦
Author's note
Death never closes a chapter, she ignites the reckoning. My storm has spoken. I welcome your truths: praises, critiques, questions or echoes. Votes make me feel better, but comments matter more, your opinion, your voice matters more. Drop them in the comments. Thank you! For building this world with me.