The lock on the bedroom door clicked shut at exactly 9 PM every night.
Sameera had memorized the sound — the soft metallic thud, the finality of it. Her husband, Dr. Salman Malik, was a respected psychiatrist in Lahore. To the world, he was gentle, caring, a healer of broken minds. To Sameera, he was the warden of her personal prison.
She’d been married to him for five years. For the first three, he’d been kind. Attentive. Loving. Then something had shifted. He’d started locking her in at night. Claimed it was for her safety. Claimed she walked in her sleep. Claimed she’d tried to hurt herself once.
She didn’t remember any of it.
Tonight, Sameera sat on the edge of their king-sized bed, her silk nightgown clinging to her damp skin. The air conditioner was broken, and the Lahore heat was suffocating. She’d begged Salman to call the repairman. He’d refused. Said she needed to learn patience. Said she was too demanding.
She heard his footsteps in the hallway. Then the key turned in the lock.
Salman entered, his face calm, his eyes cold. He was still wearing his white clinic coat, the stethoscope around his neck like a noose.
“How was your day, jaan?” he asked, his voice dripping with false warmth.
“Hot,” she said flatly. “Uncomfortable. Lonely.”
He knelt before her, taking her hands in his. “I know it’s difficult, Sameera. But I’m doing this for your own good. You don’t understand what you’re like at night. The things you say. The things you do.”
“Then tell me,” she demanded. “What do I do?”
He smiled — that infuriating, condescending smile. “You scream. You cry. You call out for a man who isn’t me. It breaks my heart every time.”
Sameera’s blood ran cold. She didn’t remember any of that. But she’d learned not to question him. Questioning meant punishment. Isolation. Days without food.
“Let me out tonight,” she whispered. “Please. I promise I’ll be quiet.”
Salman stood, towering over her. “You know the rules. You stay until I say you can leave. And tonight, I’m not feeling very generous.”
He pushed her back onto the bed. His weight pressed down on her, heavy and suffocating. His hands roamed her body, not with love, but with ownership. She lay still, as she’d been trained, her eyes fixed on the ceiling.
When it was over, he rolled off and fell asleep within seconds. Snoring. Peaceful. Oblivious.
Sameera lay awake, her body aching, her mind racing.
She’d discovered something three weeks ago. A hidden drawer in his study. Inside, a journal. Not his — hers. Her handwriting. Pages and pages of entries she didn’t remember writing.
“I think he’s poisoning me.”
“The medicine he gives me at night makes me sleepy. Too sleepy.”
“I saw his phone. He has a secret family. In Islamabad. Three children.”
“I have to escape. I have to find a way.”
She didn’t remember writing any of it. But the handwriting was unmistakably hers.
That was when she’d started hiding her own doses of the sleeping pills. Spitting them out when he wasn’t looking. Pretending to sleep while her mind stayed sharp.
Tonight, she had a plan.
At 2 AM, when Salman’s breathing was deep and rhythmic, Sameera slid out of bed. She’d hidden a bobby pin under the mattress. She’d been practising on the bedroom lock for weeks, learning its mechanism by touch alone.
Her fingers trembled. The pin slipped. She tried again.
Click.
The lock opened.
Sameera’s heart pounded as she crept out of the bedroom, down the hallway, into Salman’s study. The drawer was still there. The journal was still there. But now there was something new: a USB drive.
She plugged it into his laptop. Password protected. She tried his birthday. His mother’s name. His clinic’s address. None worked.
Then she remembered the journal entry: “Three children. Their names: Zara, Anaya, Amina.”
She typed: ZARAANAYAAMINA.
The laptop unlocked.
Inside, a folder labelled “Evidence.” Sameera opened it and gasped.
Photographs. Dozens of them. Women. Different faces, different ages. All bound, all gagged, all staring at the camera with the same look of terror.
At the bottom of the folder, a video file dated three weeks ago. She clicked play.
The screen showed a room she recognized — her bedroom. The camera was hidden in the smoke detector. The footage showed her lying on the bed, asleep. Then Salman entered. He poured something into her mouth — a blue liquid — and waited. Her body convulsed. She began to choke. He stood there, watching, his face utterly blank.
Then, after a long minute, he administered CPR. Revived her. And wrote something in a notebook.
Sameera’s hands shook. He wasn’t locking her in to protect her. He was locking her in to experiment on her. She was his patient. His test subject. His victim.
She scrolled further. A list. Names and dates. Fifteen women. Fifteen doses. Fifteen experiments.
Three had died.
Sameera was number twelve.
She heard a floorboard creak behind her.
Salman stood in the doorway, his face twisted into something inhuman. “I was wondering when you’d find it.”
Sameera grabbed the laptop, holding it like a shield. “I’m going to the police.”
He laughed. “You think they’ll believe you? You’re the unstable wife. The one who walks in her sleep. The one who screams at night. I’m the respected psychiatrist. They’ll sedate you and lock you away before they even listen to a word you say.”
Sameera’s mind raced. He was right. She had no allies. No family. No friends. He’d isolated her so completely that escape seemed impossible.
But then she remembered the journal. Her own words. Her own handwriting. And she realized something crucial: she’d written those entries after taking the blue liquid. She’d been awake. She’d known. She’d been fighting.
She looked Salman in the eye. “You forgot one thing.”
“What’s that?”
She pulled a burner phone from her pocket — one she’d hidden in the study weeks ago, in case of emergency. “I’m live streaming everything. Right now. Hundreds of people are watching your confession.”
Salman lunged. Sameera ran.
She burst through the front door, barefoot, wearing only her nightgown. The street was dark, empty. But a police car was patrolling nearby — drawn by the anonymous tip she’d sent an hour ago.
“Help!” she screamed. “He’s a killer! Help me!”
The police car stopped. Two officers jumped out.
Salman appeared in the doorway, his face a mask of fury. “It’s my wife. She’s having an episode. She’s dangerous. Don’t listen to her.”
Sameera held up the burner phone. The live stream was still running. The comments were flooding in.
“We saw everything!”
“The USB drive! The videos!”
“She’s telling the truth!”
The officers looked from Sameera to Salman. One of them reached for his handcuffs.
“Dr. Malik,” he said calmly, “you need to come with us.”
Salman’s face crumpled. He lunged for Sameera one last time, and the officers tackled him to the ground.
Sameera watched them cuff her husband. She watched them read him his rights. She watched him scream her name as they shoved him into the back of the cruiser.
And then she collapsed onto the pavement, sobbing.
It was over. She was free.
But as the police car drove away, Sameera’s phone buzzed. A message from an unknown number:
“Congratulations. You’re now number thirteen.”
She looked up. The house across the street had a light on in the window.
And someone was watching her.
