Chapter 1
Anita's hand rose mercilessly, her movement swift like the lash of a dry wind sweeping across a field of reeds.
The first slap landed on Meshya's right cheek, leaving burning finger marks before the pain could even follow.
Before Meshya could blink, the second slap struck her left cheek, turning her face to the side like a rag doll.
Anita was not satisfied.
The third slap—this time harder, deeper, as if it wanted to tear apart all the disappointment buried in her chest.
Three times in a row, right-left-right, until both of Meshya's cheeks turned red, damp with tears that had yet to fall.
The room seemed to shrink, the silence struck by the echo of those harsh slaps still reverberating along the walls.
"Why, Meshya?!" Anita shouted, her voice hoarse from anger that scorched her throat.
"Why can't you stay away from my boyfriend? Are you that desperate? Do you deliberately keep getting close to him behind my back, as if you've never felt any guilt?"
Meshya lifted her flushed face, her lips trembling as she tried to speak.
"Anita, this is just a misunderstanding…" she said softly, her tone pleading yet fragile like cracked glass.
But before her voice could finish hanging in the air, Anita lowered her head.
Suddenly, the anger that had flared just a second ago slowly dimmed into something far more painful.
Sadness.
Anita lowered her head, her hair covering half her face, and from her bowed chin, droplets began to fall—one, then two—silent tears slowly soaking the floor between them.
"Have you… really not understood all this time?" Anita whispered, her voice breaking like a dry branch stepped on.
"I considered you my closest friend. My best friend. Even though I knew I had no one else besides you."
She let out a long, heavy breath, like someone who had just realized she had been drowning for far too long.
"But look," Anita continued, still with her head lowered, her voice wet with restrained sobs.
"You're getting closer to him—my boyfriend, who lately can't even talk to me without it ending in an argument."
She raised her face now, her eyes swollen and red—not from anger, but from hurt.
Something was shattered there, a kind of trust slowly torn apart, page by page, by the person she trusted the most.
Meshya felt her chest tighten.
Not because of the slaps earlier, but because of the weight of a confession she refused to voice.
She approached Anita, who was still looking down, slowly reaching out her hand, her fingers gently brushing through the girl's hair in an attempt to calm her.
She guided Anita's head until it rested against her left shoulder—the same shoulder that still carried the lingering sting of the slaps she had received moments ago.
Yet instead of Anita's tears subsiding, her sobs grew stronger, small hiccupping cries that shook her shoulders.
"Meshya," Anita whispered through her tears, looking at Meshya with swollen, tear-filled eyes, "promise me? Promise me you'll tell me first if he—if my boyfriend—tries to approach you again?"
Her breath hitched for a moment.
"And you promise you'll do your best to stay away from him?"
Meshya did not answer immediately.
She stared into Anita's eyes—deep, as if reading page after page of the history of their friendship she had never truly realized before.
Behind those pools of tears, Meshya saw something that made her throat tighten.
A sincerity of a friend that would never fade, even when that friend already had someone she loved, even as the world slowly pulled them apart without permission.
This is not a misunderstanding, Meshya thought.
This is about trust that I have chosen to ignore all this time.
Then slowly, without saying a single word, Meshya closed her eyes.
Her lips formed a faint smile—not a smile for the camera, but for the real Anita in front of her.
A smile that acknowledged everything without needing to say sorry.
"Cut!"
The director's voice sliced through the silence like scissors tearing fabric.
And suddenly, the room that had felt so heavy just a second ago turned lively.
The director, standing behind the monitor, clapped loudly, his eyes sparkling with satisfaction.
"Good! Outstanding, both of you!" he exclaimed, his voice echoing among the smiling crew.
"I didn't expect you to deliver such genuine friendship emotion. It felt real, not like acting!"
Meshya opened her eyes, and from the corner of her gaze, she saw Anita—now wiping the remaining tears with a tissue handed by the assistant director—smiling faintly at her.
They laughed together, lightly, as if the slaps and tears had never happened.
It was all just a scene.
But in the corner of Meshya's heart, there was a faint whisper she could not deny.
That just now, for a moment, she truly felt guilty.
The director raised a small loudspeaker, his eyes checking his watch.
"Seven-minute break, everyone! The next shoot will start exactly in… seven minutes. I want all actors ready on set before the countdown ends."
He clapped once more, firmly.
"No one's late. We're chasing this afternoon's mood before the light shifts."
Meshya stretched her arms, releasing the tension from her joints after the emotional scene.
Before she could even take a deep breath, several women—makeup artists and her personal assistants—immediately surrounded her.
"Please sit first, Miss Meshya, let us fix your makeup," one of them said while gently dabbing the sweat on her forehead with a soft sponge.
Another woman took a sheet of paper containing the next scene's dialogue and handed it respectfully, while another quickly clipped strands of Meshya's hair that had begun to loosen under the heat of the lights.
"How are you feeling, Miss? Still carried away by the crying earlier?" her personal assistant asked, holding a small mirror in front of her.
"I'm fine," Meshya replied with a faint smile, her eyes shifting toward the assistant.
"After this shoot—once the film 'A Friend Who Understood Too Late' is finished—what's next on the schedule?"
The assistant opened her mouth, about to answer:
"There's a fan meeting, then shopping at the mall for—"
But her voice was cut off.
Because at that very moment, the echo of something unknown struck the room—not a sound, not a vibration, but something more ancient, flowing through the cracks of reality itself.
Everyone in the room screamed at once.
From their ears, blood gushed out violently, soaking their shoulders and the floor simultaneously, as if their bodies could not withstand the pressure of a world about to tear apart.
"W-what is this?!" someone screamed in the distance before collapsing to their knees.
Bleeding ears—the intensity could not be dismissed—not mere drops, but spurts that followed each person's heartbeat.
But Meshya felt no pain.
She only stood frozen, trembling, watching the ground beneath her feet begin to fold like crumpled paper in the grip of a giant hand.
"Help! What's happening?!" Meshya cried, but her voice was swallowed by the roar of reality being torn apart.
Walls, ceiling, light, even air—everything twisted into a black vortex gaping like a wound in the chest of the universe.
And when the destruction ended, only darkness remained.
Pitch black.
Endless gloom.
Meshya stood alone in the void, her breath ragged, both hands clutching the edge of her clothes, soaked in cold sweat.
"This is a dream… this must be a dream…" she whispered, but her voice made no echo, as if the darkness devoured every vibration before it could be born.
Then from afar—or from within her own mind—a sentence began to form, letter by letter, glowing faintly in the pitch-black space.
Welcome back, Meshya Anggraini Putri, the Long-Awaited Destroyer of the World.
Her eyes widened.
Her chest tightened as memories crashed into her like a tsunami.
Her eyes changed—turning pitch black, devoid of white, devoid of reflection, like two voids leading directly into the heart of emptiness.
To be continued…