The Night Has Ended

Chapter 8

Triggers throughout....

Khushi remembers snapshots after that. It took two whole years of therapy before she could remember the entire episode in detail. She didn't want to, preferring to let her mind protect her from the horrors she had experienced, but the nightmares did decrease after she remembered the details. The insomnia reduced as she talked about her ordeal with the psychologist.

She remembers waking up to excruciating pain and seeing herself still in the bedroom.... That ceiling was familiar. The shadows were different, so some time had elapsed. But she succumbed to the pain again. The next time she woke up, there were voices around her...... is she dead?..... what did you do Karan?..... she deserved it Bhaiyya, and someone came and covered her with a sheet..... don't move her...... we need to take her to the hospital..... NO, no hospital, they'll have to report it...... she'll die Karan..... then let her. Back to the blessed coolness of the dark.

A police siren next, a flurry of voices.... Some shocked gasps.... Khushi, a familiar voice.... Who was that?

Strobe lights behind her eyes, a needle prick on her arm, a mask on her face..... I'm so sorry Khushi, the same familiar voice.

A bright light in her face, the pain being held behind a strong barricade.... but still there.... waiting to engulf her again, like watching a tsunami heading towards you with no shelter, knowing it would take you over.... and you stand there helpless watching as the barricades crack.... As the pain seeps through.

A touch on her hand, a soothing touch. She recognized this one, but it wasn't Sister Teresa. Same touch in her hair. "We'll take care of you now. You're going to be just fine", a voice that was soft and soothing, she trusted this voice. Is that what angels sounded like? "Go to sleep now", the angel told her. She thought she nodded her head, and followed instructions.

It felt like morning. The room was too bright. There were voices around her, a familiar touch on her hand. Someone sobbing piteously. Oh, so she was right. She was dead. Is this what dead feels like? She liked it. There was no pain in dead. She thought she would hate being dead, but this wasn't bad at all. But she felt him..... Karan... he was around her somewhere. Was this his game? Was he waiting to hurt her again, make her more dead? No, she couldn't let him hurt her any more. She needed to get away before he hurt her more. What was that beeping sound? It was getting louder and louder.... And faster and faster.... Someone please shut that down. She was trying to think here, for god's sake. A flurry of noise around her. Then the cool wave fell over her and she went down into the calmness again.

When Khushi finally woke up out of her fog, it had been 6 days. She was under a medically induced coma for 5 of those days. Her internal injuries caused a lot of bleeding, and after surgery, her body couldn't bear it, so they had to put her in a coma to get her body time to heal, without having to deal with the pesky business of being alive.

She pieced it all together from what NK told her and later Arnav. From what they could tell, Karan had done quite a number on her. She was bleeding from multiple wounds, and had not received treatment immediately, leading to some of those wounds festering and causing septic. It took 9 hours before help reached her. Karan had left her beaten, tortured and locked up in the bedroom for 8 of those hours, while he showered and came downstairs, and enjoyed tea and then dinner with his family. He forbade anyone from entering his room, until finally Garima had decided to go take a look. She had found Khushi and the family had had a quick conference about what to do.

Taking her to the hospital would mean an inquiry and Karan would be in trouble, so they'd decided to call the family doctor. The doctor was out of town and would only be coming back the next day. So they'd decided to wait until the morrow to get her looked at. Shyam had been called immediately, of course, and he'd advised them not to move her, in case she died due to injuries. So Khushi lay there for another 2 hours with no medical aid, in a critical condition.