Lost | ✔

Chapter Six - Arnav (II)

The buzzing in his head was constant.

It didn’t seem to fade; instead, it grew to a crescendo. His body, which had felt so light just a moment ago, suddenly grew heavier as if it was just now gaining substance.

He groaned, the sudden sensation sending a wave of nausea through him. Thankfully, the buzzing began to fade at last and his body felt more settled. He could feel someone’s touch on his arm and face, along with drops of liquid—rain, perhaps?—falling on his cheek.

His brain reared, as if a machine creaking before setting into place, and as his consciousness started to fully return, he felt and heard several more things. Most prominent was the pain, throbbing through his entire body, his muscles feeling so sore he feared he may have ripped them apart or broken a few bones.

Then came the sound. At first he heard the chirping of the birds. Was it morning already? And then, he heard a familiar voice. It was faint at first but it started growing more and more clear by the second, until he realised the voice was coming from somewhere close to him. Really close to him.

“Arnavji? Hey, Arnavji? Can you hear me? Come on, come on wake up! Please, wake up!”

The voice was frantic, and Arnav could hear it breaking. At first he thought he was slipping away again but then he felt drops of liquid fall onto his face again, and he began to open his eyes.

He groaned when the effort to lift up his eyelids felt alarmingly exhausting, his head blasting with a new wave of pain. But suddenly, he didn’t care about the pain, for swimming in front of his unfocused eyes was the distorted face of his companion—Khushi Kumari Gupta.

He blinked a few times, trying to discern whether or not he was dreaming. And if he wasn’t dreaming, then why the hell was she hovering over him—being so close that he could feel her breath over his face. Her hands were firmly placed on his cheeks, cupping his face in a cold embrace, though the touch oddly warmed him from inside. The pain in his head and body subsided but Arnav was not grateful—his heart was racing, making his chest hurt.

With a groan of confusion, he tried to move away from her but she only tightened her hold.

“What the--?”

“Oh thank God you’re awake!” He heard her exclaim, then heard what were the undeniable sound of sobbing. He forced his eyes to focus and took in the image in front of him more clearly.

Her face was blotchy, her eyes red, puffy and filled with tears—drops of warm liquid cascading down, a few of them falling onto him. Her hair was a mess, looking as though she had just rolled down a hill and her hands, they were shivering so badly Arnav feared she was undergoing hypothermia. With a further jolt, he realised that her whole body was shaking, despite the sunlight falling onto her.

“Khu—Khushi?” He stammered, feeling something deep inside jump—in alert? Worry? He didn’t know, but he didn’t like it.

He raised his hands, which oddly felt like lead, and planted them on her shoulders. “Hey, hey what’s wrong?” He asked urgently, but Khushi sobbed louder, muttering stuffs so incoherently that despite their close proximity, Arnav could not understand what she was saying.

“Hey, slow down.” He tried to calm her down, “What happened? Are you okay? Are you hurt? Did—” An unpleasant thought filled him with dread and his head zipped sideways, almost expecting to see giant trolls swinging clubs at him and Khushi as they helplessly laid on the forest floor. But there weren’t any trolls, or any forest for that matter.

Instead, he took in an image of a small, cosy room—the walls were a warm color of peach, decorated with small tapestries that depicted scenes of dawn. Arnav shifted and realised that he was not laying on hard ground anymore, but on a soft and rather comfortable bed, with the blanket pulled up to his chin.