In Sunshine or In Shadow ✔ [Completed]

Chapter 10.1 - Downward Spiral

It had been weeks since her return to work and Riddhima had given up on ever feeling like herself again. She would go to work, act out the motions of a CBI agent and then go home where she could find company with Lavinia and her comrades in rape. Those women could understand. Their thoughts were her own.

Riddhima had researched other famous tales of rape, read about rape in other countries; how the woman would be forced to marry her rapist or even be stoned to death for having sex out of marriage even if she hadn't wanted it. She had become obsessed with rape.

Vansh still came over frequently. She had stopped hiding her research and he hadn't spoken a word about it, but she saw how he looked at her. He wanted her to stop. His eyes pleaded her to do something else, anything else but this. She knew it wouldn't help. She knew that more she read, the worse her nightmares became. Sometimes she would throw the book down and race to the shower to rid herself of the sensation of having some monster pawing his way past her meager defenses. Riddhima knew that this would only hurt her in the end. But she couldn't stop.

She didn't think she could feel anything else but pain anymore. At least she was the one hurting herself, it was better than someone doing it to her.

She was restless again, afraid to go to sleep. Vansh would come over if she called but she didn't want him to. That wasn't true, but one day it would be. It was better to start practicing now.

Riddhima took the DVD of Titus and put it on. She had other books, other films that had similar tales of innocent women being forced upon by vicious, lustful men. Still, she always came back to Lavinia. It seemed like she had endured the most of all the women: mutilation and rape. Lavinia had known her attackers but was unable to say whom they were for so long. Riddhima actually pitied her for that, just a little. Not knowing who had ravished her was much, much worse.

She had watched the movie several times now, usually reading the text at the same time. Today, she left her copy of Titus Andronicus on the table unopened. She let tragedy unfold before her on her television screen.

It was a long film that might have made her laugh for it's odd blend of modern looks and ancient Roman ruins and armor, except nothing made her crack a smile anymore. Riddhima let the actors play their parts without any comments. She shut her eyes as Lavinia was being dragged away. Her screams echoing in her ears. "No grace, no womanhood—ah, beastly creature, / The blot and enemy to our general name, / Confusion fall—"

Riddhima felt numb for most of the film. She didn't care about Titus's pain or Lucius's rage. Sure, she wanted Tamora and her disgusting sons to meet their doom, but they were so wild, almost childish that she couldn't work up much emotion towards them. Maybe this is what is left when hatred fizzles away along with hope. Emptiness.

It wasn't until the end, after Chiron and Demitrius were killed, that she felt a thrill of some kind of emotion. Titus had brought his enemies and his allies together for a meal, none of them having any idea that they were about to become cannibals. She watched Titus serve Saturninus and Tamora their pieces of human pie, gleefully smacking his lips as she swallowed her own children.

Lavinia appeared in this midst of this feast. Riddhima sat up and watched her walk in, clothed all in white except for a translucent black veil. "Was it well done of rash Virginius / To slay his daughter with his own right hand / Because she was enforced, stained, and deflowered?"

Stained. That was an apt description for how she felt. Outwardly, she looked the same but she knew a part of her had been irrevocably ruined. It was like she was a wet piece of a jigsaw puzzle. No matter how hard she tried, she could never fit back into place.

Lavinia had felt the same. She hadn't belonged back into the bosom of her dwindling family, not after what had been taken from her. But now…as she walked into the arms of her father, lovingly placed her head up against his shoulder, she was at peace. She belonged right there.