Chaos and painkillers

45. An old friend.

Sunday 29th December 2019

Arsenic.

A naturally occurring metalloid, component of the earth's crust. Mostly found and extracted from groundwater. It is often implicated in deliberating poisoning attempts.

Someone had poisoned Sudais. Only Sudais.

There were hundreds of guests and even family members that devoured Laila's food and none of them emerged with a case of Arsenic poisoning even after they had been tested.

The amount of arsenic found in Sudais' system was not normal and he had been diagnosed with Acute Arcenicosis.

Being a king and all, a urine and vomit test was carried out in a jiffy and the only chemical out of normal levels in the evidence was arsenic. Emergency doctors ran around until they administered an Arsenic antidote solution down Sudais' gastrointestinal tract that immediately flushed out the poison, removing all traces and preventing it from being absorbed into his gut.

Just to be on the safe side, Sudais was to be kept under monitoring for at least 48 with added treatments of chelating agents along with potassium supplements transfused into an auto-injector he was supposed to be on for 5 days.

Except for the following morning when Laila had left Sudais who wanted her to make him a fruit nectar smoothie along with his favorite dish, came back into the heavily guarded hospital, and walked into an empty room.

Panic surged through her as she carelessly tossed the bag of food and searched the doors to the bathroom and store in the rather lavish room. She found nothing.

Outside, she spoke to the wall, yelling at the soldiers and royal guards, asking about her husband's whereabouts but found nothing.

In the midst of it, his sisters came in and heard the news that with a heavy heart had to be concealed from the public just like with the poisoning and still find a way to trace Sudais' whereabouts.

His phone was switched off, and so was Tahir's. Tahir was the last man to step into Sudais' room from what Sudais' right-hand man said.

The scales started to balance. Half was that Tahir wouldn't harm him, they were sure or at least hoped so, considering the world was crazy. The other half was them almost pissing at the thought of something terrible happening to him.

Muri and the guys were aimlessly driving and picking dead ends. The women at home were either rooted to a spot, pacing around, looking at the door hoping it'll burst open and Sudais would walk in, shaking and gripping something, or wiping their tears and reprimanding themselves to pray and think positive.

But how could they?

Someone somewhere had been after Sudais' life for a while now, the poisoning confirmed that. The fact that it had been confirmed that Sudais ingested the poison meant it had been planned. Poison not everyone could get their hands on which was also saying a lot about the predator's status. They were powerful, and loaded, since they still hadn't been discovered.

Where was he now?

Was he fine?

Was he drugged and abducted?

How did they get past all the security guarding the hospital and room?

If they did, where'd they take him? What were they going to do with him?

The thought had Laila letting out a, "Hai!" Before clutching her head with her hands, hating the direction of her thoughts.

No, please. It couldn't be.