A Fragile Thing || Far Cry 4

Chapter Five

"No...not...real." The words were hardly a whisper.

A puzzled and pitying look crossed Sabal's face, but he made no comment. Sabal instead produced a large knife from his belt and Ajay flinched as Sabal bent toward his feet and hands, expecting pain but finding only relief when his limbs were freed. Ajay attempted to push himself up, but couldn't even summon the strength to move his arms. Sabal stripped off his coat, gingerly tucking Ajay's arms into the sleeves. The warmth almost made Ajay cry, but his shivering worsened as the rest of his body felt colder by contrast.

Two men appeared at the cell door, harried and out of breath.

"Help me with him," Sabal beckoned.

They hurried forward, shock at Ajay's appearance evident on their faces. As they made to lift him, one remarked, "Sir, his hands..."

"I know," Sabal replied sadly. "We'll deal with that later. Right now we need to get him out of here. As quickly as possible."

Ajay groaned and hissed as they moved him, as they stretched and maneuvered his broken body. He couldn't keep his eyes open, blacking out intermittently. Partly because of the pain. Partly because his mind just couldn't process what was happening. Ajay caught only flashes of the battle raging around him as they carried him from Durgesh.

The prison in shambles. Cell doors dangling from hinges. Rubble crumbling from the ceiling. Dead guards and rebels, riddled with bullets, lying, wide-eyed, all around.

Blinding, white light, burning through Ajay's closed lids.

The pounding thud of helicopter blades.

Then Sabal's face emerged again, hovering over Ajay, blocking the view of the metal roof of the fuselage. His words were distant and faded ever quieter. "Hold on, brother. Hold on."

The world darkened.

It's not real. It's...not...re...

~~~

Ajay awoke to find himself lying on a plush mattress, buried in warm blankets. A catheter protruded from his arm and wound its way up to a half-empty bag hanging above his head. It took a moment for his full faculties to return, for him to realize just where he was. Then pain, both mental and physical, struck him a devastating blow.

No. Not here. Not again.

He was in the upstairs bedroom of the Ghale Homestead. The shutters were thrown open, swaying gently in the warm breeze that brought with it the scent of the garden and the songs of morning birds. Ajay cast his gaze around the room. The dresser, the armoire, the tapestries, they were all there, all eerily identical to those in his drug-induced dream. And there was a man there, too busy fiddling with papers in the corner to notice that Ajay had awoken.

As Ajay roused further from his slumber, agony sliced into his body. His chest and ribs ached. His leg was worse. He could still feel the knife sliding into his flesh. A dull throbbing pulsed through Ajay's face. And then there were his hands and feet. They were on fire. He held his hands up in front of his face. Cherry red skin, swollen and mottled, encased his fingers. He tried to move them and they barely budged. Even that tiny movement sent daggers shooting into his hands, setting Ajay screaming.

Blind panic tore through him. The pain, the room, it couldn't be happening again. Ajay's screaming drew the attention of the man across the room who rushed to Ajay's side.

"Ajay! Ajay, take it easy! You're going to hurt yourself!" The man made to hold Ajay down, but Ajay struggled violently. "I need help in here!" the man called down the ladder leading to the main floor. He turned back to Ajay. "Calm down, you're safe now."