Darkhaast

~ 12 ~

If it's italicized, it's a flashback.

"Pull up your sleeves."

"Excuse me?"

"Sunai nahi diya ya mera kehna suna nahi chanti ho?" Abhimanyu yanked her closer by her wrist. Mahi hissed at his touch, rolling her sleeves up to expose the gushing scalpel wound in her upper right arm.

"I'm fine," she struggled in his grip. Such a sadist, she thought. He dabbed her arm with rubbing ethanol with such vigour that her pain was magnified.

"Dikhayi de raha hai tum kitni theek ho."

"Humne 'aap' se 'tum' ka fasla kab tay kardiya, zara mujhe bhi yaad dilana, Dr. Birla?"

"Jab tum mere decisions ke wajah se ye zakhm khaya."

Mahi was covering for Aarohi in Birla's urgent care center when a new patient came in, wrists tied together in a rope and struggling against his accompanying family members. It was a young boy, no older than 14, wailing and screaming.

"Let me go, they're coming for us! They'll kill us!"

Abhimanyu slowly approached him and his family. "Aap log kya kar rahein hain? Kyun issi banda hui hai. Bacha hai woh."

"He's having a schizophrenic episode; he's dangerous." The boy's father asserted.

"He's a kid," Abhimanyu rebutted, untying the knots holding the boy hostage. Abhimanyu's heart had a special place for children; he could never see them tormented, especially not when the boy looked so much like Abhir - young, with brown hair, glasses, and a prevailing sense of loss clouding his eyes.

"Ahh," the boy growled, pushing his father away from him. Abhimanyu, too, stumbled back into the wall. "Get away from me, you monsters!"

The other patients in the care center gasped.

"Call security!" Mahi instructed Nurse Ali. "What's his name?" Mahi asked the father, helping him up from the ground.

"Naman," his eyes were filled with terror—no recognization of his son, just a sick, deranged patient.

"Naman," Mahi called out. "Where are the monsters?"

"They're everywhere. They're after me! Trying to inject me with venom." He spun around, thrusting everything out of his way.

"Naman, I can help you. I promise."

"No, you can't. No one can."

"Yes, I can. You see this?" Mahi pulled out a syringe from her pocket. "This has magic in it. Like a flu shot, it'll protect you from them. It'll make you immune to the monsters. Even if they touch you, it won't make a difference." Behind her, the boy's father nodded, encouraging him to let Mahi come closer.

"I don't believe you."

"Please, Naman." She inched closer to him.

"You promise?"

"I do." Her eyes watered with sincerity. He offered her his arm.

"Dr. Mehra!" Abhimanyu screamed. He didn't know when or how, but Naman grabbed a scalpel from the tray next to him and lunged it forward into Mahi's left arm. Blood soaked through her sleeves.

"Ahhh," the adrenaline drove the injection into Naman's arm. Their screams sounded through the room - Naman's harrowing and panicked; Mahi's a faint gasp.

"What's in that injection?" She heard the father question, catching his son. Abhimanyu and two nurses rushed to Mahi's side, upholding her. "Diazepam. It's a-"

"It's a sedative we often use for acute agitation." Abhimanyu finished.

"It's not your fault. I would've done the same thing."

"The hell not. If I kept him restrained, you wouldn't be bleeding."

A pregnant pause ensued, filled only by Mahi's hisses.

"I'm sorry," Abhimanyu whispered.

It wasn't funny. Nothing about today was funny. Yet, Mahi laughed so hard at his apology that tears brimmed in her eyes. He stared at her like she was crazy.

"Tumne tab maafi thik se nahi mangi jab mujhe interview ke din insult kiya tha, par ab, jab tumhari galati nahi hai tum itne sincerity se maafi maang rahe ho."

"Maine tumhari insult nahi ki thi."

"Haan, tumne toh meri joining pe party throw ki thi na? Main jaanti hoon tum Aarohi se meri kitni shikayat karti ho."

"Aarohi bhi na, uske pett mein koi baat nahi rehti."

"Sach mein!"

"Par tum bhi koi sati savitri nahi ho. Rooh and I made such a nice apology basket, and what did you do? You flung it into the trashcan." He mimicked Naaz's flamboyant impression.

"They're toxic to my cat!" Mahi pouted, hiding her face behind her uninjured hand.

"My point still stands." He haughtily huffed.

She chortled, and their laughter intermingled.

"Hi!" Mahi's eyes widened, expectedly. "Abhimanyu," he extended his hand.

"Mahi." She smiled and met his efforts at a new beginning halfway.

"Toh Mahi, mujhse dosti karogi?"

"Hmmm," she considered. "Dehkoongi, sochoongi, kal parso kuch kahoongi." She winked with that mischievous smile of hers.

"Kitni filmy ho tum."

He inspected her bandages before instructing her to take the afternoon off.

Mahi dreaded going outside with her sleeves up. The stares she'd get if people noticed her scars, especially after today. What if they asked questions? She worried. But she couldn't roll them down without squeezing her wound and contaminating it.

"Here." Abhimanyu handed her his lab coat.

"Uh-," she didn't know how to thank him.

"Koshish karna aur chot na khana ki, itna thanks hi khafi hai. Tum jaisi patient ko main nahi kandle kar sakta." He calmed her anxieties.

"Yes, chief!" she saluted before leaving the hospital.

Always looking forward to reading your comments. It really motivates me and encourages me to share what I've written. Also, doesn't he look stunning in the picture? It makes my heart go 'hayeee'