She has no idea how long she sits and sobs on the unused couch of the room she seldom visits. All she can feel is the pain and anguish and melancholy clogging every part of her. Her cries are not silent this time. She cries loud, easing the ache of so many years in them. She cries the tears of all the years from hell and before, lets out the screams she has buried for so long in them. She cries and cries and cries till she is completely empty and the tears no longer flow. All along, he sits on the floor, watching her with compassion, understanding and her own pain mirrored in his eyes. Because acquaintance with pain does not discriminate based on the situation or circumstance faced in. Because pain is ambiguous and he feels her pain as akin to his.
When the tears stop, the last dearth of energy keeping her consciousness does too. She collapses into the welcoming arms of exhaustion induced slumber without caution for the other person in the room. He watches her slouch uncomfortably against the wall that can give her a nasty neck pain if she were to remain in that position. Pulling himself up, he gently eases her on the couch such that she is lying in a more comfortable position and then pulls the bedsheet he sees in the cupboard over her. He then contemplates if it would be appropriate for him to stay but he cannot bring himself to leave when he knows she isn't okay yet. So he pulls out another bedsheet from the cupboard and makes himself comfortable on the floor, using the cushion she threw at him as a pillow. This being one of the times his exhaustion defeats his insomnia, he falls asleep a little while after.
_
Her lungs constrict, her wheeze increases and she knows it is just going to get worse. Her hand goes against her belly, trying to pass through this attack, all for this little life within her. She cannot give up. This is not the first time. It will be okay. It has to.
It doesn't. She drags herself on the ground till she makes it to where he is seated. A look of disgust passes over his face but he remains silent. That is a sign good enough. She swallows through the pain, swallows her dignity, presses her head on his legs, pleading to be given her medicine. Pleading to be granted mercy. Not for her but for the one growing within her. She pleads and pleads till he relents. A wave of relief passes through her. It is short lived though because when he returns, it is not her nebulizer bag in his hand but a whip.
Horror fills her face along with primal fear and protectiveness. She curls on the ground, protecting her stomach as she meets his eyes.
"No!No!" she says, he cannot be cruel to his own blood just to punish her.
He smirks, a predator who has sensed the fear in its prey and also the one that has seen its futile attempts at bravery.
"Mohit sn-ap out of th-is ma-dn-ess! You cannot kill *coughs*our child just be-cause y-y-ou want to pu-nish me" she manages, her voice hoarse and loathingly helpless.
"See that is where you are wrong because I can" he says sinisterly, a glint in his eyes. The whip lifts in the air and lands on soft flesh even as a scream reverberates. She tries to protect her baby with everything that she has, letting her back, legs and arms bear the maximum of the assault while struggling to breathe in the position she is in. She is at the verge of collapsing when he decides he has had enough to satiate the beast in him. He walks away and she gives in to the darkness.
When she awakens, she is hauntingly empty. She lies in the pool of blood, feeling the last remnants of her baby against her. The wounds on her skin are nothing compared to the agony cascading within.
She did not give up on her efforts but they still fell short in enabling her baby to hold on.
_
He wakes up to her wailing cries, more haunting than the ones she cried before she fell asleep. Her eyes are still closed but she is struggling on the couch, sweat beading her forehead and "No" escaping her throat continuously. She is in the grip of a nightmare evidently and he flounders as he wonders what to do. Should he wake her up or should he leave her such? But the latter would mean leaving her suffering which he cannot do.
He is just about to wake her up when she jolts awake, her arms going around her stomach and tears continuously pouring down her eyes. She looks around in disorientation and panic and flinches when her eyes land on him, something in her eyes that is vicious in hatred and meek in fear reflecting at him that makes him decide he never wants to see that in her eyes ever again when she looks at him. He stands in his place not risking movement in case it were to disturb her. It takes a few moments to find herself again and the look in her eyes to be replaced by the familiarity of recognition.
"Abhira" he whispers cautiously.
"Armaan" she manages in a tired whisper. She feels torn raw, all her wounds ripped apart, bleeding and aching and she is just so tired of everything within her. She does not know anymore about what is right, wrong, acceptable. She does not know if it is too soon according to the normal workings of the world. She is not normal, hasn't ever been no matter how hard she tried. She does not have it in her to think about vulnerability and betrayal and everything else.
An empty cradle, her womb and a cemetery, her body, aches for something apart from the dead to hear the calls. Her cries have reached him, it is the rest that has to be said. So she says it.
Her eyes are a pool of anguish, her arms still clutching her stomach.
"I wasn't barren once. My baby was in here once, my one reason to live. The baby I never got to look beyond the blood on my clothes!" she screams and it rattles everything within him, the depth of her pain permeating through him and echoing in his ears.
"I tried so hard to protect it! I-I" she says sobbing. Her breaths come out fast, too much suppressed within that wants to come forth at the voice finally given.
She stops after a moment and taking a deep breath says,
"Come with me. I-I have something to show you"
_
WC: 1149 words
Love,
Pratyusha
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Edge Of The Night | ONC2024 ✓
General Fiction[Open Novella Contest - 2024] ONC2024 Longlister Round 1 & 2 Qualifier Prompts: 24,5 Tired of rising from the ashes, when his last reason to hold on falls apart, a man seeking peace moves into a new apartment. What he doesn't expect is to become e...
