Discordance

Chapter Eighty

"Wake up please monkey, come back to me."

She was trying to swim towards the voice but her brain kept pulling her underwater. It was almost like her head was floating on clouds and everything was fuzzy. She tried desperately to lean into the direction where Abhimanyu's voice was coming from but her limbs refused to move. He sounded so distraught that her heart immediately rejected it and she needed to make sure he was okay because if he wasn't how would she be okay? But try as she might, her body and mind kept pulling her back into the darkness. She could faintly recognize the flurry of activity around her every now and then but more than that, it was Abhimanyu's voice as he spoke to her in that voice he specially reserved for her that made her heart ache with need.

"Abhimanyu, you have to eat something please. Do you think Akshara will like it if she found out that you weren't taking care of yourself?" If Akshara could talk or wake up she would wholeheartedly agree with her father-in-law and reprimand Abhimanyu herself but she wasn't too sure this wasn't some dream of hers so she fell back into her stupor. She itched to hear what Abhimanyu's response was but it had to be her brain playing games with her because Abhimanyu's response didn't make sense at all , why was he telling her father-in-law that he could not bear to stomach a single morsel of food without Akshara ? she was right here, why was he on a hunger strike then? Darkness took over soon and her questions remained unanswered.

"Monkey look, I am wearing the ring you gave me around my neck. You're close to my heart forever but I need you to wake up and tell me yourself. I am so sorry"

She could faintly feel his ghost touch as he stroked her hair but as she tried to wriggle closer to his touch and properly feel it, her body refused to acknowledge her endeavors and if she could she would have let out a frustrated shriek. Did nobody realize that Abhimanyu was sad? She had to be with him and tell him she loved him. Why was he sorry? She should be sorry because Abhimanyu did not sound right. He kept begging her to do something but she couldn't even open her eyes, she had forgotten how to.

"I will never ever again be rude to you or act like a damn child. Please just wake up and tell me you won't run away."

His voice was muffled like she was standing at the end of the tunnel and all she could hear were reverberations of his voice as he screamed from the other end. She wanted to tell him not to fret and that she wasn't going to run away, why would she? He was her home, her peace but then the black clouds descended again and her astute attention to his voice was broken as she was thrown back into the black, murky waters. She hated it, she wanted to go to Abhimanyu but no matter how hard she tried, her body and mind refused to comply, and she had to eventually give up and go back to sleep, wishing desperately that this terrible dream would end and she would wake up to Abhimanyu's warm body.

"Akshara please"

The urgency in his voice was somehow different this time and Akshara felt it deep in her soul, he had called her Akshara, he needed her. Time was an anomaly and maybe she had been sleeping for far too long but now the bright light was beckoning her closer to the surface and she felt herself follow the bright white light until her foggy mind cleared a bit and with the utmost care, she tried and blinked her eyes, grinning internally when her brain complied. But then, her vision cleared just enough to find herself in a strange room, a constant beeping irritating the everliving life out of her.

"MMpphh" she groaned as she tried to form words but her throat was too dry and her body wasn't moving. It was almost like she was locked into position and her brain had forgotten to signal to the rest of her body to comply.

"Monkey?" she blinked again and slowly Abhimanyu's face came in her line of sight as he peered down at her. Something about his demeanor felt off and all she needed in that moment was to lift her hand and touch him but everything was locked in place and her conscience alerted her to the pain travelling up and down her body. "Hurts" she choked out finally making him jump but Akshara couldn't really focus on him, her full attention was on her body and the weird surroundings as her brain was working overtime to alert her that something was wrong.