More than just Feluda (Fanfic)

Narrating the Incident

She saw him come in and the little rise in her spirits that talking with Kaaki had caused faded away again. The memories from last night, the loss of her child, the day she was attacked, all came by once again. Not being able to bear the weight of her emotions, she turned her face from him and looked the other way. He noticed this of course, but came nearby nonetheless.

He sat on the chair besides her bed. "How are you?"

"Was fine." She said still looking away.

He smiled sadly. She knew and was relieved he wouldn't be able to say a lot with Kaaki hovering behind in the room, talking to the nurse.

He just sat there in silence, until Kaaki came up to them. "I will have to go home and look after some things before lunch. Your Kaka is outside, right?"

"Yeah." He replied.

"Alright, I'll be going with him. Take care here."

He nodded and Kaaki stroked on Sindhuja's hair before leaving. Sindhu stared at the door. She had wanted to ask Kaaki to stay back, not wishing to be alone with him.
Then she felt his fingers gently slide into her hand to hold it, but immediately warded it off.

"What do you want?"

She knew she was hurting him, but couldn't help it.

"Can't I come to check on you?" His voice did not come out as simple as the words.

With that reply, she knew him well enough to guess that he did indeed want something from her today.
"Yes you can, but certainly not without purpose. I don't want to be deceived anymore by my love, tell me what you want and be over with it."

He stared at her half-astonished and half-dejected.

She looked away nonetheless and continued.
"Did I say anything wrong? You are here for something aren't you?!"

He sighed. "I know you're outraged with me, but I promise, this is the last time I'm bothering you with my work. I- need to know what happened that evening."

"Ha." She curled up her lips bitterly. "My guesswork with you never goes wrong!"

"Please. This really is the last time. After this, I won't take up any cases until you want, I won't cause any problems, I won't be inattentive to you...I won't take you for granted."

She stared at him unamused. "Oh, cut off with that nicely made up speech! I don't expect such unrealistic stuff from you."

He opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off.

"In fact, I don't expect anything from you at this point.
You wanted to know what happened right, here it is...

So as you might be knowing, Tapesh had gone away to fetch you and then Srinath went away for a telephone call too... It had been but 5 or 10 minutes since I was alone in the hall of our house, when I heard a thud upstairs. I thought it would be a cat and went to check right away with a bamboo stick... which I picked from the backyard door. And when I went up I heard a sound from Tapesh's room. So when I got there I..."

She had been brave enough narrating everything until this point, when she couldn't tell any more. The trauma from that attack that she had been suppressing was returning to her. Stills from the incident flashed before her eyes, and the fear surged into her mind again. She felt the attacker might be lurking around right here, and he would again...

"No! I- I..." She had started tearing up before even realising.

He quickly stopped her. "It's okay. Don't... Don't think about it more if it's hurting you... That's enough."

She clutched her head. "No! I'm going to get over with this for once. I don't want to revisit this incident again... I- I'm telling you..."

"I'll get some water..."

"Listen!" She said tears streaming down her face, staring down while flicking her fingers nervously. "I- I went there into... into the room. The d-door closed behind me... And... And when I turned, there was this man... He wrapped his arm over my throat from behind... I almost choked... The stick fell from my hands. I tried to kick behind on his shin. At one point I think I did succeed; and his grip on me loosened, and I fell down... But I suddenly banged my head on the- the brown desk... on the corner... And everything went dark."

Her breath was hitching and palms were sweaty.

As much as he hated himself for doing this, he found himself asking, "Can you tell me how he looked?"

"He was probably like... like 5'10, not really thin or fat... Probably dark in skin. But his face was covered- so I could only see the eyes... black coloured eyeballs.. That's... That's all I can..."
She had started to face the dreadful headache again and her face did not hide it.

"Okay, That's it!... Drink some water, here." He filled the nearby glass from a jug & brought it to her mouth. She stared at the glass at her mouth for a moment, took it from him and gulped down the water herself despite having dangerously shaky hands. Giving the glass back to him, she breathed heavily closing her eyes and clutching the blanket that was closest at hand.

He felt his heart shatter while watching her struggle. How badly he wanted to hold her hands, rain kisses on her face and give her the warmest hug he could; but she didn't even let him come close.

"Nope, I'm- I'm fine..." She sighed composing herself. "So, I gave you all that I could about it. Anything else that you need?" She asked coldly.

"No darling, please! I'm terribly sorry for messing things up so much... I will fix all this..."

She scoffed even through her weakness. "You can never. The damage is already done now."