Where Shadows Reach

The Beginning

Meerab was woken up in the middle of the night by a tightness in her chest gasping for air.
She felt like her chest was being compressed by something, as if she could not take a full breath.
Taking short jerky breaths, she tried to not panic.

Her erratic breaths sounded wheezy even to her own ears as she struggled to reach the bathroom.

Finally reaching the tap, she opened it and dunked her face under the cold water.
The shock of it helped ease her breathing to an almost normal pace.

She stood with the tap open, cool water flowing freely over her wrists. Bent over the sink Meerab let her body relax bit by bit.

This was certainly not the way Meerab had planned to wake up for her engagement preperations.

She could not recall if it was a nightmare that woke her up from deep sleep.
Meerab wondered if this was what a panic attack felt like, but she was not nervous at all. Why was her whole body feeling like it was already exhausted from worrying.

After all it was Murtasim Khan that she had chosen to marry, her childhood friend and husband to be. Nothing dangerous or scary about him for her to feel any panic.

As she walked back to her bed, Meerab felt rather than see the shadows approaching in her peripheral vision.

It seemed to be further away than usual but she could feel heat climbing up her neck and into her scalp as the shadows moved towards her.

Sweat beaded up on her forehead and it was also making her feel queasy somehow. The heat on her neck was slowly building into a dull throb around her temples.

She did not want to disturb her parents this late into the night, taking a tablet meant for headaches Meerab slowly lay back down on her pillows.
Trying not to make any sudden moves, which increased her queasiness, she

closed her eyes and she tried to sleep.

Ignoring the black dots she could see from the corner of her eyes, which seemed to be hovering in a distance.

She was up again just half an hour later, this time rushing to throw up into the toilet bowl.

She was only able to sit down on her bed for a few minutes before getting up and rushing to the bathroom with a hand over her mouth.

By early morning five she was too exhausted to even move out of the bathroom to rest on the bed.

She sat down on the bathroom floor with her back against the cool tiles near the door, that was how her mother found her.

Meerab had been throwing up nothing but bile the last few times and her face had started to look pale and drawn from dehydration.

Her parents rushed her to the hospital without a moments delay, as they had no idea what was wrong with her.

The doctor suggested it could be a case of food poisoning and prescribed medication for it. They had immediately begun a dose of intravenous fluids to rehydrate her while they did some general tests for further investigation.

Once he was sure Meerab was resting in the hospital room, Waqas informed Ma Begum about Meerab's condition and her hospitalisation.