Operation: Dard and Devotion

29 | Qualm & Quiet

The more I realized how everything actually fit into place, the more I wished there was a way to stimulate my own mental shutdown.

First, Ahsan had mentioned that his brother went to medical school. Then Aqsa's eyes, as gruesome as it had been, were gouged and removed with the optic nerves, the main nerve of the eye that was necessary for transplants to take place. Without the optic nerve, located in the rear of the organ, the eye would be practically useless. Lastly, Rafaa's kidney had been disposed of; a person who lacked proper medical knowledge would not be able to precisely carve out an organ out of someone's body.

Faizan knew exactly what he was doing because he was a medical student at one point, if not a certified doctor. And above all, he is also Ahsan's elder brother.

On another note, whenever I would indirectly, or directly, ask Ahsan to remove his balaclava, he would always tell me off or come up with excuses. Perhaps he resembled Faizan so much that I would figure out they were siblings from the start, which would explain why he never took it off, at least, in front of me. It didn't matter. Face or no face, he shattered more than my trust either way.

A killer headache erupted every time I tried to analyze which of the two brothers deserved more disdain from my part.

Faizan's water bucket stood abandoned in the corner of the room that was closest to the door, completely untouched. Cradling Saad in my lap, I firmly held him against me while we were alone in the dungeon room as if some invisible force would snatch away my one last reason to survive this brutal ordeal. He gazed at me blankly and occasionally looked at me curiously whenever I sniffled.

"It's just you and me, Saad, like it was the moment you first went into my arms." I gave him a glance and the child's eyes widened, in awe that there were more sounds on this planet apart from 'wah' and 'baba'. "You know, at times I had wished that you'd be able to talk to me, but then I think about all the horrid things you might say based on what you've seen and change my mind. Maybe its best that you can't talk.

"I try to imagine the number of women you've seen get raped. Did you see them die too? Were any of them around your age? Did you have any siblings? Did you witness your parents die? Perhaps they're actually not dead, but aimlessly searching for their kidnapped toddler. Or maybe they had to sell you off to these monsters because they couldn't afford to feed an extra mouth. Do you remember what your real name was? Have you ever thought about these things?"

Saad frowned, probably in confusion because he could not utter a coherent reply. The child wasn't so accustomed to my rambling, but Ahsan seemed to care for my rant sessions.

The key words there were 'seemed to'.

Saad's frown deepened when I bursted into tears for the infinite time that week.

"What's it like to feel so lonely in the world, Saad? How do you cope with it? Why is this so hard?" I wiped my nose with my sleeve and patted his head against my chest as I leaned against the head frame of the cot. "I used to think I was independent enough to be unaffected by attachments, that is, until I got here."

Saad reached out a chubby hand and lazily wiped my cheeks, but that sweet gesture only made me cry harder.

"Saad, why would he do that to me, to us? How can someone be so evil and cruel? Why are there people like all of them out there? If they do no good in the world, why are they even here just to ruin people's lives?"

The child nodded his head occasionally, perhaps in agreement, and patted either side of my face while smiling. His attempts to cheer me up, or to silence me, did not work.

"I've heard some people say that you can't ever truly be alone because God is always with you. I don't think those people have ever been in our position because it doesn't seem that way to me right now. And then there's that Quranic verse everybody quotes when something bad happens: Verily, with hardship, comes ease [Surah Ash-Sharh 96:6]. Where is the ease, Saad? Where!"