TRIGGER WARNING
"And so it was, the way it went. I had to watch as you shattered!"
-Ranbir Kohli
When feeling asunder, lost without a definable reason, every step only led back home, even if her house wasn't a home the way it should be for a person. Yet it is the place she has sustained herself in, the place where when she came in broken and scarred, she had stiched haphazardly and sealed herself shut beneath walls of sheer numbness, reinforcing them time and again every time she felt any tinge of emotion that wasn't impatience or anger. It is the place she is returning to now, even amidst the connfusion and conundrum of what is happening to her and especially because of it. But just as she is stood closer to the door, the feeling that something was different refused to leave her be. She could feel it within her, like people felt lacunae in the air around them, like a premonition, like a mild gust of warmth in and around her usually cold haven. Yet what was she to do except take herself in and that is exactly what her body propelled her to do.
A step in and the halt is immediate. Frozen is too mild of a word to compare how she stood and how she felt. Silence has never before been as deafening as now and all she can hear is static. Her eyes turn hazy, a flood of memories awakened from where she had buried them. Forced open, her sarcophagus splintered and everything within of what remained, began consuming her within. Quivers wrecked her entire body, shock too meagre of a word to encompass all that was happening to her. Her legs gave away as she collapsed on the ground, eyes running rapidly across everything that now embellished her living room - her entire life till now, everything she had buried because she didn't know how else to survive till death embraced her.
The scream that escaped her throat was heartwrenching. His nails had dug into his palms in his bid to control himself from going over and removing everything from her sight so she would stop shaking the way she did and he clenched his fists even harder, knowing he had to let her be, knowing she had to do this on her own. She screamed again, eyes flooding and overflowing, her palms banging against the floor. And then she looked up, eyes puffed up, red and overflowing, looking around as if to find an anchor. In her perusal, she spotted him and her gaze locked with his.
The sob, the ugly harrowing ordeal her soul was undergoing at the present moment, anger like nothing else, like never before surged through her veins, like white hot lava amidst the frontiers of ash and tephra. She shot up to her feet and almost lunged towards him, her hands gripping his collar and pushing him roughly against the wall. It was primal now as she screamed in rage, pushing at him even as he coughed with the impact of it. Yet he did not defend himself, did not even attempt to stop her as she continued pushing at him, repeatedly chanting only one thing
"How dare you?"
Pushing at him again and again did not lessen her fury though. She pulled away, eyes almost bulging in white hot anger. And then she burst out at him.
"WHO GAVE YOU THE RIGHT? WHO GAVE YOU THE RIGHT TO BARGE INTO MY SPACE AND SET IT ALL UP WITHOUT MY CONSENT OR PERMISSION? HOW DARE YOU? WHAT DO YOU KNOW? WHAT DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS? WHAT I WENT THROUGH...WHAT WAS SNATCHED FROM ME? WHAT.....WHAT HAD I DONE TO DESERVE ANY OF IT? WHAT......WHAT HAD I DONE FOR IT TO GET SO WRETCHED? WHERE.......WHERE WAS ANYONE WHEN I BEGGED FOR HELP? WHERE WAS ANYONE WHEN I PLEADED FOR MERCY, FOR REPRIEVE? WHERE WAS ANYONE WHEN I SCREAMED SO HARD FOR SOMEONE TO SAVE MY FAMILY? WHERE? AND NOW YOU DARE?! NOW WHEN I HAVE NOTHING ELSE EXCEPT WHAT I HAVE BUILT FOR MYSELF, EXCEPT WAITING FOR DEATH TO COME TAKE ME, AT LAST TO MY FAMILY AND YOU COME HERE TO SNATCH THAT TOO!!! HOW DARE YOU?!!!!!"
The rage ran out as she collapsed on the floor sobbing. She couldn't muffle the sounds, couldn't stop as they spilled out with increasing volume. Memories, good and bad flooded her as she curled into herself.
Those precious days when her family was alive. When she was just a girl, happy, chirpy and loved.
When she lost her father. When her aunt who was supposed to protect her, protect them, forced them to do horrendous things.
When she felt searing pain for the first time as hot iron branded her flesh.
When she struggled against the binds holding her and they took and took and took.
When she watched her sister slip away and away, unable to tolerate the pain because she could do nothing to protect her like she promised she would.
When her sister died and she couldn't even get a proper burial according to customs.
When they broke her body, her mind, stole her dignity, her identity.
When her freedom came and all she did was run away, incapable of seeking justice for her own self.
When she learnt how to live the rest of her life in frigid numbness because she did not know any better.
They were so many and they overpowered her. All she felt in the moment was pain. Unbearable pain, devastating sorrow and everything she had locked inside, they poured out mercilessly.
"I...I tried so hard. I tried so hard to save her. I tried so hard to keep hope, be strong. They t..took...took.....they did not stop.....I screamed...I begged....they did not stop...she...she took what I...what we most loved and she polluted it....she polluted every bit of it....It hurt....IT HURT" she screamed as she sobbed, mind lost in time back in that moment.
He could hold back no longer. He collapsed on the floor beside her and gently pulled her into his arms. She clung to him like a small child, body shivering and shuddering, eyes continuing to overflow. His own tears flowed down at the sheer intensity of her pain and the slowly dawning horror of what she had undergone!
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Note:
This came out in a flow and I am very unsure if this served the purpose or just extinguished everything you all have been waiting for. I had decided when I first began that nowhere in this book will I go explicitly into her trauma because that is not the focal point of this book. Hence I have tried my best to skirt around it without abandoning sensitivity for all of it. I do not know if this is consistent with the trauma I have described over 19 chapters, if you can see all of it leading up to this and at this point, I have not decided the ending as of yet.
Would really appreciate hearing your views about this chapter in particular and where do you think this is leading to.
Love,
Pratyusha
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Splinters Of Ice | Pranbir
Fanfiction..... Prachi x Ranbir AU ...... // Can be read as general fiction // An enigma she was, unfathomable depths she held within herself. Every interaction with her asserted the same. Yet like moth to the flame, he was drawn to her irrevocably. The plung...
