I Saw Her

Chapter 1

"I'm sorry."

These two words crushed me. Tears welled up in my eyes and I couldn't contain them.

I muttered a soft 'thank you' to the nurse from the hospital and ended the call. I turned towards my mother, who still had eyes full of hope, lips tight, determined that it wasn't about Dad. She still believed that he wasn't dead.

I wanted to lie to her. I wanted to tell her that Dad was still safe in his hotel, probably still oblivious to the bomb explosion.

I wanted to, but I couldn't.

I couldn't look her in the eye, but I still shook my head. She burst into tears and hugged me as she bawled her eyes out. Her embrace felt cold. It felt like everything was dark with desparity. I couldn't see anything, or feel anything.

I felt empty.

I didn't know what to feel, or how I should feel. Should I feel sorrowful, angry or grief? It felt like all my feelings, personality, everything human, was sucked out. I was an empty shell of a human being.

It felt like a really horrible nightmare, one that you would expect the nightmare to end at this exact moment. But, my nightmare didn't end.

In fact, it was only the beginning.

3rd November 2015. That's when it happened. Terrorists had placed four bombs in Bangkok, timed so that they exploded one after another at 8.20pm. The bombs each had a blast radius of 20m and were placed just at the North-west corner in one of the least populated districts.

It was a joke, one of God's cruel pranks. I mean Bangkok expanded hundreds of kilometres. What were the chances of my Dad being caught in the explosion?

He was one of the many millions.

Why was he the one who got taken away from me?

He didn't do anything wrong. At all.

He was an honest and straightforward man. The sole breadwinner of my family, he often came back from work tired and weary, but always smiled when he set his eyes upon his three sons and his lovely wife.

What did he ever do to deserve this? But that didn't matter did it? The world is unfair. It takes away anything and everything it wants.