Hamesha - Always

last breaths | i

This might be a 3 part series (depending on how you guys find it) <3

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Echoes indistinguishable from each other surrounded her. Breaths were staggered, and with every inhalation, she could feel her body slowly giving up.

Until two hours prior, her sister was getting engaged. The groom was to be dressed in an olive green studded kurta, that matched the bride's personalised Manish Malhotra lehenga. Anjali had always dreamed of having a modern fairytale–a lavish wedding to a rich man–and her wish was so close to being fulfilled.

Nandini was pulled in on a stretcher bed, with four tires wheeling her into the house of sorrows. Her makeup was covered with splotches of blood, and her mint lehenga soaked in red. Red was the colour of a bride, but she wasn't one. Tubes strung along her veins, stabilising her writhing body. She felt like cotton buds were stuffed in her ears and blocked her auditory nerves. Everything faintly existed. "Doctor, it's an emergency. Severe head trauma case." 

"Send the patient in. Ward 6," came the other line.

As the patient's collaterals were being collected, the bride's sister was pulled into a bed surrounded by sea-green curtains. Never in a million years had Anjali imagined her engagement day to turn out like this.

A doctor had come into the emergency ward with a white coat over his arms and a mask around his nasal cavity, hanging on his ears. He was tall and well-built with an aura of one with few words; only today he was in a green kurta. Sweat beads were all over his forehead.

The way he had tossed his keys had denoted he had rushed in as quickly as he could have. Possibly drifted through traffic on his bike. One of the nurses quickly brought him up to speed.

"Eight minutes ago she attempted suicide. Her parents saw her jump off the first-floor window..."

His gaze had not left the bleeding girl for even a second. "Get an MRI scan done. NOW."

"Sir but..."

"Maine kaha na abhi!" He heaved a nervous sigh as a near-lifeless figure passed by.

Her hands stretched for help, she felt it was too late. He backed off with retreating steps until he longingly separated himself from her as much as he could.

Anjali sat outside the ICU, her mother hugging her by her side as she watched her fiance's agitation and distress take many shapes and forms as her sister was reeled into the hospital. For doctors, such situations were part of their normal life. Blood, ruptured tissues, broken bones, and more blood were in the contract they signed up for. They could not have negative reactions to such incidents. Manik, though, couldn't help himself: that was evident.

She knew her fiance and her sister were acquaintances from before. They were in the same college, Manik was Nandini's senior but having chosen medicine, he had very little time for other fun things college students did.

Her sister Nandini on the other hand was a literature student who took everything lightly. Everything was fun and games for her until one night before the exam. It was truly a miracle that she made it out of college itself with her countless excuses for procrastination, but Nandini had always been intellectually sharper than her older sister. Manik's shrewd discipline and passion for his field of study, on the other hand, took him further than many of his peers, as did his complete focus.

When the alliance was being considered between the two families, and a background check was run on him, Nandini had in fact vouched for him and his personality having known him since college.