Captain Khalid Rahmani, one of R&AW's finest, is dead to the world. Another soldier who sacrificed himself for his people. Little did they know that nothing is how it appears to be.
He's still alive, albeit with an alternative name and a new persona...
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{𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒐 𝒎𝒆} ~
Peep... Peep...
Peep... Peep...
The noise was the first thing to reach his hearing as it pulled him from a deep slumber, it was annoying as he felt it drilling into his eardrums. He tried to move his hand to cover his ears but it felt as if his muscles had turned to stone and his bones were full of air, he could still feel the warm softness of the surface he was on, the floating sensation that engulfed him was weirdly calming, it was as if he was laying on a cloud. He attempted to open his eyes but his eyelids were glued to each other.
Apart from the peeping sound, it was utterly quiet, Khalid could hear his breathing echoing in his skull. A sharp scent made its way into his nostrils, he recognized it but he couldn't put a name to it. Something was not right, he felt as if he was dreaming, but he wasn't supposed to smell anything if he was in a dream, it didn't make sense.
Khalid tried harder to pry open his eyes, which he eventually did after a bit of effort as he fought the amiable blackness that sought to pull him down again. At first, a blast of harsh light hit his eyes and forced him to squeeze them shut, but he needed to see his surroundings.
Fluttering his eyes open one more time, he was relieved that it got adjusted to the brightness as a hazy, plain white met his eyes. It took him a moment to realize it was a ceiling. He wanted to turn his head, but his neck was very stiff it was almost painful, yet, he couldn't feel any pain. It alarmed him.
As the fog started to clear off his brain, pieces of the puzzle started to fall in place. Khalid was laying on a bed, a machine beside him was beeping constantly, the sterilized smell that felt his lungs was unmistakable, and the plain white that encompassed him.
He was in a hospital room.
Why would he be in such a place? What happened to him? Why couldn't he feel anything apart from the spikes of fear that started to crawl under the numbness of his skin? And why couldn't he move?
The machine's noise became louder as Khalid felt his heartbeat quickening, that was when a dark figure appeared in his line of view, disrupting the whiteness. Blinking to clear his vision, the figure began to reform into a face.
It belonged to a woman with long, dark hair, looking down at him with a narrow smile on her features.
"Welcome back, Captain Khalid."
Khalid sprang up with a jolt, his heart beating a tattoo in his chest and sweat covering his entire body. He hated nightmares, but that one wasn't one of these horrid dreams he would usually have, it was more of a flashback, a memory he would never be able to wipe out off his mind.
Pushing the covers aside, he left his bed and stepped toward the open window, taking in a deep breath to calm the shudder in his limbs as the cool dawn breeze gently blew over his face.
He could still draw a perfect image of that woman in his head, her emotionless eyes, her cunning smirk, and her automated attitude. Her name was Doctor Mallika Singhal.
She told him that he was in a coma for seven months because he was severely injured in an accident, yet, she didn't clarify what kind of accident. she kept asking him about his full name, his family members, his teammates, his boss, and some details that only him could know while recording every answer he was giving her, but when he was pointing a question to her, she wouldn't respond.
He remembered being asked about the last thing he could remember, and his confident answer about the preparations of Marrakesh's mission. When she asked him about what happened after that, that was when he saw it.
A huge, void hole in his memory.
He couldn't answer her, no matter how many times she would repeat the question. It was as if a part of his brain had been chopped off and thrown away, it made his head throb with an odd headache.
'Short Term Memory Loss,' that what she called it, it's when trauma causes a memory loss to help the person cope with the traumatic event that caused the injury. To him, all her descriptions were rubbish, he didn't even know what happened to him. He demanded answers, but she didn't give him anything, nobody did.
For days, he was kept alone in that white hospital room, unable to see or contact anyone except for the medical staff who didn't even address him by his name. they were all strangers, similar faces coming in and out at regular intervals that he, with time, learned to count. The only familiar face among them was the doctor.
"You'll know everything in time," was the only reply he would receive whenever he directed a question to her, but for him, time didn't exist. Each day the identical, painful routine was replayed in perfect synchronization, he couldn't differentiate daytime from nighttime, hours mixed with themselves and Khalid felt he was gradually losing himself, blankness was spreading into his brain like a wave taking over the shore.
One day, the room's door was opened to reveal a new, yet a very familiar face.
Colonel Sunil Luthra.
Khalid didn't remember a time when he was that happy to see his boss. With him, he would find all the answers he was digging for. Finally, it was time for the hole in his memory to be filled.
He showered the Colonel with questions, what happened in Marrakesh? Why did he end up in this place? Why couldn't he get a visit from anybody? When would he be out of there? He wanted to call his mother and tell her that he was alright as she must have been sick worried about him, he wanted to talk to his teammates, he wanted to see Kabir and apologize to him. He didn't know what was he apologizing for, but he needed to.
Khalid had many requests, but the Colonel had only one answer for him.
"You're dead, Khalid."
That was the moment when his whole world collapsed.
Colonel Luthra, slowly but thoroughly, explained everything to Khalid, he told him about Marrakesh mission and how it went south, about how Iliyasi and Saurabh played their dirty, mind-boggling game, about how he was believed to be dead until they managed to put their hands on some vital information about Mallika that exposed everything and let them know that he was still alive because she, for some reason, didn't kill him, and how he gave strict orders to keep everything a secret and show everybody the image that he was no longer alive.
Khalid was almost sure that he was trapped in a long, vivid nightmare. He wanted to wake up from it, desperately cried for help, futilely persuading himself that it wasn't real, that his brain was playing games on him. It was all in vain.
He was forced to accept the fact that he didn't exist anymore. For his friends, he was a picture on a wall, a memory to cherish. For the world, he was a name, engraved on a tombstone of an empty grave.
But the colonel told him that it wasn't over, he still had a chance to change his fate, an opportunity to avenge, but in order to achieve that he had to forget everything he learned before, to burn his past life and arise from its ashes, to not be himself again.
He had to become someone else, and so he did.
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[A/N] I've never been able to accept the idea that Khalid is dead, so this is my attempt of an "alternative ending."
Don't forget to vote and comment, let me know what you think.
