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...
"Not again!" Khalid grumbled, almost not believing that he was re-experiencing that nightmarish memory again. But for some reason it didn't feel like another flashback, there was a strength to it.
He could almost swear that he was flying, or swinging. There was a light, cold breeze over his face but it didn't feel like the wind. He could feel the firm smoothness underneath his fingertips but he couldn't move his hand to caress it.
His brain was a balloon, filled with colorless nothingness, he couldn't think of anything besides listening to the beeping noises, feeling the breeze on his face, and touching the soft material under his hand.
"I hate that!" he shouted, only to belatedly realize that his voice wasn't coming out of his throat for his lips weren't moving. He was immobilized, it was all in his mind.
Terrified, Khalid struggled to escape the illusory restraints that kept him in place, thrashing left and right to set himself free. He was trapped, and he had to get himself out from whatever he was caught in. Turned out that all his brawling and screaming where only a discontinuous chain of feeble twitches and barely-audible murmurs.
That was when a hand touched his hair ever-so-lightly, and rested over his forehead.
He tried to shrink away from the touch. Yet, something prevented him from doing so. It was cautious, gentle, and very familiar.
The hand moved down to his cheek, and he couldn't help but lean into its warmth, he knew this hand, felt it before, recognized its ridges. Oh, how he missed it.
Attempting to open his eyes a silver, Khalid was keen to attach a face to that hand despite the heaviness of his eyelids. Once he succeeded, his heart quivered, contracting with a whirlwind of emotions that he couldn't form a way to express out loud.
His mother, Nafeesa, was gazing down at him with her forever-affectionate smile that deepened the wrinkles in her face. Her sad yet shiny eyes that never lost its beauty. Her features that he memorized every single line of it by heart. Her small, fond hand that he was yearning for, stroking a delicate thumb over his cheekbone as she wiped a tear coming out of his wild, stinging eyes. Her soft, quiet voice that he thought he would never be able to hear again, whispering soothing words to him and easing all the pain away.
