MELINOE

Illness

Chapter-4

 My tired body woke up to the familiar alarm tone of my phone in the unfamiliar morning ambience. My clothes were drenched in sweat even at forty-eight Fahrenheits! The smothering room appeared pale golden with the mild morning rays, making their way inside through the half-open glass windows without curtains.

I turned off the alarm, gathered my spine and looked under the bed, to find it all hollow! Somehow, I felt really stupid and angry at myself. I calmed myself down thinking it was all a dream and that I really need to exhale this cowardice from within. I went to the restroom. Washed my face. As I looked into the mirror, my eyes fell on my neck which had weirdly red finger-like marks just above my clavicle. It appeared like someone had tried hard to choke me off. Now, that hit me real hard. Flashes of the dream ran fast through my mind, and that blurry, ugly face with a bleeding forehead claiming loud that it was real, clarified all my uncertainties. I was almost zoned out and just then "Nadiya, breakfast is on the table, you're getting late for college, hurry up and come down," Mom's voice echoed from downstairs.

I did not give any second thought and instantaneously rushed my steps down the stairs. All were waiting for me at the dining and I bumped into their merriment with all my negativity and conflicted mind. "There's some evil in this house who or which wants us to leave from here..." I was panting and could not get myself the right words to explain the whole thing, before which Dad stood up in fury and stopped me there, "Enough! You aren't taking your medicines on time. Are you?" That one statement left me shattered. But he continued, "It is for you that I had to leave my hard-earned job, give away our own home, abandon a healthy-going lifestyle and shift here. And not even 24hours have passed, you're again up with all the unwanted melodrama we are sick of!"

I felt sick but out of the desperate urge to convince them that I wasn't wrong, I tried to sound strong, "Please have faith on me, I have not only seen someone, that spirit even tried to choke me down and take my life away last night. This is the damn truth, please..." "No this is not, and the sooner you accept, the better it is, that you have Schizophrenia," Dad interrupted with disgust.