Innocence, or Lack Thereof ✔ [Completed]

Chapter 5: Soon We'll Be Found

Vansh spent almost every waking moment at Riddhima's bed side besides those he spent arguing with Aryan that first day, or when he needed to take a break and sleep for a while, in which case he would just go to the other side of the tent and collapse on the cot there. But considering how terrified he was that he might fall asleep and not be able to take care of Riddhima if she needed him, he hardly ever slept. Only when he was sure she was sleeping deepest and wouldn't wake up for a few hours did he allow himself to close his eyes.

She had a constant fever now. It was burning through her whole body. She would shiver and shake and then the next minute claim to be hotter than hell. Her skin was flushed with unnatural rosiness. The tendrils of red infection had begun to spread further on her stomach. Vansh had watched the progression every day when he changed her bandages, which he was no longer too embarrassed to do or needed instruction for. But she was so tired most of the time that he needed to get Vyom or Angre's assistance to get her to sit up so he could help her. He was watching this woman, the strongest most dignified person he had ever come in contact with, slowly lose her ability to even sit up.

"There has to be something, some medicine, some doctor somewhere, that can help her," Vansh argued for the hundredth time. Angre and Vyom had assured him that no, there was nothing, and no one that could save her if she could not save herself. And had he not seen the way her eyes seemed to flutter closed after even just speaking to him for a few minutes, watched the spread of her infection as it seemed to grab hold of her, finding footholds wherever it could, he would have had no doubt in his mind that Riddhima would be able to use whatever it was that she possessed inside her that made her so strong and fight it off.

"Vansh, I think the time has come for you to come to terms with the idea that Riddhima might not be getting better," Vyom said quietly. Vansh's eyes snapped to his quickly to Vyom's.

"I will not do that," he hissed. Vyom didn't look taken aback by the harshness in his voice, only looked at him with more pity in his eyes.

"Do you really think this is something I want, either? That I want to think about Riddhima, one of my oldest friends, one of the people I trust most in the world, dying? Of course I don't. The idea of losing her hurts me, just the way it hurts you. But you have to be honest with yourself, now, Vansh. You can offer her all the love in the world to try and make her better, I'm sure you would, hell, I'm sure you have, but that won't change a thing. Maybe she will pull through, and God I hope that is the case, but there is a chance, getting stronger every day, that she won't. And if she doesn't, I know it will hurt, but it will only be worse if you cannot accept it now. You love her, Vansh, and she loves you too, in the way that Riddhima does, but you might lose her."

"No," Vansh said quietly. He felt himself become suddenly heavy, tired. Those ideas Vyom was spouting, so ugly and horrifying and real despite what Vansh wanted to think made him sick. And so even if Vyom was right, even if Riddhima was dying and not just sick, he pushed the idea away.

And so in denial he sat by her bedside and watched her. But it was only a few days after he and Vyom had spoken, a few days after Vyom had told him to prepare himself for the coming hardships and pain when it really began to sink in.

The fever was making her delirious. She started talking nonsense, mumbling through chapped lips and a light voice about daisies and then about past battles she had fought, and things no one understood eventually. She was moving around more than she usually did, trying to fight some terror that in her delirium she believed to be real, even as Vansh pressed a cool cloth to her skin, and talked to her, trying to coax her out of the hallucination. But she would not be coaxed.

Her breath became short, ragged gasps as she used her air to mutter about invisible monsters and enemies unseen to all but her in her terrible dreams. Vansh felt sick with helplessness. There was nothing he could do. He was exhausted, not having slept for almost a full day by midnight that night as he comforted her. He hadn't eaten in more than a day, not that he could find the energy; the idea of food made him feel ill. Angre and Vyom had tried to pull him away from her bedside and let him rest, but as soon as he was gone he could hear her shouting, not words because by then her speech had degraded into nothing but nonsense, but she shouted nonetheless. Her eyes would be closed and so she couldn't see if he was there or gone, but she could feel it. And Vansh felt it too, the empty feeling in the very core of him, like someone had cut a piece from his middle and was holding it hostage.