Submitting

Lost

"Rose. I am really sorry, but we had to get rid of your left leg."

What did she mean by that?

I stared at her face blankly, unable to understand how to respond to the sick joke that she just played on me. There was no way that what she said was in any way plausible. I waited for her to break into a fit of laughter. I would have loved to smile as well, but such pleasure was obviously not written in my fate.

I averted my gaze from her pity filled face to the thick blanket that covered me from the waist down. There was not a single fibre in my body that wanted me to confirm what I just heard. The lack of such confirmation felt like a strange blessing, moments that I wanted to cherish because I knew now that what I will get to see next would hardly make me feel anything but relief.

"It's okay. You don't have to see it right now." The nurse's voice broke me from my reverie. It put me to action as well, as I pulled the blanket off me in one swift motion to reveal the horror that awaited me.

I didn't have an image of what the transformation might have looked like, but I didn't expect it to be bandaged and secured the way it was. Tightly wound in a white piece of cloth was the remaining of my amputated leg from the knee above. No bloody stains, no dripping mess. Just healed and lost.

"Okay, Rose, calm down. It's okay. You are fine." I looked at the doctor again, but her face a blur behind my tears. I didn't comprehend what she said until I realized that my breath had picked up unnaturally fast, and I was struggling to breathe.

I was having a panic attack.

This is just a bad dream. It has to be. This is not possible. A nightmare. Yes, that's all this is. I will wake up, and I will be fine and all of this won't exist at all. Liza will wake me up at any moment now, like she always does, and I will be back with her at our house. I will have to rush to get ready to go to university and barely make it to the class before it started. Yes. I had to wake up now, or I'll be late.

But that sweet, sweet reality never came. Because it was not real at all.

I wailed and cried my eyes out, thrashing my arms, wanting to break whatever I could get my hands on. This pain, this destruction inside me, was too much to be held inside. It needed an escape in any sort or form.

"Marie, hold her. We need to hold her before she hurts herself badly." The doctor ordered the nurse quickly before rushing somewhere away in the room and came back with a syringe in her hand. I knew what was about to happen, and I wanted to be knocked off cold but the nausea that churned inside me, made me want to rush to the bathroom and puke my guts out. The sad reality being that I won't be able to do that either anymore.

The nurse pulled my arm and bared it to the doctor, who swiftly pinched me with the needle of the syringe. It didn't take long for the medicine to take effect as my body felt heavier by the second and darkness engulfed me in its warm embrace.

****

I lost my leg due to frostbite. That's what I got to know when I woke up next time and was ready to accept the outcome of my inefficient escape plan. It was lethally foolish of me to not wear shoes or boots before walking off into the snowy night with only a set of sweatshirt and pant on my body. I was deeply focused on escaping that I forgot I needed to survive as well. Mother nature could be as unforgiving as those men with whom I was trapped in that house.

"Hi, dearie, how are you? Do you need anything?" I turned my head away from the sunlight window and looked at Marie who was peeking from the doorway, trying not to bother me while she does her periodic checks on the patients. Her white uniform gleaming in the sunlight that reflected from the window, making her look like a beautiful angel. A saviour. And that she truly was.

Slowly, I shook my head no and turned to look back outside the window. The sun, the tall tree just outside and the wind that blew the leaves like ruffling feathers. I wish I could have gone outside and be one with such charming beauty but that gift was snatched away from me like every other good thing from my life. A vicious cycle that never seems to end and comes back to haunt me again and again.

"Okay. If there is anything you want at any point of time, you know how to find me." I felt guilty of not being able to be as friendly and charming as she was being to me. She helped me a lot in the past couple of days to finally accept what has become of me and the life that I would have to live from now on. Such accidents don't happen easily and mine was in an abnormal situation as well. They wanted to know how such an incident came by, what forced me to be out at that time of the night and in that circumstance in which they found me but I couldn't tell them a single thing.

It was not that I didn't want to or that I have been brainwashed by Dimitri and Ivan to not reveal any such critical information. I wanted to rant out everything with as much detail as possible to these people so that they could save Liza from their clutches as well and rightfully punish those two men for the heinous crime that they have committed. It was more pressing than anything at all, but before I could do so, I was bowled out by the loss that I still cradle in my lap and will forever.

All because a man thought that he loved me.

He needed to be punished and I needed justice. Liza needed help and Ivan needed to not exist. They must have been going all crazy now that I have escaped. Surely they must have realized that their days of blissful oblivion of morality is going to end soon. Maybe they were trying to run away as I lay here in my bed right now. Running away with Liza.

"Marie. Wait. I do need something. I need your help."