Healed By Honey (The Roys, #3)

Chapter 2 - Progression

The problem with worrying is you know you can't do anything to control it yet you can't seem to stop it. It's like suffering the same trauma twice.

When Ritu was in her vegetative state, it felt like a long sleep in the beginning, complete blank. And then the scene changed where she was being dragged to some sort of assassin's lair. There were multiple of them. Their faces remained hidden under the white mime masks while they wore midnight black outfits to cover all of their skin. Throughout the episode, all they did was torture her. They'd poke needles on her body, drag blades across her skin, or tie her with ropes to do some unspeakable things to her. She was scared the whole time. At the same time, confusion gnawed at her as she couldn't make a sound. No matter how much she tried to scream she couldn't.

At some point, her fear turned into something else. There was confusion as to why no one was coming for her, or why couldn't she make a sound. Then there was an uncomfortableness, and she was ambiguously agitated about the situation.

All she wanted was to scream.

Moments before she opened her eyes, she saw her mother who came with a pair of stick lights. Then she heard her talking something unintelligible and white blinding light covered her vision and all characters vanished from in front of her.

As if it was just a nightmare.

When she opened her eyes, she could see several faces surrounding her. Among them was her mother too. But she could not speak, her limbs wouldn't move. It felt she had been transfigured to a stiff log. Her confusion and agitation got the best of everything until eventually she learned she lost almost eight weeks of her life to a nightmarish vegetative state.

It took her quite a while to relearn talking. In the beginning, she completely depended on her mother and the nurse looking after her. Eventually, her understanding and motor-sensory revived and she could move her limbs and talk. Even after all the physiotherapy sessions, she still needed the help of the wheel-chair.

So, when their car rolled through the driveway of Ishani and came to a halt in front of the entrance, Ram was already waiting with the wheel-chair.

Ritu got out of the car first and hobbled to her wheel-chair. Ram helped her to sit down before she uttered, "Go help Papa. He's injured."

Ram turned his head quickly to the car, baffled while their driver was helping Abhiraj getting off the car. He went ahead hurriedly while Priyasha climbed off the car and said, "It's okay Ram, I'll help him. You bring Ritu inside."

Ram held back and watched with horrified eyes while Priyasha helped Abhiraj and walked him inside.

Painstakingly so, for the past few days Ritu was having these weird episodes where she was feeling vulnerable whenever she went out of her home. There was this fear of unsafety gnawing at her whenever she stepped out the villa, her safe zone. Just like what happened at the hospital today. The fear of getting attacked out of the blue never straying from her mind and she was having difficulty connecting with her present. It was frustrating and frightening all at the same time.

Back at the home, she could breathe again. It's like walking through the white blinding light that obscured the way of any threat. It was like teleportation. From an unsafe zone to the safe zone. Like, her fear abating once back to her safe zone where she was surrounded by her loved ones.

Ram helped pushing her wheel-chair into the villa, just behind her parents, which was when Shreya, her sister-in-law's voice boomed across the hall.

"Papa! Oh my God! What happened?!"

Priyasha clutched on Abhiraj's arm tightly as they made it through the hall. Shreya came running towards them and relieved Priyasha by taking Abhiraj's other hand. Priyasha's voice broke as she asked, "Where is Manyu?"