After The Rain

Chapter Twenty-Three - Find My Way Back (I)

Think about this:
You have the ability to survive
anything.

That is why,
despite all the storms
made of pain and loss,
despite all the chaos
that you have had to endure
you are still here
and you are still going strong.

- Nikita Gill (A Truth About You)

~

There was a buzzing in her head.

It grew louder, slowly and so painstakingly that she groaned and stirred. The next second, however, the stabs of pain that she felt all over her body shocked her into immobility, and transformed the buzzing to an unbearable hammering against the side of her head.

She felt the need to cry out, to climb out of the body that was aching so much, or preferably to slip back into the realm of darkness that she was waking from.

Soon, she began registering sounds other than the noise in her own head—voices.

Some people were talking. She couldn’t make it out. The words were incoherent, and too rushed for her to understand. The more she tried to make sense of it, the more her head hurt. She tried to stop but some kind of defence mechanism kicked in. It reeled with vengeance, trying to gauge information. Where was she? What was the pain all over her body? Who were those people?

Her eyeballs moved restlessly behind her closed eyelids. Her lips parted as she tried to swallow more air and her body moved again on pure instinct. The second wave of pain shocked her mind onto the right track, onto the last thing she remembered.

She was in the car. With Mohan-ji. The brakes had failed and the car had gone out of control and she…she had frozen on the spot. She remembered his voice, panicked and shrilled, yelling for her to jump out of the car but she couldn’t move. She sat as a statue, watching that ditch come closer and closer and closer and closer…

She opened her eyes with a gasp, her body flailing in a panic. She tried to move away despite the pain, to get away from the ravine that she saw approaching her, but something was holding her down. Several pairs of hands descended onto her, holding her shoulders, her feet, and her hands on the spot. She tried to scream but she could only gasp.

Stop it, she tried to say. Let me go.

But the words would not come out and the hold on her would not relinquish. Finally, seconds later, she felt the adrenaline leave her. Her head fell back and her eyes rolled in their sockets.

When Khushi regained consciousness again, it was a much less agonising process. She came to slowly like before, but with the pain feeling relatively duller.

Groaning and stirring, she opened her eyes and after a lengthened period of haze, a white ceiling came in her vision. There was a strain on her eyes, and she furrowed her brows as she moved her gaze around, catching the sight of some weird machines that she vaguely recognised, a floor length window, a table with at least a dozen rose bouquets and lastly, someone—a man clad in white, smiling down at her benignly.

She would have screamed if she hadn’t been feeling so lethargic. Instead, she croaked out, “Who…who…”

“Dr Roshan,” came the reply, kind and soft-toned. Khushi shook her head, still not understanding but the man went on, “I am your doctor, Miss Gupta. You were in an accident. You are fine now. You are in the hospital. You’ve been here for almost three weeks. Do you understand what I am saying?”

Something painful started in Khushi’s head. An accident. The car. The one that went out of control. And she…she was…

“Please relax.” The words cut through the memory and brought her back. She realised she was breathing too hard and tried to rein in the panic that was overtaking her. She looked back at the doctor to find that someone else was here now. A nurse. She was checking something near Khushi’s head. Khushi shut her eyes, tightly.