ENSHROUDED

04

Under hypnosis, she felt as if someone was pulling a knife into her heart. And at some point, she felt as if it was a fire being burned into her heart. She had to wake up because the pain felt so surreal that tears started spilling out of her eyes before she even opened them widely. She began taking in the environment she was in, and it was a hospital. From the paintings to the bed she saw herself on, to the IV fluid that was attached to her body.

As the tides of an ocean flow to the shore in rush, that was how all that destroyed her life in not less than an hour came back to her, and she didn't know when she screamed. She felt a scorching pain under her, and she knew she wasn't dreaming of being raped. It was real, her, Aisha Umar Faruk, was gang-raped.

The words Jaafar had said! The words her rapist had said. Alphabet by alphabet, letter by letter, words by words, sentence by sentence, that was how they all came back to her, crystal clear. No word dared to be omitted out of this painful memory.

And the image she saw with her own eyes, every color, dimness, smiles, eyes, contour, curves, everything she saw her Mommy doing was back to her as though she was playing a movie. And Aisha felt as her shoulders shook with her cries.

In rushed a nurse and she walked towards her, "I'm so sorry for what happened. I need you to please give us several of your family. An old man brought you here and said he found you by the street, alone."

Yes, she said it right. All the life she had lived alone. Because the woman she thought was everything she had was nothing but a liar. A professor when it comes to pretense. She had lived alone, with a total stranger she thought she knew in and out. But she was wrong. Mommy was never the person she knew, but rather, the person she stayed with as a housemate. Not even a housemate, because Mommy only slept in the house. She wasn't even a full-time housemate.

She could only cry, crying bitterly as she shook her head. The nurse repeated her question, "Young Lady, can you please give us your name and also several one of your family? I know what happened to you is surely heartbreaking, but please you need to speak."

It was now that she recalled those guys left with her car and also her handbag that was in the car. She knew if they had left her bag with her, Mommy would've left more than a hundred missed calls now. It was night already, close to midnight. And she feared what would happen to her daughter while she was out there selling off other people's daughters and sisters. And oh, her own body as well.

What happened to her is called karma. And today, she knew of karma as a bitch and it's also real. The realist thing on earth. No matter how Mommy was protective of her, they still had their way. And they avenged on her. What she didn't know had happened. She didn't even know who her mother was, yet her wrongdoings fell on her.

The nurse had been asking her the same question but Aisha could do was stared at her while she made a fountain of her cheeks. The nurse finally gave in and went out to call the doctor that was on call. He was the one that looked after Aisha and stitched the damage those rapists did to her. If only he could stitch up the breaks in her heart, Aisha thought. It took them only some minutes before they walked in together, and the moment Aisha saw him she freaked and fell from the bed.

The nurse tried to help her up but he asked her to leave. He had realized Aisha the moment he went into the theatre room to stitch her up. She was the girl they almost hit with a car with Jaafar. He was curious, what happened to her? He prayed it wasn't Jaafar that caused this or he had a hand. Because he knew how unforgiving Jaafar could be. And it was quite a fright.

Aisha sat upright on the floor and kept looking at him, eyes wide open with tears streaming down as well. "I need you to keep calm please, I'm not here to harm you. I just need some answers from you and I'll leave you to rest."