Blooming Flower ✔️

Chapter 11: Flashbacks

Everything just felt so real. I should have known that this dream wasn't real, but the circumstances of it were just so real and I didn't like it. It felt like someone invented a time machine and threw me back into that unfortunate day for the sole purpose of making me suffer and to tear my emotions to shreds.

I was studying for a biology exam, and the next thing I knew, my phone goes off, with the sharp sound of my ringtone flying through the air like a deranged bird. After getting startled a little bit, I picked it up and was greeted by the sound of Sandhya Aunty's frantic voice. Worry and pure fear was wrapped around it, and squeezing the life out of it so that I could get the sheer terror of the situation.

It was like the adrenaline that was used to kickstart my legs into running to my motorcycle and driving there as fast I could. I knew that if the worst was going to happen, then it was going to change our lives forever. In this case, it was going to end Manish's.

I ran down the halls, trying to look for either Sandhya Aunty or Rajiv Uncle, or any sort of sign that Manish was there, and not dead. The hospital felt like I was in heaven, with all the white walls, and the white clothing, but the situation felt like I was catapulted straight into hell. My heart felt like it was doing a triathlon, while on one leg. I just felt so many different waves of panic that it felt like I was on the beach of bad emotions, with the sands of sadness rubbing against my feet.

Eventually, I saw a worried Sandhya Aunty standing there, with her hands in her face, looking like she just saw an embarrassing picture of her on Facebook from ten years ago. I looked at her, and then straight at the bed in which Manish was lying. I had a hard time absorbing the news that Sandhya Aunty told me over the phone, but when I saw him lying in the bed, it hit me like a train hitting a car. My legs felt like Jell-O, and I was afraid if I were to start walking, I'd collapse into a mess of worry and shock.

I gulped largely, and then slowly inched towards the bed. I could feel Sandhya Aunty's worried gaze burn into me, even though I felt so cold at that moment. I knelt down to get a better look at his condition in the hospital.

When I knelt down, I saw so many tubes coming out of him. IVs, medication, dialysis, and everything under the sun was inserted into him. I glanced at the heart rate monitor, and was just hoping that it wouldn't go flat. Beep, beep, beep, it went, and I just blankly stared at the monitor. I glanced back at Sunny, with the weight on my chest slowly lifting at the fact that his chest was moving up and down. His oxygen mask was starting to get slightly fogged up from all the breathing.

I looked back at Sandhya Aunty once more, who wiped a single tear that was running down from her eye. I exhaled a little bit, and then looked back at Manish. His hand was on the bed, looking so limp, but I was in need of something to hold as I started to die a little bit inside. I took his hand, and held it close to me as I inhaled and exhaled heavily.

My eyes were starting to water, as the reality of the situation was starting to hold me by the neck. Manish could die any second right now, and there was almost nothing that I could do about it. His kidneys could fail again, he could go into cardiac arrest, he could be brain dead. There were so many possibilities that were staring at us right in the face, and at least one of them could happen right now, when I don't want it.

As I was contemplating all the different things that I didn't want to happen to Sunny, I heard a familiarly dreadful long beep. I looked over, and on the heart rate monitor, there was a long line instead of the sharp, jagged lines indicating his heart beat. That only meant one thing.

It meant that my worst fear had come true at that moment.

My jaw fell open in pure shock, and I looked back at Sandhya Aunty. She took her hands once more and buried her face into them. This time, the soft sobs that were escaping from them were like daggers being thrown at my heart. I looked back at Manish's lifeless body, and realized that my sunshine was no longer with me.