Heyy everyone… Arohi here… Thanks a lot… I’m overwhelmed by the responses received, and the maximum votes (eight) were received for 2 pairs- AvNeil and KriYam… So my very first story includes these two pairs… This story will have 2-3 more parts…
Let’s begin with the story…
THE MISSING PETALS (PART-1)
A sharp pain seared through my head, as if it just got stabbed a million times at one point on my skull. I couldn’t open my eyes, they burned. And I felt suffocated by the smell of my own blood, burnt clothes and flesh. The skin on my arms seemed to have disappeared, and moving them was painful. My ears still felt numb from the deafening sound of the blast.
I yelped when four hands picked me up and made me lie down somewhere, probably an ambulance. I still preferred to keep my eyes closed. I didn’t know if I was crying or if it was blood pouring out of my eyes. I heard the door shut and the thing moved. Sirens blared loudly all around. People talked, shouted and made frantic phone calls.
A few minutes later, the vehicle stopped and we got down somewhere. Hospital. I was wheeled around on a stretcher, a person shouting “Emergency! Out of the way!” People rushed about, as the person ordered them to fetch certain things that he would need. Then slowly it all faded away.
I woke up to the voice of my mother calling my name and her warm hand gently caressing my forehead. I felt no pain at that time, only I knew I was draped in bandages. My both eyes were heavily bandaged and I couldn’t open them.
“Neil, how do you feel now?” she asked. I couldn’t see her but sensed she was crying.
“I’m okay mom” I said. And then my thoughts drifted to the incident of the previous day. “Where’s the kid?” I asked her.
Her hand stopped moving and she sighed. I knew the answer. In my mind, I could still remember the face of that little girl in the car, eyes soaked with tears and wailing loudly. Nobody dared to go near it.
“It may explode any moment now” they said. The mother lay unconscious in the front seat. Fire brigade hadn’t arrived. And people were running as far away from it as possible. “Don’t go!” my friend shouted when I ran towards the car. I had to save them.
“I’m proud of you, son” my mother broke into my thoughts. She shouldn’t be, I felt. I couldn’t save either of them. The doctor visited me a number of times that day. He told my mother that they would open the bandages on my eyes in the evening. “We are very unsure” I heard him saying. I didn’t really understand, but prepared myself for whatever was to come. I knew my mother was doing the same. A team of nurses stood inside my cabin when the doctor arrived for opening my bandages. My mother clutched my hand tightly. It made me nervous.
“Very slowly, open your eyes,” the doctor said. “Slowly. . .” the doctor said.
I opened my eyes a little, just a little, and then shut them again quickly. It was dark. I exhaled deeply and tried again, with more concentration this time. It was still dark. I blinked. Complete blackness. My heartbeats were so loud I could almost hear them. My chest began to hurt.
“I can’t see” I said to no one in particular. I heard my mom’s stifled cry. She left my hand and probably went out of the room. The doctors began asking me questions and uttered certain medical terms that I didn’t really understand. I didn’t want to talk to them. I tried so hard to concentrate. My eyes were open and yet it was dark for me.
“Go away…” I told them. But they continued with their stupid work, asking stupid questions and speaking words that made no sense to me. I was angry.
“Go away!!!”
Night arrived. I could tell because my mother had set up alarms in my cell phone after every one hour so I knew the time. I knew which button to press to cancel the alarm. It was frustrating, initially, as I had the habit of throwing my cell phone anywhere on my bed. And groping under the blankets in the “dark” can be maddening. Once or twice I yelled out to the nurse to shut the damn alarm. I cried many times; not that I was weak But when I spilled many things while trying to find one and I just couldn’t retrieve a thing once it was lost, it got annoying.
The door suddenly opened and somebody came in.
………………………….
How was it? Please let me know through your comments… 🙂