Without You

03 A Foul Encounter (I)

* A week ago*

Marriane's Pov:
I had asked the housemaid to bring me a glass of water ages ago because after such a hectic day at college I’m afraid I can’t quite bring myself to even lift a finger; let alone sauntering all the way downstairs into the corridor and through a hallway that seems ravishing and grand only in the moments you have the energy to walk the hundred steps it encompasses the distance of. That woman is sure to have wished death upon me, and a most dishonorable one at that. I mean. Who dies of thirst while in their own house with the kitchen just downstairs? People don’t really take into consideration nifty details like the fact that the kitchen which according to them is 'just downstairs’ actually was a couple miles away from my dead soul’s room. Exaggeration but, don’t expect anything better than this from a person coming in after a mean sunbath that successfully baked three layers of their skin without even trying to.

So, with a murder well planned I dragged my ass all the way to the kitchen. Pushing open the glass doors with a single finger, I peeped inside, my eyes searching for her. But what my senses got was a whiff of something else. The scuttling sound of someone weeping, and it was definitely coming from behind the kitchen island.

I quietly sidled my way in towards the island, with the thought of a refreshing fill long shoved to the back of my mind and saw something I wished no human would have the misfortune of witnessing.

Sarah’s hands were bruised in so many places that it was difficult to see her real complexion through them, and when I lifted away the head scarf adorning her, it obstinately came to have been hiding more of such brutally indorsed injuries. My hand lifting her headscarf shivered as I took in Sarah’s pitiful state. Soon, I kneeled down to comfort her pulverized figure in a warm embrace, the brimming pity I captured the moment my eyes connected to the envisage of her bloodied face, rapidly turned to a fury so great I don’t think I have ever felt ever in my life, not even the time when Mortosem had boy-handled me towards the swimming pool and pushed me in it with all his might. Drenched and pained, that time I couldn’t even complain, but this time, I wasn’t going to cower in a  corner and drink in my fury, this time I was going to thrash my opponent, whoever, wherever.

“Whom do you owe this favor, Sarah?” I asked her. But her snuffles were endless, and so were her tears.

“Sarah, if you don’t tell anyone what’s wrong, you won’t ever be able to gather the right amount of power to end this cruelty. No one deserves to bear a pain, this great Sarah, especially if it’s been pushed onto them with deliberation. And looking at you, I know this couldn’t have been anything but that.”

“Ra-Rajesh, my husband, he’s done this to me.” She said, her eyes drunk with tears as she looked in mine.

With some awesome play of hormones inside my body, I forgot all foreboding signs of thirst and fatigue. And with my arms still supporting the small of her back, I stood up, pulling her with me. I placed a single solacing hand on each side of her and urged her with pleading eyes to place her trust in me.

“Dust your tears off, Sarah, we are going to give your husband the same type of treatment he has graced you with.”

“Marianne, he has my children under his possession,  I am afraid that a fate similar to mine awaits them if they aren’t rid of him soon.”

“Okay then. Sarah, you do understand this is a big fight? Drink your tears for now, some lesson teaching awaits execution.”

And with that we left the house with me driving and Sarah holding the two thickest wooden sticks she could find in the house, sitting at the cars back seat.

We found the assailant in question at a rundown tea café, standing outside looking unscathed. Little did he know that his skin was soon going to be brutally painted the same color Sarah’s was.

I parked the car unevenly towards the other side of the café and we both barged towards him, both with a stick each and with Sarah in the lead, looking livid despite her state.

“You fucking brat!!” She called out in a shriek even my heart came to fear, despite having expected it.

“You think you can get away after charring the life out of me with your sick taunts and heavy blows, huh?!! You think you can snatch away my children with absolutely no repent and I’d sit around and not let karma bring you down like you brought me?!!!”

That venomous yell had barely reached the man when Sarah gave him his first blow and his body shook with the impact. From then, an onset of blows were released and an audience had quickly gathered to witness the scene of afront them. However, none of them intervened. It was either the sheer wrath Sarah was emanating or the weapon she was beating the life out of her husband with that stopped them from doing so.

My job had been done. I had made an innocent realize the power they had. Sarah had nothing to lose here, not any relationship. Even her children were rightfully hers, because even court wouldn’t declare a drug addict father to be responsible of taking care of his children, and thereby destroy their lives for eternity.

I was thinking just this when everything out of nowhere fell into a stupor by occurring in slow motion, The stick in my hand was grasped away from me and I heard it clatteringly falling to the ground. I felt strong arms twisting my figure to look in the opposite direction, but I felt dizzy by the speed I was spinned at and couldn’t completely make out the features of the man who endowed me with this dizziness. However, this hold on me was vaguely familiar, it had been a similar hold that pushed me into the swimming pool all those years ago and used to drag me like a rag doll time and again to places I never wished to be at. Today too, I hadn’t expected these very hands to do anything but this time as well, i.e. drag me along.

I looked over his shoulder to watch a crimson-faced Mr.Aagha, Mortosem's Uncle, and I understood I had no chance at getting away this wise too. I was helplessly pulled along with Mortosem in lead and made to sit in his car, the air conditioning hitting me immediately to bring me to the realization of how blazing the sun’s heat was that day.

And then, maybe from the impact of the sun’s heat, or today’s drama, or just the sheer dehydration my body was feeling, I fainted.

***
If you make the little star in the confines of this page shine✨,it would mean the world to me.

Much love,
TragicToffee
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