The Withering

12 | into the dark

When you think the worst has already happened, life offers something even worse that you can't even categorize.

He returned quite late that night after having a nice conversation with Ally. Ayaan didn't want to but he ended up talking about Sarah with her. They both had a nice time together after years of separation sharing their bittersweet experiences through the years. After the party was over he had to drop her home as it was already late when they left the bar.

As the driver parked his car in the garage, he realised he had forgotten to inform Sarah that he would be coming home late.

He checked the time which was 2:00 am and it made him a bit worried for Sarah. He leaned his head against the door and rang the doorbell twice but didn't get any response.

She might have slept.

He took out his cellphone to give her a call but realized that he had the spare keys.

Little did he know that the worst things were waiting for him on the other side of the door.

Ayaan opened the door to a room full of confusion. His house looked suddenly strange to him. Cushions were lying on the floor, pieces of broken flower vase were crackling beneath his shoes, the kitchen cabinet was also a mess as if someone wrestled through the entire house.

His heart sank and a knot formed inside his stomach. He could already  imagine the worse that could have happened through the surrounding view. He was too shocked and scared to reason out anything, so without wasting another second he rushed straight upstairs to look for Sarah. The thought that something strangely worse had happened to his wife ran rampant inside his head.

When he entered the bedroom, he encountered an extremely unusual scene; Sarah was sitting near the wall with her ears sticking to it as if someone was talking to her from the other side of the wall. Her face was half visible through the tangled mess of her hair, her sitting posture gave the expression that she was suffering from extreme pain and despair. She was murmuring something very odd as if she was already in conversation but her words were hardly clear.

He regretted leaving her alone, even after knowing her condition. He couldn't take anymore her condition and rushed to hold her and calm her down. But strangely enough, that action didn't go his way. As he tried to hold her and bring her out of that condition she got infuriated.

"Stay away from me!"

Sarah screamed at him with a scared look in her eyes as if he was a stranger and was trying to pull her away from something which was very dear to her.

"Sarah, it's just me Ayaan," he tried to calm her down.

"Please, leave me alone." She kept pleading with him. But he didn't want to leave her alone. All he wanted was to get her out of that situation. Ayaan hugged her tightly, easing her down pulling her away from the wall as she kept wrestling to free herself from his hold.

She pleaded like a child, cried, shouted and when nothing worked she tried to hurt him trying to get away from him. She scratched his shoulders and bit his hands hard enough that blood started oozing out. But he didn't give up, he kept holding her tight enough until she couldn't rebel any more.

And then she fell unconscious in his arms. For a moment he kept holding her but he couldn't control any longer when her ragged breaths tickled his nape. Tears flowed down his eyes and he exhaled all his anger and pain looking towards the ceiling, shouting hard, knowing well enough that it wouldn't help him or his sick wife.

There was just one way left.