"Ash…Ashmit!!!", a girl was crying wrapping her hands around Ashmit, who was laying on the street paralyzed. Prakash went after chasing the old man. A little bit I knew I was to blame, my weak unstable mind was to blame. Right at that moment, I had something else to be done as soon as possible.
Ashmit was bleeding heavily and he was coughing blood. The severe damage to his internal organs made him paralyzed. I inserted myself between the young girl and a woman and asked, "Ashmit, are you with me?", he was panting hard. I had to hit his cheeks a couple of times, "Ashmit! Ashmit!"
"Urghhh!", he responded with a hoarse voice.
"Excuse me!", I asked the girl and the woman to step back. They were confused and the girl was crying her eyes out. But they did so as they were asked for. "I am taking him to the nearby hospital.", I informed them before I teleported him to the hospital.
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Doctors had informed that he had a couple of ribs broken and the right shoulder dislocated. He needed bed rest for a couple of months. He was lucky enough to avoid any huge surgery since his shoulder was not heavily hurt. I was watching over him until the girl who was with him on the spot arrived at the hospital.
"He needs rest.", I cut short to the point. She did not say another word and went straight to see Ashmit and started thanking all the Gods. Then I watched the woman who apparently was the girl's mother standing by the room's threshold and sobbing into the end of her saree. I went up to her and took her to the chair outside the patient's room. I found that she was Risha, Ashmit's junior in college and the lady I was talking to was her mother.
"The man your friend went after… my husband…", she stammered and cried. I was dumbfounded and speechless to say any comforting words at all. I just sat there learning how brutally her dad had bullied the family.
"I am sure he is acting this way due to mental stress. The guys he acquainted recently seemed so undependable.", I silently heard every single word of her rants, "my…my daughter…", she started wheezing, and I ran to call a nurse over. When we arrived, she was unconsciously lying on the ground.
The nurse checked her up and informed me that it was fatigue. As per the nurse's instruction, I fed Risha's mother some food. Risha was still weeping over and over again. She was just a kid, she refused to eat when I offered her some food. Regardless, I gave her some bananas to have at least. I insisted so that she could stay beside her mother and Ashmit to look after them.
"Why should he come into my life's mess?", she was still staring at the blank space while she was talking to me. What kind of a sick joke was that? I saw myself in her. Not too long ago, I felt the same about Prakash.
"Let me ask you something..", she slowly turned her gaze towards me. "You need not answer if you do not want to.", I assured her that I was not pressing her so much. "When? exactly when did your father change?"
She shook her head cluelessly, "I can't think of it…it was so sudden…", she shuddered thinking about it.
"Risha, it's okay… You need not push it… It's okay…", I took her into my arms and the little frightened girl wailed on my shoulders until her tears stopped. Total destruction in their metal state broke their balance. The family had no time to heal their inner wounds. What they were going through was not waiting for their loved one to return but relief from being harassed.
But again, I was hoping for him to return as they wished when Prakash defeated the weed. It was a Psychological war with oneself. At the same time, Risha was torn into pieces, with her father on one side and Ashmit on the other. And then there was me, who wanted to rush to Prakash but also had to look after those helpless people. We were not yet sure about what prowess the weed held, we had to be cautious.
By the time Ashmit's friend arrived, I sensed some weird feeling. The sense that told me that it was not done, we still had a greater fight ahead of us. I wanted to ask Ahim lots and lots of questions. I was devastated to arrive at some gruesome conclusions, which I was not even sure of. It was risky, when we started off with Ahim's requests, we had no idea about what we were up to. Life leads us on a path that has no turns, it is lengthy and unending. And when we see no end, it becomes a spiral black hole. In the end, we give ourselves to be swallowed by it in blood and flesh, very alive. I was looking for a way not to get myself into this delusion. If anything, I wanted to be the one to swallow this damn life, and if possible fate as well.