1: War Torn

2 months ago

-Rehanna-

@-Rehanna-

The blast comes before the scream.

Arnav doesn’t remember diving—just hitting the ground, hard, shoulder-first, cheek scraping dirt that’s wet with something that’s not rain.

Everything is red and noise.

His ears ring so loud it makes him gag.

“INCOMING!”

Too late.

The trench explodes five feet away—earth, limbs, metal, someone’s f*cking lung—all up in the air.

He can’t find his helmet.

Can’t see past the smoke.

He can’t breathe.

Someone’s yelling. Someone’s sobbing.

He doesn’t move. Movement means you’re still alive, and being alive…perhaps was worse than death right now.

Something warm slides down the side of his face.

He doesn’t know if it’s sweat, blood, or tears.

Doesn’t care.

He clutches the rifle like it’s a crutch, as if it could stabilise him as the world around him tremors.

Across the pit, a man is screaming for his wife.

Arnav wants to tell him to shut up, but his mouth won’t open.

His hands are shaking.

Not from fear. From memory.

Memory of black pin-straight hair around his knuckles, ruby red lipstick stains on his shirt and a voice that whispers his name like a sin.

Then the ground breaks beneath him.

He’s flailing. Falling. Flying.

Then silence.

It rings so loudly he blacks out and returns to her.

To the hell he burns in.

XXX

The kettle screamed long before she did.

Khushi turned off the stove mechanically, her fingers trembling just enough for the lid to clatter when she reached for it. She hated that sound—metal striking metal. It reminded her of every clash of glass that hit the floor when she’d been shoved into it.

Lavanya was sitting at the kitchen table, her hair tied up, sleeves rolled to her elbows like she was bracing herself for war. She didn’t sip her tea. Didn’t touch her phone. Just… watched.

“You’re not eating again,” Lavanya said quietly.

Khushi poured two cups of tea, even though her stomach felt like ash and her throat burnt with the flames that had licked their way up her gut.

“I’m not hungry”.

“He’s not here today” her voice was barely a whisper, “Is he?” This time, indignance laced her tone.

Khushi flinched. Her hand jolted. The tea cup overflowed.

“No”.

Lavanya didn’t apologise. She didn’t backpedal. She never did, and Khushi both loved and feared her for it.

There was a long pause. Lavanya exhaled and spoke again, this time slower. Measured. Like she was peeling a scab she couldn’t ignore anymore- it was a scab she picked at daily, and while she knew that ensured it wouldn’t heal, she couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop.

“Why don’t you leave?”

A sharp inhale echoed around them, the silence eerie as it shadowed them.

“I love him”.

“What do you love about him?” She was stood up now, her voice still gentle but her proximity seemed brutal. “Is it the flowers he buys you to commemorate each hit? Is it the apologies he litters over your skin that’s marked with his hand prints? Or is it the three babies he gave you that were never born, tell me, what were their names again?”

Khushi’s eyes scrunched shut, her lower lip wobbling as she tried to grip onto any semblance of reason she could use as a rebuttal.

Ever so carefully, Lavanya placed her hand on her best friend’s shoulders “You were named after a feeling people chase for years, once upon a time, you embodied that, now” she grimaced, “Now you are an empty shell, a casing of a bullet that aimed at the light you shone in but it is not a target you will hit, not like this, not with him”.

“He is all I have, Lavanya” her eyes were open now; sienna orbs shining as tears lined her eyes. “I have no money, no job, no house without hm, he’s all I know, all I’m allowed to know”.

She wanted to reassure her best friend that she had her, that she’d always have her and some way, somehow, they’d find a way, but she knew life was never that easy. “Then if you won’t be free physically” she reached into her back pocket, slipping a folded piece of paper into her hand and closed Khushi’s hand around it, “Then perhaps you can be free mentally”.

Looking from the paper to her friend’s eyes, her brows knitted “What is this?”

“There’s a programme, for soldiers, Project Paper Bridge, civilians are given the address of a soldier in active duty, you write to them, they write back, you can be Khushi in those letters, the Khushi I know” her thumb absentmindedly traced her shaking hand, peeling her fingers back to free the paper from her tight hold.

“I, I don’t know, Shyam Ji wouldn’t like it”.

“He doesn’t have to know, baby, he doesn’t have to know, this is just for you”.

Khushi didn’t look up. “I wouldn’t even know what to say” she shrugged.

Lavanya took her seat, stirred her tea once. Twice. Then placed the spoon down with a soft, deliberate clink. “It’s okay to just say hi, it’s a start, perhaps the soldier will fill in the gaps”.

“Hmm” she smiled now, ever so slightly, it disappeared as soon as it came.

XXX

The beeping is the first thing he hears.

Then the pain, so blindingly bright as it sears through his chest cavity.

He opens his eyes and winces. White ceiling. Fluorescent light. His shoulder’s on fire. Something’s in his arm. Machines chirp like it’s a good thing he’s breathing.

If he could talk, he’d assure them it’s not.

Someone speaks beside him—he doesn’t catch it.

His throat is dry. His body’s lead. His ribs shift like broken glass.

“Mr Raizada?”

He turns his head, slow. A nurse. Clipboard. Smile like a rehearsed prayer.

“You’re stable,” she says. “They got you out just in time.”

Arnav doesn’t blink. Doesn’t nod.

She touches his wrist gently, checking his pulse again even though the machines are already telling her he’s alive.

Then, barely above a whisper— “You’ll be sent home in a few weeks”.

And that’s when he moves. Just a twitch. A shift. But it’s violent enough to make her step back.

His voice is raw. Hoarse. But deliberate “Don’t make me go home”.

She looks confused. “You’ve earned it, not only are you lucky to be alive, you’re lucky to make it home”.