The Bond Of Threads

74. Memories

Rishu was three years old. plenty of kids had been a part of their orphanage, but she was still the youngest.
Nakul had always been so protective of her. She was the cutest little child, so loved and adored by everyone.

One fine day, there came a donation of hand-down clothes and toys for the kids. The kids always survived on the donations. That was all the orphange could provide and basically relied on donations and hand-down stuff to provide for the kids.

Among other toys, there was a slightly old stuffed toy of baby shark.

Three year old Rishinn was fascinated by the first ever stuffed toy she had seen. She was quick to pick it up. She had already claimed it and had it in her possession.
She hardly shared the stuffed soft toy with any other kid.

She was so in love with her toy fish, that she had it with her at all times. Once or twice, she had cried bitterly when other kids tried to hide it. Nakul had found the toy for her. The poor boy could do only so much. At the tender age, he knew, other kids too had desire to play with it. It was not sent for any one kid, but for all of them. How could he explain that to the little girl?

Days slowly passed by. Rishinn's obsession over the toy did not seem to lessen. She was now seven years old and still had not shared the toy with anyone willingly. She also never looked at any other toys that keep coming as donations.

One such day, a small girl was brought at the doorstep of the orphanage.

She had recently lost her parents and had nowhere to go. Being a four-year old, she was now the youngest member of the orphanage.
She had cried bitterly and was inconsolable. She was not of the age to understand what had happened to her parents.
She had missed her parents. She refused to eat and nothing could calm her hurting soul.

Ajeet and Rashmi had tried their best, but the child needed her own parents.

Rishinn was watching the troubled girl from far and so was Nakul. They knew life here was hard and they could do nothing about it. Like all other kids, the girl too would learn to live without parents.
But to his surprise, Rishinn walked ahead, clutching now tattered baby shark to her chest. She stood in front of the girl and with a heavy heart, extended the toy to her.

The girl looked at the toy withing dry hiccups and then raised her head to look at Rishinn.

Their eyes met momentarily. The girl extended her hand and grabbed the toy. Though it did not make her feel any better, she stopped wailing.

Rishinn took back a step. She did not know what she was feeling. But she turned in a flash and ran in Nakul's embrace.
Rishinn did not know why she was crying over a stuffed toy that she herself had offered.

Nakul held her in his embrace and knew that his sister was getting herself ready for harsh realities of life and small sacrifices that came along.

The little girl was later on adopted by a wealthy couple. But Rishinn never showed any obsession to any other stuffed toy.

Their first day in the house and Nihaar had offered a chocolate and stuffed toy to her, making those old memories resurface for both Rishu and Nakul.

Rivaan gently wiped those tears that kept leaking from Nakul's closed eyes, not knowing what was going on in Nakul's unconscious yet conscious mind.

"He just doesn't stop crying. I don't understand, what's wrong." Rivaan said helplessly.

Sandhya looked at the sleeping boy with a broken heart. Nakul had refused to wake up even after three staright days. All he did was cry in his sleep. There was no movement in his body except those slightly moving eyeballs and the intermittent flow of tears.

Rohini had come back the next morning when Shirom was forced to disclose about Nakul's condition.

She could not help but hold Rishinn and cry with her when Rishu blamed Nihaar and Shirom for Nakul's condition. Rishu beleived that Nihaar pushed him to an edge that he was finally giving up on the idea of living.
She was devastated. She was scared for her brother's life.
Nothing had changed when they changed the dose of medicines and Nakul was under continous survilience.

Vikram was more than shattered. It was his plan to make Nakul react. But it had backfired brutally. All his degrees and his life-long experience appeared to be a total waste when he could not revive his own boy.
The fact was, he was doing his best. Nakul's mind and body was not ready to be back to the reality.

Nakul's mind was trapped somewhere between the days of their orphanage. He did not want to come out of those memories anymore. Though tough, that life was much more bearable. He was not under the pressure of proving anything to anyone.
He was tired of taking responsibilities. He was tired of being labelled as someone he did not have experience of.

He wanted to be free.

His every memory somehow brought him back to Shirom's words.

'You could never give her what she wanted.'

His every nerve fiber was stuck at one accusation of Nihaar.

'Next time you decide to leave, it would not bother me.'
'You never thought of me.'

Those words haunted him in his unconscious state. Vikram forbade anyone to visit him, fearing they would worry for the tears he was shedding for unknown reason.
Vishal had to play a villain to keep Rishinn out of the hospital. Poor girl was already scared and this decision came as another shocker for her. She was helpless and clueless.

With Nakul already in hospital, she lost her connect to her parents. She could not trust them anymore as they refused to let her see him. Whatever they told, she just did not have a heart to believe them.
Her poor innocent mind was engulfed in fear.

She finally passed out while an argument with her parents.

Rivaan, who was in the same room as Nakul, received a call from Shirom that they were bringing Rishinn to the hospital.
Concerned Rivaan did not realize that he was asking everything on the phone. He did not realize that his non-coherent words were falling on not so deaf ears of Nakul.

Amidst his added troubles, Rivaan missed to realise that Nakul's heartbeat was now not so stable.

He was about to leave the room to attend the vehicle that was bringing Rishu to the hospital, when he realised the monitor's unusual beep.
A brother in him did not miss the reason for this sudden terbulance.

He did not know if he should celebrate that he was noticing a change in Nakul after three long days, or should worry for the reason that made this change.

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Another chapter up.

This is purely fictional. I do not claim to be knowledgeable about medical conditions of unconscious patients.
If you find any part irrelevant or inexplicable, kindly take it as author's liberty.

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