Panic, if one can call 'great misery and unbearable fear of losing the most precious thing' that, is the only emotion Fannah could feel at this moment, his hand was shaking uncontrollably at the sight of Sufiyan on the ventilator, unable to breathe with his eyes closed shut like he would never open them again to see the world and light it up, Fannah if one thing he knew about Sufiyan after talking to him for barely fifteen minutes it was that he had little to no interest in this world or living.
Thinking of this thing made Fannah's stomach churn, and the irritating feeling only grew with every second, the doctors ran inside and out of the hospital room, worry and paranoia written all over their faces.
It had been around god knows how many hours since they arrived at the hospital with sufiyan, after examining him for a few hours, doing infinite tests and examinations , the doctors had informed the family that Sufiyan was brain dead, the only thing that didn't make sense at all, how could a person who was perfectly fine be brain dead in matter of seconds when all that happened was he fainted in someone's arms.
Fannah for one could not understand how, even though he was dumb sometimes but this was too much, even a crazy person could tell there was something wrong with this situation.
"Fannah, go home", Raid said in a worried voice as he made his way to Fannah who was sitting at the furthest seat from all.
"No, it's okay I want to be here for sufiyan". He replied in a deep tone as he scratched his arms, his nails digging painfully in his flesh but no matter what he did, he could not stop the itch in his body, making him anxious and angry.
"Stop it, your arms have turned red". Raid said and held Fannah's hand which seemed to be burning at an unrealistic temperature right now.
"Fannah, you have a high fever, let's get you checked downstairs", Raid advised and stood up to take Fannah for a check up.
"It's okay, I am fine", Fannah replied in a monotonous voice, as he tried to get his hand out of Raid's.
"Listen to me, we don't want another patient, everyone is already very anxious about Sufiyan, so please don't create any more drama, let's go", Raid reprimanded and at this time his parents had also reached the hospital and after a few minutes they finally succeeded in dragging him down to get him checked.
After the examination, the doctor prescribed him some medicine and told him to rest at home.
Rest how could he rest when his world was suddenly seemed to darken, the person who terrified him to the core was declared dead and ironically this scary man has died in his arms with tears in his eyes, pleading him for, God knows what.
But now he could not do anything and was taken home despite all his arguments and right now he lay in his bed, wide awake staring at the ceiling of the room like a fool, waiting for something, a news,a call that said Sufiyan is alright, or an alarm that could wake him up from this dark nightmare, but nothing happened and slowly and steadily sleep clawed its way to him, tempting him to just close his eyes and drown in another beautiful dream and so he gave in to the temptations of the tempory death,closing his eyes to sooth the itch in his body.
2 days later:-
There was no sun rays coming in from the window today so he didn't get up as early as he used to, around 11:30 a.m when he opened his eyes he saw the room was dark like it was still night, he got off his bed and walked to the window and pulled the curtains open, the sky was filled with black clouds and there was not even a sign of sun coming out today, the looming clouds looked heavy and dark as if ready to destroy the beautiful valley with their wrath.
Fannah walked to the bathroom to freshen up and then had his tea.
"Are you feeling okay, today?" Yasmeen asked while carefully checking her son's temperature.
"Hmm, I am good", Fannah replied in a sombre voice, as he pulled the sleeve of his sweater down so that he could hide the red marks on his arm.
"I am going to visit sufiyan first and then I will go to check the work in studio, I have missed a lot of work", Fannah explained as he put his cup down and stood up.
"Be careful on your way", Yasmeen said worriedly, watching her son leave.
"Okay mama Bye-Bye, I will see you at night", Fannah replied before sitting in his car and drove away.
"May Allah protect and bless you". Yasmeen said, seeing Fannah drive out.
When he went inside the hospital, the atmosphere grew even more worse, the corridor that was full of white lights, grew darker and darker with every step Fannah took,.the grieving voices and loud cries made the whole hospital gloomy and oppressive, making Fannah feel like there was something insistently pressing on him.
His heartbeat suddenly rose and his face was full of sweat, the itching in his arms returned and for a moment he stopped walking, from his peripheral vision, he could see Fatimah crying in the corner while holding Faiza, who seemed to be in a much worse state then her mother.
Fannah's fast pulsing heart dropped at this moment like a wave of cold water had washed over him and completely cooled down everything.
"Sufiyan", Fannah ran towards Sufiyan's room, but his feet seemed to be running slower then ever, like they did not want to run and stay rooted at their place, something inside his head started hurting omniously as he opened the door of the room.
There sufiyan laid peacefully, his eyes closed and a white cloth covering his whole body, the life support had been withdrawn from his body, no wires, no heart monitoring equipment just Sufiyan, as eatheral as an angel.
"Fannah", someone called from behind but he didn't know who, he vaguely heard the call of a girl.
"How?", Fannah asked, his face had turned pale and his whole body was trembling, he felt his body stiffen while his eyes remained glued to the person in front of him, a feeling of helplessness washed over him but he could not feel his face getting wet with tears, it seemed that at this moment, his brain didn't know what to do.
"He went into cardiac arrest sometime ago, and now.... he is gone", the voice said as sobs escaped the girls lips and she fell to the ground, but Fannah didn't do anything, he didn't turn around, he didn't help the girl, but he didn't walk forward or see Sufiyan's face clearly either, he just stayed there, like a ghost looming around without an objective or wish, just a harmless wandering ghost.
At this moment someone came in the room, Fannah turned around this time and saw it was a nurse who come for something Fannah didn't know, she slowly made her way to the scary boy and started writing something on the card, Fannah stepped in front of her, completely unaware and unresponsive of everything.
"May I talk to him", Fannah asked numbly and the nurse looked at him with confused eyes before nodding her head not knowing what else to do.
Fannah turned towards the body lying on the bed and carefully tried to put Sufiyan's stray hair behind his ears, but his hands were shaking so much that he made it worse, finally he gave up on it and lowered himself to Sufiyan's ear.
"Sleep well". Fannah said, and saw that Sufiyan's arms was hanging from the side so he slowly held the arm and put it on the bed, touching Sufiyan's hand ever so slightly.