Chapter 2 Desperate Search

• Deen didn’t waste any time, and with a quick stride, he made his way to the chief doctor's office, his mind racing with questions—questions he found no answers to. Despite being hopeful, he maintained utmost calmness and prepared his mind for either a positive or negative result. He pushed the door open without knocking, walking in as if he owned the place. Daniel, his best friend and the hospital's chief doctor, looked up from his desk, brows furrowing at the sudden intrusion. “Deen?” setting down a nameless patient file. “What the hell?”
• “Who is the guy clamoring at the reception?”
• Deen cut in with a tone laced with calmness yet asserting urgency. “Who is he looking for?”
• Daniel sighed, rubbing his temple. “Well, that is news to me, but if my guess is right, he is looking for a patient we admitted two nights ago. A young woman, with no emergency contact, no ID, and nothing at all to get any information about her. We have been doing our best to obtain information on her.”
• Deen's chest tightened. He kept on going, “Zara, is that her name?”
• Daniel seemed to be gathering some thoughts in his head before he responded. “Zara… that looks like what was on the card seen at the scene of the accident, but it was too damaged to be read, and I'm yet to check the forensic results.”
• Something in Deen’s expression strikingly changed even though he tried concealing it; a dark yet radiant expression of sadness was exhumed.
• Daniel leaned back in his chair, studying Den closely. “Why are you this curious?”
• Deen hesitated. He wasn’t ready to explain, not yet. “Just wondering.” He muttered, forcing out a nonchalant shrug.
• Daniel didn’t look convinced enough, but he let it go. He stood up, grabbed the nameless patient chart from his desk, and motioned to leave his office. “I am going to check up on Her, do you want to come with me so you can clear the speculation in your head?” Daniel pauses, waiting for a response from Deen. “And you need to stop overthinking things.”
• Deen agreed, though his mind was an ethereal, tangled mess with questions. As they walked down the white, sterile hallway, the weight of his curiosity pressed against his chest.
• He had met Zara once, just once, yet he could not fathom why he was this drawn to the entire situation. When they arrived at the ward, Daniel didn’t waver. He pushes the door open with one swift gesture, stepping inside while Deen trails behind him, drowning in total dread.
• For a split second, Deen felt a strange sense of hope; maybe, just maybe, he was overreading things and it was a big misunderstanding, that the Zara being spoken of was someone else entirely. But the second his eyes anchored on the bed, that delicate hope smashed into a thousand irreplaceable pieces. His breath caught in his throat as everything around him began to fade away.
• There, lying unconscious, hooked up to monitors and tangled in wires, was she. The same girl who had fled from him two nights ago. The same girl who had looked at him like she had seen something she wasn’t supposed to. But now she wasn’t avoiding him; she was barely even holding on. Wrapped in bandages, her face pale against the stark white sheets. She looked fragile, and this created a twisted ruckus in Deen's chest.
• Deen stood frozen, with his mind trapped in a haze of disbelief at what his eyes had just seen and his emotions swirling all over his head about how deep this whole thing was, yet he still couldn’t understand the whole scenario. Still trying to further harp on it, the sharp, frantic beeping of the monitors shattered the moment, pulling him back to existence like a jolt of electricity.
• His vision, blurred by the sudden shock wave of seeing her in such a state, sharpened, bringing the chaos of the room into focus. Nurses rushed in, their voices urgent as they gathered around Zara, scanning her vitals and trying their best to modify the machines that chimed like an alarm against the wall.
• Daniel, the ever-composed doctor, moved swiftly, barking orders as he assessed the situation. “Her heart rate’s unbalanced; get me another IV bag and increase the oxygen flow.”
• Deen took a step back, his fists clenching at his sides. His presence here was meaningless; he had no right to feel anything about what was happening, yet the sight of Zara in suffering made his pulse quicken. A transition in motion behind him snagged his attention. He turned slightly, and standing just a few feet away from him was the exact man who had stormed into the hospital before, the one who had been wailing Zara's name.
• The man's breathing was heavy, his expression spiked with a mixture of anguish and misery as he observed the medical crew toil frantically to stabilize Zara. His hands trembled at his sides, his body rigorous with slightly incorporated emotions.
• For the first time since Deen walked into the hospital, he felt something other than inquisitiveness; He felt unrest because whoever this fellow was, he wasn’t just anyone who knew Zara; He was someone who wanted her alive.
• Just as chaos had erupted suddenly, the monitors’ beeping became silent. The abrupt and fierce bluster that ate like a horse in the room had tuned down to a rhythmic humming that signaled stability. The nurses exchanged brief peeks of solace, the movement stalling as they wrapped up monitoring Zara's IV and vitals.
• Daniel, still inspecting her stats, let out a calm exhale before delivering a satisfied nod. “She’s stable for now.” His tone was professional, yet Deen could sense the underlying exhaustion in his voice.
• Deen, on the other hand, lingered for a brief moment, his intense gaze flickering subconsciously between Zara’s unconscious form and the unknown man standing still, now beside him. The air birthed a challenging tension, but Deen was interested in breaking it down. He needed to be away by himself to get clarity in his mind to avoid creeping thoughts confronting him. Without a word, he turned on his heel and exited the room. Making his way back to Daniel’s office, the chilling hospital air slowly grazes his face, his head buzzing with unanswered questions. All these were spiced with an unfamiliar clogging that sat heavily in his chest.
• As he pushed the office door open and stepped inside, he quickly exhaled, running his hands on his hair and brushing it back. He fled from the ward because he couldn’t contain the aura in the air that caused a notable curiosity in him, but somehow this curiosity turned into something else, something he wasn’t sure he liked.
• Deen sat in Daniel's office, his elbow resting impatiently on his knees, with his fingers clasped as his mind eagerly raced. No matter how he tried to push the thoughts away, they kept crawling back. Zara’s pale skin and the beeping monitors topped off the uneasy feeling in his gut.
• With a deep exhale, caught in the web of putting the piece together, the door swung open. Daniel walked in, closing the door behind him before sitting on his chair, dropping a folder on his desk, and crossing his arms. “You left without a word,” He said, giving Deen a suspicious look. “And what was that about?”
• Deen looked up at him, refusing to answer the question thrown. He instead leans back in his chair, carefully rubbing his temples before finally speaking. “And the guy… Who was that guy? The one who was yelling earlier? He was at Zara’s ward too; it seems like they have some sort of connection.”
• Daniel raised an eyebrow, as if caught on his fist by the question, and let out an almost inaudible sigh. “Her fiancé.”
• Deen froze.
• Fiancée?
• His mind shook back to the night they met. The way Zara had looked at him, the shock her eyes conveyed, and how she practically ran away from him. “Was that the reason? Had she felt guilty? Or was she even trying to avoid some kind of problem?” Deen thought to himself. As quickly as his mind intertwined with the thought, he shoved it away. There was no reason for him to think that how she acted when they met had anything to do with her relationship. Besides, why did it matter to him?
• Deen shrugged under his breath, shaking his head. “Huh. Didn’t expect that.”
• Daniel narrowed his eyes at him. “What interests you in her, Deen?”
• Deen simply scoffed, his expression unreadable. “It is nothing too serious, just being curious.” Yet even as he said it, he knew there was more to it, and that realization made him uneasy.
• The sun had long set, as it cast the city with an eerily quiet darkness. The hospital corridors that screamed with activity became a carrier of stillness, with the little occasional murmuring of nurses and distant sounds of monitors humming. Deen, who was so eager to be by Zara’s side, had already left. Whatever he was drawn to that made him want to stay had vanished the moment a confirmation of who the strange man was was made. There was nothing for him there; that’s what he thought to himself.
• Meanwhile, in Zara’s ward, her fiancé, who had frantically entered the hospital earlier, now sat beside her, his finger carefully caressing her frail hand. His eyes, full of exhaustion and something very intense, never looked away from her face. She looked so peaceful, as if she wasn’t trapped in the grip of unconsciousness and was just resting in her sleep. He shakily exhaled, brushing his thumb over her forehead as if willing her to wake up, to squeeze his hand in return, showing him a sign that she could hear him.
• Minutes moved into hours, and eventually, exhaustion took the best of him. With his head dipped forward, resting slightly on the mattress beside her, sleep embraced him in a warm hug.
• Buzz!!!
• A vibration loud against his thigh made him jolt from his sleep. In a disoriented manner, he blinked against the dim light radiating from his phone. A wave of tension flooded his body as he saw the caller ID. His heart pounded against his ribs as an unsettling feeling crawled in his gut. With no further hesitation, he silenced the call, his eyes hovering on the screen as if debating whether to answer the call.
• He quickly glanced at Zara and was relieved that she was still unmoving, still lost in her sleep. As if afraid even the slightest sound would disturb her, he held his phone tightly and tucked it away. “Whoever it is, they can wait.” He said.
• Days had gone by, each day mirroring the last, but there was little to no improvement in Zara’s condition. She was stuck in the same slumber state, unmoving, silent, and trapped somewhere that felt like the center of life and the unknown oblivion. The medical staff closely monitored her, but her prognosis remained the same: unresponsive yet stable. Her fiancé, who was already footing the bills for her stay, always came in every day to check on her before working hours and after working hours. It was as though he barely left her side. He made it a routine of always speaking to her softly, hoping that somewhere and somehow, she could hear him and eventually respond. But she never stirred.
• MEANWHILE
• Deen should have moved on. His life swam in a pool of distractions: business meetings, deadlines, responsibilities, and people who demanded his attention. Yet he still found time to wander his thoughts off to Zara. No matter how much work he was buried in, his thoughts intently drifted back to Zara. He was always lost in his thoughts, wondering how she was doing, if her condition had worsened, or if she had even woken up. Deep down, he knew he was more concerned than he expected himself to be, but he always brushed off the feeling, stating he was just curious. Something about her was mysterious, and he couldn’t place his finger on what it was. His thoughts made no sense to him; he barely knew her, yet something about her paced at the back of his head like an unfinished conversation.
• “This is ridiculous and illogical,” Deen always said to himself whenever his thoughts flashed to Zara. Turning away from the hospital was the only thing he could do because he had no reason to be concerned. But every passing hour birthed the realization that she wasn’t just a passing thought.