Chapter 5 Zara's Core Recovery

• A soft chime broke the silence as the handheld analyser beeped. Nurse Lily stared at the screen, with her brows furrowed. The number seemed to not make sense in her eyes; the white blood cell count was normal, the red blood cell ratio seemed perfect, and there was no marker of trauma or any sign of infection or even elevated enzymes. It was as if Zara never had any injury. Still furrowing her brows, nurse Lily documented what showed on the document in her hand. She clutched the document tightly as she walked briskly out of the room, with her footstep quick and purposeful against the cold floor of the hospital, across the hallway to Daniel’s office.
• Inside Daniel’s office, nurse Lily walked into Daniel at his desk reviewing charts. She placed the document on the desk, wearing an unsettling facial expression. “She is stable; here are the results, sir.” She said.
• “Stable?” Daniel asked.
• “Doctor, ‘stable’ is an understatement because everything is clear, and there is no evidence her body has gone through any kind of trauma. This is unnatural, if I must say.” Nurse Lily said.
• Not waiting for a response from Daniel, nurse Lily exited the office. He simply took the file, adding it to Zara’s growing file, leaning back in his chair to read. His eyes lingered on the document, longer than he should have, taking in the mesmerising analysis he held in his hand. Even though he seemed not too surprised about what had just happened, he still couldn’t answer the unexplained occurrence.
• Farther away from the sterile walls of the hospital, behind the tall gold wrought gate, at the brim of a sprawling estate, Michael returned to his mansion. The staff, who had already opened the door after sensing his arrival, bowed as Michael entered inside without pausing for any greeting or pleasantries. Getting to the middle of the living room, he stopped and began giving firm instructions.
• “I want you to dress and prepare the west wing room. I want light and quiet colours… nothing too flashy.” He said it while the house manager listened, as he stood in the corner.
• “Yes, sir,” the house manager said as he nodded his head.
• “And listen to me carefully: She is not to be disturbed, not to be crowded, and keep a very far distance, and only speak when spoken to. Am I understood?”
• “Yes, sir.” The housekeeper said firmly.
• “Pass the information to the others, respectively,” Michael added.
• Immediately he swept away towards the grand staircase, as his eyes moved over the properly polished walls and floors, inspecting to see any flaws. In reality, his mind was haunted by something else, and that was the thought of Zara and how she had woken up. Also, he couldn’t fathom how her injuries miraculously healed. His mind was troubled by the fact that she could remember something she was not supposed to.
• “She wasn’t supposed to be awake, not now at least. And now that things are these ways, everything has changed.” Micheal thought to himself as he walked towards his room. As he got to the front of his room, he gripped the doorknob with his jaw clenched as his thoughts raced. Whatever came next, he knew it would be bigger than what he could contain, and he needed to control it. Not just it, but he needed to control her.
• The silence returned as the nurses left Zara’s ward, and the soft click of the door clicked shut the door, leaving Zara in a blanket of silence. As the warm light spilt through the half-closed blinds, casting a warm stripe on her skin and the hospital bed, Zara lay still as the sheets were pulled loosely over her while she stared at the ceiling silently. All she could feel was a quiet unease, even when the heart monitor frantically beeped beside her.
• “No bruises, not even a single scar, no soreness or ache in my muscles. I should be happy, but this sounds like a problem.” She thought to herself, as her fingers slightly curled towards the blanket, while she tried to understand what just happened to her. From the accident to the awakening, it all felt like a fogged window she couldn’t clear. And then the images that came in the flashes were different; even though intensely vivid, they were strange and real in ways dreams never were.
• “The dark woods, those distant scary eerie howls, strange-figure looking Deen… all these looked exactly like a painting did a few months ago,” Zara said out loud to herself, lost in her thoughts, trying to understand the puzzling reality she just stepped into. For unexplained reasons, Zara began to believe that these paintings of hers weren’t just about her imagination and that she needed to find a meaning to it and everything.
• “Could it have been just my imagination or something deeper?” She thought to herself as she pressed her palm on her chest to feel her steady heartbeat. A heart that should not be beaten by all scientific logic. Then she remembered the cold from the accident and the way everything had suddenly gone dark in her dream, the pain she felt, and the aura Deen’s presence carried; it was too puzzling to understand, and she had yet to place her hand on any clue as to why fate made everything happen the way it did.
• The days that followed moved like a slow unwinding of spring tightly coiled. Everyone drifted in their quiet orbit, as they distanced themselves while reflecting on the event that just occurred. Micheal, on the one hand, had dedicated the majority of his time to coordinating things for Zara’s discharge. Despite being caught in the web of preparation, he desperately looked for answers and hovered around cautiously to avoid his steps being watched.
• Zara, on the other hand, remained perpetual in her silence, reflecting on her life before the accident, in search of loopholes. Dedicated little to no time to speaking much, and when she did, her words were clipped or somewhat distracted. Spending most of her time gazing out of the window as her imagination sketched vague images that looked like a dream and avoiding eye contact more often than not.
• For three long days, Deen buried himself in his routine. He did so as a distraction for himself, or so he thought. He busied himself with work to distract his thoughts from wandering to Zara, but the more he did that, the more he thought of her. He wasn’t sure about what gave him the unnerving feeling; could it be how she looked at him when she woke up or the fact that something had shifted inside him ever since he left the hospital and it hadn't settled?
• On the morning of the third day, after Zara’s magical awakening, once again Deen found himself turning his car towards the facility of the hospital without thinking. The road was quiet, as it was washed clean from the drizzle of the morning. Casting a cool shimmer on the surface of his Matte black Mercedes AMG, as the sun began to break through the cloud, while he pulled up to the hospital gate.
• Deen shut the door behind him with a soft click as he stepped out of his car. The air was filled with a scent of wet earth and antiseptic, spiced with a strange mix of life and sterility.
• “I don’t plan on seeing her; I need to see Daniel as quick as I can and take my leave.” Deen said to himself, despite knowing that won't be possible. But then, from across the courtyard, he saw Zara. She walked slowly as he faced her, her long black hair loose, cascading down her back, with her hospital gown fluttering gently at each step she took as the pale fabric caught the passing wind.
• Not noticing any presence because she was lost, lost in a drift tide of thoughts, so deep that it pulled her away from the world around her. And for the first time since his knowledge of her accident, Deen didn’t feel conflicted. He walked slowly and carefully towards her as if trying not to startle something very fragile to avoid destruction. This move was initiated in his subconscious state. This means whatever had happened at the art gallery and travelled down to the hospital had a connection, and it just started.