Chapter 1 SURROWS

I stamp my imprints on the cold floor, my head throbbing with rebounds of immense pain. My eyes are overflowing pools of tears. I can't even see well despite the orange lanterns illuminating my white-themed room. My eyebags are bulging out so heavily from all the crying.

How long has it been again?

Four days?

Yes! Four days that feel like an eternity of an inferno of heart-wrecking pains. Four days that I haven't eaten nor stepped out of this room. For days of pure crying, moaning, but not even all that crying has been able to alleviate this pain. Four days that I haven't dared to even breathe the outside aura, but now I want to.

Descending through the stairway, I can only hearken to one irritatingly paralyzing voice echoing in my ears, stroking through the shuttered barricades of my heart - dreadful lull. Silence. And it sucks! It stings! It is banging all the corners of this house and surging in me so savagely as if to mock me, reminding me that despite my loathing towards it, it is, and will be, my only companion from now on.

I curse this life! I curse this shit they call fate! And if there really is someone perched on the throne of heaven, as they say, I don't know what to think of him.

I drag my wasted, dejected self outside, meeting with the darkness as it overtakes the light. Now this rhymes my actual state - my whole entirety is clogged with dearness. The light left my life a long time ago, that is, if there ever was any light in my life.

I shuffle my feeble legs through the darkness, wandering to the backyard just behind the house.

Three graves stare at me!

More tears flow!

Pain stings twofold!

All the energy leaves me abruptly!

I find myself slamming to the misty grass before the graves.

My whole family is all gone - gone for good.

Life is cruel! Fate is cruel! Everything is just cruel to me!

It was not enough that my brother died in a road accident two years ago. It was hell, one bitter hell. Being the only sibling I ever had, I felt like a part of me died with him. I felt so alone and empty, so did my parents. But we had to accept the cruel however hard to was - first grave.

As if that was not enough pain, months later, found out that I was pregnant, and my fiance of three years saw it right to ditch me at the most worst moment. He didn't know of the seed that was joyously growing inside of me, and I didn't see any need of letting him know. He was bound to marry someone of his pedigree, and I was not even a shadow to match his class. I was cognizant of that fact from day one of our relationship, but the flames of love that were burning us made me believe that it would burn all barriers blocking our way to our happy ending. But it didn't. Time came, and we had to amicably part ways. I understood him, you know. I am not mad at him for not fighting hard for what we had. Maybe that was beyond him, but God? Why did he have to take my poor baby away from me?

Why did our baby had die and leave me so empty and shuttered and hopeless?

For nine good months I carried my baby in my womb. Nine months that were filled with pure euphoric raptures and unfathomable anticipations of how complete my life was about to be. Nine months of anticipation and eagerness. I had even started dreaming big for my sweet child. I could foresee how cute it would be, and how great it would become in the future. The news of my baby felt like divine completion. I couldn't have asked for anything more. But all the doors to my dreams were slammed shut to my face in the most cruel way possible. After minutes of labour that felt like an entirety, all the pains were washed away with the sweet cry of an angel announcing its arrival to the earth, but little did I know, that my baby was saying hello, and goodbye, Mommy.

One cry, and everything went dreary quiet. I can't explain what I felt back then, but it was a feeling that made me blackout, only to wake up to the news that the baby didn't breathe again after that one cry.

The ground beneath me trembled, and everything in me broke into the tiniest pieces. I sunk into depression. Honestly, I don't even know how I pulled through that shit, but all credits go to my sweet parents. They stood with me through it all for those few weeks I was lost. Now, I didn't deserve any of that, right? My baby didn't deserve to die for no reason at all, right?

After managing depression, I thought all was over. That I will not have to go through the pain of losing another soul. At least not in the near future. I was still bleeding heavily, and I believed that the heavens could see that and spare me from another pain. But as the screw that life is, it was then that it dropped another horrific bombshell. My poor mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. All hell came crumbling down on me and my poor parents.

The pain of losing another soul was a threat to my sanity, and the pain of watching my mother wallow in pain weighed down on me. But I had to play the strong gem. The back-and-forth treatment and chemo weren't for the faint-hearted, and I learnt that through the hard way. The desire to help my mother beat the monstrous disease drove me to doing some things that I, myself, am not so proud of. But I had to, because what else was I supposed to do when everyone left me when bills started accruing? Nobody ever wants to be burdened. They say you only know your true friends when you are in a dilemma and need their help badly. Well, I am a living testimony of that because they all disappeared like vapour the moment the news of my mother's illness got to them. All of them, even that one soul that I never expected could do that to us. He left me to care for my mother all alone.

And again, as if I am a seed of pain, or a cursed soul, none of my efforts bore any fruits. Neither my sacrifices nor my prayers were worth anything. Because just a week before today, my mother breathed her last. In front of my eyes. And in my arms. I felt all my nerves die with her. All my hopes and the will to live died with her-last grave.

Everything I had in life is all gone - gone for good. I am nothing but pain. I have nothing to cling to. Nothing to call mine. Even the house that is serving as my roof right now isn't mine anyone. I mortgaged it in the battle to source the medical bills. I have no one. I have nowhere to go. And this pain? I can't bear it anymore.

As I lay flat in this death-screaming pain and darkness, I wish that the heavens could take me to where all these three soles are peacefully resting so that I can have a rest too.

I have had enough.

I need peace.

I crave peace.

I deserve peace!