SHADOWS OF SORROW
Oyih Joy@joyoyih936684
1 month ago
CHAPTER 6: THE WEIGHT OF SILENCE.
In the months since Zahira had been confined to the hospital, her family had experienced a strange, bittersweet calm. The constant fear of her unpredictable outbursts had been replaced by a heavy, pervasive silence. The house, once filled with Zahira's laughter and the sound of her bustling about, now stood eerily quiet. Fatima, her mother, and her two sisters, Halima and Hadiza, tried to find solace in this new normal, but the silence was far from comforting.
Fatima bore the brunt of the burden, as any mother would. Every day, without fail, she made the journey to the hospital, her heart heavy with dread and hope. She would bring Zahira her favorite dishes, lovingly prepared in the hope that the familiar tastes might bring some semblance of peace to her troubled daughter. She would pack clean clothes, little comforts from home, anything that might make Zahira's confinement more bearable. But as each day passed, Fatima felt the weight of her daughter’s absence more acutely, the house growing colder with every visit.
The hospital had become their second home, a place where their lives revolved around Zahira’s deteriorating condition. Halima and Hadiza took turns accompanying their mother, the weight of their sister's suffering pressing down on them as well. They watched as Zahira swung from moments of calm to terrifying episodes of rage, her fractured mind revealing pieces of itself that none of them recognized.
Fatima’s face, once youthful and vibrant, had grown haggard. Lines etched themselves deeply around her eyes and mouth, evidence of the sleepless nights spent worrying about Zahira, praying for a miracle. Her heart ached not only for her daughter but also for the life Zahira had lost, her husband, her peace, her very identity.
One evening, after a particularly harrowing visit, Fatima returned home alone. Halima and Hadiza had stayed behind to speak with the doctors, trying to glean some shred of hope from their increasingly grim prognosis. Fatima moved through the house like a ghost, her movements slow and deliberate as if each step took all the energy she could muster.
She found herself in Zahira’s old room, the place where her daughter had once found refuge from the world. The bed was neatly made, the shelves lined with books and trinkets from happier times. Fatima sat on the edge of the bed, her hands trembling as she reached out to touch the soft fabric of the bedspread. Memories flooded her mind; Zahira as a little girl, playing with her dolls; Zahira as a teenager, confiding in her mother about her dreams and fears; Zahira as a bride, glowing with happiness on her wedding day.
But those memories were overshadowed by the darkness that had consumed her daughter. Zahira’s cries for help, her screams of agony, and the wild look in her eyes during her episodes haunted Fatima. She had always known there was something deeply wrong, but she had never been able to understand the true extent of her daughter’s pain.
It was during one of these visits that the truth began to surface. Fatima had arrived at the hospital early, hoping to catch Zahira during one of her lucid moments. She found her daughter sitting in her room, staring out of the window, her expression vacant.
“Zahira, my dear,” Fatima called gently as she approached. Zahira turned to her, and for a brief moment, Fatima saw a flicker of recognition in her eyes.
“Mama,” Zahira whispered, her voice small and fragile.
Fatima sat beside her, taking her daughter’s hand in hers. It was cold, lifeless. “How are you feeling today?”
Zahira looked away, her gaze returning to the window. “I don’t know, Mama. I feel…lost. Like I’m drowning, and no one can save me.”
Fatima’s heart clenched at her daughter’s words. “We’re here for you, Zahira. We’re trying to help you, to bring you back.”
Zahira shook her head, a tear slipping down her cheek. “You don’t understand, Mama. There’s something inside me, something dark. I try to fight it, but it’s too strong. It whispers to me, tells me things…things I don’t want to hear.”
Fatima’s blood ran cold. She had heard her daughter speak like this before, but never with such clarity. “What does it tell you?” she asked cautiously.
Zahira’s eyes filled with fear as she leaned closer to her mother, her voice dropping to a terrified whisper. “It tells me I’m a monster. That I’ve done terrible things. That I deserve to be punished.”
Fatima felt the world tilt beneath her. “What things, Zahira? What have you done?”
Zahira shook her head violently, her hands clutching at her hair. “I don’t know! I don’t remember! But the voices, they tell me…I hurt people. I think I hurt Ahmed, Mama. I think I did something terrible, and I can’t remember.”
Fatima’s breath caught in her throat. The thought of her daughter, her sweet Zahira, being capable of such a thing was too horrifying to comprehend. But the look in Zahira’s eyes, the sheer terror, told her that there was something, some unspeakable truth, buried deep within her daughter’s mind.
Desperate for answers, Fatima sought out Dr. Rahim, demanding to know what was happening to her daughter. The doctor was kind but firm, explaining that Zahira’s condition was beyond anything they had seen before. Her mind was fractured, each piece hiding a different part of her trauma. The darkness she spoke of, the voices she heard, were manifestations of her guilt, her pain, and perhaps something even more sinister.
But it wasn’t until Fatima began to dig into Zahira’s past, to unearth the memories her daughter had tried so hard to bury, that the full extent of the horror was revealed. She found an old diary, tucked away in a corner of Zahira’s room, its pages filled with the ramblings of a mind on the edge of sanity.
The entries were sporadic, disjointed, but they painted a picture of a woman tormented by something far worse than grief. Zahira had written of a darkness that followed her, a shadow that had haunted her since childhood. She spoke of her father’s abuse, of the way he had twisted her mind, planted seeds of doubt and fear that had grown into a monstrous thing inside her.
But the most chilling part was what Zahira had hinted at but never fully revealed, a deed so vile, so incomprehensible, that Fatima could hardly believe her daughter was capable of it. Zahira had alluded to a moment of pure rage, a black-out in which she had done something terrible, something that had left her covered in blood and with no memory of how it had happened.
Fatima dropped the diary, her hands shaking. This was the truth, the dark secret that had been festering inside her daughter for so long. Zahira had been driven to the brink of madness by the guilt and the horror of what she had done. And now, Fatima understood why her daughter’s mind had shattered so completely.
She had raised a monster, a monster created by the cruelty of a man who was supposed to protect her, a monster that Zahira herself could not control. And now, Fatima was left to pick up the pieces, to try to save what was left of her daughter before it was too late.
But as she sat there, the weight of this newfound knowledge pressing down on her, Fatima realized that she was powerless against the darkness that had claimed her daughter. The cry that had been trapped in her throat for so long finally escaped, a wail of despair that echoed through the empty house.
Where did she go wrong? What could she have done differently to protect her child? The questions swirled in her mind, but there were no answers, only the cold, hard truth that her daughter was lost to her, perhaps forever. And as the tears streamed down her face, Fatima knew that her own heart was breaking, shattering into pieces that would never be whole again.
#NircleStories.
