Mere Three Seconds -1

PART ONE

One. Two. Three - those were the few insignificant seconds that seemed to lapse by while she laid static on the cold concrete pavement with a certain horror reigning every inch of her body. Three mere seconds, that seemed to pass by before she felt the flesh of her face being set ablaze. Three seconds, only three bare seconds were enough to render her scarred for the rest of her life while she laid absolutely immobilized on the cold concrete pavement with a certain hollowness that shattered the very core of her being.

Clasping her cold and callous fingers around the velvety comforter, her eyes fluttered opened. She stared at the whitewashed ceiling that rested above her as those eyes of hers ceaselessly stung from playing through those scenarios of the past that she loathed with every fiber of her being. Her heart continued to bang against those frail ribs of hers as the void filled with dread kept expanding to every chamber of that very heart. She clenched her chest with the back of her clammy palms while the unkempt heaving of her lungs never seemed to cease. Her mind kept numbing with every image of the past that unbridled from its forbidden depths, causing those lungs of hers to become constricted while she kept gasping for the share of the air that her airways now failed to provide. She saw those several bits of the past slowly scrapping out one by one and laying patent across those eyes of hers only to haunt her once again, snatching any placidity of slumber that she was destined to get. She felt those familiar quivers erupting along the spine of her back as she trailed the trembling tips of her fingers along the side of the face that was now jagged and brutally scarred with the splashes of a nasty bottle of acid.

Getting off the bed, she walked towards the mirror that stood in front of her. Clenching her fists tightly until her knuckles kept turning white, she lifted her gaze to glance at that face of hers- only to stumble backwards upon seeing those burnt remnants of the past shrouding the girl that she once used to be. She stared hard at those scars that were etched boldly across the side of her face - only to catch the slight wincing that still wrecked through her body upon seeing those mere three seconds recurring yet again that had passed by after the nasty drops of acid were mercilessly thrown at her a year ago on this very day.

She kept walking backwards, tottering hither and thither in her steps until she hit the edge of her bed. Sitting on the brink of her bed, she braced herself once again as that day kept enlivening across her bare eyes- the day when she had become yet another victim of an acid attack in broad daylight. She could see that day as lucid as ever - the day when she had come across the immense mastery of survival that had been always there right embedded in every bone of her existence.

The darkness of the night kept seeping into every corner of her room, while she looked out of the closed window and sucking in a sharp breath as she saw the past vividly flicking across the sleepless lids of her eyes. And there she could see that one fateful day roaringly replaying throughout her vision. She remembered waking up to the streaks of the early risen sun while grabbing the cackling alarm clock from the bedside table and shutting it off with a loud thud. She remembered those giggles that echoed through her whole room as she had bent over to place a soft peck on the cheeks of her little sister before rushing to be engulfed in one of those warm bear hugs of her mother. She remembered the tiny goosebumps flickering upon her forearms when she had stepped out of the threshold of her small and dandy haven and into the mad rush of the morning that awaited her presence. She remembered the way she was fiddling with the straps of her bag as she waited to walk across the street while tapping her feet on a small pebble that seemed to be her only companion amid the hustle and bustle of the vast world.