Arranged Revenge

In this moment of faint consciousness, all that was perceptible to Elena was the loud, disremote, and obnoxious sound of some monitor counting Elena's heartbeats, an echo of another world altogether. The faint scent of antiseptic lingered in the air. Her whole body felt heavy, dull, and stiff; she felt connected to this crushed and rigid intangible body just like that of an inanimate corpse. Her eyelids flutter, and she forces them apart, squinting at the burning brightness above as dizziness rolls over her. Elena found herself in a hospital room with cold, pure white walls. A strange-sounding cocoon felt comfortable and warm at the same time. Something deep down needed to raise her voice and shriek for her family, but nothing came out of her mouth. Her throat was painfully dry and sore as if she had seen no chance of speaking for days. Some creaking of the door came to an end with a person entering, her uncle, Dante. She blinked several more times for clarity and saw him standing miles away at the foot of the bed, tall, broad-shouldered, and gravely solemn. Once warm and caring, his eyes were now distant and inscrutable. "Uncle... where... Where are Mom and Dad?" she hoarsely asked, scanning his face desperately for any comforting assurance. "Where is Bryne?" Dante did not reply immediately, a sorrowful shade crossing his face. He stepped to the side of the bed and lowered his bulk slowly into the chair beside it. She could see the tension in him and that he was fiddling with the cuff of his jacket. "Dante?" She called out with increasing panic. Gloomy, Dante turned his back on her: "Elena... do you really not remember?" These words floated barely above a whisper. Her forehead ached up again as perplexity flooded her senses. "What do you mean?" "There was a casualty," he said softly. "A car accident. Your parents and Bryne...they didn't survive it." With sobriety, the words strike her like a stab in the stomach, living off the warmth out of whatever little comfort the blanket afforded her. An icy numbness sprung out from her chest. The actuality that an increasing chocking pressure surrounded her was intolerable. "No..." Elena's voice barely managed to break out, trembling. "No! This cannot be true! You are lying! They are just not here for now." She made her way up to him and grabbed his arm with her trembling hands. "Please, tell me it is not true. Just tell me." But he did not revoke from her cuddle; rather, his face became a mask of distress and frustration. "I'm sorry, Elena," he said in a broken voice. "I wish I could. But it's true: they're gone. And your brother too." This pronouncement made Elena see everything blurred through her tears, and her chest constricted as if collapsing within itself. Suddenly, her thoughts built around the assumptions that losing them would have to be at some time in the distant future. That moment was real now, her parents, her brother just gone like that. Dante's gentle hands on her would create that feeling of something reassuring. But, once again, recollections they so feared invaded her thoughts. He remained quiet for quite a long interval until the force of reality and grief had inducted itself into her. Time passed before he extricated his throat, "There is business to attend to," he said, and at the time, his voice heightened as though he were saying, "there's something I've set up.. an explanation." "What do you mean?" she asked, her voice trembling. "Arranged marriage," he said. Those words floated uneasily in the air, strange and unsettling. "You can't be alone, Elena. Someone needs to care for you. I already communicated with the Matteo family, so you will marry their son." This is too fast and unbearable for Elena: just waking up to find her parents dead, her brother dead and demanding she marries some guy she didn't even know existed? The voice became hopeless as he continued. “I need time. I need to mourn. I need space to heal.” A line solidified across Dante's mouth. "That has already been arranged. It is for your own good, Elena; you cannot be left alone. Your parents are gone, you have no other choice. It is what your parents would have wanted." Words like flames burn, ruthless and rigid words dig in like nails. "It's not real marrying a stranger; it's crazy.I'm not ready for all this," Elena whispered once again. His palms resting on his hips, Dante hauls himself up and stares down like someone whom pity has just let down and irritated. "It's not about being ready. It's about survival, Elena Life does not wait for you to heal. You must face the truth." She tried to breathe but the tightening sensation in her chest made the air bitter and painful. No, mourning should not be practiced from some hospital bed, and, besides, an arranged marriage is yet another step forward without so much as a chance for proper mourning. How in the world is she supposed to live for a stranger when she hasn't even begun to recover from such terrible loss?. “Not that I want it," she said through gritted teeth and tears streamed down her face. "I'm sorry, Elena," Dante said one last time, the tone final, "Because it's done. It's not your decision to make anymore. Those days ambled by under the haze of hospital gowns, sterile corridors, and sterile chatter. Elena paid little attention to time in the wake of passing days as her short life swung in between awestruck numbness and naked grief. Every visitation by her uncle hurt more with every strange reminder that she was to be turned over to someone who she really felt did not even know her. Eyes would travel in droves outside the window of her hospital room at a world beyond that ignored her presence, all while remaining in a haze of disbelief and loss. Her thoughts spend most of the time inside every little ray of sunshine for her mother, every glimmering smile from her father, the soft laughter of Bryne. Those brilliant memories were dimming with every passing minute, like the slow death of photos in an old album. With no surviving family, the prospects of Elena's arranged marriage appear no more than a token interest with which to scornfully distract herself.