The forlorn gaze coming from the dark eyes of the teenaged girl is quite possibly the most familiar thing this wall has known during the last several years, now. It does not know how it feels about that.
The Wall likes the girl, it has decided. She comes often, and every time she does, she doesn't make a fuss, like most other people who frequent here. She just sits or lays there on the bed, does whatever the woman in the white robe tells her to. Very rarely does she speak.
She comes often. Maybe every few months or so--walls do not have the interest in keeping up with humanity's obsession with time. Every time she comes, The Wall can't help but feel joy. Which is strange, because walls aren't supposed to feel anything. But there is something about this girl, it feels, that makes it somehow... alive. Even for just a little bit.
She comes often, which makes The Wall happy, but also sad. The frequency of her stay means she doesn't have long--her time is ending. This is what The Wall has learned over the few decades of his life, since it was built with the hard hands of the tender-hearted men who thought of their family and loved ones only. People come and go. Sometimes they come back, looking more frail each time, and then they stop coming.
It's nearing midnight, and this time, she is staring at The Wall again, as she does every night without fail. Today marks the fifth day she has been here. Anyone can probably guess what is going on in her mind right now, maybe. What the doctor told her mother did not sound very good. Even The Wall understands that.
Unbeknownst to the sighing girl are two young men standing just outside the window to the balcony, their eyes sharp, watching her. The Wall would squint its eyes to see more clearly, if it had eyes. It would alert the girl of the intruders, if it could. But alas, such is the nonlife of a wall, and its fate to just be present and watch terrible things happen.
The girl gasps as they come in, but quickly stopped from uttering a single word by the quick hand of one of the young men. The other one goes to the door, checking that no one is coming.
Her eyes look frightened, wandering left and right, trying to make sense who these people are, and what they could possibly want from a 17-year-old girl with a weak heart and probably three months left to live.
The fellow took his hand off of her mouth, putting one finger in front of his. "Ssh," he whispers, "we're not here to harm you."
"We need to go," says the one by the door impatiently.
"Okay," the one by the bed nods, not to the older boy, but more to himself. "Mara, we are here to save you."
Mara's eyes show something else now--confusion. And also anger? "What the hell? Who are you guys?" She sits straight up.
"We don't have time, just do it!" The Impatient One goes to the left side of the bed.
On the right side of the bed, the boy puts his hand on Mara's right shoulder, which is quickly removed by Mara's swift hand, and a "Don't. Touch. Me." warning from her mouth. It scares him a little, The Wall likes to think, but he doesn't show it.
"Mara, seriously. We are not the enemy," he pleads.
"You sure look like one to me," says Mara. For a quick second, she takes in a deep breath, and as she starts to scream, The Impatient One does something with his fingers that sends tiny blue lights to her mouth.
She screams, but there is no sound. She tries and tries, but the end result is the same: silence. She tries not to let it, but fear starts to consume her.
"Damn, Aadi!" The younger one looks panicked. "Why did you do that?"
"We don't have time, Archan."
"You just wasted your power!"
"Brother. Just do it."
The one called Archan stares at his companion, his eyes communicating how much he doesn't want to do what he is told to do, while knowing there is no better way. Finally he gives up, and turns his attention to Mara, whose hands now are on her neck, her face a chaos.
"Mara, lie down," Archan says. "Please."
Mara looks at him, and does as she is told. The Wall is confused by her action--surely these strangers want something out of her, so why is she giving it to them so willingly all of a sudden?
What it doesn't know is that Mara saw something in the boy's eyes--she doesn't know what it is, but there was no intention to harm her. There hasn't been, even since they entered the room. Mara senses something strange. The urgency of this two boys barging in her room at midnight feels bigger than her.
As she lies down, she studies the faces of the strangers. No, she doesn't recognize any of them. But why does she feel like she should?
Archan closes his eyes, and his hands start glowing. The room, that was pitch-black, is now incandescent with the red glow that grows around his hands. He hovers them over Mara's chest, and she starts glowing, too.
Aadi is now holding a wooden box in his hands out of nowhere--neither Mara nor The Wall noticed the box when the boys came in. He opens it, displaying something inside. It... it moves. It looks almost alive, but not really. It glows also, but with a dim yellowish light around it. It feels strange. It feels foreign.
It feels like something that shouldn't be.
Mara looks at the object, trying to figure out what it is. But as the glowing red light on her chest grows brighter and spreading all over her body, bringing warmth with it, she loses her energy to focus on anything. So she closes her eyes, and trusts the two boys to do what they have to do. She doesn't have time to think about what this means, or what is about to happen. She feels almost content.
But what comes out of Archan's mouth takes away all that contentment: "We are going to take your heart out."
As she opens her eyes in protest, Archan's hands rip apart her torso, and there it is--her heart. Her red heart, beating very weakly in his hands, and she is staring at it. She never thought she'd be looking directly at the very organ that has kept her alive all these years, but also the same one that gives her misery.
She starts to open her mouth, but Archan quickly pulls her heart away
and her life with it,
so she dies
and she does what dead bodies do:
lay unmovingly on the bed.
The Wall screams in silent terror, one that no one and nothing will ever hear.
It shuts away its consciousness, numb with the pain of losing the very person it has ever been able to show interest in. It's becoming just another cold, blank wall in the cardiac hospital.
By doing so, it loses its power to see what happens next: Archan taking the object out of the box and into Mara's gaping chest. Aadi taking Mara's heart and putting it in the box, as it slowly stops beating. Archan uttering something with his hands hovering over Mara's corpse once again. Mara's torso slowly closing itself, her blood seeping into her vessels in command.
And for a full minute, the room is once again dark and silent.
And then, something happens.
This time, there's no tiny blue lights or red glows coming out of Archan, or Aadi, or Mara. This time, there's no sound, either.
It's just Mara's eyes opening again, ever so slowly.
Only this time, they're not dark--they're light blue.
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