The body swayed alongside the wrathful waves. It dove and bobbed beneath the whitecaps as it rammed against the tumultuous black torrent. They were dead. The sailors were sure of it. Parts of their dark hair had been ripped from the skull. Deep bruises patterned their lifeless frame. They were dead, no one could have survived the ocean tonight. Freezing temperatures, carnivorous animals. Blood married the black waves around the body.

“Man overboard!” Sailors clamoured to the edge of the fishing boat. Heaving the body from the water as lightning crashed through the sky from above. The boat slipped and bashed against each swell and contract of the ocean beneath.

Mother Nature was angry, she was wrathful, and vengeful tonight. Pelting Gamal with blistering winds. Even according to the weather channel that day was supposed to have been sunny, bright. A beautiful day for fishing. A day that Gamal so rarely saw.

Water sloshed and poured onto the boat’s deck. Clipping cold water onto every uniform. And most especially to the clothing on the unconscious body. Soaked through to the bone, their once light blue jeans dripped in dark water. Their black running shoes were untied and their black sweater was thickly caked in water beneath their yellow vest.

As if they’d come home from school and disappeared beneath the inky waves.

The rain whipped at the workers' cheeks and dredged their hair into wet mops. The boat's timber planks buckled and creaked against the power and weight of the waves as they rammed into them. Iron-fisted nausea gripped the stomachs and throats of each sailor. Frozen droplets nipped at his eyelids as a sailor pressed down into the body's chest. He even scarcely heard the crack of their ribs as the storm carried on around them.

Another sailor beside him checked the pulse. Pressing two fingers against the body's neck. The sailor stood up abruptly, her voice boomed alongside the thunder, "Call the Coast Guard! They're alive!"

The yellow fluorescent lights of the hospital room burned through their eyelids. The patient wanted to open their eyes to stop the irritation. Yet, the heavy call of slumber ached at them, creating a struggle of want and need.

Their mind felt fractured like deep fragmentations chiseled along the wet mass of their brain. The headache was debilitating as if they had just risen from the dead. Vertigo jumped at their throat with thick bile running the length of their esophagus.

When they finally mustered enough strength to stretch open their eyelids. The entirety of their eyes were white. Replaced with the brightest clouds of heaven that reflected all light. Though as quickly as it came, the umber of their eyes set back in.

"Aaradhya was extremely lucky, hypothermia had set in by the time the sailors got to them. With some time, patience and physiotherapy, they should regain full control of their hand." The nurse clenched the clipboard into his chest.

They shifted slightly, trying to rid themself of the ache that rippled through every nerve beneath their skin. A deep sigh of relief came as someone sat in the chair beside Aaradhya.

The pleasant crackle of a familiar voice broke the distraction the ache had caused them, "Hi, welcome back to the land of the Living. Praise be to God." Their father smiled, gently holding his silver cross as it hung from his neck. The worry lines on his deep brown skin faded away as he gazed down at his child. Chest rising and falling. He moved to grasp their hands but stopped himself.

The nurse moved through the room, checking various monitors before running out to let the doctor know that Aaradhya had woken up. The sound of his blue scrubs rubbing together made their body cringe. It was a thousand times louder than it should have been. The action amplified by a thousand.

Puzzled by their fathers' gesture, Aaradhya looked down at their left hand. Wrapped in ivory gauze, three of Aaradhya's fingers stuck straight out. Gone were the others. Two nubs were all that were left of their pinky and ring finger. It was a dull ache, most likely thanks to the constant pumping of pain medication running through their system.

Aaradhya clenched their right hand until the pinkest slivers dove past the skin and drew blood.

The longer they stared at their hand, waiting for the finger to suddenly appear, the deeper the ache felt. Perhaps it was all a trick of the light, a quick blink would make them return to the bones and reattach to their muscles. Yet each time Aaradhya blinked, it was still missing. The rest of their hand was just as they’d left it. Soft skin with black painted nails.

Their mind felt numb. Their body misplaced. Something gone. Something added.

Aaradhya's vision trailed to the crook of their elbow. An IV ran through their skin and the plastic rubbed at their exposed epidermis. Their dark hair was pulled into multiple small braids throughout their choppy hair. Obviously, their father had done it. Strands were jutting out of the braid, others had fallen out and brushed against the nape of their neck.

A few jagged cuts ran against their dark skin, emphasizing the pink flesh and red blood beneath. Aaradhya wanted to feel something in that moment, gazing down at the cut. They wanted to feel anxiety, fear, even anger but everything felt gone. Brushed beneath the rug. For the life of them, Aaradhya couldn’t remember why they were stuck in a hospital, cuts wrapping their body and missing two fingers and yet not a moment of anxiety flushed through them.

When they looked back at their father, they finally took notice of his attire. Still wearing his clerical clothing, tracks of sadness still traced themselves in the lines on his face. He’d obviously just come from Church.

Their father pulled the brown hospital chair closer to the metal bed, it screeched as he dragged it against the white vinyl. His eyebrows were clenched together with his lips drawn in.

"Hi. What happened?" Aaradhya croaked out, it had surprised even themself, sucking back down the soft mucus. Their throat felt painful, like shards of glass embedded in the soft tissue that rubbed together each time they moved. Aaradhya’s lips were dry and crusty, they felt the rip down the middle of their lip as they finished the word.

Their father smiled, it was real this time. As if he had been holding his breath before, waiting for something new to break his spirit once more.

Vases of scintillating flowers filled the fake wooden credenza beneath the curtain-closed window. A few cards, their father had obviously set up, sat open beneath the flower petals. They had wanted to smile at the gesture but couldn’t. The thought of everyone in town coming in and placing the vases on the credenza. Aaradhya could imagine how everyone would’ve given them a kiss on the forehead before leaving.

Their memories were there, happy memories and happy feelings. Yet, even as Aaradhya gazed at the beautiful flowers, the fracture deepened as they sat beneath the white sheets of the hospital room. Something felt wrong. It all felt wrong. Worse than the ache in their fingers, worse than the headache that had split their brain into pieces. Aaradhya felt wrong; a hollowing, something wrong in the depths of their pitted bones.