Medusa

Disclaimer for Sensitive Content: This story contains references to sensitive themes, including words such as nude, naked, and miscarriage. Reader discretion is advised.

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Medusa

Every night, for the past six nights, I’d been jolted awake by nightmares, nude and sweaty, my duvet crumpled on the floor, and my body trembling from the aftershock.

Shaken out of slumber on the first night, I was appalled to find myself bare-bodied on the bed, slick with sweat, and the duvet tossed to the floor. At an impulse, I yanked it over my chest and glanced at Shivi, my roommate. Curled to her left, towards the wall, she was deep asleep. I caught my breath in quiet relief, and beneath the covers, I reached for my nightgown and slipped it on with clumsy fingers.

Once dressed, I tiptoed into the bathroom, splashed cold water on my face, and tightened my ponytail, hoping to pull myself together. I was dumbfounded at what had happened. When I stepped back into the room, I paused. A part of me longed to climb into bed with Shivi—to feel the warmth of her body, the comfort of her presence. But I didn’t. I returned to my bed instead. I can't tell you how many hours or minutes later, but somewhere during that long stretch of night, sleep consumed me.

On the second night, when the nightmare startled me out of my sleep, and I found myself on the bed, naked and drenched, again, I stayed paralyzed in fear, but only for a few minutes before I gathered my senses back and dressed myself again. That night, I didn't go to the bathroom. I lay awake on my bed, wondering about what was happening to me until the first rays of the sun glimmered, and I felt safer to go back to sleep. That morning, I missed both breakfast and Ms. Schaefer's class.

The third evening was joyful. One of our classmates had her birthday, and we had a blast. Her parents had sent her a total of fourteen presents, one for each year of her age, and a massive rainbow cake. We opened her presents, ate, sang, and danced way past our bedtime. Exhausted, we all crashed in her room, curled up like a delirious pile of puppies.

And the unimaginable happened!

Sandwiched between Shivi and the birthday girl, I was shaken out of the nightmare–stripped of my clothes and dignity. This time, I didn't even care to cover myself; I just cried and cried my spirit away, not in embarrassment, but in helplessness.

The following morning, shame clung to me like a second skin, and I was already dreading the imminent nighttime. I didn't want the sun to set, but it was beyond my control. The darkness arrived, and Shivi pecked a goodnight on my cheek before jumping into her bed. Yet, I didn't go to bed for I had a plan. I went to my study table instead and picked up the physics textbook. I hated that subject. No bed would mean no nightmare; that was the idea.

What happened next scared the soul out of me. I was sitting naked on my chair, wet with my sweat, when I woke up from a nightmare. Again. Horrible, horrible! Instinctively, I reached out for a diary on my shelf that I had received as a birthday present four days back. The card inside the wrapping bore no name, only a stamp in crimson ink of a woman who spilled not locks of hair from her head but coiling snakes. I began to jot on the first page:

Dear Diary,

I just woke up from a nightmare that felt far too real. Shivi dressed up for school, packed her bag, and was leaving the room when she suddenly had an excruciating stomach ache, and she fainted before reaching the door.

I ran to her, picked her up, and put her back to bed. That's when I noticed her uniform was soaked red, and it wasn't from her period. She was miscarrying.

-Myla

"Journaling is a therapy," Ms. Schaefer, our Literature teacher, often mentioned. "Do it with intention," she would say. Nevertheless, I can confirm that I didn't do this thoughtfully or intentionally. It just happened. Irrespective, it did make me feel better. After I put the diary back on the shelf, I dressed myself back and went to bed in slow and small steps. I had a good night's sleep.

The next morning, Shivi and I both dressed up for school and left for breakfast. For the first time in four days, I relished my eggs and milk—simple, warm, and strangely comforting. And to my good fortune, I was on time for Mrs. Holloway's class. She rarely took kindly to absentees. Besides, given my inglorious track record in Physics, I wasn’t keen on pushing my luck. From the dining hall, we joined the quiet stream of students flowing toward the Senior School building, then branched off towards our classroom.

Just as we reached the door, my ever-charming benchmate—and roommate—Lady Shivi gasped, clapping a hand to her forehead and whispering in horror, “I left my assignment notebook on my bookshelf.”

Without missing a beat, we spun around and bolted back toward the hostel. Shivi darted to her bookshelf, snatched the notebook, shoved it into her bag, and spun around, ready to sprint back to class, when she suddenly clutched her stomach and let out a deafening scream.

I lunged forward, barely in time to catch her, as her knees crumpled. She was trembling, her face contorted in pain, and I could feel her weight collapsing into me. I gently helped her lie down on the bed. Her face was twisted in discomfort, and she gasped and screeched in pain. I figured it must have been the mad sprinting from class to the hostel that triggered it. “Just lie down for a bit,” I told her gently. “Catch your breath. I’ll handle Mrs. Holloway–make up an excuse or something. Return to class only when you’re feeling better.”

I was hoping for Shivi to give me a nod, but that didn’t happen. Instead, her grip on my hand turned tighter and more desperate. I glanced at the clock, feeling helpless, torn between fear and friendship. The last thing I wanted was to be late and face one of Mrs. Holloway’s legendary thrashings. So I made a quick decision: I’d take Shivi to the Sickroom. That way, she’d get help, and I’d have a solid alibi, too.

As I helped her back to her feet, my heart stopped. Half her skirt was stained deep red, and so was the bedsheet. For a moment, I felt as though my soul had escaped my body. Cold sweat trickled down my back. Was my nightmare coming to life?

But Shivi, sweet, silly Shivi? How could she be pregnant? She was still two months away from her fourteenth birthday. No, it had to be a coincidence…it had to be, I said to myself staunchly, snapped myself out of the daze, and steadied my voice. “Shivi, we need to get to the Sickbay. If we don’t, there’s no way we’ll be able to explain this to Mrs. Holloway.”

At that, Shivi completely lost it. She began to howl, her fingers digging into her stomach, writhing in pain—but refusing to move. Her eyes were wide with panic, her whole body trembling.

Watching her spiral back to bed, something inside me cracked open, and before I could stop myself, I popped out, “Are you pregnant?”

And the whole hell broke loose. She cried and cried and cried. It turned out Shivi was, in fact, pregnant.

I was barely fourteen myself, and I had no idea what to do except tell the matron. Shivi was rushed to the city hospital immediately. I wanted to accompany her, but I wasn't allowed. Later, I overheard the matron speaking in hushed tones to the principal about the school’s reputation. The word “expulsion” hung in the air, and in my mind–heavy and cruel. They said her things would be packed and sent home immediately. Sweet Shivi was now some shameful mistake to be erased as soon as possible.

By evening, my room was half empty–the mattress, the books, the clothes, the toothbrush, all gone.

That night, the fifth night, the day’s events so drained me that I collapsed onto my bed without a second thought. But sleep didn’t stay kind. I woke again in the middle of the night, sweaty and stripped of my clothes, startled by yet another nightmare.

This time, I dreamt that my father was being accused of fraud. The image, raw and disturbing, lingered in my mind for long. Hoping for comfort, I walked over to my desk to write about it in my new journal after putting my nightgown back. Nevertheless, for reasons I can't explain, I didn’t write a single thing. I just sat there, heavy with feelings I couldn’t name or understand. Eventually, sleep found me again on my chair, and I woke up when the sun was out and about.

The following day passed like any other–utterly normal. Breakfast. School. Lunch. More classes. A brief escape to the gymnasium. Dinner. Homework. And then, bedtime. My room was still half-empty. I wasn't assigned a new roommate yet. It was quiet in all the wrong ways; the silence pressed in hard and heavy.

I was nervous, but I pulled the covers over myself anyway. In a whisper only I could hear, I told myself to accept that the nightmare would return. That I’d wake again, drenched in sweat, bare and shaken, and, somehow, I felt oddly prepared for it.

I slept. I dreamed. And, as if caught in a loop, I woke up–nude and sweaty.

This time, I dreamt of my stepmother. Her skin was swollen, blotchy, and red, and she was weeping uncontrollably. “I’m not pretty anymore,” she sobbed, “he’ll leave me... your father will leave me.” Her voice echoed with a desperation I’d never seen in her before.

Unlike the night before, I felt an urgent need to record it. No hesitation, no pause. I reached for my journal and wrote it all down–word for word, tear for tear, like it might mean something.

The subsequent evening, as I returned from the gymnasium, a telegram was waiting for me. Somehow, I already knew what news it might be carrying, and the possibility of my being right ran a chill down my spine.

Clutching it tightly, I climbed up the stairs in hasty steps to my favorite spot on the terrace. Under the moonlit, star-sprinkled sky, I breathed in deeply a few times to catch the sweetness of the maturing evening and then unfolded the paper with trembling hands.

“Your mother scalded herself. Pray for her fast recovery.”

I crumpled the telegram in my fist, my heart thudding like a war drum–loud, relentless, and almost joyful in its terror. Was I thinking straight? Or not? Was I tumbling into something far stranger? Could it be that if I wrote my nightmares into that journal, they would come true?

That night, I didn’t feel shaken or small. I felt powerful. And it wasn’t the humbling kind, if I’d be honest with you.