The first thing Radhika was aware of was how good she felt.
Not just rested but obscenely rested. The kind of sleep that felt like falling into warm water and never hitting the bottom. She shifted, and the sheets moved with her, soft in a way that her four hundred rupee bedding had never once managed to be. ( 400ruppes is approx 5$ )
She smiled without opening her eyes, stretching her arms out slow and lazy above her head, her toes flexing as she let out a groan of pleasure.
'God' Whatever this mattress was, she wanted to marry it. She wanted to have its children.
A few more seconds passed as Radhika basked in the warm and peaceful morning radiance, then something at the back of her brain raised its hand quietly.
Radhika ofcourse ingnred but the part of her brain didn't give up as it raised its hand again.
Radhika felt a slightly confusing but uneasy feeling as she opened her eyes and what came into her eyes wasn't the cracked ceiling of her cheap apartment but a pristine white ceiling with light fixtures that surely cost more than her rent.
She turned her head slowly to the left, then to the right. She was in a bedroom so large that it could fit her whole apartment inside.
She sat up and looked down at herself only to come to the realisation that she wasn't wearing her previous clothes.
Radhika stopped breathing for three full seconds... Then she went into full blown panic.
Hyperventilating and shaking, checking herself to make sure that nothing happened to her , or if she had some wound or something on her body from where her organs were harvested.
Radhika settled down a bit when she noticed nothing wrong but it still didn't make her calm and while she was thinking her phone buzzed on the nightstand.
Shreya.
She picked up.
""Good morning," Shreya said, slow and savouring. "Sleeping well, I hope?".
"Shreya—"
"No no no." Shreya cut her off, and Radhika could feel the smugness, the same insufferable, I-knew-it-before-you-did energy that she had grown used to over the years. "Don't Shreya me, you let me finish."
A vein bulged in Radhika's forehead but she took a deep breath to calm herself down.
"I just want to say," Shreya began, with the energy of someone accepting an award they had always known was coming, "that I am so proud of you. Truly. I always believed in you. Even when you didn't believe in yourself."
"What did you—"
"I gave you that vial," Shreya continued serenely, "as a small gift. A token of my love and friendship, in hopes of getting some courage but I did not expect you to not need it at all since you were able to snag such a hunk, but honestly? That just shows initiative, and growth, God I'm feeling so emotional."
Radhika opened her mouth. Closed it.
"And you're welcome, by the way. For the clothes. For the water bottle I left on the nightstand. For tucking you in. I didn't have to do any of that but I did because I am, at my core, a genuinely good person."
"Shreya." Radhika's voice had dropped to something very low and very serious. "What the hell happened."
Shreya on the other line paused and Rashika could almost see the dramatic pout as she heard her friend's childish tone. " Fine , I'll tell you.."
....
Flash back...
Previous day...
.....
Radhika stared at the empty vial.
Then at her reflection.
Then back at the vial.
Nothing...She felt absolutely nothing. The same, completely normal, fully sober Radhika stared back at her from the bathroom mirror.
She waited another ten seconds just to be sure.
Still nothing.
Radhika clicked her clutch shut with a satisfied snap. She already knew it that she was built different.
Shreya and her unnecessary dramatics, as if Radhika needed external assistance to get through one coffee date with one mediocre rich man.
'Pfft~ As if..'
Radhika touched up her lip colour, smoothed a strand of hair back into place, and gave her reflection one final approving look.
'Completely fine.'
She pushed open the bathroom door and walked back out into the café.
Radhika instantly felt it the moment she stepped out , the café was warm. Actually very warm. Or maybe it had always been warm and she was just now noticing it. The lights were also very pretty. Someone had made an interesting choice with the lighting in here and she appreciated it. She started to appreciate a lot of things suddenly.
She was nearly back to the table when something in her peripheral vision made her slow down.
Three tables away there was a man just sitting there, alone with two untouched glasses of cold milk in front of him. His physical presence was hard for her to ignore but that wasn't what caught her attention.
He looked,like a very large, very sad dog. Radhika thought, tilting her head slightly.
The thought came to her mind with complete sincerity and with no irony attached.
Something in her chest did a small involuntary thing.
'Who hurt you' She thought, still standing there, 'And why do you look like that.'