was it a nightmare?

I wasn't sleeping anymore, but somehow I couldn't open my eyes. I was lying there for a while now, awake and yet not so. I could feel the softness underneath me. It could be a bed or something. But where was I, I had no idea. Last thing I remembered was breaking and entering the house, which was completely necessary at that moment as Lily was stuck in there with that animal in it. And hey, that just reminded me, what happened to Lily? I prayed to god that she was okay.

First I thought the place was very quiet, but now with more concentration I could hear some voices. Clearly they were having some conversation, but whichever language it was, it didn't make any sense to me. I tried to move, but I couldn't. It was like I was trapped inside my own body. Though I could hear, feel, smell.......speaking of smells, the place was smelling of chemicals. It was weird. And although I couldn't see anything I was not feeling any kind of lights either. So I assumed that the place was dark. So I had dark, chemical smell and somewhat creepy conversation. It never sounds good.

The source of conversation was now moving closer to me along with some sounds of footsteps. I could hear them clearly now and surprisingly they were all talking in english only. There was one female voice and rest sounded like male. When they were close enough to me, they halted. Almost at the same time another footsteps came hurrying and told in a female voice
-the lady has been taken care of!
-good! Thanks marina!

The later footstep again rushed away from me and rest of the people (at least I thought so) continued their conversation

-What are we gonna do with this one?
-We can't keep it here. We need to get rid off it.
-But how? I mean what if...what if he's alive.
-If so, then don't hesitate to kill...
-what? Aren't we going to be in danger? I mean you know the law!
- Since when did you start caring about the law?
-Well, don't worry Samantha we have managed it before. We can manage this time also.
-Okay, so shall we go now?

Their voices started fading away. But that wasn't very pleasing to me. Whoever those people were, they were planning to kill me! How did I land myself in such situation! I always thought I was the last person to be target of anyone. And here I was, lying in some unknown place, with some unknown people around who wanted to kill me. And I didn't have control on my body. I felt desperation to see Lily. I knew it was all my fault. If only I could think of a better anniversary present than taking her to safari. How could I be so careless!

I tried to sleep off again so that this all turned out to be a bad dream. But my heart was too scared to doze off. I was using all my nervous system(whichever was on working state) to get as much information as possible. There were frequent whispers of people, some sounds of metals and once or twice I felt something or someone touching me here and there. Nothing was helpful. I could think of a plan to escape, but I knew executing it was out of question. I was never very strong, but now I was missing whatever strength I had earlier.

I hadn't tried talking till then. But I wasn't sure if it was the right time to do so as I wasn't able to see if anyone was around and definitely the surrounding was not very friendly.

Lying there for so long and so helpless I couldn't help wondering about the past one year with Lily. Past year had been so great that I never had to think back about my decision to marry her. She is the most beautiful and wonderful thing ever happened to my life. And how could I risk her life like a fool. If I could just make sure that she was okay, I wouldn't even care to die..at least that's what I thought.

I wasn't sure for how long I was lying there and cursing myself, but I came back to sense and also to my current pathetic situation when another voice approached me.

-Don't worry Mr. Arnold. Everything's gonna be over pretty soon.

Wow! She knew my name. I wondered if it was a good sign! Only if I knew how to ask her for help.

-It will all be over before you know, or even sense for that matter....just like your wife.

On the other hand maybe not! And what did she mean by just like my wife......was she..? I couldn't think any further except for praying for all of these to be a bad dream.

Some more footsteps came closer. I couldn't say for sure, but they seemed to be the same bunch of people as earlier.

-What's the status?
- As we expected, all things are going well. I was just waiting for you to come before I inject.

After a pause one guy answered -yeah, go ahead. It looks like the right time.

I didn't know what were they injecting but I knew the purpose. I felt the touch of a soft palm and then a jolt of pain in my forearm, but as expected couldn't move a muscle to react to that. The pain stopped immediately, but now I was feeling something else. Some sensation through my whole body. Something which can not be described in words. Then shockingly I just moved one of my fingers, then others and gradually rest of the body. My body was responding to me. I could feel a slight pain in my leg, but I was okay with it as I was at least able to feel it. I was still scared, but I tried to open my eyes and get this, it worked. First it was hazy, but when it became clear,the first thing I saw was a tiger just behind the glass window. It was lying there and it was the same what attacked our house. I stared back to my room. It was a dimly lit room with lots of medical apparatuses and bunch of people in white coat.

I was in a hospital and those people were doctors! But then.......

-We were planning to kill that animal, but it's dead already.

I looked back at the tiger. Stupid me, they were planning to kill that, not me. I looked back to them and only word came out of my mouth was 'lily'
-Oh your wife, she is fine. She is in the other room. You both were attacked by that animal.
He pointed at the tiger and continued

-It's a special one. You don't get it everywhere. It has a fascinating way of killing. People die after 3 days of their attack. But till that time they are sent to a state of coma...well similar to coma I would say. Fortunately we were able to give you the antidote at time. So here you are.
-So it's not a tiger?
-you wish it was! You can meet your wife now if you feel like, you know...

I didn't wait for him to complete the sentence,but rushed into the other room.

Next morning we packed our things and headed back to home and as far my murder plan goes I took a oath to take it to my grave.