Chapter 6 – At the Dawn
Tatiana woke slowly to the sound of
waves rolling against the shore. For a moment she didn’t move, letting the
warmth of the bed and the faint scent of sea breeze holds her still. Then she
felt it — the faint dip of the mattress beside her, and the cool brush of
fingers against her shoulder.
She opened her eyes.
Chathurika was there, balancing a
tray in her hands, a shy smile tugging at her lips. On the tray: fresh fruit,
steaming coffee, and two small plates of coconut pancakes.
“Good morning, madam,” Chathu said
softly, her voice playful but tinged with shyness.
Tatiana propped herself up on one
elbow, the sheets sliding against her bare skin, and smirked. “After last
night, you still call me ‘madam’?”
Chathurika’s cheeks flushed. She set
the tray down carefully on the bed and sat cross-legged beside her. “Habit,”
she murmured, though her grin betrayed more mischief than embarrassment.
Tatiana reached for the coffee
first, inhaling its sharp aroma before taking a sip. “Hmm. I could get used to
this.”
“Don’t,” Chathu teased. “I’m not
bringing you breakfast every morning. Just today. Special service.”
For a moment they just looked at
each other, the air light but filled with something deeper — comfort, intimacy,
the quiet joy of two people who had let down every wall the night before.
Then Tatiana leaned back, stretching
her long frame lazily under the sheet. “I have to go today,” she said softly.
“Safari at Yala. It’ll take all day, maybe late when I come back.”
Chathu nodded, her smile dimming
only slightly. “Good. That gives me time. I should go home to settle few things
and see my family. But… you keep this.” She picked a small key from the
nightstand and pressed it into Tatiana’s palm. “In case you come back before
me.”
Tatiana closed her fingers around
it, nodding. “Alright. But don’t make me regret giving up your cooking for a
whole day.”
Chathurika laughed and kissed her
quickly on the cheek. “Elephants don’t wait for pancakes. Go enjoy.”
Tatiana smiled, pulling her back for
one more kiss — longer this time, slower — before finally letting her go
The safari jeep arrived at the villa
just after dawn, its engine rumbling softly in the morning quiet. Tatiana stood
by the pool with her small daypack slung over one shoulder. Chathurika came to
see her off, still in her house dress, hair tied loosely.
“Elephants,” Chathu said with a
grin. “Don’t fight them.”
Tatiana smirked, leaning down to
brush her lips briefly across hers. “No promises.”
She climbed into the jeep, gave a
little wave as they pulled away.
After riding for a while in winding
roads of coastal Sri Lanka, the jeep slowed as it skirted the edge of a vast
lake. Tissa Wewa stretched out like a sheet of glass, broken only by patches of
green lotus and the reflections of ancient trees bowing over the water. In the
distance, blue-gray hills rose gently against the dawn.
Tatiana leaned her elbow on the
jeep’s side rail, her sharp eyes taking in the scene. A cool breeze swept
across the tank, carrying the faint scent of water and earth. It touched her
skin, slipped under the strands of her loose hair, and sent them dancing across
her cheek in restless little whips.
For a moment, she closed her eyes,
letting it happen — the cold breath of the lake brushing against her, softening
the hardness she usually carried. Her hair, untied, moved freely in the wind,
like it belonged more to the wild water than to her disciplined soldier’s body.
She opened her eyes again, watching
the narrow fishing canoes tethered at the bank. They looked fragile, carved
from single trunks, and yet they belonged here, just as the great trees did.
When they reached the national park entrance, Tatiana
pulled out her phone and sent a quick message: “Just
entered. Wild country. Wish you were here.” A minute later, Chathu
replied with a playful emoji and a short “Enjoy. Don’t scare the
leopards.”
For a moment, she closed her eyes,
letting it happen — the cold breath of the lake brushing against her, softening
the hardness she usually carried. Her hair, untied, moved freely in the wind,
like it belonged more to the wild water than to her disciplined soldier’s body.
She opened her eyes again, watching
the narrow fishing canoes tethered at the bank. They looked fragile, carved
from single trunks, and yet they belonged here, just as the great trees did.
When they reached the national park entrance, Tatiana
pulled out her phone and sent a quick message: “Just
entered. Wild country. Wish you were here.” A minute later, Chathu
replied with a playful emoji and a short “Enjoy. Don’t scare the
leopards.”
A few minutes later, the jeep slowed
as a leopard padded across the red dust road ahead, muscles rippling beneath
its spotted coat. Tatiana felt a thrill run through her, the raw beauty of the
predator stirring something primal in her chest. She caught the shot just
before it vanished into the brush and fired it off to Chathu: “Almost too
perfect to be real.”
She waited. No reply.
The jeep rolled on. Birds erupted
from the trees in a chorus of calls she had never heard before — strange,
melodic, alien to her ears. She filmed a short clip, the camera catching a
flash of peacock feathers in the sunlight, and sent it too.
Still nothing.
It had been nearly an hours now.
Tatiana stared at her screen when the driver wasn’t watching, thumb hovering
over the messages. The little check mark sat there, stubbornly unchanged.
Maybe Chathurika really was busy at
home, just like she had said.
Or maybe… maybe last night had been nothing more than a moment for her —
something to enjoy, but not to carry forward.
The thought tightened in Tatiana’s
chest, turning her excitement into something restless. The elephants, the
leopards, the endless green of the park — it all still thrilled her, yes. But
in the corner of her mind, anxiety gnawed. She gripped the side rail of the jeep,
the wind in her face, and wondered why silence could feel louder than a
leopard’s roar.
By the time the jeep rumbled back
toward the park gates, the sun was already sinking low, throwing long shadows
across the scrubland. The air turned heavy and golden, dust rising in glowing
clouds behind the wheels. Tatiana leaned against the side rail, watching the
landscape blur into silhouettes — elephants fading into the trees, birds
wheeling across a copper sky.
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It was beautiful, but as the light
softened, so did her mood. The quiet pressed in on her, and for the first time
all day she noticed how much she had wanted to share it — every moment, every
sight. She pulled her phone from her pocket one last time, thumbed over the
screen. Still no reply.
By the time the jeep delivered her
to the villa, darkness had settled. The white walls glowed faintly in the
moonlight, but no lamps shone inside. Chathurika’s absence was immediate, like
stepping into a hollow shell. The villa felt different without her laughter, without
her soft footsteps, without her shy, bright glances.
Tatiana set down her bag and opened
the bottle of Merlot she had bought at the airport. She poured a glass and
carried it out to the balcony. The ocean stretched endlessly before her, black
and silver under the moon. The waves rolled steady, reflecting broken light
across their surface — cold, impersonal.
She took a sip. Then another. The
wine was smooth, but it didn’t soften the loneliness pressing at her chest. She
missed the presence beside her, the easy warmth of conversation, the sound of a
voice saying “Madam” with a smile. The silence now was too clean, too
empty.
Unable to stand it, she finally
retreated inside. She switched on the TV, more for company than interest.
Flicking through the channels, she landed on a war film. Familiar terrain —
uniforms, strategy, chaos. Her eyes fixed on it, letting herself slip into the
rhythm of battle.
On screen, the battle raged — men shouting, machine guns
rattling, the camera shaking with chaos. Then the heavy artillery hit. DING! — the sound slammed into her
chest like a memory. A piercing neeeeeee rang in
Tatiana’s ears, stretching longer and longer, drowning out everything. She sees
white smoke in her full view. Like she is dragged in to the movie. She tries to
hear the surrounding and wriggle and get up. But she is frozen. She felt
coldness. she haze began to clear, shapes moving inside it. At first it was
just rubble, shadows… then the horrible scene of Oksana’s disoriented face
through the smoke. Skin burned, one side of her face charred black, one eye
grotesquely bulging out as if it wanted to escape the horror. Her hair hung in
scorched clumps, her lips twisted into something both human and monstrous. It
zoom in fast towards her, says “you
killed me” filling her vision with a jagged, glass scraping across metal like
high-pitched sharp long laugh. That didn’t belong to any living woman. Her
burned face contorted with it, her bulging eye trembling, lips splitting wider
as if the laugh alone could tear her apart. Tatiana’s stomach clenched. Every
muscle in her body locked, her heart pounding like it wanted to break her ribs.
She wanted to move, to scream, to shut her eyes — but she couldn’t. She was
trapped in the sound, in that face, in that laugh.
Tatianas eyes snapped open with a gasp. She is on villa bed
room. TV is running, It’s “Friends” on TV. a coffeehouse scene with Chandler
cracking a joke. bright lights, canned laughter.
Tatiana pressed a trembling hand against her chest, her
breath ragged. Sweat beaded her brow. She swallowed hard, forcing her pulse to
slow, but the echo of that laugh still clung to her bones.
Tatiana wiped the sweat from her
brow, forcing her lungs to slow their ragged pace. The cheerful studio laughter
from the TV felt wrong, almost mocking after what she had just seen.
She turned her head toward the
nightstand.
The digital clock glowed faint red
in the darkness.
05:00.
Five in the morning.
Tatiana exhaled sharply through her
nose, pressing the heel of her palm against her temple. Sleep was no longer an
option. The nightmare still clung to her skin like smoke.
But something else tugged at her
nerves now. The villa was too quiet. No soft footsteps, no humming from the
kitchen, no faint clatter of plates the way she had grown used to. Only the
ocean outside, rolling and endless, and the artificial cheer of a sitcom laugh
track.
She swung her legs off the bed, bare
feet meeting the cool tile floor.
Tatiana’s skin still glistened with
a thin sheen of sweat as she peeled her night tank top and boyshort away and
let it fall. She stepped into the shower cubicle and turned the hot water on
full. The stream cascaded over her shoulders, scalding at first, then soothing.
Steam rose quickly, wrapping around her like a blanket.
She leaned her palms against the
tiles, lowering her head beneath the spray. These nightmares… They were
killing her from the inside, slicing deeper each time Oksana’s face returned.
Not bullets, not knives — but memory itself, eating her alive.
The water did its work, loosening
the knot in her chest. Water drips along the curves of her body makes her
unease from the nightmare washed away. She exhaled slowly. Check the phone
after this, she told herself. Maybe Chathurika had come back while she was
sleeping. Maybe there was a message waiting — sorry, I got caught up with
work. Poor girl, running a business, keeping a home, balancing family
pressures.
Tatiana’s eyes narrowed slightly. Or
was her going home somehow connected to those thugs? The thought unsettled her
again, creeping into her chest like cold fingers.
She twisted the tap off. Silence
fell, broken only by water dripping down her body. She stepped out of the
cubicle, grabbed the towel, and began drying herself, the terrycloth brushing
across her long frame. She dry her hair with the hot blower and toss the towel
on to rack.
Her phone sat waiting on the
dressing table, screen dark. She moved in front of the mirror, looked at
herself, then picked up the phone and went through notifications to see if
Chaturika has replied, but disappointing her there were no messages from her.
As she start turning around,
“Tatiana.” the voice came from behind.
Tatiana jolted, the phone slipping
from her fingers and clattering against the tile.
She staggered back by the shock to
press herself against the dressing table by seeing Chathurika stood there, only
a step away.
“Jesus!” Tatiana quickly cover
herself by her hands. It wasn’t mischief or shyness. It was panic — her eyes
red-rimmed, trembling with the kind of fear that made words stumble out too
fast. What’s wrong with you?” Her voice was half anger, half relief, her heart
pounding so hard it felt like it might crack her ribs. “Are you crazy, sneaking
up on someone like that?”.
Chaturika didn’t even care about
Tatiana’s nakedness.
“Hurry,” Chathu blurted, voice
breaking. “We have to go. They’ve got Malli.”
Tatiana’s head jerked, still reeling
from the nightmare, the shower, and now this. “Who?” she reach to the rack to
get the towel while covering her body with her hands.
“My little brother,” Chathurika
gasped, backing away toward the door like her body wanted to run already.
Tatiana gripped the towel tighter,
jaw tightening. “Who are they?”
“Those men. The ones who came
yesterday.”
Everything hit Tatiana at once — too
fast, too jagged. “Wait. Wait, we can’t just—”
“I have to go, Tatiana!”
Chathurika’s voice cracked, tears brimming now. “I had to go already! Will you
come and help us?”
“Well, of course—” Tatiana tried to
steady her voice, to bring order into chaos. “But can’t we get officials
involved?”
“No!” Chathurika shook her head
sharply, hair falling loose around her damp cheeks. “Only you can help me.
Please. Come. I’ll show you the way. I have to go, whether you come or not.”
She was already moving backward,
step by step, like a cornered animal ready to bolt.
“Wait—fuck—don’t go alone!” Tatiana
snapped, her voice raw now. “I’m coming.”
Chathurika was gone in a heartbeat,
vanishing down the hall.
Tatiana spun on her heel, every
nerve firing at once. Training kicked in — get ready, now. In Special
Forces, they were drilled to be combat-ready in under five minutes. Out here,
in a villa on the southern coast, she didn’t have her gear, but her habits never
left her.
She yanked on underwear, then pulled
tight camo pants up her long legs. A cropped top, half-jacket, boots laced in
seconds flat. Gloves slipped on as naturally as breathing. She scanned her bag
— no rifles, no armor, no comms — just a small hunting knife she always
traveled with. It would have to do.
In less than two minutes, she was
fully dressed, her towel discarded on the floor. She grabbed the bike keys,
shoved the knife into her waistband, and bolted down the staircase two steps at
a time.
The villa door slammed shut behind her as she rushed into the damp, predawn air.
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