章節 5: The First Encounter

"Wait for me" I shouted, fearing that he would leave me behind and run off on his own.

After hearing that scream earlier, I was a little scared. I didn't wanted to be left all alone in this desolate farmland.

I looked at the Axe which had been strapped to my tracking bag, picked it up and chased after Rahul who was headed straight to the direction of the scream.

'Hopefully, the person who screamed just fell from the bed and broke her ankle.' I prayed in my mind.

There was a light bulb outside the house which acted as an anchor for me in the darkness.

'Booom' Suddenly I heard a loud explosion from behind me. I turned to look and found that a large explosion had happened in the highway.

'What the hell happened?' I thought but was able to figure it out quickly.

'After the black fog dissipated, people would start driving their vehicles once again. After all, not everyone was like Rahul who somehow 'just knew' what was gonna happen and prepare adequately for it.'

'They would have thought that everything was fine now and started driving on the highway. But then the pain would have hit them and…. I don't even want to think how many people died from the pain alone.'

But I knew that the people driving the vehicles must have lost control.

'In a sense, any area affected by the 'Severe Pain' would see many accidents happening in it's vicinity.'

I shook my head to bury those thoughts at the back of my head and chased after Rahul who had not completely ignored the sound of the explosion as if nothing ever happened.

We walked fast and arrived before the hut shortly after that, but before we could do anything, the door of the hut was flung open as a heavily wounded woman, covered in blood ran out of it.

Following behind that woman was what I would describe as a 'crazy guy' whose mouth was filled with blood and a few pieces of raw meat. The blood dripped down his mouth on his clothes as he chased after that woman.

'No. At this point, calling that person a 'crazy person' would really be putting it mildly.'

But he was fast. Faster than any other human I've ever seen before. I felt that he was almost twice as fast as me when I ran at my full speed. Such a revelation shocked me and before the two of us could do anything, that 'maniac' caught up to the poor woman and leaped at her with all his might.

She was hit heavily in the back of her spine, and I heard the sound of her bones being crushed before she fell helplessly on the ground.

'What's happening? Why would he just kill a person? Who is that man? Why am 'I' here and what the hell am I supposed to do now.?' I stayed rooted at my place without being able make heads or tails of the situation.

I guess this is what people call 'being frozen when faced with an unexpected event.'

Before long, that 'maniac' turned the woman over, and while she still had some breath in her, he tore apart her stomach with his bare hands and took out some organs before munching down on them.

I felt a wave terror pass through my body and almost passed out from the feat but the nausea brought along with the fear kept me awake as I bent over and started vomiting my guts out.

'What the hell? What the hell is this? Is that guy even a human.' I thought in terror as I raised my head to look at him before the nausea hit again and I puked out the bile juices from my stomach.

'God. Please. I hope my vomiting does not attract the attention of that maniac.' I thought. Although I cursed at myself for being a coward and not being able to help the woman in time, I was more worried my own safety now.

'He was able to tear apart her stomach with bare hands. I've never tried tearing someone's stomach but I knew my capacities and thus realized that his strength must be far above mine.'

'If he really comes after me and big bro then that won't be good.' I thought and stopped myself from making any more noises. I glanced at the maniac and realized that it had still not noticed us.

'Maybe because we're still some distance away from the hut and are standing in the darkness?' The thought gave me a bit of relief. 'If he was not able to see us, then we might still be able to run away from this place.'

Then we could inform the police about this maniac and they could arrest him after that.

But then I remember about the 'severe pain', the accidents that would have occurred in the highway and the poor state of the metropolitan city.

'I don't think the police will have the time to come after this maniac any time soon. But then again this has nothing to do with us. I'll just take it as a family squabble and… wait where are you going Rahul. Wait!'

"Wait!" I finally shouted as I noticed that Rahul had, at some point in time, moved toward that maniac.

'Shit! This is bad.' I thought but the thing that happened next changed my whole perspective of the situation in hand.

Rahul reached the 'maniac' with large footsteps, and when the 'maniac' raised it's head to look at him, he moved his axe in a practiced swing and…

'Ceeeek' Wind whooshed along with the axe and his head was removed from his shoulders before he even had any chance to retaliate.

Head head flew up in an arc, leaving a trail of blood behind it before it plummeted to the ground.

'Thud!' The sound of the head falling to the ground woke me up from my stupor as I looked at Rahul once again. But this time, there was a bit more respect in my eyes for him. And fear.

'That swing. It was smooth. I might have looked simple but it struck the weakest part of the neck. This is not something an amateur can do. But, I have never seen Rahul fight before. When did he learn to do such a thing.'

'Had he really been hiding the truth from us all these years. Is he really a businessman. Is it possible that he worked as a hit man for some organisation without us knowing or something.' My thoughts were a jumbled mess and I felt that I missing something important before my eyes fell on the head once again.

'Right. We killed a person.'

'Stealing a car is kinda cool. Robbing a store is going over the line a little bit. Forcefully taking someone's bike is a bit over the top but chopping someone's head. Isn't that kinda bad?'

'Did murdering people become a norm while I was not around or something.' I thought with a bit of fear lingering in my heart.

'Is he really the kind and gentle big bro that I know.' I looked at him as he turned and entered the house from where I could here some guttural sounds.

After Rahul entered the hut, I turned to look at the two corpses which were lying in front of me.

A strong stench was coming out of that maniac's body. I had once smelled a week old carcass of a dog back when I was a child. It was the most horrible thing I had ever smelled in my entire life.

It was so bad that I could still remember that stench after all these years.

But the smell coming from that maniac's body was no less that of the week old dead dog.

As my thoughts diverged in this line, I started to wonder if this guy was really a human, for I had never seen such a fast and strong person before in my life.

'Perhaps those bodybuilders I often see on the TV might have similar strength but just one look at that man's body made me realize that he was just a farmer. Or he had been just a farmer before he went crazy.'

'Then why was he so powerful.' I wrecked my brain to think of a proper answer to these questions so that I could make sense of what was happening in front of me.

Suddenly, all of my thoughts came to a stop. The time froze. And all sounds I was hearing earlier were blocked off.

That woman. That woman who had died a few seconds ago. That woman who had her spine broken and guts eaten by the maniac…

She stood up.

'This… this. What… What is this.' I stumbled over my foot in fear and panic and fell on my back.

The sound of me falling brought the attention of woman who suddenly turned to look at my direction. Her gaze made all my hair at the back of my neck stood up as I felt the most primal kind of fear a person can ever feel.

The fear, a prey feels when it looks at the predator.

'This… This is not real. This is a nightmare.' I wanted to slap myself hard so that I can wake up from this bad dream somehow. But my hands won't move. My body had frozen in both fear and panic.

I watched in silence as the woman who had just stood up stumbled in my direction.

Her stomach was still opened up and a long line of small intestine was trailing behind her as she moved forward. Her steps were awkward and clumsy as she raised her head and sniffed a few times in the air.

Then she looked at my general direction and sniffed a few more time.

Her actions freaked me out even more but then I thought of a possibility.

'Is it possible that she can't see me?' I thought as I realized that in my fear stricken state, I had stumbled back in the darkness, away from the light of the bulb.

I swore at that moment that I had never loved darkness so much.

At that moment, if a person, a living person, had tried to look at my direction then he would have been able to see me with some difficulties.

But for some reason, she was clearly not able to do so.

'Calm down Ashok. Calm down.' I patted myself and took deep breaths in the hopes of calming myself down.

'Nothing will come out of panicking in this dangerous moment.' I tried to keep myself in a low position so that the woman will have even more difficulty as I crawled back bit by bit to the darkness.

'Slow and steady. That's it. Stay calm and move slowly. That blind woman can't see you anyway so what are you afraid of.'

'Wait!' I suddenly had a very absurd idea as that thought crossed my mind.

'That woman can't see me.' I realized the hidden implication behind those words as I repeated them to myself. 'That woman can't see me.'

Then my gaze fell at the axe which still in my hands. Truthfully, I was a bit surprised that it was still in my hands and had not fallen somewhere when I had panicked earlier.

'And shit. I panicked. I had promised myself that I won't panic but when during the most important time, I always panic. F**k!' I cursed at cowardly nature in my mind.

'This is the time.' I thought and looked at the axe in my hand. 'If I kill her. Then perhaps my cowardly nature will go away?'

'Yes. I can do this. I just need to get close to her and swing my axe. Just like Rahul did. Nice and easy. I can do it.'

'But she's a person, you can't kill her.' The moral values embedded deep inside me shouted out at me.

'No. She was dead just a moment ago so she's clearly not a person.'

'I can do this. I can do this. I can do this…' I continued to chant in my mind as I regained the strength in my legs and stood up steadily.

'I can do this.'

"Aaaaaah" I shouted and raised my axe as I ran toward her. 'Shit! Why did I have to shout.' I cursed in my mind but I knew that it was a reflexive action of my body. But that realization didn't provide me any consolation.

That 'dead' woman heard my shout and looked at my direction at once.

'Shit!' I froze for a moment in fear but then gritted my teeth and continued forward.

"Kyaaaahhh!" She screamed a high pitch scream as I swung my axe.

CHUCK!!!

The sound I heard was not what I wanted to hear. And the thing that happened in front of me was not what I wanted to see.

The strike did indeed hit her. But instead of the neck, I had targeted, it hit her shoulder bone and got stuck in there.

'Shit!' I thought as I looked at the fierce expression of the woman who was staring back at me.

For some reason, I felt that she could kill in instantly. I had no idea why I felt such a thing. I just felt it at an instinctual level. And then I accepted it.

I closed my eyes as the woman raised it's hand. I was ready to die.

At that moment, the image of two people ran across my mind and I suddenly realized that I don't want to die after all. If not for me, then I had to survive for them.

'Nooo.' I shouted in my heart and raised my hands in front of me to block her attack.

'If see attack me, and if she is as powerful as that maniac, then both of the my arms will definitely break. But at the same time, I'll also be thrown back in the bushes in the darkness.'

'At that time, if I don't shout or cry in pain, then she probably won't be able to find me again and I will be able to survive.' I thought in my mind and suddenly realized that my thoughts at this moment were really clear.

'I'm not afraid anymore. That's a good thing.' I smiled in my heart and waited for the pain to arrive.

'Khachak.' I heard a sound and warm blood spilled at my body.

The anticipated pain didn't come.

'Wait? What happened?' I removed my hands from in front of me and opened my eyes in time to find the decapitated head of the 'dead' woman falling to the ground.

'Thud.' It fell to the ground after which the body without a head lost it's balance and fell along with it.

Behind that woman was Rahul. He stood still with the axe in his hand as he looked at me with a smile. A very irritating smile.

"You did well. Better than I expected. Just that the shout was a bit… " He said with a laugh. I felt that he was enjoying my misfortune and had the sudden urge to pummel him to death.

But I suddenly felt my legs becoming weak and fell to the ground.

The whole situation, the whole roller coaster of emotions had been too heavy for my little self. I felt that mentally drained after this incident.

I laid on my back as I looked at the sky up above.

It was still as beautiful as a few minutes ago but this time, it felt different to me for some reason.

I felt numb as I looked at it and realized that all of my emotions had been drained away in the last incident.

'If possible, I would not want to come across such a situation ever again.' I thought to myself and closed my eyes to calm my frantically beating heart.

'And… I think that I peed my pants. Just a little bit.'