章節 16: The moonless nights
This is a tale of long ago when tigers used to smoke and creatures of Pataal roamed the thick forest in the moonless nights.
On one such unfaithful night a father, a son and his twin daughters who were traveling on a small wooden carriage lost their way through the forest and weren't able to get across in daylight. Their horses now tired, the father thought it is best to camp in the carriage and wait till the day breaks and the red morning sun shows them the path.
The hissing of cockroaches was the only noise in the ears except the giggling of the young girls who were too active and too uncomfortable to sleep in the closed carriage without the cold breeze blowing over their faces at their big homes.
The father who had other things on his mind was now annoyed with frowning on his forehead, clutching his wooden staff tightly in his hand, he calmed himself down as he knew the night was long and it was of no use to shout on the girls to sleep.
So, he decided to tell them a story which his own grandfather used to tell him on journeys like this. The girls now all excited sat with their spines erect and their tiny hands supporting their eager faces.
He goes, "don't be scared little ones, this is an old story of a creature that makes little children go missing on the moonless nights."
A dead silence engulfed the carriage, even the wind and hissing went silent as if listening to the story.
Then He goes ahead with the story now-
"Long ago in the foothills of the three mountains was a village, small in size but deeply knitted together with the bonds they shared with the three mountains, one of them was covered in lush green thick trees and gave them burning wood and berries, the other, the tallest one was covered in white ice and a river of cold but fresh water flowed from it and the last one was flatter and smaller than other two but was covered in the tall grasses, gave them fodder for their goats, cows and horses.
On a dark night, when the moon was gone to the dark side, an earthquake hit the three mountains. It was so large that the grounds shook and the walls of the village fell. All the villagers rushed out to the village square and saw lava bursting out of the white mountain and freezing on the ice as it cools down. It went on for sometime and then the lava stopped oozing out and smoke had covered the top of the mountain.
The very next moment a large scream speared through the black smoke and a creature broke out of the mountain.
The creature was a flying snake all covered in scales as white as the snow, with its screams breaking the air barrier.
As soon as it got out it rushed through the sky and went up and up, almost invisible to naked eye. The villagers, now scared, thought that the creature was the child of the white mountain.
The elders of the village thought it was best to take shelter in the mountain covered with tall trees, protecting them from the skies. As they were rushing with their cattle and children the screams of the creature returned up in the sky and grew louder and louder, making the little children cry and scattering the cattle all around.
The creature took a narrow sweep at the village and now its screams turned to lava, it burned the village down and went up again in the sky high for his next sweep.
Till now the villagers had made their way to the mountain of the tall trees and waited to see what happened next. The creature came for its next swipe and vomited lava on the running cattle. The lava was moving strangely, as if following the footsteps of the cattle and swallowing them, then turning to ice.
The creature returned for what looked like the next swipe and vomited more lava on the tall trees but the trees were unburnt and unscathed from it.
The villagers took a breath of sigh and the creature went up in the sky screaming and returned with more speed and itself penetrated the thick forest, slithering across tall trees. He directly attacked from above, swallowing the villagers one by one.
All the villagers were now being hunted and murdered in that same mountains that supported them. Almost half of the village was wiped out with blood splattered across trees.
One young pregnant woman of the village stumbled on a cave which she had never seen before and took shelter in it. Moments passed by and she heard her kin being wiped out one by one.
From deep inside the cave a rusty voice echoed, you can save them, leaving the woman more scared than before but the voice repeated itself, just some drops of your blood, hearing the voice again the woman went into labor and here water broke with few drops of blood hitting the ground.
Now the woman was screaming in pain, from where her blood fell, a hand made out of shadows grew and was followed but the head, torso and finally the rest of the body. The creature had no face but it didn't look hostile to the woman as it rushed out of the cave towards the flying snake.
As soon as the flying snake saw the creature of the cave it screamed and dashed to swallow it, to its surprise it was easier than the villagers as the creature of the cave allowed himself to be swallowed.
As soon as the white snake swallowed it, its scales turned bloody red and it withered in pain with black smoke rising all over from its body. It crashed on the ground and its whole body turned to smoke.
With this the running villagers finally took a breath of sigh and started looking for survivors.
In the caves as soon as the woman gave birth, her child died with a shadow engulfing it and completely swallowing the body.
When the elders found out about this, they concluded that in fact these three mountains that have provided them for years are actually Rakshasas of Pataal waiting for their turns to rise in the more mortal world. In the coming months they also learned that their children were not safe as the Rakshasa of the cave hunts them in moonless nights."
When the story ended the little girls were too scared to move and their bodies went silent as they were. The boy discarded the story in his mind and went out to take a leak. Toward the bushes he went, while peeing the howls of the wolves covered the whole area, scared the boy trying to run back to the carriage but a creature bit his leg and dragged him towards the thick of the bush.
Hearing his screams, the father rushed out the carriage, closing it from outside and rushed toward the scream of the boy with his staff. He followed the trail of blood thick in the forest but to his rotting luck he found nothing.
He decides it's best to go back as the dawn has already broken and come back with the villagers. He was pretty sure whatever attacked his boy wasn't wolves, at best it could have been wild dogs as wolves don't roam in these parts of forest and have just dragged his boy somewhere but he was not dead.
Confidently he went back to the carriage, the carriage was still closed from outside, the father was expecting the girls to be asleep out of fear in the carriage.
When he opened the door, the carriage was empty with no signs of the little girls.
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