A few days ago
Rudra panted heavily, his chest heaving up and down. His face was bloody, and so was his body. He looked like a bloodthirsty butcher who was looking for his next target right after a kill.
However, contrary to his appearance, his eyes showed a complex look of weariness, helplessness, and fatigue.
Right under his feet was the fourth monster he had killed.
He felt numb. Knowing all the bloodstains on the walls of the houses represented a human life lost, and every scream represented a person in grave danger, his heart twisted in unwillingness and pain.
He wanted to help them, but he couldn’t. The only person he was able to save was Prabhu, whom he laid against a wall while he dealt with the monster.
To his surprise, the kid’s eyelids trembled, and he slowly opened his eyes.
Rudra was overjoyed. He thought the rain had killed the boy, but thankfully, his constitution seemed to be similar to his own, where the rain doesn’t kill him but makes him stronger.
As soon as the kid saw him, he cried bitterly and immediately inquired about his parents.
Prabhu, like him, was not from around here. His parents moved to Bangalore for work, and since both parents worked night shifts, he was the only one in the house.
Rudra hesitated. He personally didn’t have any worries about his family. He had a few friends, but they were all back in Mangaluru, and he was simply too far away to do anything about it. But the boy was different. Looking at him bawling his eyes out, he hesitated. ’Should I head towards Hosur?’ He asked himself, but looking at the foggy curtain approaching from the south, he rejected the idea.
At that time, seeing Prabhu so vulnerable, Rudra thought he would have to take care of him like an elder brother, but coming back to his senses in the present.
Seeing the expression on his yellow, blood-smeared face as he slashed across the monster’s neck, he couldn’t help but feel the kid had grown up all of a sudden.
Rudra felt pity for him. Prabhu was just 15 or 16 years old, an age when kids would be looking forward to entering pre-university, the age when kids would just start thinking about love and enjoyment.
Yet this apocalypse flipped everyone’s lives upside down.
Rudra clenched his fist, and his eyes radiated a fierce light.
’I don’t know why this is happening, but if I ever have a chance in the future to find out the reason, I’ll definitely get to the bottom of it and seek an explanation for everyone’s death,’ he thought to himself.
"Brother, did you see that? Did you see that?" Prabhu came running toward him with a 1,000-watt smile that made everyone heave a sigh of relief.
"I saw. Good work, but you need better timing. Without my intervention, you’d have been badly hurt."
He kept his expression neutral.
Prabhu, feeling a little embarrassed, went back towards the corpse, pulled out Rudra’s spear, cut open the heart, took out the bead, and handed both over to Rudra.
Rudra took the spear, but he closed Prabhu’s hand holding the bead and shook his head. "This is your spoil."
Prabhu wanted to refuse, but seeing the serious look on Rudra’s face, he nodded and put the bead in his pocket.
Prabhu didn’t know what the bead was used for. Just like Brother Rudra, he also thought that it was something of great importance, or else why would it be in the heart of the monster?
The journey continued, and in the blink of an eye, Prabhu dealt with another monster, and this time Rudra didn’t need to intervene. Prabhu took care of it all by himself.
Rudra nodded in satisfaction and eyed the only other person apart from the two who survived the rain.
He stroked his chin and made a decision. ’Might as well.’ He waved at Sister Laila and motioned her forward.
"Sister Laila, go ahead and try your hand."
Laila was startled. She looked at Rudra wide-eyed.
"Me?" She asked, her voice trembling.
She stood guard alongside Balram and Deepak only to repay Rudra’s kindness.
When she was first rescued, she hadn’t seen the monsters up close. Only heard their roars, the screams from her colony. But after watching Rudra slaughter them one after another, seeing their brutality firsthand, she knew she couldn’t handle this.
Rudra saw the reluctance in her eyes, but his decision remained the same.
"The more people we have that can fight the monsters, the safer the entire group is."
"There is a high chance that the number of monsters, as we enter the Anekal Road, would drastically increase. It would be too much of a burden for Prabhu to deal with it alone."
He didn’t want to force anyone, but the situation was indeed dire. Not using the combat force was no different from putting everyone’s lives at greater risk.
Laila bit her lip. She saw everyone looking at her with expectation on their faces, and her face paled.
In the end, however, she nodded her head and reluctantly walked forward.
Rudra nodded in satisfaction and asked the other men in the group to cover the rear.
The journey continued unhindered until they encountered other monsters as they got near the intersection leading to the main road of the town.
"Prabhu, don’t kill it. Just knock it down. Let Sister Laila finish it off." Rudra said.
Prabhu looked at the big sister behind him and nodded with understanding.
Laila was clutching the bone spear with all her might, and her steps had slowed down to a point that she was barely walking.
Prabhu dashed towards the monster, and dodging its first attack, he slashed back at its hind legs, making it buckle to the ground.
However, he was not done yet. He disabled the other leg and slashed at its hands.
Laila felt all eyes on her. She saw the monster’s grotesque face, the same one that had taken her husband. She stepped forward.
With a sharp shout, she slashed down.
(Swish!)
The head was cut in half.
Rudra’s eyes widened.
"So strong!" He exclaimed.
"Wow, Sister Laila is so amazing." Prabhu bent over and stared at the monster with his eyes twinkling.
Although Rudra was confident that he could do the same, it was only after he had been drenched in the rain twice. Yet now Laila was able to do it right away.
’Is the direction of her enhancement strength?’ He stroked his chin and was deep in thought.
Prabhu’s enhancement was towards speed and dexterity, while for him it was probably his physique and his healing ability.
He had considered that his strength was pretty good as well, but not anymore.
Laila was shocked by her own strength. She looked at her hand, then at the corpse, and then at her hands again. For a moment, she even doubted whether they were her own hands.
Rudra knew that time could not be wasted anymore, so he woke everyone up from their amazement and pushed them forward.
Finally, his leg injuries had recovered quite a bit, and he was now able to run short distances without affecting the injury.
With him once again on the front line, the atmosphere became relaxed. The monsters no longer seemed like an obstacle. They travelled through the main road and slaughtered around half a dozen monsters before arriving at the Chandapura Lake.
Rudra would have simply continued moving forward with the group, but when he glanced at the lake to their left, right beside the main road, he couldn’t help but stop in surprise.
"Rudra brother, am I seeing this correctly? Or are fish really swimming in the air?" Prabhu asked, his voice filled with disbelief.
Rudra stared at the lake in bewilderment.
"I’m seeing the same," he answered.
What lay before them was not a normal lake.
The surface of the water shimmered with an eerie silver glow, almost like liquid mercury beneath the rain-washed sky. Yet that was not what caught their attention.
The fishes were swimming in the air.
A few centimetres above the surface, they moved through empty space as though it were water, their bodies twisting and turning effortlessly. There was no visible support beneath them, no explanation for how they could possibly remain suspended.
It was as if the principles of biology no longer applied to them.
"Do we still go forward?" Laila asked hesitantly.
Rudra looked back in the direction they had come from and nodded, his expression turning irritated.
"We can’t circle back through the weeds. Who knows what kind of animal is hidden there? Not to mention, out in the open, we can’t take shelter if it rains."
He looked ahead. The road remained clear for a few hundred meters, while the strange lake and its flying fish stretched right beside them.
After a brief pause, Rudra stepped forward with determination.
"Let’s go."