Rudra looked at Pranay in bewilderment. ’Is this guy joking?’ he asked himself.
For a moment, he even considered whether he was hallucinating. Maybe if it weren’t for his companions, who also knew the horror of the cloud curtain, he would be questioning his own sanity at this point.
Pranay turned towards Rudra and pointed. "It’s a literal wall of clouds that’s closing in from the south. Haven’t you seen it?" he asked.
Pranay pinched his lower lip and shook his head. "No, but why does its arrival need us to leave the place?"
Sensing the genuine emotions from Pranay, for a moment, Rudra didn’t know what to say.
In the end, he called him to the street and tried to point towards the south, but then, looking at the several tall apartment buildings blocking their view down the street, everything became clear.
’The view’s completely blocked. No wonder...’ He came to an understanding and motioned for Pranay to follow him.
Pranay was still unaware of what Rudra wanted to show him, but given how seriously he looked when he mentioned the so-called cloud curtain, he knew it was something of great importance.
In an instant, they ran into the next street and climbed up a tall three-story building.
Pranay was a little surprised that Rudra was faster than him, but when he looked towards the south, the rhythm of his breathing was disrupted, and his body shook in shock.
From the soil to the sky, it was a wall of billowing clouds, covering the entire horizon like a blanket.
"Wha..." It was now his time to be speechless.
How could he have ignored such a thing?
Rudra looked at Pranay’s reaction and let out a deep breath.
’Well, at least it’s not too late. If they had waited any longer, when it rained again, they wouldn’t have known about the clouds until the tall apartment complexes were destroyed. But by then, it would already be too late.’
"Rudra ji, these clouds..." Pranay asked.
Rudra sighed. "It’s the cloud curtain I mentioned. Don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s just a cloud phenomenon."
"There’s actually an unknown entity within those clouds, capable of turning anything that it comes into contact with into rubble."
"I was lucky. I got to know the cloud’s true nature on the second rain. I saw it destroying a building with my own eyes."
Pranay’s face turned pale like a piece of paper. "Can I ask where you used to live?"
"Surya Layout," Rudra answered.
Pranay looked at Rudra and took a sharp breath. ’Surya is at least 3 km from here. Did he come from so far away?’
He was in awe, but at the same time, he couldn’t help taking his words more seriously.
However, thinking of breaking the news, he got a headache.
Rudra had stayed long enough and wanted to leave. He left the truck without any security. He couldn’t stay back too long.
However, before leaving, he wanted to clear up a question that was bothering him.
"Does the number of monsters increase the deeper we go in?" He asked.
Pranay turned his head towards the town centre and nodded. "They do; however, we call them Krasurs."
"Krasur?"
"Yes, it was a name that Ranga came up with. Ah, right, Ranga is the person Prabhu saved."
"Does it have a meaning?"
"Yeah. It’s actually a combination of two words: Krodha and Asura."
"Going by how the Krasurs show no emotion other than anger and go to any lengths to kill, we decided to stick with the name."
Rudra muttered the name a few times in his mind and felt it was quite apt.
"It’s indeed a good name." He agreed.
He was about to leave but turned around.
"By the way, do you know where all the human corpses went?" He had little hope of getting an answer, but with the intention of trying a thousand options, even if only one of them had what he was looking for, he asked.
To his delight, Pranay replied almost immediately. "It’s the Winged Krasur. It was they who took the corpses, but I haven’t seen them for the last few days."
Rudra’s eyes narrowed. ’Come to think of it, I haven’t seen those flying bastards for the last few days either.’ The mystery was now clear, but another mystery opened its door. Why did they need the dead bodies of humans in the first place?
Unfortunately, there was no one to answer his question.
Bidding farewell to Rudra and his group, he set off back to the truck.
His arrival made everyone let out a huge sigh of relief. However, his mind was too occupied with Pranay’s words.
He finished the remaining fish and began to ponder the interaction.
He thought of the ancient-sounding word, Krasur, and as if it were a trigger, memories from his childhood came flooding in.
His blacksmithing classes with his grandfather and all the teachings about the family’s history and heritage.
He thought he had already forgotten all of this with his grandfather’s passing, but now it came running back.
"Could my ability to close my eyes and see the internal energy flow of my body be the state of oneness described in my family’s yogic practices?"
"Does that also mean the energy I’m feeling is Aayu or a substitute for Aayu?" He felt very positive about the idea.
"Does that mean I have chakras and nadis as well?" He further speculated, and although it felt quite feasible because the method of opening and operating the chakras is through a mysterious energy that was not available before the rain and now it was, he couldn’t find the nadis and chakras as described by his family’s yogic practices.
’Do I have to get stronger for that?’ He thought to himself, but had no answer.
He slipped into the state of oneness and inspected the flow of energy with curiosity. However, the spot where he felt something was coming alive grew brighter, and the sensation of vitality was actually richer than before.
After remembering chakras and nadis, he suddenly remembered an entity which he had completely forgotten.
’Kanda, the root of all the nadis.’
’Is this ball of light the Kanda?’
’Is it the Kanda that is coming alive, and does that mean once it is born, the nadis are born as well?’
’Then, once the nadis are revealed, I can actually activate the chakras as well?’
The more he thought, the more excited he got. In the end, he couldn’t sleep for an entire night.
The next morning, he went alone to Pranay’s camp and figured out what decision he had made.
However, hearing that only half of the people would be leaving while the rest would be staying, his eyes widened, and he looked at him with his mouth agape.
Pranay sighed and explained. "Some people are not willing to listen to my words. They would rather stay in the supermarket than go out."
Rudra thought of asking why Pranay didn’t drag the unwilling people to show them the cloud curtain, but remembering the lifeless expression on the people’s faces he saw yesterday, he realised that some people might have actually believed what Pranay said, but simply no longer had any will to run.
"All right, I’ll be setting off in an hour." He said and left.
The truck moved again, but he did not expose the goods to Pranay and his group of rain survivors.
Rudra and his group paved the way while Pranay and his group followed from behind.
They were not being used as shields, but given the large number of people in Pranay’s group, they travelled very slowly, and Rudra could not waste too much time.
For some reason, he was feeling uneasy about the silent surroundings and wanted to get out of the town as quickly as possible.
To make the eerie atmosphere even stronger, he did not encounter any Krasurs along the way.
As they got closer and closer to the bridge of the town, goosebumps appeared on his arms, and hairs stood on end.
Roots like blood vessels started to appear all over the road and the buildings. To make his unease even more pronounced, absolute silence engulfed the area, as if it were bound by a silent spell.
The circle appeared before his eyes, but an ominous-looking tree, blood-red in colour, grew out from the very centre of the national highway, its branches touching the bridge above.
For reasons he couldn’t explain, he felt the tree was sinister and didn’t want to take even a step forward, no matter what.
Prabhu and Laila had the same feeling, as their faces turned completely white and their hands were trembling.
Thankfully, with them crossing the major section of the town, they didn’t have to go to the very centre to head north and catch the highway.
He turned north and headed directly towards a layout.
"Let’s get out of here." He ordered and started to jog.
Lingaraj and the others had not seen the thing in the circle, since they were behind the truck and their eyes were not as sensitive as Rudra’s, but after several days of cooperation, they had already made listening to Rudra their second nature.
So, although they were feeling a little tired after pushing the truck for several hours continuously, they did not complain and ran.