At some point, the downpour had stopped, but not the slaughter. Humans were being culled, and their numbers collapsed at an alarming rate.
Rudra lay unconscious on the floor of the living room, his body turning red, with an expression of distorted pain apparent on his face.
A groan escaped his throat, and steam rose from his body.
Miraculously, the gouges had stopped bleeding, and the flesh started to squirm. The wounds began to clot rapidly, while the sticky blood coating his tank top hardened and became flaky.
Rudra had no recollection of the outside world.
Memories began playing through his mind like a movie reel on fast-forward. His carefree life in Mangalore flashed before his eyes, filled with laughter and countless moments with his friends. His school days stirred pleasant feelings, and learning blacksmithing from his grandfather reminded him of his heritage. Then came the moment that turned his life upside down: his grandfather hit by a truck, the sight of him lying on a hospital bed, weak and lifeless, unable to even lift a finger. That image struck him like a hammer.
His uncles fought over his grandfather’s property right beside his deathbed, and the ugliness of it all filled Rudra with anger. He stormed out of the house, cut ties with his family, and moved to Bangalore. A new city. A new life. He started working at TVS.
All of a sudden, the colors distorted. Everything turned crimson and the images appeared like slides in a photo book. The death of the owner aunt, the child waiting for his bus, the father slaughtered moments later, and the hand hanging from a dog’s mouth. All caused him great anguish. Then came the monster. Its ugly, grotesque face loomed before him, growing larger and larger until it filled his vision. Finally, the monster plunged from the sky, swooping straight toward his head.
"Ah!"
He shot up from the ground as if his body was on fire.
Rudra was panting heavily, and his pupils were unfocused. He looked around in confusion and was startled to see the ugly face of the monster whose neck he had cut in half lying next to him.
The pungent smell of the monster hit his nostrils, and it made him scowl, but more importantly, he ran towards his phone to do what he forgot to do when the neighbourhood plunged into destruction.
He put his finger on the screen and hoped it would light up immediately, but to his dismay, it did not. The tapping got more intense, and with a crack, he actually broke the screen.
"Damn it!"
He cursed and walked around the room as he hyperventilated.
Not willing to give up, he tried to turn on the fan, the television, and the fridge, but alas, the power was out everywhere. A calm breeze hit his neck, and thinking that it was a monster, he froze, but turning around, it was just the open door. Heaving a breath of relief, he pushed the corpse out of the living room and closed the door shut.
The lock was broken, so after a little thought, he directly moved the sofa to block it.
His shoulders finally relaxed, yet the screams from the outside reverberated throughout his head.
He hesitantly walked towards the window to see what the situation was like across the neighbourhood, and his heart skipped a beat when what he saw was not a newly laid concrete road but a broken path of holes with plantation and vegetation sprouting from beneath.
Even more astonishingly, the cars that were parked in front of the houses across the neighbourhood were somehow looking like rust boxes. His attention was particularly focused on a car. Rudra could have sworn that the Thar was only bought a month ago. The fact that it still did not have a license plate proved that he was not going insane, but now it looked like a piece of junk with holes all over its body.
"How long have I slept?" He was terrified. Was he unconscious for years?
"What the heck is happening?" There was no one to answer his question.
Calming down, he felt hungry. He didn’t know for how long the power wouldn’t be back, or he didn’t know if it would be back in the first place, so he went straight to the fridge and consumed all the dairy items along with the leftover ice cream, Ghee, and Paneer.
He leaned against the wall and just stared into the distance, but the pain in his back woke him up.
’Wait! I got gouged on my back, didn’t I?’ He suddenly remembered and stood before a small mirror in his bathroom. He turned around and tilted his head over, trying to see his back, and his eyes widened when the wound had closed and was beginning to scab over.
"Ahh, get away."
Suddenly, a high-pitched scream came from upstairs, and it broke his thought process and caused his body to jolt.
Rudra suddenly remembered that there was a teenager living upstairs.
He hesitated for a moment, but not for long. He got up and looked around for any weapon he could use, but remembering his knife that melted the moment it came into contact with the dirty, yellow blood of the monster, he picked up the cricket bat he hadn’t used for several months and rushed towards the staircase.
Rudra stood in front of the main door of the house on the fourth floor; it was locked.
"Kreeee"
"Ah, no, go away, go away."
Screams of panic from the kid and the bloodthirsty roars of the grey beast blended with each other, painting a picture of desperate struggle in his mind.
"Prabhu, open the door. It’s me. Open the door." Rudra roared with all his might and slammed into the door.
He felt the shouts of Prabhu and the roars of the monster pause for a split second before they continued as before. The door did not open. He slammed into the door even more frantically until the sound of a bolt being opened was heard, and he fell into the room face first.
He was held up by a boy, thin, with short black hair, a golden earring, and terrified.
It was Prabhu, but he didn’t have the time to check if the boy was all right. His eyes were focused towards the window where the flying grey monster was struggling between the railings.
The window was in an ugly state. The cement had chipped off, and it was barely attached to the wall, a testament to how fiercely the flying grey monster tried to break into the house.
Rudra tightened his grip on the bat and pushed Prabhu out, backing away as quickly as possible. He knew the window wouldn’t hold much longer. Yet before he could close the door, the monster broke through, destroying everything in its path with its wings, and was upon him in an instant.
His nerves were already taut, adrenaline pumping through his blood. His body reacted on instinct, and the bat raised high came down with such force that a whooshing sound cut through the air.
(Bang!)
The bat made contact with the monster’s head, and Rudra could have sworn he heard a slight crack.
He didn’t know whether the crack came from the bat or the monster’s jaws, but he didn’t care. He raised the bat and slammed it down again.
The monster roared and struggled to get up, but Rudra didn’t let it. He kicked its face like a football, and to his astonishment, the monster’s head slammed against the wall.
’Are the flying monsters weaker than the one on the ground?’ He considered for a moment before denying the thought. ’It can squeeze through metal rebar. No matter how rusted it is, it would need at least 500-600 kg of force to do that. It’s no way weak.’
The only other possibility was that he had grown stronger, but he didn’t give it much thought as he hammered the beast’s head again, trying to finish it off. Unfortunately, the bat finally broke, leaving him with only the handle.
The thought of retreating crossed his mind, but he couldn’t let the monster recover.
He saw a large tubular battery next to him and, with a grunt, raised it high above his head, pulling the inverter along with it, and slammed the battery down on the monster. Seeing that the monster still moved, he picked up the battery and slammed it down a second time. The battery cracked, acid and distilled water spilling everywhere, but the monster finally stopped moving.
Rudra’s chest heaved up and down, and all the tension left his body as his knees felt weak, but the window was still open. He was not completely out of danger.
He got out of the room and saw Prabhu standing, trembling in the hallway.
"Go to my house and don’t get scared by the corpses." Rudra motioned.
Prabhu meekly nodded and walked down the stairs. Rudra was about to pull furniture from the boy’s house and block the door with it when he heard Prabhu scream. He thought the kid was startled by the corpses, but hurried footsteps echoed from the staircase, and Prabhu appeared before him, his face pale and his pupils dilated.
"There is a monster below, alive."
"Graa"