Unlike the Londoners who penned poems about not wanting rain, the Mangaloreans, despite enduring it for four to five months a year, treated it as part of their daily lives. They embraced and celebrated it as no other people did, and Rudra, brought up in such an environment, whose feelings towards the rain embodied the poem, "Even if stones melt, the heart refuses to soften; The Malnad rain has returned to pour its soul," craved it like sunflowers yearning for sunlight. Yet alas, after the ordeal in the morning and the pitter-patter of rain on the balcony, he didn’t know if he felt the same anymore.
Rudra was neither dense nor blind. Although he couldn’t connect the dots during the battles and chaos, once he had a moment to think, he knew the rain was irrefutably linked to the monsters’ appearance.
To make matters worse, the roars of monsters across the town had ceased, leaving only the occasional barking of dogs and cries of people reaching his ears. The relative silence left him unsettled.
Rudra knew he couldn’t simply wait. He tapped Prabhu’s shoulder and ordered, "Go pack your clothes and bring your kit over."
Prabhu trembled. He had to return to his house? Terror gripped him, but understanding the situation and remembering Rudra’s earlier words, he swallowed his resistance and nodded.
Watching Prabhu’s receding figure, small and frightened, Rudra knew he was being heartless, but given the circumstances, kindness was a luxury.
Rudra was about to pack his own things when he suddenly remembered the broken window in Prabhu’s house. He swiftly turned and pulled the boy back just as he was about to climb the stairs.
"What happened, brother? Is it a monster?" Prabhu crouched and looked around.
Rudra shook his head and motioned for Prabhu to sit in silence.
Prabhu didn’t understand, but he was relieved nonetheless.
Rudra was still in his tank top and his loose track pants, so he put a leather jacket on top of it along with jeans and packed everything he felt was useful, be it a first aid kit, a rope, several tools, and especially his bike helmet.
He handed over to Prabhu a set of his own clothes and motioned for him to slowly follow him.
"Are we going down, brother?" Prabhu asked.
Rudra nodded.
"The monsters can sense the smell of blood. There’s too much blood here."
Prabhu understood and tailed Rudra from behind.
Rudra peeked through the edge of the staircase, and thankfully there weren’t any monsters in sight, but the red stains on the wall did cause his brows to furrow.
He stepped onto the second floor, and looking at what was in front of the house door, his heart sank. It was not a monster but a corpse, the corpse of the nurse who rented the room with several of her colleagues.
The lady’s intestines were spilling out, and there was a huge crater in her gut as if wild beasts had gnawed on the edges. It made his blood run cold.
Rudra didn’t try to hide the body from Prabhu and let him witness the gruesome sight. He didn’t want him to die because he was afraid.
Prabhu could not hold on any longer and directly spat out the stomach acid, while Rudra tried extremely hard to push back the nausea.
Rudra saw the door was locked. Thankfully, the key was in the woman’s hand, meaning she had been alone when everything happened. He took the key and went inside. Searching the house, he found several cylinders, additional first aid supplies, and several boxes of instant noodles.
He loaded everything and, after hesitating, decided to move to the ground floor.
He repeated the process. When he spotted the owner lady’s corpse on the road below, he wasn’t surprised. What caught him off guard, however, was that there was no gate remaining.
’Is the rain more potent than this morning?’ His gaze turned sombre.
Rudra went into the owner’s house and started looking around.
(Boom!)
A loud explosion occurred, and the ground began to vibrate.
Rudra was startled and ran out of the house. He shot to the third floor in one go and took a peek at the balcony.
"God, what’s that?" He was slack-jawed.
A dense, billowing fog like rolling clouds had engulfed everything to the south a few hundred meters away.
To his horror, the fog was drawing closer, and he could vaguely make out silhouettes of fast-moving entities within it. The fog engulfed a three-story building in the distance, and before it could completely consume the structure, the building began to crack. Within moments, it crumbled like a house of cards.
’Oh hell no!’ He couldn’t stay in the building any longer.
Rudra ran down, grabbed two umbrellas, and dragged the paralysed Prabhu through the rain.
Prabhu hadn’t seen the building collapse, but the sound terrified him, so he blindly followed Rudra without question.
Rushing through the street, Rudra felt as if he had entered purgatory: broken corpses, destroyed cars, and blood-stained walls. Rudra was shaken, but the weird fog felt like a sword hanging behind his neck. He could not hesitate even for a moment and dragged Prabhu along with all his might.
Moving 100 m ahead, he encountered a monster. Yet to his surprise, it stood like a statue, turning its head to the sky and seemingly lost in the rain.
He didn’t want to disturb the monster, so he gestured Prabhu to keep quiet and carefully walked around the monster with as little sound as possible.
(Boom)
Unfortunately, right at this moment, another building that was engulfed by the fog crumbled into dust.
The monster’s eyes momentarily regained their clarity and, sensing some odd smells around it, it looked around. As soon as it saw Rudra and Prabhu, it let out a loud roar and ran forward with a bloodthirsty glint.
Rudra spat in annoyance and put himself before Prabhu.
He couldn’t fight effectively with only one of his hands, but excuses with life on the line were useless.
’Hey, this...’ He was startled when the speed of the monster was actually quicker than before, but he had no time to be surprised. The monster’s gleaming claws reflected in his pupils, and his hands acted on their own.
Right as the monster jumped, he lifted the bone spear and held it against his chest.
He immediately felt a painful impact and almost dropped the spear, but he ate the pain and pulled the spear tip out of the monster’s throat.
He considered for a moment whether he should take out the grey bead, but looking at the approaching fog, the idea disappeared, and he turned around to run.
"Hey, brother, please wait." A loud shout echoed from the building beside Rudra, and he sharply turned to his left.
It was a haggard-looking middle-aged man with dark circles around his eyes.
Rudra’s breath caught. He didn’t know the man, but meeting another human in such a situation was always welcome.
He looked back at the fast-approaching fog and, after a moment’s hesitation, decided to wait.
The middle-aged man finally reached the twisted gate, but he was not alone. Behind him came a large middle-aged woman in a green sari, carrying a bag as she visibly fought the urge to scream.
"Come, come, take my hand. Come." The middle-aged man said and pulled the woman forward, but their actions caught Rudra off guard.
"Hey, wait....." He was right about to stop them, but he was a tad bit too late.
In a hurry, the husband and wife stepped into the rain, and the next moment, their faces turned white, visible to the naked eye, and they collapsed to the ground, their orifices shooting out blood as if there was a pump within their bodies.
Rudra knew that rain was not a good thing, but he never expected such a thing to happen.
He felt a chill sweep through his spine and couldn’t help but realise the kind of danger he was in right now.
If he was walking on a tightrope above the water full of crocodiles before, then now he was walking a tightrope with the water full of crocodiles that can not only fly but also shoot lasers from their eyes.
Rudra woke up when another building crumbled to the ground. Seeing which building it was, he was taken aback. It was his own.
He took a big gulp and was about to pull Prabhu away, but turning his head towards him, the blood ran cold.
At some point, a flying monster had appeared on top of the building behind Prabhu, and before he could act, it swooped down, aiming right at Prabhu.
Rudra instinctively pushed Prabhu aside. Being startled, Prabhu was not able to hold the umbrella properly and let the rain fall on his face. Unfortunately, Rudra had no time to think about the boy. The monster was already upon him, and by using his one usable hand to push the boy away, he had no chance to counterattack.
He instinctively loosened his grip on the umbrella and pulled out the bone spear he had tied to his back to confront the creature. Right at this moment, he felt the cool touch of the raindrops hit his skin, and a sense of dread seeped through his spine.