It was yet another regular day at work for Sanit. The weekend had just started and he was even considering going to college the next week.
He greeted the security guard who both supervised the construction work as well as guarded the site from trespassers and rushed in to change into his work clothes.
"Abe oye! How much more late can you come huh?"
Sanit didn't let his senior's words get to him, instead giving a smile, "on it sir."
He grabbed his helmet and bib before rushing past him to get the trolley to shift the excess bricks around.
The man who had yelled walked over to the security guard who was eating a bun. They were joined by other workers as they took a minute and all of them in unison, kept following Sanit's movements as he went back and forth across the work zone without stopping his trolley filled with bricks.
"How does he do that?" The guard's voice was muffled as he ate.
The man scoffed, "that's nothing I used to haul so much more in my youth."
But he still couldn't deny that he was extraordinary. He too followed the men as they moved their heads like meerkats to follow his movements.
When he was nearly done Sanit came next to the guard to stand under the shade, huffing and puffing but with a grin, "how did I do?"
"Not bad," the guard looked up behind Sanit and Sanit followed his gaze. Away from the compound there was a huge banner being erected in an adjacent compound that had an old eight storey builidng.
"What's that about?"
"They're bringing the building down tomorrow evening, with big demolitions. Can't wait to see it."
Are they now?
A very silly plan began to form in Sanit's head as he went back to work.
That same day, at around 2 AM, he snuck out of his hostel wearing dark clothes and shoes.
He had borrowed Muneeb's earpods which fascinated him endlessly and put them on as he made sure he was alone.
All the while he hummed the tune of a song he had been introduced to on random and just couldn't get it out of his brain. His friends were appalled when he told them it was his first time hearing that song.
The street where he was usually working at was devoid of humans and even strays, the low light from the streetlamps painting a yellow hue.
I hope this won't be too troublesome.
He leapt into the air and flew past and into the adjacent compound where the building to be demolished stood.
As if waiting for his arrival.
"Alright lets do this," he put on the earpods and played the song he had been humming all along.
He flew directly into the last floor from the sides and was met with long sticks and ropes tying them together with a lot of 'X' marks on the floor.
Probably where they were gonna set off the charges.
He grinned while hovering midair, "sorry boys the fun's all mine."
With that and the belting tune in his ears, he rhythmically kicked against the walls of the terrace that cracked easy then he punched the sidewall of the small room that led to the staircase.
He crushed the door and mashed up the wall before entering the stairs and looked down all the way to the ground through the gap between the several levels.
And then back where he had come from, the crumpled metal door hanging loose by its hinges and the walls crumbling.
"Just how strong am I here?" He stared at his fist for sometime before shrugging and brought it down hard onto the railing which cracked through the middle and rattled the entire way down.
He laughed and flung himself sideways to land on the wall before kicking off of it and going to the other side, while creating cracks on all of them then landed on the eight floor corridor.
"I hope your earbuds are sturdy enough Muneeb, this is gonna get rough," he said with a smug smile and extended his arms before launching himself horizontally all the way down the corridor and blowing past the wall to exit out into the open, then turned midair to see the path he had created and the hole.
"Music's still running, good."
He crashed through all the rooms of the eight floor and when he hit an extremely hard spot, faltered and fell through three storeys down to the fifth floor.
He got up, rubbing his head and stared up. He had blown a four feet wide hole clean through the upper floors, dusty cement, bent iron rods evidence of it all.
"So what else can I do, huh?"
He looked around for the earbuds, putting them on and pulled out his phone. It was scratched despite the tough casing he had put it under.
Let's go again then.
He hovered slowly midair before making himself face the floor horizontally and aimed his fist at the ground.
"One, two, three!"
He pulled his arm back and hit the ground as hard as he could.
The effect was massive.
It first sent a brief shockwave down the building from where he was before cracks exploded all through the pillars of the next floor making the entire roof of the fifth one collapse on it.
Sanit felt the floor give away and crash down heavily with a loud bang.
But he didn't stop and went on to kick the floor with his left foot. His comfort and confidence in his body returning to what his millenia old mind was waiting for.
The sheer carnage it had prepared him over the years in that hellish realm.
When he decided it was enough or rather bored of it, he went to the first floor to fly and destroy all the pillars of the ground. And then fly up a little outside of the building to see it fall.
It took a minute. His demolition derby had been a bit haphazardly done but when it did happen it was gorgeous.
The building leant to one side, like it was cracking in the middle and collapsed floor by floor down to the ground. All eight storeys of it. The sounds were rattling and the smoke was heavy.
But the final dust cloud and heaps of old concrete left one flying guy happy to his core as he retreated back to where he'd come from.
☆~
"Huff...huff...hhhh...hfff."
Soft noises and grunts emerged from the narrow floor between the bunk bed and the granite shelves on the side walls of the hostel room.
A sweaty back going to and fro from the ground while resting on arms as the person did pushups, sweat dribbling down his nose.
He glanced up as he looked at the time. Then got back to what he was doing.
"Let's do 40 more. Come on."
Sanit had been in his room for almost an hour now. His shift had been mostly uneventful as he did everything to stop grinning as words passed between the workers of the 'mysterious' building collapse.
"What do you think? An Awakener battle?"
"Definitely two or three of them. I mean just look at the state of it...you'd think a bomb went off."
Some in the group chuckled, as one commented, "a sentient bomb would've more brains than those super powered freaks!"
When he had come back he had taken to dusting the room first then arranging the stuff, taking out the accumulated trash. That had taken an entire day. And it was but another excuse to stay away from college.
But he had finally given in to Muneeb's constant pestering and started attending classes.
Getting back into his old life was another hassle though. He was lowkey spying and studying his peers as to how they did things within college. What books to carry and what notes to even bother jotting down.
The hard parts were to try and ignore people whom he was supposed to know and even worse if they came to him with recognition and he stood like a surprised hawk.
He avoided Piya like the plague. Not knowing what she thought about him and knowing well that he would definitely not like it if it was still a negative reaction.
So he pushed himself to other endeavors.
Studying his body. His mind. Years of decay in an otherworldly realm igniting in him a passion for lost time and lost chances. He had to do all of it in the here and now. He had tried giving up sometime ago and centuries of regretful guilt had accumulated in him a bloodthirsty bile to expel his machinations into the wide open world.
The time to act was now.
"Yo you still exercising?"
It was Muneeb. The sometimes annoying but mostly helpful hostel mate of his, now leaning against the doorway.
"Yeah. Why?" Sanit asked, his voice strained.
"I thought you wanted to take that orientation class today? You know the one for freshers you said you don't remember."
Right. That class.
Sanit hoisted himself up and wiped his face. "Am I late?"
"No," Muneeb said softly then leaned back to see the time through another rooms door, "but you will be if you don't leave soon."
"Are the bathrooms free?"
Muneeb clicked his tongue, "go check for yourself. What am I, your butler?"
Sanit blinked at his back and shook his head as he grabbed a towel and shoved his brush into his mouth.
Thankfully unlike most days today there was no queue lined up with guys holding buckets or towels for their turn.
The class he was desperate to attend happened twice a month to entice newcomers into the ever expanding field of realm studies.
From where anyone could choose their majors in one of many fields. Helping to form an idea into what to expect in terms of this new frontier.
For him more than academic pursuits it was a way to regain a part of his jumbled memory. Last he knew he had been attending that class before meeting the smugglers who hurt him and his friend.
When he was done with his business and stepping out of the bathroom he saw a group of boys herding towards the one room where TV was allowed.
Curious, he followed them and draped his towel over his shoulder as the group chattered excitedly.
"What are we watching?" Sanit asked someone near.
"The Awakeners have made a breakthrough in a northeastern state. I think so at least."
"Dude it's lagging on my phone a lot, anyone got better data?"
Several voices spoke out at the same time and created a noisy atmosphere.
"Hey pipe down you mongrels, I can't hear shit."
The TV screen went from a broadcasting room to a rugged landscape, with hills and darkened greenery which was a result of the severely burnt surroundings.
This was a battle front. One of many in the country. That much Sanit had learnt over time from his new phone and asking around.
A male reporter on the ground, wearing a helmet said into the mike he was holding, "yes mam we've been seeing the Awakeners making headway closely followed by the military behind them, as they're advancing to reclaim territories lost to the Rakshasas. Keep in mind, these were unchanged for about three months so it's definitely a great achievement."
The camera panned to zoom into a large-scale battle down the valley, far from where they were.
A couple of hairy Rakshasas barely being captured on screen were flung across the plains by a blast wave as three fanciful persons in a tight formation wielded weapon-like constructs.
The crowd around Sanit cheered and went mad.
"Fuck, did you see it...effing flung them across like ragdolls."
"That's a Mace Axe right? Or is it an Arrow spear?"
"I saw a Bow construct definitely. There's some top tiers here. Which factions though?"
"One thing we can all agree on, the demon faction will not be helping as always."
Those words were foreign even after hearing them over the days from the boys banter about Awakeners and realms and Rakshasas.
Sanit could barely comprehend how much he had to relearn to get back in the fray but for now he simply joined in the enthusiastic display of this crowd.
Another video this time from a drone and uploaded through social media was blasted through the screen.
A sudden beam of light perpendicular to the ground almost hit the drone as it shuffled away and its blurred vision dialed in to reveal a white clad girl, her arms spinning a spear as she took on a dozen rakshasas.
The boys cheered aloud.
"Whoo...that's her. Tara! Tara! Tara!"
The boys joined in and someone slapped Sanit who grinned at them before mouthing her name.
"Looks like we've got a heavyweight from a big faction now. Tara Majumder, has joined in just after meeting with other faction members for their monthly sessions. We couldn't confirm but apparently she had jumped in from the helicopter that was transporting her right from Belgoria. The visual was missed by the cameras."
The boys groaned and some cursed.
"Get better cameramen next time, dipshits!"
Sanit saw the time and retreated to his room, the commotion sparking a renewed sense of upliftment to his spirits.
Somehow giving him the sense that everything was going to be alright with the world.