The morning air, once filled with the mundane sounds of honking rickshaws and distant chatter, was shattered by a bone-rattling explosion. The shockwave rippled through the asphalt, sending a cloud of pulverized concrete and black smoke billowing into the sky. Panic, raw and contagious, ignited instantly. Pedestrians who had been checking their watches seconds ago were now screaming, trampling over one another in a desperate bid to escape the unseen epicenter.
While the crowd fled, Rudra and Raj stood frozen. Their broken bicycle lay forgotten on the ground as they stared into the heart of the settling dust.
"Wait... is that...?" Rudra whispered, his voice cracking with a fear he had only ever felt in his nightmares.
As the smoke cleared, a nightmare took physical form. Emerging from the debris was an ape-like monstrosity, standing nearly ten feet tall. Its hide was covered in coarse, grayish-red fur that looked like matted iron wire. Two massive fangs protruded from its lower jaw, dripping with a foul, yellow ichor, and its eyes were wide, swirling spirals that seemed to pulse with a predatory hunger. At the end of its powerful arms were claws long enough to shear through a steel girder like paper. But most terrifying were the two obsidian horns crowning its head—the mark of a true Monster.
Monsters were not a new phenomenon; they had haunted the fringes of human civilization since the dawn of time. They were creatures of pure malice that killed not for food, but for the sheer amusement of watching life extinguish. And against such a creature, a normal human was nothing more than a blade of grass against a hurricane.
"A... A MONSTER!" Rudra finally found his voice, a primal roar of survival.
"RUN, RAJ! RUN!".
They joined the stampede, their hearts hammering in a frantic, uneven rhythm. In the chaos, the stress of being late for school vanished, replaced by the simple, desperate need to stay alive. The street had transformed into a theater of carnage, with overturned cars and shattered glass lining their path.
Then, a voice cut through the cacophony—calm, resonant, and impossibly clear.
"Do not fear. Stand your ground. We are here".
The effect was instantaneous. The terrified screams of the crowd shifted into a deafening cheer. Rudra slowed his pace, looking back with wide-eyed wonder. From the rooftops and the shadows, a group of figures descended. They wore sleek, specialized costumes and masks that hid their identities, moving with a grace that defied physics, they are the...
The Heroes.
To the public, they were symbols of hope—mysterious warriors who possessed supernatural powers and spent their lives hunting the things that went bump in the night. Conspiracy theories followed them like shadows; some claimed they were a part of some organization which give them powers, while others believed they were divine messengers sent by god. To Rudra, they were everything he had ever dreamed of being. But as he watched them engage the ape-monster, the bitter reality settled in his stomach like lead: a normal kid from a garage-owning family could never join their ranks.
"Hey! What are you doing?", Raj grabbed his arm, snapping him out of his trance.
"We still have to get to school!".
Even with a monster on the loose, the fear of an angry father and a failed test was a more immediate threat to their future. With the main road blocked by the ongoing battle, they ducked into the labyrinth of side streets and narrow alleys that carved through Mumbai.
Rudra quickly tied his broken bicycle to a lamppost, and they began to sprint. As they rounded a corner, Rudra spotted an old man standing in the middle of the alley. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, dressed in a wrinkled cream-colored suit and a matching homburg hat. His hair and beard were a messy cloud of gray, and he clutched a half-empty bottle of local alcohol. He was clearly intoxicated, swaying on his feet as the smell of cheap liquor wafted toward them.
In that moment, the ape-monster back on the main road hurled a massive piece of debris—a jagged hunk of concrete—at the heroes. It missed its target, soaring over the rooftops and descending directly toward the alley.
The old man, slowed by drink, didn't even look up.
Rudra didn't think. It was as if his legs moved on their own, driven by an instinct he didn't know he possessed. He lunged forward, his body moving with a sudden, explosive speed that blurred the world around him. He slammed into the old man, tackling him into a doorway just as the concrete block smashed into the ground where they had stood a second before.
"You should watch where you're going, old man," Rudra panted, helping the stranger up.
"Thanks for your help, son..."
the old man replied. His voice was gravelly, but his eyes suddenly sharpened, studying Rudra's face with a look of profound recognition, as if he were seeing a ghost from his past.
Rudra didn't have time to ask questions. He turned and kept running. After a kilometer of sprinting, Raj finally collapsed against a wall, his face pale and gasping for air.
"I... I can't... do it... anymore," Raj wheezed.
"You can be such a pussy sometimes,"
"NO! YOU ARE THE MONSTER!" Raj shouted back, gesturing at Rudra's lack of fatigue.
Seeing his friend's state, Rudra sighed and turned his back.
"Get on. I'll carry you".
Raj hesitated for only a second before jumping on.
Despite carrying his own heavy bag, Raj's bag, and a full-grown teenager, Rudra didn't slow down. In fact, he felt lighter, his strides becoming longer and more powerful. To Raj, this was just "Rudra being Rudra". He had always been the strongest kid in school, the one who protected them from bullies with a strength that didn't seem to belong in a seventeen-year-old's body. Raj chalked it up to genetics—he remembered seeing Rudra's father, Ram, lifting a car engine with one hand while changing a tire with the other.
They reached the school gates just as the iron bars were being pulled shut.
"It's closed! Now what?", Raj panicked.
Without a word, Rudra crouched and leaped. He cleared the eight-foot-high gate in a single, impossible bound, landing silently on the other side with Raj still on his back. They snuck through the corridors, moving like shadows toward their classroom. They reached the door and slipped inside, letting out a collective sigh of relief when they saw the teacher's desk was empty.
"We actually made it," Raj whispered, slumping into his seat.
But the relief was short-lived. A shadow fell over them from the doorway, and a cold, familiar voice echoed through the room.
"Do you two really think you can fool me?".