The cold breeze moved past their cotton shirts, carrying the numbing weight of their own breath. Sanvi gasped for air, her heavy rhythm something that could be calculated on a fingertip. Her hands turned a numb, pale white, the green nerves standing out like the eyes of a victim judging their own death. Her body fell to its knees, crushed by the weight of her soul and the burden on her shoulders. Controlling her breath, she wheezed—whhhzzz—then spoke with raw fear: "What... what was that thing?"
No one could answer. Everyone stared at her, their eyes speaking the only language left to humans: the instinct to fly or fight. Aarush looked over the wall. He dragged his leg forward, his lungs smelling the coldness of smelted concrete beneath the barrier. As water droplets fell around him, he whispered with a voice he could barely control, "We can't stay here." He looked at Sanvi, his own lungs turning into a furnace, sparking the birth of red flames in his eyes.
Shock reached his nerves, curling the muscles in his hands as a fire inside turned into an inferno of survival. He moved toward Sanvi, gripping her hand to help her stand. As they stood firm, Sanvi looked at the others with terror, though she could feel the steady rhythm of Aarush beside her—even as he nervously chewed his gum.
Then, a voice reached them, shocking them both with the truth. It was Mohite. His voice sounded shallower than a fish pulled out of water, but his desperation hit like an arrow to the nerve.
"You both are enough to survive," Mohite said, inhaling with a hiccup. "We won't."
A roar slammed against the wall. To everyone else, the wall was stone and rock, but Aarush's eyesight ignited. In a deep crimson like the heart of a dying sun, he saw it—a figure of dark orange energy moving behind the barrier, flickering like magnesium in water with a surge of fire.
Aarush whispered, his voice trapped in his throat for a second before he spoke in a rage of denial. "Mohite!" His heart hit his ribcage with all its might. "We are all prey in the game of life and death. But I choose to survive. What is your call, my friend?"
The world went quiet. Goosebumps climbed every spine. Then, a sound rattled through the dark—the thump-thump-thump of boots. It was the weight of clean blood driven by war, moving fast through a graveyard of death.
A few men emerged from the graveyard of modern war. With their night-vision helmets, they looked like bugs crawling out of a nest, but their weapons showed they were strong enough to take down armies. They wore black tactical vests marked with the logo of the NSEA. Aarush looked at them—not at their strength, but their numbers. There weren't enough of them. Not for what was behind that wall.
With a heavy heartbeat, one man stepped forward. His black leather boots moved across the street, stopping just inches from the wall where water dripped and mixed with the foul smell of human waste on the pavement.
"Relax, kids," he said, his voice booming with a glory that felt forced. The mask hid his face—or perhaps the fear he didn't want the world to see. He shifted his rifle, the metal clinking against a vest that carried a strange contrast: a keychain of a child's toy. "We are from the NSEA. You're in safe hands now."
Aarush stood firm, holding Sanvi's hand as if he were ready to carry her to heaven himself. The air was thick with the cheap smell of cigars and gun oil, a sweet, heavy mix. Through his red-stained vision, the souls around him stayed loyal to their true faces; they burned like phosphorus in an emblem. To Aarush, the scene looked like a massive chandelier—beautiful, but heavy, destined to crash to the ground under its own weight.
He looked at Ujjwal. The soldier's soul was a dark, bruised blue, filled with flickering sparks of the fear of death.
Aarush swallowed hard. He moved his head with a forced smile to hide the awkwardness. "Any plan, sir?"
Ujjwal looked at the boy. The red light of the streetlamps fell directly on Aarush's eyes. If they were contact lenses, they would have reflected the light, but they didn't—they absorbed it, glowing from within. Ujjwal spat out his own gum and moved his wrists, loosening them. "Are you both awakened?"
Aarush didn't answer. Ujjwal grabbed the radio on his shoulder. It hissed like a snake as the station searched for a signal. A voice crackled through: "Delta, do you copy? We're reaching the checkpoint. Update on target is coming."
A red light flickered on Ujjwal's chest—a body camera. To the military, this was just data to be analyzed. But Aarush felt a surge of dread. He didn't want this recorded. He didn't want the world to witness the graveyard where he was about to stand with red hands.
A voice cracked enormously through the silence, flowing like heavy water. Distorted by the energy of the wall, the radio hissed: "Squad Delta moving towards the target. Negative energy readings are increasing... this bastard is strong. What are the orders?" Ujjwal looked at his radio. He spoke with a clean, deep voice that seemed to come from the very flicker of his soul: "Eliminate the bastard." It was the only order he had left to give.
Aarush's nerves, already popping with the pressure of his blood, grew stunned. His brain was the only thing moving, deep-diving through every fact. Before he could even process the result, a roar erupted from the core of the earth. It broke the spine of the atmosphere, making everyone's vision shake from the sheer force of the sound. It was beyond anything a human could expect. The soldiers, who had held their rifles steady only a moment ago, were now visibly trembling. They stood in the field like ghosts, already holding hands with Death, waiting for the end.
But Ujjwal's fire refused to give up. He hissed, the steam of his breath visible in the cold air: "My boys roar like this when they piss on your ashes, bastard." He stepped closer to the wall, his ego flaring against the dark.
Beside him, Aarush saw Aniket. He wasn't looking at the wall; he was scribbling furiously over a page. Aarush couldn't read all of it, but he saw the formula of probability: The value of X over the value of Chance. Aniket's pen moved in a blur of blue ink, his fingers merely counting the rhythm. He stopped. The paper showed a final, brutal number: 0.18900%. Aarush stared at the page, frozen by the weight of that decimal point. His mind called him a coward for believing in math when the game was about experience, but his conviction was sharper than any blade. What if the numbers are right?
Through his crimson vision, Aarush saw the Delta soldiers—small bugs, like fireflies moving toward a furnace of orange energy. His eyes began to twitch with the strain. He whispered into the air, "They won't survive the devil." Ujjwal turned his gaze, gripping his gun until the vibration of the ground shook his very bones. "What?"
Aarush spoke again, not for himself, but for everyone: "They are walking side-by-side with the devil, straight into the carnage of the beast." He lunged for Ujjwal, falling to his knees—not to worship him as a savior, but to beg for the lives of the dead men. His friends could only whisper his name, their tongues heavy with terror. Aarush rubbed his face against the dirt near Ujjwal's boots, his heart a blaze intended to kill the cold of their fear.
Ujjwal swallowed hard, looking down at the boy. He knew then: this kid was seeing a truth that his radar couldn't touch. He moved his hand to the radio, but his fingers hovered over the button, paralyzed. Aarush's eyes were now a burning, bleeding crimson, the warmth of his inner fire the only thing fighting back the freezing end.
Ujjwal held his radio with a grip that said everything his voice couldn't. He poured his soul into the final transmission: "Believe in us. We are here to save your lives."
Then, a thunder rumbled. It didn't stay in the clouds; it struck the land of the living and the dead, shattering the silence like a mountain rock being cracked open. Delta Force had opened fire. Aarush whispered through the noise, his voice jagged: "Regret on you, bloody-hell discussion leader."
The bullets moved through the air like a rhythmic rain of lead, tearing through the skin of the Sinner. But the monster didn't just sustain the damage; it moved through the soldiers as if they were nothing. It wasn't just hunting; it was playing with the souls of humans. The screams of men tore ribs out of bodies as the Sinner moved—flexible, impossible, attacking legs and then instantly snapping heads.
Aarush watched through the wall as the skulls of Delta Force were broken with the speed of thunder. He saw the last soul twinkle, holding a compact knife in a final, useless gamble before teeth tore through his lungs. The others could only hear the noise, but Aarush saw the Sinner turn its gaze toward them from behind the barrier. The wall wasn't stone anymore; it was a painting by a dark Picasso, painted not with ego, but with a mixture of iron, salt, and minerals. It looked like sunrays trapped in a glass of blood.
"Bloody hall of peace," Aarush whispered, his words tasting like ash. "I told you."
Ujjwal looked at the wall, his eyes reflecting the orange and red of the slaughter. He clicked his teeth in fear as his gun fell to the pavement. Then, a voice erupted—a human sound with a beast's life—standing over the bodies: "I am coming for your soul and your life." A laughter followed, light in tone but heavy enough to crush mountains.
While the others stood frozen, expecting death, Aarush felt his heart clog the blood in his veins. With a sudden surge of will, he banged on his chest to wake his nerves and shouted: "We must run!"
Ujjwal's voice came back, steady as a saint of death. "Kids... you will run. My boys will fight until the end. Our pledge demands it."
Aarush let out a desperate, jagged laugh. "Have a death call then!"
But the soldiers didn't flinch. They took their stance, ready to sacrifice. Ujjwal's teeth clinked together as he spoke the oath, the words echoed by every man behind him. They weren't just letting the chandelier fall; they were holding it up with their own broken bodies. "We are men of duty. We will live and die for our people, because we own the responsibility of our nation."
Ujjwal turned to Aarush one last time, his eyes speaking the only language left: the language of sacrifice.
Aarush stood still as his vision blurred, the modern streetlights fading into the mists of history. For a second, he didn't see tactical vests; he saw warriors holding swords at Pavankhind. Ujjwal stood like an almighty commander with a Dandpatta, a guardian protecting the heartbeat of future generations. The old saying echoed in Aarush's marrow: "For my son, there is my King." A chill rose through his bones—he wanted to bleed with them, to share that same glorious blood, but he could only offer a final, slow salute.
Ujjwal looked at him, his soul stabilizing for one last moment of command. "Leave, kid," he ordered. Aarush signaled the others, but Sanvi stood her ground, her eyes searching for a 100% path that didn't exist. Ujjwal roared, his voice cracking the frost: "We chose the path our God set for us! Now it is your turn!"
As shadows manifested on the ice, Sanvi finally broke. She ransacked toward Aarush, tears turning into ice crystals on her cheeks, leaving the massacre behind. Aarush watched her cross into the darkness, then screamed, "Wait for me!" He took one last look at the streetlights before the shadows swallowed him whole. Behind them, the "Thunder of Bullets" grew deafening, then dissolved into the wet screams of men as the shadow of a tiger fell across the blood-painted wall.
They ran until the park loomed before them like a dark island. "Don't wait! Get to the middle! Destroy the lights!" Aarush commanded. Stones flew, glass shattered, and the park fell into a protective blindness. Aarush stared back at the direction of the gunshots, grief binding his chest like wire, until Sanvi pulled his hand. Her grip was cold as a snake, her eyes fierce. "We believe in you! Come!"
He led them to the Peepal tree, an ancient giant with gnarled limbs. "Climb!" he hissed. They scrambled into the gaps and scratches of the bark, the branches reaching out like old arms to hide them. Aarush gasped for air, his lungs burning. He looked at Sanvi and let out a jagged, awkward laugh. "This was the game I used to play in the village at night. Hide and seek in the dark." He pressed himself against a branch, covering his skin with indigo leaves.
Sanvi's heart banged against her ribs like a drum. She looked at him through the leaves and whispered, "How many times did you win, Mr. Expert?"
Aarush's smile faded into the shadows. "Never," he said. "This game asks for silence, and we must give it now."
A whisper traveled through the branches—the terrified voice of the others: "We're going to die..."
"Shut up!" Aarush replied, his red eyes scanning the canopy. "I will save you."
"Sure...?" Sanvi started to ask, but Aarush raised a palm. The thunder of bullets had stopped. The world was dead silent. Then, a "Fact" hit him like a physical blow: the Bengal Tiger is a master of the climb, a ghost that can navigate the heights to confuse its prey.
Above them, a branch groaned. The sound of a crack echoed through the wood. The disguise of leaves shifted, revealing the heavy, rippling texture of black and orange fur. A thin layer of predatory energy moved through the air, and then, a voice tore through the atmosphere, sounding like grinding stones:
"Too slow to sustain."
-ARUSH SALUNKE