"Rudra..."
"Rudra..."
A faint voice called out from the darkness. It was really dark… nothing else was there.
"Wake up, Rudra…"
It was a woman's voice. Tense and urgent.
THRUMMM...
A thunderous impact, like a massive boulder crashing to earth.
Rudra's eyes snapped open.
He was in his bed… trying to grasp the situation he set up.
His mother was standing beside him… pale skin, short on breath.
She was the voice in the dark.
She looked afraid.
THRUMM...
The same booming sound again.
But this time it was not only that,
"Hooook... Hooookk..."
The sound echoed through the jungle and trees. It was like enraged monkeys were screaming.. it was too loud. As if the jungle itself was being torn apart by the noise.
"Get up. We need to leave," his mother said in tense voice.
"What? Where? What's going on!?", Rudra blurted out in confusion but she was already gone, vanishing down the hallway. Her voice called back:
"Just grab your jacket and hurry!"
Rudra was confused but the situation was too unsettling for not obeying his mother. The dread in his chest was too real.
He threw on his jacket, shouldered his pack, and rushed to the main gate.
His mother was standing there… waiting.
She held a shovel in one hand... and a shotgun strapped to her back.
Without uttering a word, both of them left the house.
The night outside was brutal. Snow fell heavily, swirling in the freezing wind. Their home stood atop a lonely hill, surrounded by thick forest.
Rudra looked at the jungle where the rumbling noise was coming from. His eyes opened wide as the very mountains were looming. All the tree were in chaos as the rumbling sound continued.
His mother led the way, swiftly and silently.
Rudra suddenly stopped mid march.
"Wait Mother," Rudra whispered,, "I forgot the sword. The one Father gave me."
Before she could even turn around, the seventeen-year-old boy turned and bolted back toward the cabin's storage shed.
"No", she screamed, "Rudra, wait!" she called after him but he was already gone.
…
The old wooden shed creaked as he threw open the door and stepped inside. Just at the corner, in a simple stand the sword was set.
He grabbed it.
It was a well kept but worn out sword.
THUM.
The ground shook.
This was louder… Rudra's heart froze as he felt like something... had landed. Just outside.
The tremor jolted him. The sword slipped from his hands and clattered to the floor.
He was barely breathing… sweating all over his forehead. But he gathered some courage and slowly, carefully, edged toward the half-open door and looked out.
White.
Snow everywhere. It was snowing even heavier now, but that was not the only thing there.
Just meters away, half-hidden by the trees...
A massive body.
It was huge… Large like a boulder. White fur stained in red. It was bleeding though out his whole body but most of all it missed an arm.
Rudra chocked on his own breathe. This thing... shouldn't exist!! he thought.
Rudra backed the door, afraid of whatever that monster was outside, but just then -
WHUMP.
A snowball struck the door beside him. Rudra turned his face towards outside holding his breath.
It was his mother... waving, crouched. Her arms made quick, deliberate motions as if she was telling him:
'Stay low. Crouch and start sliding towards her.'
Rudra nodded, slung the sword across his back, and crouched.
He crept through the snow, his heart was pounding heavily… afraid and trying to not make any noise. The wind howled and the snowfall roared, it seemed the nature itself was backing Rudra. He glanced at the creature in the woods. The creature remained still.
At last, Rudra reached to his mother.
"You dumbass," she muttered, smacking his head. She was obviously angry… but more anxious.
His mother told him to mot make sound as they turned and began to descend.
That's when he felt it. A hot breeze across the back of his neck. In this freezing cold?
He blinked.
Just at that moment his mother grabbed his collar and hurled him forward. he crashed into the snow, stunned. His head was spinning because of the blow.
"Go!" she screamed. "Get help!"
What? he turned, unable to understand what she meant!!
But that was not what he had expected to see… He froze on the spot.
A face. Half the size of his own body. A monkey face!! No…. It was far worse than that..
A demon.
It looked directly at Rudra, Its big eyes held wildness, its fangs held the blood of all it had killed and its fur held the stench of fowl.
Rudra's blood went cold as he couldn't even scream.
BANG. A gunshot.
Rudra's mother half of its head. Half the jaw disintegrated in a burst of flame and blood.
It shrieked and the forest shook.
"RUN!" she screamed again. "BRING HELP!"
Rudra couldn't breathe. Couldn't even blink. The scene before him was hell.
The beast raised its mangled arm and
BOOM.
Another shot. The limb exploded, flinging blackened bone across the snow.
"GO, RUDRA!"
Rudra just dashed away from there… he was to afraid to even look back at his mother.
Down the hill.
Through the snow.
Through the night.
Through the chaos.
His mind was empty.
His legs were on fire.
The only thought in his head:
"Don't stop. Just run."
But he tripped and fell down, his face in the snow as he finally stopped. He sat up slowly as he breathe heavy.
At last his senses began to return.
His heart still pounded like a war drum in his chest, but the blind panic started to fade.
And then it hit him.
His mother.
He had left her.
Left her to face that thing. Alone.
That monster. That demon. That nightmare.
His breath caught in his throat.
"MOTHERRRRR!!"
His cry ripped through his lungs, raw and guttural. It echoed across the empty slopes.
But he stood up, his legs moved. The snow blurred around him as tears stung his eyes, hot against the cold wind.
Half an hour. He ran for half an hour without rest.
Until finally
There it was.
The Cave.
The Cave of the Ancients.
A place only spoken of in whispers. carved into stone like the mouth of a sleeping god.
Rudra stumbled inside, gasping, choking, half-collapsing with every step.
Darkness wrapped around him like cold silk as his breath fogged in the chill air.
His boots echoed across ancient stones.
"Hello!?" he shouted. "Please! Anyone!"
Silence. No one answered. The cave was empty.
He looked around desperately, wildly for any sign of life. A lantern. A mark. A voice.
But nothing.
Just shadow and echoes.
His knees hit the stone as He dropped to the floor and his sword clattered beside him. His fingers clenched the dirt and His body shook.
This was supposed to be it...
The safe place. The sanctuary. The last hope...
But now!! Everything is gone.
Reality crashed down on him like an avalanche and the cave fell silent.
Just the wind, howling through the mouth of the mountain.
Rudra broke but something else took shape in him.
Beneath the frozen stone arches of the Cave of the Ancients, his tears soaked into earth that had not known warmth in a thousand years.
A pulse. A flicker.
Resolve.
He clenched his fingers and straighten his spine, as a new face emerged from that cave.
No more weeping.
No more running.
Rudra rose like a flame reborn, and turned to face the snow-swept path. The sword on his back... the same old one his father gifted gleamed faintly in the dark and the darkness cried as a man showed his back to it.
He returned.
Climbing through the frostbitten silence, heart hammering like a war drum. His breath burned his throat, but he pushed on.
And then.... he heard it.
Laughter and Voices. Cheering and Clapping.
"She did it! She killed it!"
"Great Maya lives!"
"A true warrior! Slayer of the Beast!"
Maya...
His mother's name rang like a bell in his heart. Rudra's heart cried as he heard her name.
Rudra's steps turned to a sprint.
Hope.
Wild and blazing, surged within him.
He burst through the trees. Each pounding step melting the snow below it.
But… he saw hell.
The Beast was still breathing… it was feasting. Its fur was stained crimson. Its horns curved like crescent moons and its jaw....
Tearing through a human arm. His mother's arm.
It was sitting in a pool of blood. His mother's blood.
Shredded robe. Pieces of flesh and a glint of a familiar necklace. His mother's necklace.
Rudra froze.
His body forgot how to breathe.
His knees trembled.
The world spun around him, but his eyes held still locked on the creature.
But,
A memory.
Him and his mother… Just last night they ate a rabbit for the dinner. "Eat, Rudra. And grow strong."
And now all that left of her, was a pool of blood and flesh.
But no more.
If I don't end this... then who will? He screamed. A war cry, primal and thunderous and he charged, drawing his blade.
The demon turned.... but it was too late. Rudra's sword, pierced deep into its chest.
The monster howled a sound that split the sky.
But that was not the end… It was the battle cry of beast!! It was the beginning.
Steel and claw. Flame and snow. The forest became a battlefield of gods.
They fought through the night.
Rudra's blood painted the snow.
The demon's roars shattered trees.
But he did not stop.
Even when its shattered face… the same one his mother blew apart began to grow again, he stood firm. Then he smiled like a beast.
"So you don't die...." Rudra spat, breathing hard.
His heart ached... But his will strengthen. He waited for the right moment.
And when he saw one… he moved.
One clean strike.
The blade sang and head flew.
And with that thud, the night fell silent.
Rudra stood among the wreckage looking at the unmoving dead body of beast. He cried. Snow drifted gently now, like ash from the heavens. He was just a seventeen years old boy.
His eyes carried the sorrow and dread but he knew what he must do in order to stop the demon from rising again.
He dragged the beast's corpse to the house… his own house where all the memories of his mother resided and he lit that on fire.
Flames roared to life. They swallowed the beast whole. The smoke rose into the sky like a funeral pyre for a fowl demon and he looked that demon in its eyes. Unyielding.
The flesh burned but the skull would not yield. It would not burn.
So Rudra took it. And in silence, he dug a grave with bare hands, frozen fingers, and bleeding palms, he dug into the earth until he reached the hell.
He thew the skull in it and turned. Not looking back at even his burned house and his mother's memories.
Took one step down the mountain.
Then another.
Then the darkness claimed him. A dream. A vision. Something flickered in that darkness.
Flames danced and Bones cracked.
And the skull...
It Smiled.
Rudra opened his eyes suddenly. Gasping and drenched in sweat.
he looked around but for his surprise, the stone walls surrounded him. and he scent of incense drifted through the air.
"You live," a soft voice said.
A woman stood near him, cloaked in gray robes woven with silver thread.
"You've been in the cave for three days. The fever nearly claimed you."
Rudra looked at his hands and the old sword beside him.
He stood up. Gathered his things, fastened his coat and stepped forward.
The woman asked, "Where will you go now?"
He paused at the threshold of the cave.
Snow fell softly outside, painting the world in silence.
Rudra looked into the pale sky.
And whispered,
"To kill the dead"
As he vanished into the snow.... He muttered...
"They are coming"
"They are coming"
"But… Who are coming!?"