We were happy with our success in the perfectly warm still summer night with the blue and hazy clouded sky ,suddenly lighting cut across the sky. And I was returning to my place after having conversation with my friend Dev about our results of first semester examination. I thought it would be better hurry as it was appearing the sign of something bad, otherwise who would expect the possibility of rain in the summer night at 11’o clock.
It was a kind of nightmarish , I mumbled as I stared at the dark hovering clouds ready to downpour at any moment. We were near cafeteria of our college and most of the surroundings filled with deep silence. I always prefer to walk slowly and alone which makes poetry run through my head. I love to feel the beauty of the nature that surrounds us like listening to cuckoo’s singing, looking at the beauty of the innocent red-pink roses,the vastness of the sky and not to mention to express everything I feel within me. There was no wind blowing and the clouds were moved closer fast enough. As usual I was walking with singing a beautiful love song .
After some time I got to my room and sat down to complete my assignment but I could hardly concentrate as the cool breeze coming from the window made me sleepy.Around 1 o’clock at night I got a call from Dev ,”Wake up Peter ,wake up ” he said with anxiety.
I sensed Dev’s frantic call in the sleepy state ,”Hey bro! What happened ,anything serious ”, I asked with curiosity.
At first he tried to articulate something ,tried hard to make his vocal cords function but failed.I realized he was sweating and afraid to tell about something terrible happened to him .
”Relax buddy !,relax! Take a deep breath ”,I said with care. My words made him soothe and somehow he gathered courage to tell me.
Days passed….occasionally ,whenever we used to see any paranormal movie at first,the thoughts of gruesome moment of that night scared Dev as he started believing that the spirits exist. Let me tell you exactly what happened that night after I left. Our college was situated at the outskirts of the city. Dev was heading towards his hostel ,on the way he called his girlfriend as usual as he do everyday to share his feelings but today it was something special for him as he topped the examination, it’s truly wonderful to share happiness of your success to someone you love. He was completely overwhelmed by her love. He had grown very strong feelings for her which I never understood when it is converted into love as I was thinking they were merely a friends . She was simple and cute girl. The thing that makes her different is that she was a combination of very beautiful looks and good character , hardly anyone out there with such a combination in our college. As it is well said ,if the girl is beautiful she cannot be merely a friend any longer because the boys of this generation who in the name of friendship propose on every second day either face to face or on mobile phones or on social networking sites though I could not make that kind of friendship with any girl anyway.Love was always been a mystery for me but I agree with Alfred Lord who well said ”It is better to have loved and lost never to have loved at all”.Let’s come back to the incident.
As Dev walked little bit ahead while talking with his girlfriend , his phone got switched off as the battery of his phone completely drained off .
”what the hell!”, he yelled. Nobody was out there except him ,even the birds was not appearing. But it was a wonderful summer night, he just left the company of the most beautiful girl in the world over the phone and well,how could life get any better. As he reached near innovation building , suddenly there was this significantly loud muffled bang and he jolted into the air as if somebody pulled him up. The horrible sound accompanied by some rhythmic jolting continued for a moment like one in the Hollywood horror movies , that kind of event would fit the description of the sound.
Dev was completely frightened ,trying to dispel from his worst fear he looked here and there ,but nobody was there ,this frightened him even more.”Oh! No ,what was that !”,he asked himself with fear. Suddenly the same haunting noise started ,now he was afraid terribly,his eyes caught something strange ,a dark shadow of beheaded man appeared in front of him . His face started sweating and his heart was beating faster than the normal human rate. He wanted to go hostel as soon as possible but afraid of being caught by horrifying shadow he could not figure out what do next,”May be its dangerous to go ahead ”,he thought wisely.
To his astonishment ,the strange shadow of beheaded man changed into a giant bat shadow,he then turned his head up but nothing could be seen there and surprisingly the shadow disappeared. He was very sceptical about these kind of things but now everything was beyond the way of his understanding. Now he had to face something that he never believed in his entire life. The distance from the innovation building to hostel would be around half a kilometer , a familiar road that he walked hundred times before, but this was really going to put damper on the night and as he was wondering what his prospects might be of getting hostel at this late hour if some ghost takes him granted.
He started walking towards hostel by carefully examining each and every corner of the road to see if anything that could make whatever sense of the situation would be visible on the road. But again there was nothing , he wanted to go further that was needed , he carefully searched behind the trees located beside the road, but there was nothing either. Now the moment came,when he was about to walk into the ghostly encounter. Until now there was nothing at all to be afraid of in the sinister sense, but as he moved ahead he became aware of some strange dark shadows moving around him.These were no ordinary shadows, they were huge and had no discernible shape ,even when he was telling me this over the phone he struggled to describe the shadows accurately ,except he said they appeared to have an unnatural type of physical presence. He had no idea why they have appeared and what created them.
In that sinister atmosphere ,his senses warned him not to remain there for second longer ,but he was stranded on the ghostly shadows infested all over the place. Suddenly the large bat attacked Dev from behind and tightly grabbed his back.”You bloody hell, Go away, God help! God help!”he screamed with anger.
He struggled to get the bat away by force but the bat wouldn’t move as if the bat got his lover back after several years like one in the Hollywood love story and never wanted to separate. This battle continued for some time and somehow he could get the bat away,the bat flew in the sky. Without wasting a time , he ran towards hostel with all his strength as if the dog running behind him to bite and he had to save himself.
He went to his room directly without looking anywhere and relaxed a bit but the constant trouble due to fear could not led him to sleep.After talking with me he could barely sleep and wake up early in the morning.He brushed and had a shower which he doesn’t like we could see from his face and hair,quickly he went for his breakfast in the mess where he met his other friends on the table. Another two big guys Hardy and Sneek resembles hippopotamus joined him , they sat on the chairs as if the entire earth had shaken due to their weights.Our class was zoo park more than class where you can find all kinds of animals like deer roaming around our department all the time to attend all the meetings conducted by our department lion ,an innocent bat hanging himself to the hostel roof to have a direct glance towards girls hostel,a sneak struggling to poison the company’s people and many others.Not to mention our so called big data in the computer terminology.
As the conversation started to begin ,Dev mentioned the incident about yesterday’s night with all ,but in response they all started laughing.”Are you mad?”,Hardy asked while laughing.
”You kind of freaked out bat!”,Sneek murmured.
”Don’t throw your poison fatso”,Dev replied with anger and left the table with half finished breakfast.He decided not to share this with anyone as nothing was believable.As the time passed strange thoughts clouded in Dev’s mind.”What if I also become bat with two wings just the same way spider-man in Hollywood movie ?”,he thought in doubt.If it had been the case,his girlfriend would have been the first girl in the world to have visit to the moon with her boyfriend with the help of his wings.”what if the bat’s poison make him to grow black like other bats ?”,he thought with anxiety. But this doesn’t matter as it is already the case.He was completely frightened with all these thoughts and immediately ran towards city hospital for treatment.After days passed nothing had happened to Dev I mean the bat kind of thing ,he was perfectly all right with smile on his face but one thing had been changed ,we got the new name for him that was batman.
He had since walked that way hundred of times by night and day without any further incident ,but he would not be able to walk that way if it be very late in the dark summer night without feeling bit exposed to something.
So just what were those strange shadows ,ghostly bat? And what about that beheaded man?
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(to be continued)