Looping Rill of Blood (Episode-5)

Dying Nightmare

Long since I had Priya’s hallucination in Red Cross hospital six months ago, alcohol and anxiety got taken over by drugs and madness. Maybe I shouldn’t have escaped out of the asylum and let the doctors make me forget my past like before. But there I was again strapped and drugged on a bed, an incompetent lunatic reduced to a madhouse lab rat.

While I was trapped in a building full of SPREAD gunmen, space-suited doctors and other infected deranged victims with me plugged into their unsung research, back at the asylum the damsel had made her way out and obviously she ditched the scout of madmen that followed her from the surgical theater. Like we all did once or too often in our life, she lied when she said we’d survive the curfew if we stuck together, what she really meant was “ you kill and I getaway”. The madmen got busy taking out the watch-guards and she chanced to shut asylum’s security systems and walked out of the main door unhampered. Sadly she didn’t know that one of the madmen she used killed her father, doctor Ganesh Dougay, who was there to assess me for STPD.

The nightmare started with me calling damsel’s name in Dougay’s apartment. No one replied. A wardrobe behind me opened itself, it became alive and grew bigger in size. Its distinctive oriental carving on its head looked like eyes. There was a monster in its depth, the monster was screaming in agony and rage and tried to wreck the furniture which was trembling and falling apart. When the wardrobe couldn’t keep it any more, it exploded barfing papers and clothes out. The wall broke into rubble and behind it was a big mirror stained in blood. The mirror showed my reflection holding a photograph, it flipped the photo and smiled reading what was written on it. My hands were empty though. Then I, not me but my reflection, dropped the photo and imitating him I looked down to find the photograph of the damsel and her sister under my foot. I picked it up and flipped it. “Shreya and Komal. 13-11-1999.” was written on it. I looked up again into the mirror and smiled after reading their names.

“Shreya! Shreya!” A person who looked exactly like me, entered in the room calling damsel’s name.

We both looked at each other and froze. Then he left the room and went into the kitchen. He picked a big knife that shone in the moonlight from a window “I told me to stop or else I will die” he whispered.

“What did I just say?” I asked him.

“Either I live or we don’t” he said.

Just when he was going to stab himself, Shrey came from shadows and stopped him. Before I could interpret the events of the nightmare, I woke up on the bed in the unknown building and unlike ever I had a good feeling in my chest, maybe it was the morphine or the vaccine or the memory of Shreya. I couldn’t help remembering my adoptive mother’s murder, the Red Cross hospital, the face of Ashish’s mother, then the asylum and Ajay and his family. I wasn’t feeling so good then.

The plastic drapes were dropped, sun was late that day but it wasn’t as dark anymore. The sunlight though scarce gave a faint hope of good things to come. My mother used say that light burns any darkness around, she believed in paranormal and life after death crap. I hoped she was right, I hoped she was my real mother.

The other infected who were also given the same dose laid on their beds dead. The gunmen who brought me there had been watching me through a camera on the wall in front of me and a person in spacesuit stood before it. “Good, he’s up. Get him to the chem room in that building- that one yes” he said to two armed men in black jump-suits. They came in and undid my zip-ties, my limbs were numb and impotent thus they took my arms around their shoulders and carried me out of the auditorium. It seemed as though the building was an abandoned performance theater but soon after leaving the hallway of classrooms and passing a library occupied by more armed-men hassled by a female patient, I knew it was an abandoned school. They took me in another block where I was made to sit in a chemist lab on third floor. Even if I tried I could not move my hands or stand up and run. I was tired of running, where ever I went I always found Dhalia chasing me. I had made my mind up that I’ll let them open my body and have fun pulling my strings inside out to learn what made me tick.

I heard a man’s screams from outside the room, its source was anon, the shrill was heart breaking and then someone was crying in the room above me. Sitting on the chair shirtless I was getting cold, a dial on the wall showed room’s temperature: 42 degrees Celsius. I clutched my hands inside and sat bend over to make sure my chest won’t lose temperature. And my fingers touched my sides and I knew that the effects of the morphine were wearing down. A spacesuit person entered the room and sounded like Darth Vader “So, it seems you lived to see this morning, Rahul Dhalia” he asked me and leaned against a table.

“What did you just call me?” I asked.

“Why isn’t that your name? Or should I call you Rahul Kapoor or what your mum preferred-Rahul Rai”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Its very curious why did you not die because of the vaccine”

“Sorry to disappoint, I wouldn’t mind someone whack me now”

“I just might have the idea why. Its something alcoholics build over years of abuse, tolerance. I know enough about you now from the A.A.M.I to being adopted and again in that mental institute till here and what are the odds you happened to be our first subject to survive the vaccine horror”

“If you are done talking fetch me a shirt”

“Its a bright morning in summer, you will not be given anything to wear unless we assume its rather necessary”

“If you’re gonna do it then bring me something to eat as well”

The spacesuit person walked to me and almost punched me, I grabbed his hammering hand and said “I warned you”

“Around here I make orders! You don’t tell me what to do” he yelled.

My body was weak but HE wasn’t, I felt him behind me. Correction, inside me. Standing in the dark shadow and though I knew he didn’t exist his presence made me more weak. He was making me do bad things. I was him. . .he was she. . .she doesn’t have a body nor soul. . .she was him. . .in my head. . .no she is but alive? I killed her. She made me do it! My mother. I looked at my arm and followed to see it was Dhalia’s who appeared behind me. I was shocked to see how similar we two looked. I was thinking how he came inside the building then he, not me, pulled my hair and pushed me on the floor. I was helpless and scared. Dhalia on the other hand knew what he wanted, he was fierce and strong. He punched into the spacesuit person’s helmet breaking the cheap glass, it wasn’t enough. Dhalia broke a flask and pushed the shattered halves through his eyes.

Suddenly I was living my life in a third person perspective. I saw Dhalia removed the spacesuit from the body and put it on. When he wore it, I felt the warmth it gave him, I felt its material rub against his skin and bare chest as if I wore it myself.

Dhalia walked out of the room, I pulled and pushed myself on the floor in an attempt to follow him. I couldn’t stand upright no matter how hard I tried, my legs slugged my creepy steer to the door. Outside the room I saw a teenage boy cowering and crying behind a flipped desk. I asked him why he was crying.

“I just saw him, he was here before you. That man was very angry, he said he’d hurt me if I told you. He is a monster!” he replied.

“Who?” I asked.

“It came out of the hole, it was you! but you are not him anymore” he screamed and the black clotted skin on his head tore and bled on his shoulder.

“You should seek medical attention”

“Attention is what we want. I hide here because I am scared! I failed in final exams, I cannot go back home. . .my parents would kill me. I jumped out that window. I saw the ambulance took my body but I cannot get out of this room, I cannot go around anymore like I used to. I don’t know where’s my body. Only if I knew where’s my body I could be free”

“So you are a-a ghost?”

“I am not dead alright! I couldn’t go back in my body in time. How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“How do go in and out of your body?”

“I am in my body, you are just another screwed up teen with void believes”

“That man in spacesuit who was here before you, is using your body and-and you don’t even realize!”

“Are you scared of him?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Come on there must be a practical explanation to this. I might even wake up any time now to realize that all this was a bit of my dream or hallucinations”

“Why don’t understand!? I need to know where’s my body”

“This is weird. . .okay I will find you your body if you tell me what’s going on in this building”

“You said you would hurt me if I told you”

“I won’t, promise. Just tell me how to end this madness, this nightmare”

“Nightmare? this is a recurrence. It happens when ever the darkness needs a vessel to posses and conduct the ritual”

“A recurrence?”

“You see this city has something no one knows, every few years the dark comes back to find a vessel and then hell breaks lose. It happened some ten years ago when it found a woman who gave birth to a boy in an asylum. It possessed her and people started dieing. There’s a cult which covers its true identity and purpose, they hunt the deranged and pick out the ones who are fit for the ritual”

“What is it, the darkness?”

“Its an entity, which doesn’t have a body nor soul. An un-quenchable rage to spread terror, I believe it has got you now”

“How do you know all this?”

“I have wandered every block of this school to find my body. Instead, I. . .found where it came from. It cannot kill me because I am not mortal but it can hurt me. I found out what they do to the ones hunted. They do bad things, they-”

Before he finished his sentence, we heard gun shots and screams of people. The teenage boy had disappeared, outside the room I found a wheelchair and sat on it. As I rushed back in the hallway, the other deranged, the doctors and armed-men were dead in the rooms, their blood shed all over the floor and walls. I gave torque to the wheels with my shaky hands trying to run away from whatever did that to them. At the end of the hallway the elevator doors opened and two armed-men came out of it, I was scared that they might shoot me down but instead they pushed the wheelchair away as if it was empty and went running looking for the one who was on the rampage. I went inside the elevator and pressed G button.

I got out and pushed on forward and realized that I was on the same floor as earlier. I went in the elevator and pressed G again and found myself back on the same floor. Something was different this time, to my right outside the the elevator hands broke out of the ground and started pulling the dead bodies, heads appeared on the the walls and fed on the corpses flesh. Hands grabbed my wheelchair. They didn’t let go, more hands and heads emerged on roofs, I rocked the wheels back and forth and freed one wheel which rotated me and my eyes laid on a handgun holstered on the dead man. I tried to get it and almost fell down. I fired few shots at hands and they started going back wherever the hell came from. They had carried me away from the wheelchair so I crept into a room shooting haywire and emptied its clip.

The door shut itself and the lights turned on themselves. When I looked around I saw that teenage kid behind me, crying black tears and his eyes had become pitch black.

“You cannot leave this place until it has claimed your body and mind” he said.

“What is this all happening?!” I yelled.

“If I tell would you find me my body?”

“How?”

“I remember I saw Red Cross Hospital on side of the ambulance taking my body”

“Yes I will, how to get out of here?”

“He who holds the torch of hope will resume power over darkness! The torch of hope!”

I didn’t get a chance to ask what did he mean, his black eyes leaked out like hot tar and charred his rancid skin, his body crooked into a tree form “IT won’t let me go now, it knows that you know what I know!!” He growled terrifyingly and his form dispersed in air spraying black matter all over the wall and roof. Soon hands started appearing out of the matter which quickly spread and covered entire roof.

“The torch of hope? The light. . .heat? The sun!” I dragged myself to the window to my right and tore it’s curtain down and opened the window.

The day had ended and wasn’t bright, the darkness had covered the sky and hid the sunlight. Things were getting diabolic and strangely what was a rising morning few minutes ago had turned into a dying night.

I needed to figure out what the phrase meant. “Light? Torch. . .flashlight? No the tube lights are already on. Torch. . .Fire?” I found a flammable liquid bottle on the ground, I twisted it’s cap open and threw it on the tube light above hoping it would work. The bottle took out the tube light but the liquid caught fire and the wall started burning. The hands started twitching and the entities screamed in high pitch and agony.

I opened a lower cupboard and found a roll of bandages, I pulled a leg off the broken chair under the computer table and dressed the bandage around its end then lit it up with the flames on the wall. I stood up and with the torch of hope in my hand I walked out of the room. The hands and heads twitching on the floor growled and disappeared. I had to find Dahlia and end this madness.

I started looking inside each rooms. One of the rooms had a letter on a bench. This what it read:

“From the beginning of that year, there was a teenage boy hiding under my school desk, he kept telling me that he lost his body and he saw an ambulance take it to the Red Cross hospital. It didn’t make any sense to me when he said that. How can a person be alive and yet not be in his body? I was really scared because his head always bled and his skin was pale grey, he followed me every where asking me to find his body and said he’d get me whatever I needed. It went on like this till examinations when he couldn’t get inside the exam room but I used to see him wait outside the door, sometimes he’d stand at the window. I couldn’t study well, I thought I was haunted by the ghost of chemist lab whose story is told by teachers to keep students scared of being locked in the lab for not finishing their homework.

I told my ma about it after the exams, she didn’t trust me. No one did. They thought I was making this story up to cover my dropped grades. Then I fell ill and was admitted in the Red Cross hospital. In hospital, one night I saw myself laid on the bed, I was out of my body but I checked and my body was still breathing. So I went to search the boy’s body hoping the discovery of his death might help me get rid of the haunting. Instead, I found a passage to the dark room. There’s a hole in the morgue’s autopsy theater south wall, I went inside and it took me to a room that was very dark. It felt like I was trapped and wanted to get out but couldn’t and thankfully a nurse came in my ward and woke me up to eat some tablets. I got back in my body.

A month later I was discharged and had to go to school again. This time the boy was acting strange, he wouldn’t utter anything, he’d just stand behind and stare me. I told him I didn’t find his body, then he asked me to follow him and I did. He led me to the boys toilet in third floor and then locked me in from outside. Ever since then I am not able to get out of the room. If anyone finds this letter, please come to third floor and open the door, my parents would be so scared for me. That boy who cries black tears, don’t talk to him.

Zara Khan”

I left the room and went inside the library which was only identifiable by the name plate above its door, the SPREAD’s team had turned it into a creepy empty butchering hall, the most cliche was the empty operating bed under red lights that looked welcoming in dark, like always it wanted me to lay on it sedated and it would show me another nightmare but I was tired of the monopolistic episodic entertainment. I had done a lot of weird stuff and burning that operating bed was one of those. I stood there watched it die and I told myself that I won’t lie on it ever. It’s flames reached higher and heated up the light rig too much, it exploded spitting fire in all directions. Some books on the floor, empty wooden shelves and surgical tools and spirit on a table caught fire. I heard a girl cry and scream for help, her voice was clear and came from a door on the other end. I followed the shrill through a corridor, the hands and heads that diabolised the white walls and floor hid from the light I carried. At the dead end of the hallway a phantom appeared holding a passed out teen girl on a knife’s edge. She wore white patient uniform which was dirty, her shirt had “PID 407” stitched on it.

The door which I came through shut itself and the wall above it fell down, the corridor didn’t have any windows either.

“This is the last time I tell you stop Rahul. Or we will die!” It said in a very grudging and distorted voice.

“Either I live or we don’t” I said.

Dahlia dropped the girl and ran towards me swinging his arm above, I stiffed my grip on the torch and lashed one on his head hard which made him crash on the ground. I flipped the torch and shoved it through the crack on the helmet. Dahlia fell to the fire and I could feel the pain and heat as if I was burning my own body, soon flames filled the suit and the helmet exploded. The blood in my veins ran like deadly acid, when I was ready to let my sins burn me, the world around me shifted shapes, the temperature came down again and Dhalia was gone. A window opened itself sliding sideways letting sunlight in and the lights turned on. My body stopped feeling like it was aflame and I was hungry again.

I had killed Dahlia and I hoped I’d never hear his voices in my head. I hoped this would end my madness but I still had a lot of questions and one of them was “Who am I?”

When I opened my eyes, I found myself lying on the ground where Dahlia was and I was wearing the white spacesuit with broken helmet. I stood up and looked out the window, more SPREAD soldiers were on their way to get the bastard who killed every one on this floor and put a hault on their research. On a rooftop I saw a sniper take aim on me, I quickly crouched and went to the girl whom Dahlia had as hostage.

A sudden chill hit in my spine and I sweat cold seeing that the girl was Shreya’s sister, Komal. I found one of the sisters and it was only a matter of time that Shreya found me looking for Komal.

I didn’t want to but I had to, although I did it gently, I had to slap her to wake her up. I removed my helmet and told her she needn’t be scared of me and that I was there to help her. She didn’t trust me at once though, she was crazed too, she got up and began to escape out of the door.

“Your sister send me to save you, yes Komal, Shreya still cares” I said and she stopped.

She went to a wall and palmed her face then cried. I pulled her back and said “Quit whinnying, see there take that nurses top and wear it as disguise. If we get caught you tell everyone I had you as hostage and you work here. Okay?”

“Why are you here?! I don’t want help now. You don’t know how much it pains here and here” she said.

“Maybe I don’t but we should hurry”

I removed the T-shirt off the nurse’s corpse and put on around her. “Button up” I said and she wore it and held my hand like she was a small kid. I picked up an SMG on the ground and ran toward the elavator.

The two gunmen who earlier came up in the elavator spotted us and started shooting. They ran toward us, we took cover behind a wall and I was going to shoot wildly if they turnedin the cormer but that wasn’t necessary. When they came to the windows, the sniper took two shots quickly one tap on the head after after another. I wondered if the sniper was really aiming for me, I peeked out a window and saw Shreya on the rooftop, she turned on the bulb behind to let herself visible to me in the dark. She looked like a death angel who fixed her mind on retaliation. She was very strange though, how could she handle the sniper rifle?

She turned the bulb off and assumed vantage point some where I couldn’t see. Komal didn’t recognize her, I should’ve told her that there was her sister ready to kill me as well. The time had slipped and we had to get out of the building. We took the elavator down to ground floor. There were three soldiers in the lobby to the right, from left one came to check out the elavator that pinged on our arrival. The door in our front was open so we rushed in, the soldier had a look around and he walked inside the room. Komal stood in the center to distract him while I sneaked behind him and strangulated his neck using the belt from a corpse on the sofa.

I put on his uniform and gas-mask, I took his SMG and we pretended like I was just showing the doctor, Komal, outside the building. She was baffled to why I tend to hurt people. For few seconds other soldiers in the lobby mistook me for the one who went to check the elavator and Komal was the doctor who came out of it, then I looked into the eyes of the truck driver who ordered the massacre on the Red Light district bridge. He asked me if I found out about the gunfire they heard coming from the third floor. I hesitated before denying I did.

“Is that the order I gave you! What did I tell you to do?” He yelled.

“To to check out-” I stammered.

“To check on those two idiots I send up, you good for nothing” he said and tried to contact with the dead soldiers on the third floor “Igor!? What’s taking you long huh? Igor? Tango?”

He suspiciously looked at Komal and asked her if she knew anything about the shooting up there, she froze and didn’t utter anything.

“You were talking about some patient gone out of control doc?” I gave her a hint to say whatever came in her mind first or we’d be in trouble but she stupidly looked at my face and then his. I understood it was time to blow our cover earlier. Still I gave it a shot and said “She is probably shocked by the hostile environment above” and failed miserably. I pressed my SMG on his face and took him as hostage, Komal hid behind me.

“Tell your men to put their guns down” I screamed.

“What made you think I’ll tell to back down?” He said.

Three soldiers started shooting at us, I used the driver as shield and shot the soldier in left and we drafted toward the elavator again. A helicopter flew over the building with its blinding spotlight breaking in through windows and landed on the roof, taking the chance we hid behind a pillar from where I could see other two soldiers. By the time light had gone, they lost us and started shooting at everything. I jumped from behind and pressed the trigger aimlessly at them.

On the roof of the building, an old woman stepped out of the chopper that just had landed. Two bodyguards followed her inside a secluded office one floor down the stairs.

” What’s all this rattle about?” She asked the general on her walkie talkie.

“Madam Douglas, you were supposed come tomorrow” the general replied.

She glanced at the ugly face of her assistant who entered the room then and said to the general ” Why, have I spoiled your little party you were having by shooting all around like battering rats in my facility?!”

“No no sorry for that, its not a party here ma’am, its a mess here. Soldiers gone missing, then doctor Ram Charan ordered us to kill every infected except one on the third floor” the general said.

“Ram didn’t give you the order, I passed it down. Now you do what I say. That one patient from anarchy asylum and a girl by name Komal, both have survived the vaccine and in fact the first two. You are to secure them. I am coming down to security room, keep CCTV footage of last five hours ready. Remember we need these two alive, so tell your trigger happy dogs to use melee instead of bullets” said Douglas.

“Yes ma’am”

I looked out of a window and spotted a van parked in premised of the school playground. One soldier in a balcony of the building in north east. Two patrolling on the playground and one on roof of the building in west. A bullet travelled from distant and blasted through head of the soldier on the roof. His body fell on the parking lot behind the canteen and seconds later Shreya appeared on the roof with her sniper.

She crouched on knees and two breaths later she took out the soldier in balcony, his body crashed on the floor. I held Komal’s hand and told her to run, we ran and hid behind the wall under stairs. I counted four breathes and we ran to the van in the playground, the two soldiers patrolling laid dead in shadows, near the gate and another in open.

We made it to the van, nary did it struck me that there could be another soldier and he’d be enjoying a smoke. He saw me rush to driver door and shot three rounds and hit me once that scraped my left shoulder. I fell and took van’s front as cover and fired blindly in his direction making too much noise that got the attention we were avoiding till then.

I went around and found he was dead, I took van keys from his shirt pocket and got in the van. Komal had already been in the van, I wondered how she figured out that the doors were open, maybe she was scared and thought that the big metal thingy would keep her safe. . .? What I should’ve been worried was that the soldiers who heard gunfire exchange were on their way to shut us up and I never learned to drive anything.

I searched the keyhole and shoved the key in it and fired the van up, I recollected how actors do in movies and stowed the gear lever in first gear, push left and up for first the only thing I knew, then pressed pedal to metal but the engine only revved to red, the dash showed I had e-brake on, I pushed the e-brake down and got the car moving. I did a three sixty right turn shooting the soldiers running out of the building in south west and drove tearing the second gate down to the parking lot. In the parking lot I glanced up to check on Shreya and she was firing her rifle at the oncoming horde of soldiers.

“Don’t shoot at them stupids we want them alive!” Their general yelled in mike which we all heard from speakers.

I have always caused havoc to anyone who were related to me somehow, Shreya faced same adversary. I didn’t go any higher that first gear and the van was heavy in the trunk, still I managed to avoid the wall of bullets coming from every direction and broke down the main gate and escaped to the free roads.

After driving couple of miles, I asked Komal if she remembered a place where Shreya could easily find her. She said she only remembered where her parents used to live when they all were together.

“Do you know why your family fell apart?” I asked her and regretted it on the second thought.

She whimpered with sorrow and replied “My mom died, I remember my mom used to say that my dad was cheating on her and she was very upset about it. Sometimes things would get out of control between mom and dad and they fought like dogs. She-she used beat us but she loved us. Then she fell sick and died and Shreya ran from home. Then dad thought I lost my mind and took care of me in the mental institute”

“You mean Anarchy Asylum?”

“I don’t know. I hate that place and I hate my dad for leaving me in there. One day Shreya showed up and dad took our picture and two days later again she left. I wanted tell her how much pain I was in, so much abuse I endured”

“Why? what happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it”

I should not have asked her that question in first place but talking about it a little with me might have relieved her and she fell asleep. I looked at the knob of the gear lever and saw somewhat scrubbed drawing of gear positions, following it I changed to second gear and then third gear. I was learning to drive by driving.

Half an hour later we reached to the apartment building where Komal and her family used to live. I woke her up and we went up in the elevator to the first floor. She ran to a door in left and said “This where we used to live, its locked”. I pulled her away and shot down the door lock. We went in and turned the lights on, she went to the washroom and I went in the kitchen to search for something to eat. I found fruits, raw chicken meat and outdated bread slices. Komal brought first aid box for me and put some betadine solution in cotton on the wound to stop the bleeding. I cooked chicken for Komal and had bread myself. We sat around the dining table, I looked at her and strangely felt responsible for whatever she’d been through. She looked at me and started laughing randomly.

“I should leave now” I said.

Komal stopped laughing and asked why I wanted to leave. “Your sister could be in trouble, if it wasn’t for her then I. . .we wouldn’t have got out alive at all”

“Wait with me, she’ll come any minute now” She said.

“I don’t think so”

“Why? Is it something you saw but are not telling me?”

“No. I-”

“Did you see her get shot?!”

“Stop! no! but what if she is captured and in trouble while we wait here?”

“I’ll come too”

“No, no I cannot look out for you and help Shreya in same time. Plus you are still weak you need rest”

“Well how can you expect me get worried sick if you two will come back to me or not? I am coming no wait here, don’t leave me like everyone did”

“I have no choice, take my gun. The lock is off so be careful”

I went down to the van and opened its back doors and found ammunition cache for AK-52, two AK-52 rifles, a bullet proof vest and a bag of grenades. I threw rest of the cache out taking one rifle and two clips of ammo with me, I put on the vest and carried the bag to the front passenger seat. On my way back to the school someone was talking in the walkie talkie in the bag.

“No matter where you run and hide Rahul, my men will find you” a woman said.

“How about we talk about it over a dinner, dear” I replied.

“You think you are funny huh? You don’t know anything about me and I on the other hand know everything about you and that girl you helped”

“Save it for a bedtime story I am not listening to you. Right now I am thinking you could be another hallucination I am hearing but still here is an offer, you take me in and let that girl you captured go”

“For what that little damsel in distress? Do you love her? You disgust me”

“Bear with me for a while and all will end soon. This is the only way you have got or you lose all your research along with my body”

“You scoundrel!! I want you and that other girl”

“First you’ll have to get me, only I know where she is”

“Fine. Come back to the school building asap and my men will not rip her apart”

I didn’t trust the woman on walkie talkie either but cutting the deal was a small chance I was left with. Not even the ammunition I had was enough to convince me that I could get Shreya out of the den unscathed. I only hoped that my odds would become even.

###

To be concluded.