DELIVER US FROM EVIL - THE MOST CHILLING THRILLER OF THIS YEAR

CHAPTER 9

"Introduction pliss," Rishabh had a goofy smile.

"Rudraman Maurya..."

"What's this?"

Confused, Rudra narrowed his eyes.

"You don't know how to introduce yourself?" Vishal had a mocking, scolding tone. "Eh? You have to put your hands at the back!"

Rudra followed the order, obediently.

"Great, bright child!" Vishal softly clapped his hands, while Randeep bhaiya remained frozen, with dead eyes and a slight smirk. "Now introduce yourself!"

"My name is Rudraman Maurya. I'm from Faith Academy..."

He was interrupted in between, yet again.

"No, no, no, no!" Vishal grunted. "Not like this. Don't be such a bore. You have to follow the instructions. Do you know the introduction instructions? The guidelines?"

Rudra shook his head.

"Of course you don't," he scowled, under his breath, "all right. You need to state your name, your course, and your best four subject score which we are hardly interested in, for you look like a total dork, and we know you scored well, and we want to know what you are good at, like a hobby."

Rudra nodded. "Rudraman Maurya. BA. Philosophy Honors. Ninety seven percentile. And my hobby is to write,"

"Write?" Vishal frowned. "That's boring. Tell me something fascinating that you do."

"Nothing else,"

Vishal was disappointed, though Randeep bhaiya remained stern and impassive. Rudra felt like he was winning here. He was going to be free from all the other torture he would have gotten, if he had said something else. He had seen one ragging where a fuccha had to sing in his native, Punjabi language. He was just to answer here, and then be done with it.

"Dance," whispered Randeep bhaiya.

"What?"

Oh god. This is not happening.

"Didn't you hear futch? Randeep bhaiya said dance! Dance!" he pulled out his cell phone and began a Bollywood song. "Dance meri bulbul!" he laughed, as he jerked his body with the tunes.

Rudra could actually hear the warm blood that ran in his ears. His pulses beat hard, as he swiveled his head to see students of his batch and of the senior ones, watching and smiling at him. The smiles were mocking, waiting for him to give in to this torture, agree to it. They were waiting for his performance, all of them. Paranoia had struck like razors, slicing his awkwardness and ripping it apart.

"DANCE!" Randeep Bhaiya's voice echoed, leaving a tremor, weakening his legs.

He began to move. It was his hands first, which lifted up, while his feet rhythmically moved to the beats. He could see, from the corner of his eyes, how students were amusedly watching him from afar but not doing anything about it.

"What the hell is going on here?" the voice was sharp and cold.

Rudra stopped moving, as he saw a handsome, lean figure, ascending to the elevated platform, walking to the tree. He had tucked in shirt, with tight fit trousers and loafers on his feet. He was fair, with half of his face covered with a thick, bushy beard. He had hair like paper, slicked across his temples. Rudra had seen strong eyes, or he thought he had, for his father had a pair, but the eyes of this man—those obsidian enigmatic beauties, like gleaming stones, shot enquiring glances at Randeep bhaiya and Vishal.

"We are just having an introduction, sir,"

Sir? He must be a lecturer here. But so young, Rudra wondered.

"Well, I will make sure to introduce you both to the Principal. Follow me." He didn't have the tone of a commander, but his voice had a striking persuasion power, a rich smoothness that allowed Rudra to retain his voice in his head, and keep playing it over.

He left with the two bullies, down the path and towards the avenue like pathway with trees flanking the opposite sides that ended at the red bricked buildings of the college.

"Are you okay?" it was a sleek voice.

Rudra turned to face a tall girl, with thin arms and a slender frame, dimples and all, as she grinned, wavy hair falling over her chests.

"I'm fine. Did you...call him?"

"Yeah. I had to. Those assholes were troubling every junior. Someone had to report them—better than anyone else, I did it myself." She came forward, lifting her arms. "I'm Tanya. Tanya Mistry."

She had full eyes, Rudra noticed up front, with thick, curvy lips, perfect in their luscious appeal. She resembled closest to a Greek goddess for her nose was sharp and aquiline. That was her most identifiable and distinctive feature.

"You do this often?" Rudra struggled to be charming; a trait, he hadn't really had time to work on.

"Do what?"

"Save people,"

She gave a glinting smile as a response.

Again, Rudra stared at the red bricked building and the pathway, with trees and lawns of the college. "Who was he?"

"Oh," she paused, "He's our history professor."

"He looks...different?"

She laughed. "He is, actually. He got his PH.D at the age of twenty seven. He has even written articles for newspapers on evil and philosophy of evil, other interesting topics too. He is really brilliant."

That's impressive, he thought. "What's his name?"

"Dhanraj Sarkar," she replied.