What The Eyes Don't See

5 | Crash and Chaos

Overhead, there was another rumble.

Anay did not let go of the slab. It was somewhat loosened now. A few more heaves and it would be out of the way. But was there time?

Then Anay made the mistake of looking up again. He looked at the broken ceiling. Out of the gaping hole, where the sky was exposed, Anay saw it—

—that same ghastly thing writhing along its edges. That dark entity that he had seen in his room, with its blue blazing eyes and billowing arms. It was there, wrenched in that gap on the roof. It was trying to bring the rest of that slab down.

"Go away!" Anay yelled. "Go away. Don't do this!"

"Motherfucker! What are you doing?" the trapped man screamed. "Move the slab!"

Anay juddered and fell backward. The creature or whatever it was had brought down the ceiling. Its arms were now moving forth, moving toward Anay as if to stop him. Anay froze. The thing glided and placed its mouth on the man's neck.

"No..." Anay yelled. "Don't do it. Let me save him."

The words just rushed out of Anay's mouth in a pleading voice that he had never heard on himself before.

But a part of him knew that he could not save the man. He was doomed. He could hear the man's cries and abuses and shouts, but there was nothing to be done. The man was in the grip of that agent of death. Something pushed Anay back, a cold piercing force that he could not explain, and he was thrown off toward the door of the café. He was still crawling on the floor, when that remaining portion of the slab gave way and collapsed right on the skull of the poor man.

His final scream was cut off midway as the slab shattered his jawbone right into his vocal cords.

The sirens of various emergency vehicles filled the atmosphere. The stunned Anay was shoved by someone to the other side of the road, away from the crash site. He was still shaking, having lost all control and consciousness, not knowing what strange hell he had been pushed into, when he saw him again—the perpetrator of all this doom.

The entity stood there in the middle of the ruined café, unaffected by the falling debris and the clouds of dust everywhere around, and unperturbed by the crowds running helter-skelter. Though Anay could not see the facial features, he could sense that there was a smile lurking in those cold blue lips. And he could tell—it was a sneer of malevolence.

***

Anay took a while to spot Shanaya. In the mayhem that had ensued, she had run ahead, pushed on by the screaming people.

"Oh my God, Anay! You are all bloody. Are you fine? Are you all right?" she said without a pause.

"I am fine," he said, his voice phlegmy because of the nausea. He could say nothing more.

"What happened there, Anay? Why did you take so long to come out?"

"That guy," said Anay, his voice and body both trembling. "He was trapped. I tried to get him out... but..."

"Oh damn, what happened to him?"

Anay felt something behind him. Immediately thinking of the shadowy figure, and scared to bits, he turned to look. It was just a mother dragging her child away from the scene.

He stole a look at the café, terrified as to what he might see there, and noticed that a police van had reached the spot. An inspector was surveying the area. He was asking zapped bystanders a few questions. One of the bystanders pointed at him. The inspector looked at him, and the next moment, he was by their side.