03-Unsavory Cuisines

In a certain forest willed with earthy smell of rain and chirping of birds, there was an area that seemed to be recently dug and filled up again, as this place didn't had any grass growing at the moment, it was a great place for the earthworms to take a breather out of the moist soil.

This was also the place where the birds regularly swept down to have a hearty meal of nutritious earth worms, this has become the hub of the surrounding birds and a large banquet had taken up a form here, hence the chirping here was a lot louder than any other place too.

In this hearty environment, a small red bird flew towards a fat worm that has just caught its eyes, there were other like it that had thought of snatching it, but they were outclassed by the speed of this small red bird.

It reached the ground first and screeched loudly to scare the other birds away, seeing that no other birds were eyeing its prey, it proudly strides over the fat worm and tried pecking it out of the soil.

But maybe due to the worm being too fat, it couldn't do take it out of the soil. Hence after getting annoyed by its futile attempted, the little bird thought to devour this fat worm right on the ground.

As it pecked at the skin of the worm, a red juice started to flow out of the worm and a strong taste that this bird hadn't ever experienced filled its mouth. This little fellow's sustenance was usually forest fruits and small insects; it's mouth hadn't come into contact with blood ever. Getting disgusted by the flavour, the small bird flew off to search for another prey, it looked back at the fat worm with grievance but was surprised to see 5 other worms like it wriggling out of the soil.

The wet ground slowly started moving, and the 5 fat worms moved the soil away to reveal a face and a hand. It was Gaur, there were 2 sharp scars on his forehead with lots of teeth missing from there place, but he still tried to reach for the skies as he wriggled out his body bit by bit from the soil.

His emergence spoiled the banquet that was going on as all the birds flew off into the sky reigning the surrounding into silence, but for Gaur this didn't matter, all he wanted was to breath and breath till eternity.

As Gaur's nose was filled with soil, and all he can do was breath with his mouth while he dug himself out, there were times when he coughed out blood and dirt, and there were times when even some bullets metal shrapnel were present in those pieces of vomit.

As his body revealed itself after a long time to the sky, one can see a body filled with scars that seemed to be from bullets.

"I ah…halive?"

*****

Gaur was glad to see that it was all over, he had just arrived on an unknown location and while there were other like him here, but they have all seemed to have lost their minds.

Ignoring those fools, Gaur was enthralled after what he saw.

"This is the place…. After so long, I actually got to have a chance at an interview."

The place he was sent to is actually the place where the terrorist organization had been telecasting their messages to the world, there was a whole small studio here along video capturing equipment.

This looked a lot like a cheap newsroom knockoff.

"But it still gets the work done."

As Guar moved deeper, he was surprised to see a fellow reporter like him here too. Though Gaur didn't remember the face of this man, he could identify the icon on the ID that the reporter was wearing. 'He comes from the dawn…. But why does he still have his stuff?'

As Gaur was observing him, the reported from the Dawn was also doing the same, he was surprised to see these prisoners here. He tried to identify some of them, but his mind couldn't process any one of them, or that they didn't fit the profile of any missing people he knew off.

The reporter even though that these guys were just deranged criminals instead of being prisoners, but this thought was shot down after he eyed Gaur, he somehow felt that this man seemed like him and he might have seen him somewhere.

These hunches were enough to tell who these 4 people were and what may have happened to them, though it scared him a little but as a journalist he still made up his mind to ask for their release after the interview.

'But they didn't say anything about the prisoners in the message, what is their purpose actually?' The journalist from the Dawn now had some anticipation, he was still someone who desired surprises that can go viral.

It wasn't before long that the journalist from the Dawn got his answer.

The interview went as expected, though it looked like the leader of this organization was giving up straight answers to his questions, the journalist was able to pinpoint some inconsistencies in the belief and the reason for the formation of this organization, but knowing the circumstances he was in, he never pushed on further if some questions annoyed the leader in some way.

"The weapons we use all comes from the military reserves of the same country, that claimed to become an independent state open to everyone 150years ago... during their announcement they abolished the traditional military and only public security forces were left…. But then why were the weapons that came into circulation 50years ago were present in the abandoned military base?" In the studio, a blond man with average visage spoke with confidence and scorn together, the truth he spoke off and the fanaticism he showed when he spoke riled up a few soldiers that were on the set, as for the reporter conduction the interview, he just nodded with a straight face, not showing much reaction in a professional manner.

"They claim that it is us, the common man who somehow brought them inside the country, which is simply impossible considering the strict surveillance that this country had often kept its public, only on the places that are frequented by the tourist is there freedom." The leader continued.

"ok! Then continuing with the question. How were these "Common men" able to outclass highly trained professionals and take over the half the security departments in just a month?" The journalist was sceptical, he always thought something was fishy going on, and now that he got the opportunity, he tried to dig deeper as they were already on the topic.

The leader of the terrorist group had noticed the sceptic remark and the sarcasm hidden in the question, but he still with a high charisma answered him. " The oppression they suffer is much stronger than the one we suffer; you won't find the family of a government officer of a high post or an average man working for security agency living along with the common people…. Do you know why?"

"Because of hate, it is not them who hate us regular folk…. It is we who hated them for being dogs of the government and traitor of their own kind, ignoring the corruption and outright favouritism that had been shown by the security to the outsiders and the natives, we hated them… even the ones that were good were ostracised by us. They started living in government sanctioned colonies away from us and our plight, so we bullied them whenever we met their family members, either in the school or the market as the common folks still dreaded harming the officers themselves."

"We are pretty ugly.. don't you think?" At this part, the Leader started laughing though his voice was a bit low. "Well them I guess you may have gotten your answer?" The Leader spoke, his voice blue filled with pain.

"You used to work for the security?" The journalist asked with twinkling eyes.

"An station-in-charge to be precise, the foundation of this organization was built by us that were hated by our own people, taking over the forces was not that difficult with the help of th elike minded people…"

The reporter nodded at this answer, he can imagine what may have happened, this may be planning of year coming into fruition. Even he started to somehow understand the reason for this revolution.

"As I have seen on my travels, the cities which are under your control or protection are still functioning on a base level, the school are still running somehow and the markets are still conducting business albeit the atmosphere is still blue. But from what I understand, this was always not the case, there had been some small skirmishes and crimes just a few months ago, can you give me the reason for that?"

The leader smiled at this question, it was as if he was waiting for this question from the beginning. " No!! don't worry, there was no purge of any kind. We are fighting the betterment of the country not harming it."

"As to the reason for the bad time that our people faced, there were some unsavoury elements who were responsible for this." Replied the leader.

"What kind of bad elements?"

"Bad elements of the kind you can always find in these kind of circumstances, those people that try to rile up the public in the worse situations possible, it was good that we were able to apprehend 4 of them in the action and pacify the public."

"And after some interrogation we found something interesting, these people didn't even belong to our country, they were elements sent in by outer forces."

At this point the journalist was surprised, he can acutely remember the four men he had met just before this interview, though not identifying them, he was able to know that they were like him.

"Are you perhaps talking about the four men that were bought in just before this interview."

The leader was surprised to see that the reporter noticed something so small, he nodded and continued. "Yes… only those 4 were captured, while the rest were successful in escaping, you may even know them since they are from the same community as you." At this remark, the journalist nodded, he knew was able to speculate their origins in their first meeting.

"They came in with the identity of journalist, while they spread chaos in the region controlled by us. After further interrogation we were surprised to find out that they were not the pawns of Ecoid government, they were sent in by other countries yours included to maintain the balance on both sides."

"haha!! This means we have the upper hands and they don't want to see the government getting abolished."

'A country in debt is as good as a slave…" The journalist though as he sighed inside.

"Here take it… these are the confessions from the four of them along with some other evidence that you may find interesting, expose those bastards.!!" The leader threw a memory drive to the reporter, who took it by surprise. ' Evidence… what kind of evidence?' The curiosity was peaked in the reporter, he can't wait to check the contents of the drive.

'But before that.'

"May I ask Sir to release those 4 men…. They may have done some foolish things, but they still are guest from other countries and causing harm to them may arise discontent in the hearts of those outside forces."

The leader shook his head in denial." No, I can't… they have caused enough harm already, beside I need to make an example out of these people."

The leader stood up and asked the journalist to follow him, he moved into an open space. On the side close to a wall some video cameras were set up along with 4 men kneeling on the floor with cloth stuffed on their mouth.

The leader stood to their side as 4 other men followed him to stand beside him.

He looked at the camera and began speaking."3 months ago, the peaceful land under our jurisdiction faced some riots and killings out in the open, the press on the outside reported that it was us who conducted the killings, while we thought it was the corrupt government trying to weaken our community, but who would have thought that it was neither of us." The leader spoke with a glint in his eyes.

"No it was the outsiders that we catered to all our life, those people that we treated like guest were the ones responsible for it. These people" The leader pointed at the 4 prisoners while continuing. " These men were sent to spread discord so that our debt ridden government never falls and keep asking for the for more capital to once again take over the country."

"Hence the moment we understood the truth, we have made our mind to not spare these men and execute them right here and right now so as to give those eyeing our resources a warning, that we will not stay silent!!"

At this moment one of the prisoners who already had a horrified expression on his face started crying, his mouth was stuffed but he tried to crawl with his knees but was held down by the man behind him.

"Look at him…. How he is crying after causing so many deaths…" The leader walked over to Gaur as he spoke. "Are you sad or feel fear now knowing that you are going to die?"

At this question, Gaur subconsciously nodded.

"Then where were these feeling when you were riling up the people from the shadows?... where were these tears when you caused the death of countless people?" At these questions, the scared face of Gaur suddenly started showing shame and guilt, while each and every moment of his being was being recorded on the tape.

"Now you feel guilty... hah!... people like you are the scum of this world." The leader moved away while spitting on Gaur's face.

The journalist from the Dawn was watching this from afar, and he had also noticed the pleading look on Gaur's face when he reached here. But he didn't move, he knew that he didn't held any authority here and in a way he was a prisoner too, he had asked for their release even knowing that they may actually be spies sent by his countries government.

He felt sad for the fate of the 4 at the beginning, but the speech from the leader and the guilt shown by Gaur testified to the terrorist claims.

The slight guilt of not able to save these people had died down in him.

He only had a regretful expression on his face.

"Men …. Execute the prisoners…"

The camera recorded each and every gun sound, each and every angle the blood flowed, each and every expression of the dishonoured men as they died a horrible dead, their bodies riddled with bullet holes, their cranium juices flowing everywhere as chunk of flesh and gut fell on the floor.

This record will be seen by everyone on the planet as a viral sensation of a yesteryear. This is also the record of the birth of a very eccentric man, who searched for the most unique and exotic delicacies in the world

"I have always hated getting shot in the head."-The Great Exotic Food Critic