1.38 — Quite Possibly the End…For Now

By the time I reached the place called home, the sun was already starting to go down and paint the sky in molten lava.

Today was…wild.

It still feels a lot like remembering some dream, some fictional tale in my head where I’m somehow someone special. I mean, what are the chances of getting attacked by monsters and being told I can fight said monsters? None. The answer is none. Or atleast I thought it was none.

And now…now I’m some half-grim reaper tired shitless out of his mind and body. If people wondered whether I’m crazy or not for saying I can see ghosts, hearing this tale would surely solidify their decision on the former conclusion.

The minty taste of the candy still puffed inside my mouth, though it did nothing to help ease the pain. Did she say though that it was a healing candy? Maybe not. Maybe I just assumed it myself.

I don’t know. I feel pretty out of it.

It must’ve been seen on my face too because for some reason, the whole way I was being stared at by everyone. Some looked at me with worry and pity, some with caution and some with fear.

I expect I probably looked or walked like some zombie.

That’s the only reason I could think about their behaviour.

As I entered the waist-length gate to our home, I realised it was already unlocked. Usually, me or my uncle kept it locked before we went on our way to work or college. Not because we feared burglary. Like, we lived in a really safe neighbourhood and everyone knew who my uncle was. Plus, the wall and the small gate were like waist-length height only, hardly what one could call an insurmountable wall.

So yeah, we kept it locked, just in case.

But it wasn’t locked now.

My heart tightened and so did my grip on the gate as I jerked my head in all directions.

Was it the Grimmers? Were they in there? Nah, that wouldn’t make sense. While I still have my doubts about them—I am deeply mistrusting…untrusting…I don’t trust people easily—I do feel like their intentions with me are pure and non-torture like. Atleast for now.

So, was it actually a burglar—oh no, wait, it’s uncle. He’s home.

Wait, he’s home? Why? Seems a bit too soon…

Now you could say that my first hint should have been the big car parked in the garage—well, less garage, more an empty space that uncle used to keep his car—but I’m not stupid. Mostly.

Yes, Uncle’s car was parked in its spot but then again, he hadn’t taken his car today. After my refusal to give him the cycle…you gotta be fudging kidding me! I forgot it at the college! I walked the whole route because I forgot my cycle in the damn college…

How the fudge does that even happen?!

I feel like I should see some doctor, get my brain checked out…

Eh, too expensive and useless. Atleast I can be assured that it’s safer there in the college compound than in the park. Anyways, the point being, he had decided to not use the car today so yeah, that wouldn’t have been a clue anyways.

The clue was seeing her shoes in the shoe rack we kept outside the door. And yeah, we keep it outside the house. It didn’t have all our footwear, just the ones that we use on a daily basis. The really good ones are kept inside the house.

And that’s not weird. It makes perfect sense if you think about it.

I could tell you how but I’m tired and you should just try using your own brain sometimes. It’s not good being spoon-fed every time.

That aside, I hope everything is okay. He has been working overtime for two weeks, someday he slept in his office itself. So while it’s good that he came home early today, it might be a cause for worry too.

Closing the gate behind me, I stepped on towards the porch and rang the bell.

Since he was home now I don’t have to unlock the door. But a moment passed and no response came. So I rang again.

And again, and while I brought my hand to ring the bell for the 4th time, my gaze fell on the window beside the door and the reflection it had manifested on it.

It was me.

Me wearing a tattered shirt with the edges stained with red tones of my dried blood. My chest was slightly exposed, though void of any injury thanks to Reizumi.

And while her magic healed me, it failed to heal my uniform. No wonder I felt so chilly suddenly. How did I not notice that? Was I really that tired? I think I really should see some doctor, this is starting to worry me…

Wait, now that I think about it, this is why people gave me weird looks the whole way! They could have just said, ‘hey, your shirt’s torn, did you know that?’ It’s that easy but no, why be a good human?

Shit in a cap, how do I explain this to my uncle?!

Oh god, today’s just an avalanche of problems for me. Shit just keeps getting worse and worse.

One day I come home late, the other day I come home with torn up clothes. My uncle would definitely think I joined some gang!

Wait, do we have gangs in this town? I don’t think I ever heard of one but who knows, maybe they keep a low profile or something. I’m not exactly in their group circles.

Another lie. That’s my only option. If he can’t believe that I can see ghosts, I doubt he’d believe my tale of fighting a bat-lizard—yeah, I forget its name, mangalolo or something.

Hopefully, it’s a lot more convincing than the one in the morning.

Where is he? I rang the bell two more times before worry and fear started to build in my mind and the thoughts of explaining my uniform’s condition began to vaporise.

Instead, now, dark thoughts started to creep inside me. What if there really was a burglar? Or, you know, my uncle’s a cop, he must have a lot of enemies. What if—?

I open my bag and scrambled for my keys while I called out for my uncle, “Kaka! Kaka, are you there? Open the door!”

Finally grabbing the keys, I inserted it inside the keyhole, twisted it open and ran through the hallway in search of my uncle frantically.

My ears rang with some high singular tune and then with muffled voices of multiple people.

Were there more than one invader?

Where’s them Ruh when you need them?! I tried manifesting those golden spheres of light but not even a lingering dim light lighted the hallway.

In a crazed mind, I entered the hall intending to fight someone…only to find my uncle laid out on the sofa, snoring, while some movie of his time played on TV.

My knees gave out their will to keep me standing up and fell down, relief washing over my head and body with a hint of annoyance. But mostly relief.

Covering my face with my hands, breathing into them and feeling that warm breath on my skin, I let my nerves calm down.

It’s fine. He’s fine. He’s still here. With me.

I’m not alone.

I sat in that position for a minute or two and then got up. I went back to the door, picked up my bag that I had let fall off of me and locked the door once again. Double locked it, infact. Can’t risk it.

Getting back to the hall, a romantic score played on the TV. Some guy chasing a girl through some fields while singing a lyrically beautiful song.

But my attention was mostly on the bottle of clear glass on the coffee table, half-filled with amber fluid, and an empty class with a small pebble of ice still inside it, struggling to not melt away, surrounded by open files, papers and photographs of people of varying age and genders.

And ofcourse the man who all these possession belonged to—my uncle. There he was, sitting upright on the sofa still in his uniform, his head bent backwards as his nostrils flared up and down, drowning out the melodious tune on TV with his horrifying snores.

I wonder if I snore too. I mean, it’s not that big of a deal and it’s not like I can change that but still, I prefer to not be the snoring kinda guy.

I bet his neck would ache a lot when he wakes up. I don’t even know how one could sleep in that position. I can barely sleep well in a normal sleeping position. I always envied people like him who could sleep anywhere anytime in any position.

Sure, my acts today can be said to be a cause of everyone’s envy too but…well, what can I say, that sleeping thing would’ve been a sweet thing to have, nonetheless.

Infact, I’d say that’s the true God-given gift.

I made my way to wake him up but then thought otherwise. I shouldn’t disturb him. He needed that rest.

So, instead, I laid him down gently in a much more comfortable position. Each breath he let out was drenched in the stench of alcohol that I was too used to by now.

Which I’m not sure is a good thing at my age…Then again, I know a lot of—well, a few of—my classmates also partake in the activity of smoking certain medicinal herbs so I guess that’s the least bad thing I could be used to considering I could have turned out much worse.

Well, I guess I should clean this up too.

Thankfully, my uncle was a pillar of sanitation and organisation so he didn’t make much of a mess. All the papers were and photographs were laid out at an equal distance, the bottle and the glass were made to sit on wooden circular coasters and no amount of excess filth was seen on the table or the floor. Makes my work easier.

I washed the glass and kept it aside to wash, stored the half-empty bottle to where it belonged and began collecting the photographs and documents back into their file.

But then I stopped where I saw the photo of a child. His face looked familiar, though I don’t know-how. Except for Ritu, I barely talked with kids of that age. Heck, I rarely talked with kids of my age—Quadro! That was Quadro!

I turned the photo around and saw the details written in my uncle’s clear handwriting on its backside—

Ganesh Thakur

8 years old

No parents, no siblings

Kantilal’s Orphanage

Missing Dead

No connection to others

Why him?

Who killed him?

I glanced at my uncle with a strange mix of emotions. Fear, pity, sadness. I had no idea how the kid became Quadro, nor do I know the answer for why him.

What I did know was who killed it…him.

And from tomorrow onwards, I will quite possibly be in alliance with that kid’s killers.