Grey Clouds (The End)

FINAL PART : WAS HE WRONG??

Heavensburnt red, as the sky melts down on the cold waves; flickers masked the vibrating air. ‘I should help. Help! Whom? How?’

‘It’s okay. It’s just our fate. Don’t cry.’ Why am I here? I… I want to go home. Where am I?

‘Calm down! Boy.’

‘There’s nothing we can do.’

I wanted to run. Run back to Aai.

Agni hurled me into his arms, it felt as if the warmth of his hands would take my pain away. Their very existence held me with the hope to be free someday.

Land slashed apart, trees burst up in the air, burnt to ashes, magma surges up the cracks. They are getting away.

‘C’mon… wake up. Wake up. I need power.’

Feel the wind… Feel the wind. ‘Please, God awaken my powers,’ I need to stop those two. I want to run, chase them, stop them. How could they be killing the other?

‘You all fucking promised to be together, morons.’ They slashed their blades marching through the wind. Their hollow eyes dripped in the thirst of blood, let their bond slip from memory.

‘Energy Form Second: Explosion,’ Agni roars, as he dashes Aiyush onto a building. Smacked past through the construction. I could hear the screams, cries of inhabitants running for their lives. Why am I hearing this? Why on earth is this happening?

‘Mama, would you recite a poem for me?’ I felt their smiles. Probably her mother stroked her hair kissing in her forehead. They were happy.

Why am I hearing this?

Agni yelled, claiming his superiority, his flames lit up the whole sky. It was all still. I couldn’t hear now.

‘Water blade: Turbulent Flow,’ Aiyush charges, ripping the construction into mere dust. It rained, water droplets stained in blood. Curses in their helpless sorrows. I could feel it, soaked in blood.

Aiyush what have you done… they were solely living their own life. What had they done to be sliced to pieces? They were happy with what they had. Why did u do that? What did she do? She was just a kid. Why so?

I have to stop this. I have to. Move… Move… Move. Stop them! Save them.

‘God, please help me,’ I crawled, wept. If I had only known to awaken my powers. I ran, chasing them aimlessly.

‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ His sore voice buzzed in my mind… as if I felt his intimidating presence.

It showered blood and the streets jammed with flesh.

‘Ah! look at them run.’ ‘Nikhil… wake up, look around you. Feel these selfish humans. We need to create an order; We are the God.’

‘Aai.’ Glimpses of her wrinkled smile, those affectionate eyes blessed with melodramatic tears. ‘I hope she is alright. What if something has happened? What if she got caught in is these destruction? Shh. She is safe. Just run.’

‘Run, just five more kilometers,’ Fatigued muscles couldn’t bare more, excruciating pain stretched through the soul.

Houses ravaged over the entire landscape, people rushing out in the streets… squeezed to death. Every dust dyed in blood, every inch thronged with carcasses. Earth burnt over the red stains, people chased life down the highway saturated with mortal remains, one could barely walk through.

I was scared. I didn’t know what I felt. I couldn’t believe the sight, tears rolled down. I didn’t know how to stop. ‘Aai and Rajiv are alright don’t worry,’ shivering soul denied to move.

Move… Walk… just a few more steps. Please, walk.

Reached. I paced through the holocaust, couldn’t sense a being. The tin sheds blazed up like debris, there wasn’t any shack left. Heart ached with intense misery, my knees couldn’t hold, eyes- I wished to be blind.

Why? Why? What have I done to be living this life?

The body squeezed under the burning trash, molten scrap dripped onto his misplaced hands, his face cloaked with ashes. My hands wished to embrace him for one last time, eyes couldn’t believe.

‘Rajiv.’

I didn’t know what to do, couldn’t find a way to wail the anguish I felt. I was enraged.

‘You were searching here?’

‘Aai,’ She’s not ok. ‘Let her go. Indra.’

Rage engulfs my soul, I lost my control.

‘How could you? How could you dare touch my mother?’ Power surges through my body. Wind whirls around, accelerated each seconds. I need to save Aai.

‘Indra,’ Aiyuush yelled charging his blade.

Darkness escalated the sky, the flames glowed brighter, the rain couldn’t put out neither it evaporated. Indra hovered in his kimono, his overwhelming power leaked through the body- purple electricity radiated from his skin.

‘Aai is just unconscious. She is okay.’

Eyes filled with hatred, his soul craved in bloodlust, sword moistened in blood. My legs moved itself, something didn’t feel right. I rushed to Aai, my hands stretched as if I miss, I would lose her forever.

My hands held to her lap, fingers clenched to saree. I just wished to be back with my family.

‘Baba…’ Her voice fatigued. I wailed. The hurtful sound of sword piercing out its way, her body fainted on my arms.

‘Why would you do that Aiyush?’ Indra yawped in a sarcastic smile. How could a mortal be so barbaric? I anticipated every second for the moment where I would sit beside Aai and brother. Never in my disturbed nightmare had I imagined everything I had would be taken away.

‘Baba… you… have… grown to… be a handsome… person,’ she put on her delighted look. The ground soaked in blood. I bawled. Blood gushed out from the stab, blotted her clothes and my dead heart in searing pain. I didn’t find what my life was blessed with; to have taken everything. My existences as if was a curse for my family.

Her hands embraced mine, ‘Baba… live a beautiful life.’ She smiled, ‘I love you, son.’

‘Aai…’ She wasn’t breathing, I don’t want to believe. ‘Aai. Please wake up . It’s me Baba… Aai’

The only ones I was left with, vanished before my sight. Thoughts blurred away. Blacked out. That day shredded up my soul into fragments.

Stop it! Stop it! How could… you take the only fraction of my life I had, for my cause to suffer this horrible life? How dare you?

Life, when it’s on verge of extinction that there’s nothing left to live for. It pains, so extensively as if all those agonies we survived, were a bunch of lies. It’s not solitude that aches, but the urge to drown every day and yet to keep living.

‘Nikhil, don’t be absurd, recognize the gravity of the power you were bestowed.’

‘Don’t defy me, Nikhil. I don’t prefer to perish that wonderful power of yours. You are my child now. Let’s rule a beautiful world I dreamt of.’

A head slashed onto the ground- skin wrapped half of the skull, scorched until the bones blackened.

‘I feel bad for Aiyush. May his soul rest in peace.’ He smirked.

Did he say Aiyush? My eyes stared, legs shivered in horror; I crawled back with all my limbs. What on earth did I see?

‘I have avenged your mother’s death Nikhil. I will always protect you.’

I laid Rajiv besides Aai. My hands quavered as I they held to his charred soul, left un-melted.

Palpitating heart roared in anguish as sorrow spilled relentlessly. As I look at those bodies, their faces reflect in my imagination… smiling faces, that age when I had a family.

‘I don’t care; whether you save me with your stupid fantasy or avenge my unfortunate fate.’

My powers outraged. I stood up. Air stormed burst around me, the raging inferno pushed afar… the souring’s budged off.

‘You dare challenge my master,’ Agni stood beside Indra. His blood thirsty eyes. I hated them. Every part of me wished to rip his eyes off, burn him in his own flames.

‘Die,’ Agni whispered to my ears. When did he come? I didn’t see him. How? His blazing fist fasten towards my face; the flames scorches my soul. It hits. The sensation of the skin being boiled, while hit so brutally that it reshapes the skull, as you get blasted afar that every bone in your body creeks.

Every cell of my soul wailed in unbearable pain, as evaporating skin dripped off from my chin. My fingers felt my jaw and the mind left numb. I wanted to cry aloud if that would end that excruciating pain.

I wished death, yet my eyes as if waited to watch them die.

‘I won’t let you die… Nikhil. Don’t be scared,’ his toes pushed my chest. ‘Burn, you shit!’

His palm flared up, ‘Just another trash, worthless slum dwellers.’

Oh it was as if I couldn’t think of anything, the misery I have been through… the pain I carry, I just wanted to avenge the death of my family; end those infinite cries that rings my ears. This agonizing burns as if reminded, how Rajiv would have endured that extreme pain, when those molten debris ate his flesh, trying limitless methods to escape yet couldn’t.

‘Just perish from my sight,’ The hell broke loose, things happened itself. My hands raised itself, ‘Trying something.’ He burst out laughing.

He fell off, blood spilled out from his forehead. A beam of air, bursts out of my palm piercing his skull. I didn’t know, but I embrace this bliss bestowed upon. I didn’t care the purpose of my power, that moment the only thing I believed was to kill Indra. Was it right? I didn’t give a damn. I wanted to be far from all this shits after it’s over or accept death avenging my family.

‘Do you know Nikhil? You possess the blessing of Vayu, the strongest power element of all.’ Indra slowly proceeds towards me, as the flames smother all around.

‘I don’t give shit about your fantasy. You took everything from me, I can never let you live.’

‘So be it. After all this time of my explanation, you just choose to stay foolish.’

‘Don’t think yourself to be the protagonist, just because your life has been a misery. Nikhil.’ ‘This world needs me. Only I can bring it to a balance. Only I can end the oppression.’

‘Have you even experience the trauma when you are born an orphan? You mature just to realize you were an incompetent offspring to your progenitor. Have you ever been to an orphanage?’

He stopped moving, ‘Answer me, Nikhil.’ Indra let his hands in the air, sparkling his powers; roaring Thunderbolts smote in the sky as he saw the world trembling.

I was loss of words, startled.

‘Nishtha…’ tears trickle down his face. ‘She was my closest person I ever had. You should know how much it hurts when we lose the person we loved. We were seventeen… she was the only and everything thing I had.’

Pulverized earth break up into fragments, burst afar. The fainted exhausted calls in my ears, were no more. Sullenness!

‘A rope strangled her throat, suspended her cold body to the ceiling fan. I was paralyzed’

‘She always asked me what had we done wrong for our wellsprings to abandon us. World is embedded with wrongful mortals and I shall make this vale of tears a habitat for the truthful and courteous.’

‘How can you Indra? When the new world you desire is built with the foundation of these countless corpse? How can you be right?’

‘You are a blind foolish mortal blessed with a power. Sacrifices are just number for the fruitful fantasy I aspire,’ Clouds roared with thunder. ‘That world will be for us who deserves to live a happy life. That world will be a place where no Indra or Nishtha is born again.’

‘Indra I accept your anguish, but you are wrong.’

I believed him. This world in unjust in every manner. He was not a villain; he was just lost. That moment I felt as if I could just give him a hand and pull him out of this darkness.

‘I cannot let you be in my way Nikhil. I have dreamt long believing this, I will make it happen.’

‘You weren’t blessed with the power to massacre

‘I wasn’t blessed with this power I created it for myself. Of course with the help of your powers. You see, I was born with this purpose.’

I closed my eyes. Breathe, breathe, breathe…

‘Are you scared, Nikhil?’ he asked me with a demonic smirk. It was petrifying, landmasses blasting in the air, destroying everything.

‘Breathe… Breathe… Breathe…’ I repeated to myself. I can win, just kept breathing, I know I will.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. The Breeze blade forms in my hand. I stood there… Still… I couldn’t feel. Everything is so calm… it’s frightening.

I’m ready.

A swing. Blast of wind, everything swiping away, shredding apart. I held my stance sternly… he was outraged.

‘Aaaaa…’ Indra marched towards me in rage. ‘You are just like everyone else fuckin selfish,’ His every step, destroyed whatever existed on his way, his lightning disintegrating everything.

Energy overflowing through his skin.

‘You are doing it the wrong way Indra.’ As if the only way left to prove was defeating him. ‘Aaaaa…,’ My legs paced towards him, hands gripped my blade.

It was upsetting, yet I had to. He was wrong. I had to stop him despite the internal struggle.

Will I be able to defeat him or be defeated by myself? Was he wrong?

Isn’t it extraordinary how solitude gratifies over agony?