 
Off The Edge

By Rahul Sharma

Copyright 2011 Rahul Sharma

Smashwords Edition

Table Of Contents

Foreword

1. All in a day's work

2. Imprisoned

3. Brother

4. Never Tempt the Rain

5. Ghosts

6. Just an Ordinary Coward

7. Master of the Trade

8. A student's life, a student's death

9. World War 3

10. The Rebirth of Tyranny

11. Memoirs

12. The Hostage Game

13. Moonlight

14. The Laboratory

15. Soldier

16. The Tigress

17. The Last Concert

18. The Monster and the Angel

19. Highway Robbery

20. The Little Narration that doesn't deserve a title

21. The Sorcerer

22. The Ironies of Life

23. To Avoid Pain

24. A World of chaos: My mind

# Foreword

It fills me with irony when I realize that I am writing a foreword. I have always been one who skips the forewords and goes onto the main book, coming back to read it only if I really liked the book. I have no qualms if you did the same.

The collection you are about to read (or have just read, if you're reading this after you're done) is comprised of short stories that I have written over the past two to three years. I first tried to write a short story in the summer of 2009, and within a month, I had finished "World War 3". So these stories have, over the years, changed in style. I personally feel that my own style of writing has changed drastically between "World War 3" and "To Avoid Pain", which was the last story I wrote. So, while you're reading these stories, keep in mind that they may have been written by a single person, but the single person has changed quite a bit between the stories.

Unbiased criticism is gladly welcomed at: rahul.bhasker.sharma@gmail.com. Or on my Facebook page.

Hope you enjoy the book.

#  All in a day's work

Mike Milanov felt like a slob. He looked like one too. His unshaven face was topped with bloodshot eyes and matted hair. His thin lips bore evidence of his last meal- a bag of crisps. His large khaki green T shirt hung loosely on his shoulders and billowed about his waist like a robe of sorts. His black pants were baggy beyond normal. This bagginess concealed the items he carried in his pockets.

Mike Milanov was a drug dealer- the biggest drug dealer in all of Rome. He operated alone. No thugs, no gunmen. Milanov personally attended each of his little "meetings". All over Rome, Mike was known as Angelo-after his renaissance namesake.

At that point of time though, the generally sharp and clever twenty two year old, had taken some of his own medicine. Literally. Angelo was completely doped. Twenty minutes after taking a smoke of marijuana, Mike Milanov found himself sprawled across his bed in his posh two bedroom apartment.

There was a soft ring from a classy looking clock on his designer desk. Mike wearily lifted himself from the bed and fell onto the floor. With a low moan, he hoisted himself onto his feet and, after trudging to his desk, slammed his alarm clock off.

Mike stared out the window at the traffic building up on the street below. It took him a few minutes to realize why he was awake- It was almost time for another appointment. All traces of dopiness vanished from Mike as he pulled on his trademark black sweatshirt. After grabbing a suitcase marked 'ZZ' from a long row of suitcases, and pocketing a pistol from the shoe rack, Angelo left home for work. He gave a friendly wave and smile to the security guard as he left. The guard, unaware of Mike's occupation, returned both.

Within fifteen minutes, Mike Milanov's number plate-less BMW was gliding across the country roads of Rome. He brought his car to a crawl as he reached a large farmhouse. The mailbox showed the name 'Zidael Zybysky'.

Russians, thought Angelo as he pulled the car to a stop, were the biggest crime lords. Italians like himself may be crime lords as well, but nothing compared to the Russians. Mike was pretty sure that the farmhouse he was about to enter was crawling with armed guards. Mike also thought it unlikely that his client, Mr ZZ would be present in person. The Russian crime lords always had thugs to do all the work. In fact, even the Italians followed this principle- It was only Mike who differed.

Angelo stood in front of the enormous farmhouse and stared at it for a few minutes, awestruck. He then proceeded to pull out a small piece of paper from his pocket. He nimbly dropped some white powder onto the paper and rolled it up. He proceeded to pull out a lighter and smoke the contents of the paper within a minute. Refuelled by this dose of Cocaine, and brimming with the confidence it provided him, Angelo touched the door of the farmhouse- it creaked open. Taking a deep breath to steady his euphoria, Angelo entered.

The moment he entered, Angelo knew something was wrong.

Four submachine guns were pointing at him, held by four burly American soldiers. Mike found this odd -Russians generally had Russian thugs. Mike froze. The briefcase was held high in his left hand and his right hand slowly inched towards his pocket, which held his pistol.

"Mr Mike Milanov?" said one of the men, confirming his nationality by his accent, "You are under arrest for distribution of illegal drugs."

Angelo did not twitch. His escape plan was already quickly forming in his mind, aided by the cocaine he had just ingested. He made a puzzled face at the four men and said, "Sorry officers. Me not Milanov, me only delivery boy. Also, I was told suitcase had cash..." Mike took caution to add a rural Italian touch to his voice. He then asked, "This Mr Zidael 'ouse?"

The four Americans stared at each other. They were told Angelo would come in person, not send some village boy. Well, the biggest of the men thought, we might as well take the guy's cash, and while we're at it, why not kill the kid? It would serve as a warning to this Milanov character.

Mike curiously watched the largest man's face. He was able to read every thought off it. Thus he wasn't surprised when the American thug demanded his briefcase. After a second's pause, Mike squeezed the handle of the briefcase and flung it at him.

It connected with a dull thump and knocked the wind out of the thug. By the time the three others had realized their leader was knocked down, Mike had scrambled out the open door. Before any of the men could even train their gun on the fleeing figure of Angelo, he had thrown himself into his car and was whizzing off towards the city in a BMW which lacked a license plate.

The four Americans now focused their attention on the briefcase that lay on the floor. One man bent down and opened the briefcase. Inside, there was no money. There were no drugs either- Just a highly complicated looking detonative device. Three small beeps later, the farmhouse was a large structure of blazing wood, with four charred bodies inside.

Meanwhile, Mike Milanov was smiling to himself. Once again the bomb suitcase plot had worked. His policy of not taking the drugs unless the client could be trusted had paid off yet again. He had hoodwinked the cops and not an ounce of Marijuana had been lost. Singing loudly along with the tune on the radio, Angelo drove home. It was all in a day's work for him.

~~~

# Imprisoned

I used to walk past them every day of my life. They stood behind the glass, frozen for eternity. They stood and watched the world go by through unblinking eyes. They were like constants in an ever varying world. Many a time in the past, when life seemed too chaotic, I used to meditate in front of them about how life would be if I was pale, frozen and good looking.

Now I know. And I wish I were dead.

If you are reading this, then you MUST try and save me! You are my last hope.

You have probably seen me art the shop, gazing out at the world from beneath an Armani suit. I was once like you: A mobile, carefree human. Now I am frozen for life. Imprisoned for eternity.

Do not ask me how I managed to write this- I do not know. The human mind is capable of performing miracles when desperate. It is adequate if you know that I am waiting for you to help me. To free me from my plastic prison.

I have lived like this for a month now (if what I do is considered "living"), and every day has been hell. Let me tell you how it happened:

I was a regular customer at "Aunty Emm's Clothesline"- the neighbourhood upscale garment shop. I used to visit the shop every alternate week- either to upgrade my wardrobe, check out the latest clothes in stock or to just pass time. The last was carried out either by helping Aunty Emm with customers or just loitering around and being perpetually amazed by the strangely life-like mannequins.

I personally knew Aunty Emm, the short, stout, kindly middle aged owner of the shop. A perpetually smiling woman, Aunty Emm always welcomed me warmly. She had no objection to my passing time in her shop. She genuinely liked me and appreciated my presence and help.

She had only one oddity in her otherwise normal personality: she was EXTREMELY fussy about her mannequins. I should've guessed then and there and never visited the shop again, but somehow, I never considered this odd. I always waved off my friends' stories about Aunty Emm's obsession with her show pieces. They were life like pieces, I reasoned with my friends, they probably need more maintenance. However, I too was flummoxed when asked how to maintain a mannequin.

Aunty Emm always ushered all her customers out the door by six o clock in the evening. She coaxed everybody to leave and return the next day with poorly disguised urgency. When asked what her motives were, she used to shake her head, mumble something under her breath and shove us out the door.

"She's a witch" one of my friends concluded as we walked past the shop. It was late evening and the blinds were securely drawn. "She's a witch and she's doing something sinister in there. Those mannequins of hers, they're......strange"

I countered him with the argument that new and different things were often perceived as strange.

"Have you SEEN those things? They're like people!! That little one near the window? Doesn't he look exactly like the guy who moved out last year? The kid who used to annoy us?"

This set me thinking. It had occurred to me too that the mannequin near the window had an uncanny resemblance to Annoying Sam. I decided to investigate Aunty Emm's nocturnal activities. But unfortunately, like the adage, curiosity killed the cat.

Then, on that fateful day, I snuck into the shop around half past six through the bathroom window. After taking a few moments to acquaint my eyes with the dim interior, I left the bathroom and entered the main hall. The scene was utterly bone chilling.

Twelve people, men women and a few children, lay on the floor if the shop, gagged and bound around their wrists and ankles. The sound of muted screaming was quite audible as most of them squirmed on the floor, trying their best to break through the thick ropes that bound them. All eyes were darting frantically and hysterically for an escape. Then I realized that the mannequins were missing from their pedestals near the walls, and that all the frantic faces looked quite familiar. Perhaps my friend was right...

A strange monotonous chant began to ring out across the room. From my position in the corner, I looked around for the source of this incantation-like chant. Then I saw the final element of the scene: Aunty Emm.

She stood in the middle of the room like a stout pillar. A single candle was clutched to her chest as she chanted in a low inhumane voice. I began to panic.

I watched with growing horror as one by one, the people on the floor froze, and their eyes glazed. It was terrifying. I resolved never to visit this shop again. Unfortunately, fate had resolved that I should remain inside forever.

All at once, I felt her cruel, piercing gaze on me. My blood turned to ice. I was paralysed where I stood as she slowly advanced towards me.

"Well well....extra curious, are we?" she smiled a dangerous, cruel smile. "I was anyway planning on acquiring a new one. I guess you'll do."

With that she began to chant. The candle flame began to flicker wildly. I was helpless as my limbs slowly lost feeling. My bones turned to plastic and I lost all sensation. After several minutes of excruciating silent pain, my eyes glazed and the world turned black.

When I regained consciousness, I was trapped. Imprisoned. I have remained there ever since. Immobile, mute and shamelessly naked at times. Every evening, I am forced to go through the same ritual as the others: Being alive but helpless for a few minutes before returning to our horrible life. That is Aunty Emm's idea of maintenance.

If you read this, you are my last chance to escape from this hell. Please save me. Save the others. Stop Aunty Emm before she creates an entire army of plastic people.

Our fate rests in your hands.

~~~

# Brother

#

The rain gushed down in torrents. It was pitch dark. There was a small street which had no name. It was always addressed as "The little street off the main street" It was neither very wide, nor very long, with about four houses on either side. A single sodium streetlight hissed on one end of the road, blurred in the evening rain.

A single tall figure walked on the street, oblivious to the rain. His long, wet hair clung to his face. He limped slowly and gingerly down the street-towards the street lamp. His left hand clutched his right elbow, pinning it against his side, trying to staunch the flow of blood. His right hand clutched a pistol tightly.

He slowly limped into the orange pool of light cast by the street lamp. He stopped to rest against the pole. His face was contorted with pain, his left ankle was broken.

The youth had rested against the pole for just a few seconds, when a car pulled up at the other end of the street. Like a black ghost, the car silently cruised down the street and stopped just outside the pool of light cast by the street lamp. There were three thuds, as three officers emerged from the black car, banged the doors shut and sprinted towards the youth, who made no attempt to move.

The wounded young man watched with mild interest as the three officers surrounded him, blocking all routes of his escape.

"Mr Jock, you are under arrest for multiple murder and rape. Do not put up a fight, and you will not be hurt further.

The youth suddenly looked at the cop who had spoken with an expression of great curiosity, "Rape?" he asked curiously, "I didn't rape anybody officer, you've got me mixed up with someone else."

"But multiple murder?"

"And proud" said Mr Jock, shaking the wet hair out of his face. He slowly observed each of the three officers, his eyes coming to rest on the man who was trying his best to stay hidden in the shadows.

"Well halo there King! Fancy seeing you here!!" he said, most casually.

King froze, half in the shadows. He heaved a sigh and stepped into the light. "I'm glad you recognized me Dan" he said in a deep voice. He stared with revulsion and rage into Dan's unusual eyes-which were bright red.

King drifted off into memories of those same ruby red eyes. Shining with joy as Dan and King won the tennis doubles championship. Gazing with fear as King stopped the hooligans at the college from ragging him. Twinkling cheerfully as Dan rolled around in laughter, having just played a prank on his best friend King. And finally, King remembered Dan walking away from him, cursing him under his breath.

King was brought back to reality with a start when Dan remarked loudly, "Are you going to kill me then?" The two other police officers cocked their weapons. King, keeping work in mind, also pointed his gun at his childhood friend.

With an alarming burst of energy, Dan moved at lightning speed. With a flourish and two bangs, he sent a bullet into each of the two inspectors, killing them instantaneously. King, unharmed, did not dare to move a muscle.

Dan panted furiously, his little energy drained. He glared at King with ruby red eyes. "You know that the people I killed deserved it King." He said slowly. King nodded understandingly, "They killed your parents didn't they?" he asked gently. Dan nodded. "But, I'm sorry Dan, we have no evidence on that. So you're going to have to come with me"

King began to advance on Dan, but stopped short when Dan spoke.

"They were your parents too."

King froze. He had come to terms with the fact that he was an orphan. But Dan's parents always seemed to take him in, treat him like one of their own. They let him stay over for days at a time, they bought him birthday gifts and supplies when he needed them...

"You know they were not the richest of people. They couldn't afford a second child. So they sent you to the orphanage, where they knew you'd get a better life than if you stayed with them, but they still loved you." Dan remarked quietly.

The street lamped flickered, bringing the brothers back to reality. Dan pulled out a piece of paper, "They wanted to give this to you soon." He said.

King quickly read the piece of paper. It was a letter addressed to him, saying the same thing that Dan had just told him. He heaved a sigh and pocketed the letter when he heard the click. King looked up and his eyes widened.

Dan had reloaded his gun and held it against his own forehead.

"I have nothing more to do in this life. So goodbye, brother."

Before King could stop him, Dan pulled the trigger. There was another loud bang and Dan dropped onto the ground, lifeless. King stared, shocked, surrounded by three dead bodies.

The rain continued to pour. The sodium street lamp flickered and finally went off for good.

~~~

# Never tempt The Rain

The rain lashed, the wind howled. Torrents of rain gushed down to earth, as though it was destined to be drowned. Trees creaked and groaned under pressure of harsh winds. Sheets of rain whipped the faces of pedestrians.

On the top of a high building, a young lad pressed himself against a pillar, hiding from the rain. The thunder roared in rage as the wind changed in order to drench the boy with rain, but he quickly shifted his angle on the pillar so he remained fairly dry.

His face showed an odd mix of fear and determination. Ever so slowly, the boy shifted his gaze away from the dark clouds around him. He spied the half open door a few metres away from the small structure under which he was. He looked up at the sky again. A blinding flash of lightning, a deafening roar of thunder: Almost as though the clouds were angry. The boy also noticed that a few kilometres away, in any direction, the skies were perfectly clear.

Paling a little, the boy turned in the direction of the half opened door, which led away from the terrace. It was about three or four metres away, but to the young boy it felt like several miles. He took a few steps forward, leaving the cover of the stone pillar, and got drenched within seconds. The rain drops felt like needles against his skin. He began to shiver with cold and fear.

"You're not gonna get me." He mumbled indistinctly under his breath, as he stood defiantly in the rain. He planted his feet firmly in the ground, refusing to be blown even a step backwards by the buffeting winds. He summoned up as much energy as he could and took a step forward, against the wind. "Ha." He muttered softly.

The moment the soft word left his lips, the wind intensified. It blew with a force never experienced in these parts of the country. The boy was thrown backwards onto the ground. For a few seconds he remained on the ground, winded by the fall. Finally with an almighty grunt, he lifted himself and cast himself back behind the pillar.

Just a short dash to the door, he thought, bracing himself. But the door seemed farther away than ever. As the thunder roared like a monster, the boy made up his mind. He knew that the rain would continue throughout the night if he didn't move. That was the price of insulting the gods. He had personally learnt his lesson, but he knew that he could not plead or beg the rain to stop. His fate lay in the sprint to the door.

Steeling himself once and for all, the boy ran for it. The rain knew immediately. Sensing his moving form, the rain poured harder than ever and the wind blew like a hurricane. The boy had to splash through ankle deep water to reach the door, and that was the reason he couldn't make it.

The water below his feet pushed him towards the edge as well, throwing him off balance. The wind took advantage of this temporary blunder. With the force of an express train, the wind slammed into the boy's side, hurling him over the parapet and sending him plummeting down ten floors.

With a sickening crunch, the boy hit the ground. As though to ensure that the boy was dead, a bolt of lightning flew down from the heavens and electrocuted his body, setting fire to the underbrush where he lay, in the process.

The moment the boy stopped breathing, the rain began to cease. The wind intensity and lightning and thunder began to reduce. The storm began to subside. But as the clouds began to dissolve, a final rumble of thunder echoed across the area. Along with the thunder came a voice, a voice so low and loud that it merged with the thunder itself, A voice so strong and powerful that it seemed to emerge from the rain cloud itself. The voice said, "NEVER INSULT THE GODS."

~~~

# Ghosts

"Its all absolute balderdash!" declared James, as the five teenagers strolled down the street. "Ghosts do NOT exist. People just use them to scare others from houses and thus avoid any visitors....and maybe even to avoid property tax..." he chuckled at his own joke. He ran his hand through his spiky black hair and looked at Rebecca, who was walking next to him. "But dear Rebecca would probably curse me to live in the underworld if I contradict her beliefs, so I'll keep my opinions to myself..."

Rebecca however, was staring, with glazed eyes, at the orange sky above her. Thinking of what they had planned to do; wondering if it was the right thing. Her hands instinctively clutched the beaded necklace she wore around her neck for safety, grabbing the cross that dangled down from it. It was definitely a little out of character for her to attempt something so risky, but since she was the one who had the strongest belief in ghosts, she had to prove it to her friends. Her eyes shifted to Number 211, Church Street, silhouetted by the setting sun. She prayed to her stars and continued striding confidently towards it.

Rudolf, or Rudy for short, had no opinion on ghosts. He was not religious and had never had any reason to comment on the existence of ghosts. He was tagging along only because he had had a rather boring day and hanging out James and the squad could make anyone's day interesting. He pulled up the hood of his jacket and shivered, it was going to be a cold night.

Stephen was a thinker by nature. As he gazed at the little house at the end of the road, he marvelled at how extraordinarily ordinary it looked. It had a small iron gate, with a rather small post box beside it. The little house sat at the other end of the relatively short driveway. It was no mansion as most "haunted" houses are said to be. It was a small, cosy looking, two bedroom house. There were no ravens, no dead trees and no skeletons in the front yard, only waist high grass, interspersed with parthenium and flower bushes. The house wasn't rotting or covered in ivy, it was rather white and in one piece, with peeling paint and grimy windows though. He marvelled at how peaceful it was and he found himself wishing to live in such a quiet house during his old age. Stephen mumbled a few lines of Shakespeare under his breath and hoped that he would not have the misfortune to see a ghost that evening.

Rosie, who was known as Joe for her boyish behaviour, strode determinedly in front of her friends. She was the pioneer of this mission, so it was almost an unspoken agreement that she was to lead them into the house. As she walked on, she noticed that her laces were untied. She paused and considered whether to tie them up or not. To hell with it, she thought, if we DO get into trouble with REAL ghosts, we're going to need a lot more than tied laces to come out alive. She cast a glance over her shoulder and checked if any of her friends had chickened out. Not yet. Adrenaline pumping through her body, Joe called out to her friends in a mock-formal voice.

"Ladies and gentlemen we have reached our destination. All passengers are advised to keep their wills prepared in case of an emergency. All cell phones are to be switched off during the séance and all visiting spirits must be treated courteously. Any attempts to contact the devil will result in immediate excommunication. In case one of you is possessed, the others must show no mercy and hack them to bits using their pocket knives." She flashed a grin at her fellow explorers, who were now rather pale-faced. "We wish you a happy, peaceful and possession free day!" Saying this, she kicked open the gate and marched up the driveway.

The five trotted up the driveway in the fading light, unsheathing their flashlights as they went. As they all assembled at the desolate porch, they pushed Rudy to the front of the group, to face the door. At six feet tall, Rudy, who worked out every day, was considered the muscleman of the group. With a grunt, he slammed his shoulder into the door, which, after a little resistance, gave way with a bang. The door flew open and Rudy was thrown into the dusty interior of the house, followed by his cheering friends.

The moment he broke into the house, Rudy turned around and examined the door. It was weak. Too weak. He voiced out his concern, but his ecstatic team mates waved it aside. "It's an old, unoccupied house, whadya expect?" Joe pointed out as she, like the others, switched on her flashlight and began exploring the house.

Rudy shut the door behind him and began exploring the house with the others. From the entrance, they tromped down a narrow passage into a compact living room, which lead to a cramped dining room with a rather weak looking circular table in the middle. The grey walls were adorned with several black and white photos of rather formidable looking people.

"Okay people," Joe began authoritatively, "We look around for half an hour tops, and we come back here to begin our séance. No touching and NO stealing. We'll regroup here in half an hour and conduct the séance here. Rudy, you can leave the bag here if you want, I doubt anyone will steal it..." Saying this, she tromped out of the room up the stairs. She needn't have set a deadline and a meeting point, because everyone stuck together throughout.

Fifteen minutes later, the five of them, satisfied with their exploration, sat down on the filthy bed in one of the tiny upstairs bedroom and rested in the light of their flashlights.

"Ignore the skittering sounds," said James haughtily to his friends, "those are just the sounds of the spirits running away from my awesome presence." Everyone sniggered.

"More like they're the rats running away from you out of disgust" Joe retorted, causing more chuckling. James kept quiet.

Suddenly, Stephen spoke, his voice soft, "Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm not aware of why this place is considered haunted, care to fill us in, Rebecca?"

Rebecca looked at Stephen, took a deep breath, and began her narration in a low and dramatic voice, "This house was built about forty years a go, by Sir James Claudwick, a veteran of the war. He put his heart, soul, and all his money into the building of this house, so he could live happily with his wife and children. But there was only one small problem"

"What was that?"

"On this very spot, a hundred years ago, there was a burial ground. Foundation digging revealed bones, skeletons and some rather intact bodies. The church declared that it was unholy to build a house on the old graveyard but Claudwick, having spent all his money on the project, proceeded. The house was built into what it is today, though not in as bad a condition." She shook her hair out of her eyes, readjusted her position and continued. "A month after moving into the house, Mr Claudwick died. Nobody knows how. He was found dead in this very bedroom, alone and with an expression of horror on his face."

She paused for a moment and allowed the horror to sink in. The four teenagers looked around the room, trying to picture the tall, moustached, prim and proper Mr Claudwick lying dead in that very bedroom several years ago. After a rather frightened silence, Rebecca continued her story.

"The priest just gave a big fat 'I told you so' and refused to conduct Claudwick's last rights. It is rumoured that Claudwick's body is still in the attic of this house, but nobody is brave enough to go check. And we are NOT going to check" she added harshly to Joe and James, who showed every sign of wanting to go and look for a dead body.

"So what happened next? Did everybody else die mysterious deaths as well? That is SO cliché"

"Shut it James, I'm telling the story here" Rebecca snapped before continuing in a low, mysterious voice, "So Mrs Claudwick lived a widow's life with her two children. But by the age of thirty five, she began considering remarriage. Soon she wanted to get over her dead husband by marrying a young man, Harold Martin, who was in the navy. His parents approved, her parents were dead, so the date was fixed and the wedding preparations were made with full gusto. However, the night before the wedding, evil struck again.

"Harold was spending the night in the house; the children were sharing the room across the hall. On the morning of the wedding, both the children were found dead, stabbed in several places, and Harold was covered in their blood, though there was no evidence whatsoever of Harold being the murderer."

There were several gasps throughout the room as Rebecca paused dramatically. Rudy looked a delicate shade of green in the torchlight and Stephen seemed to regret asking the question. Joe was staring wide eyed at Rebecca. James, however, was listening with sceptical interest, with an amused expression on his face.

"Well, as you can expect, Mrs Claudwick was devastated and the wedding was called off immediately. The man, Harold Martin, who swore that he was innocent, fled, and was never heard of after that. Mrs Claudwick wanted to leave the house, now that she had no family left. But nobody wanted to buy the house because of its gruesome history. So, with a heavy property tax to pay, and no source of income, Laura Claudwick ran steadily out of money. Until one day she was found dead on the floor of that very bathroom." There was a collective intake of breath as everyone turned to look at the bathroom door. After a moment of pause, Rebecca continued, "There was no evidence of any kind of drug consumption and coroners were unable to come up with a satisfactory cause of her death.

"They buried her in the local graveyard and debated what to do with this house. Nobody wanted to buy it, nobody was brave enough to tear it down, so it was left as it is now, desolate, unoccupied, and supposedly possessed."

The story was over. Unable to handle the deafening silence around them, all five of them began to get up and stretch their limbs. After a few seconds, Joe marched up to the door and declared in a low, excited voice, "And now, ladies and gentlemen, the séance!!"

The five young adults trooped down the staircase, their flashlights lighting every surface in around them with caution, in search of any traces of ghostly existence. They arranged themselves around the circular dining table, while Rudy pulled out candles, a loaf of bread, and a crystal ball from his shoulder bag and set them on the table.

Rebecca began to arrange the items with a sense of purpose. Six candles around the loaf of bread, six around the crystal ball. She pulled out a cigarette lighter from her pocket and began lighting the candles. "Yo James, close the curtains, make sure all doors to this room are shut. The rest of you, take your seats."

James went around drawing the curtains and shutting doors, noticing a closet door in the wall as he went around the room. He resolved to check it for corpses later. Everybody else tested out the rickety chairs with their weight, they held their weight with rather protesting groans.

Within a few minutes, the candles were lit, and everyone had taken their places around the table. Rebecca instructed everyone to hold hands and began conducting the séance in the light of the flickering candles.

"Great Spirits that reside in this house, forgive us for our rude entry. We wish to commune with Sir James Claudwick. Come, Sir James Claudwick, and talk to us."

There was a tense pause as all five waited for a reaction. Even James, who doubted the existence of ghosts, had his ears pricked for any sound of a presence. Rebecca tried calling again. And then it happened.

There was a loud bang and the tinkling of glass as a window flew open and shattered. The scariest part was that it was not windy outside. James made an attempt to get up to close the window but Rebecca and Stephen firmly gripped his hands.

"Do NOT attempt to break the circle," she warned, her face pale, "if you break the circle there's a greater chance of something going wrong." James resumed his seat, his eyes wide.

Five sets of eyes gazed at the loaf of bread and the crystal ball in the middle of the table, unsure of what to expect. All of a sudden there was a loud voice which made all five of them jump out of their skins. It was a crisp, masculine, harsh voice with a slight British accent.

"Rebecca Walters," The voice called, in an arrogant, authoritative tone, "what is your purpose of summoning me from my sleep?"

Rudy quickly glanced around the table to see who the spirit was "talking through", but nobody seemed to be possessed. Rebecca was shivering violently. James was pale and sweaty in the face, all traces of haughtiness gone. Joe was clutching her friends' hands like a frightened toddler, her eyes darting rapidly all over the room, looking for a sign of the otherworldly. Stephen had his eyes narrowed to slits, ready to shut them in case of an emergency. Rudy himself, the calmest and boldest of the lot, too, found his teeth chattering involuntarily. The voice seemed to emanate from the walls of the room itself.

"I-we.....is.....is that.....Sir James...Claudwick?" Rebecca asked tentatively.

The tiny room shook as the walls uttered a roar of rage, "You first disturb my slumber, then you ask me for my identity?! This is preposterous! You will suffer the consequences!!" There were several tinkling noises as four sorry looking vases shattered simultaneously. Stephen uttered a small whimper.

The sound of heavy, angry breathing filled the room. "My name," the voice said slowly, "is Jerry Lawrence. I left your world six months ago, thanks to a domestic accident."

There was a sharp intake of breath around the table as the name was sounded. Mr Lawrence was the father of their classmate. James and Matthew Lawrence were almost sworn enemies. The entire gang had been involved in pulling a massive prank on Matthew, just days after his father's death. James' eyes became as wide as saucers when he heard the name. His teeth chattered violently and he strongly resisted the urge to throw up. Rebecca looked at James, and prayed that he would come out of this safe and alive...

"I sense guilt," whispered the voice, which was still emanating from the room as a whole. "I smell guilt. Who here feels guilty? OWN UP!" The last two words were roared in a thunderous voice, causing several photographs to fall off the walls and shatter. James jumped violently at the noises; the spirit seemed to detect his presence.

"James Smith!" James froze, paralyzed with terror. He couldn't even shiver. The voice was now a slow rasp, still coming from an undeterminable source. "You seem filled with emotion. Guilt? Is that....repentance? Oh, I see, you've been troubling my son, and now you're contacting me? How stupid are you people?" His voice was rising in pitch, intensity and anger by the word. "I think I shall teach you kids a lesson..."

There was a loud thud as one of the chairs in the corner of the room flew up into the air and crashed back onto the floor. Mirthless laughter began to echo through the room, deafening all the occupants. The windows began to burst into shards of glass as every window exploded. Joe screamed. The door leading to the kitchen broke into splinters, showering the gang with wood shavings. Stephen broke the circle, and bounded towards the door. Rudy, Joe and James were not far behind him. Rebecca, devastated by her friends' sudden escape, scooped up the crystal ball, the shoulder bag, and hurried out after them, almost hyperventilating, tears flowing down her cheeks. The five ran as fast as they could, as far as they could, away from the house.

**********

For a few moments, there was a lull in the house, all was silent. A soft, careless wind whistled through the glass-less windows. The floor twinkled with shards of glass and china. The few black and white photos that remained on the wall, those of the Claudwick family, continued to gaze blankly into the room.

All of a sudden, a low giggle began to emanate from the closet in the wall. The laughter rose in intensity until it echoed across the empty dining room. With an almighty crash, the closet door burst open and a body tumbled out, crying with mirth. The small made body of the youth rolled around on the floor, laughing.

After several minutes of laughter, Matthew Lawrence rose up to his limited height, wiping his eyes before replacing his glasses on his nose. He viewed the ravaged room with a triumphant glint in his eye. Finally he had had his revenge. And it was SWEET!

With the help of a few simple gadgets, he had succeeded in scaring the living daylights out of his foolish classmates. And that wasn't even the best part. Matthew walked to a corner, glass crunching under his shoes, and pulled out the camera. The camera was the best part of his scheme. He had recorded every second of the "séance". The camera would be the ultimate source of embarrassment for the five troublemakers.

Matthew hummed a few bars of Bach to himself as he continued to gaze about the room, overjoyed. Hidden speakers, small range explosives and pulley systems. That was all he had required to teach those brats a lesson they would never forget...

"I," he said, gazing at the ruins of the room, "am the best ghost ever!!" He grinned at the walls and held his hands out on either side of him, waving to an imaginary crowd. That was when he heard the voice. It was faint at first, but strengthened as it continued talking.

"Well," said a small voice, coming from somewhere in the middle of the room, "I quite disagree....I think that was a rather crude and inaccurate display of the prowess of us deceased..."

Matthew gazed with mounting horror at the spot, a foot above the table, as a handsome man in his fifties slowly materialized. He had a well kempt, black moustache, wore a double breasted suit and a tall top hat. Only his pale shade of skin and the fact that he was standing a foot above the table, proved his ghostliness.

"Don't you agree my dear Laura?" The ghost of James Claudwick asked, turning to look at a young lady who was materializing next to him.

Laura Claudwick, shook her head, shaking her long auburn hair over her face. "Pitiful performance indeed. I'm surprise those young ones fell for it!" She looked over Matthew's shoulder and waved, "Oh, look dear! Sarah and John have come too!"

Matthew, who was already convulsing by this time, turned around. A boy and girl, not older than seventeen, gazed at him with sad smiles.

"Boys in my time never did such pitiful replications." John said sadly, shaking his head.

His sister, Sarah, looked at Matthew with a naughty glint in her eyes, "Why don't we teach this little boy what we ghosts actually do to people we dislike? What do you say, Father, Mother?"

Matthew began to whimper as the Claudwick family closed into him from all sides. Tears streamed down his cheeks and his bladder gave way. The four ghosts towered over his covering form, glaring down at him.

"I agree Sarah dear," James said, giving Matthew an evil grin, "also, it has been a long time since I've tormented a mortal."

**********

Neighbours of 211, Church street said that they heard inhumane screams for hours that night. The next morning, a few brave men entered the house to try and discover the source of the noise.

They found the devastated dining room of the house, with twelve candles on the table. But there was no body, no blood, and no trace of a fight of any sort. So it was concluded that the spirits were not able to rest last night because some fool had brought candles into their resting place. The house was emptied of candles and the men went on their way, eager to get out of the haunted house and begin with their work.

Matthew Lawrence was never seen after that night.

~~~

#  Just an Ordinary Coward

The world was at war. Chaos was a day to day affair. Six tribes, six elemental tribes, fought viciously to take over the land. Each tribe employed its strengths, its unique weapons and almost all its manpower to grab the title of the supreme ruler of the land.

The six key tribes were derived from the six key elements. Fire, Water, Wind, Ice, Earth and Energy. Two smaller tribes existed as well, two tribes which played little part in the war and suffered most of the consequences: they were the Nulls and then there were the Whites. The Nulls, as the name suggested, were those with absolutely no magical strength. They had suffered all the effects of the world war. But what they had lost in terms of magic, they had gained in terms of physical strength and swordsmanship. The Nulls were brave fighters and often signed pacts with the tribes to fight for them.

The second non-elemental group were the Whites. The Whites were a small clan who did not associate themselves with any elemental clan. They were the few people who had complete mastery of ALL SIX elements, making them the most powerful tribe. But the Whites did not believe in warfare. They only wanted peace. They lived in a small, nomadic colony, moving away from death and destruction.

It all started when Emperor Fraser died. He was the last of the dynasty of White rulers, who had administered the land well. He had adequate representatives from each of the tribes, and everybody dwelt in peace and harmony. The citizens were happy. The tribes were happy. But unfortunately, Fraser did not leave an heir to his throne. He was unmarried and had no children. So chaos broke across the empire. Each of the tribal generals fought fiercely for the title of emperor.

The capital city of the empire was reduced to dust. Violent revolts, bloody civil wars and loud protests eventually resulted in the destruction of the city. Each of the six tribes, too, left the city. Each one journeyed back to their native land. Their natural habitat. The Nulls were forced to settle in camps, open to attacks from the other tribes. The Whites of the empire were mercilessly slaughtered, and their numbers were drastically reduced, so drastically that they had to flee for their lives. They had to leave the luxuries of a city life and go into the wilderness.

And so the war broke out. Each tribe attacking the other tribe for dominance. A few shaky alliances were formed. But they broke down within a few years. The war lasted over thousands of years. Nobody showed any sign of weakness, which is why the gods decided to intervene.

The world did not have actual "gods"- The "gods" where nothing more than one man from each tribe, who had developed his powers to an extreme level, allowing him to dwell in another dimension. Another unique fact about the gods was that they did not quarrel amongst themselves on the basis of tribes. These "gods" watched over the affairs of the world, intervening when they thought necessary. They had watched the war grow stronger and more dangerous and had decided to stop the war before it went out of hand.

The gods, after much discussion and debate, decided to introduce one "Saviour" to the world. They charted and planned the course of the saviour's life. They decided what weapons to hand to him and when. They carefully chose out his parents and decided that he should be one from a nomadic camp of Nulls. Another thing that the gods confirmed was that nobody would know that the youth was the key to peace until he was of age.

And so, one quiet evening, in one of the Nomadic camps of Nulls, the hero was born.

**********

It was a dusty afternoon. Strong winds blew along the flat plain, blowing up walls of dust into the air. The makeshift camp was pitched beside the disturbed surface of the vast lake. Large waves crashed onto the shore, a murky brown in colour because of the dust. The tents in the camp flapped dangerously, threatening to fly off into the wilderness.

Somewhere at the edge of the makeshift camp of the null's camp, a teenager was shouting wildly to a herd of cows, trying to herd them back into the safety of the camp. But the cows paid no attention to their young master- they continued munching on grass, oblivious to the rising storm. The youth tried one more time to call the cows over the wind, but there was no response. Giving up, the cowherd ran towards the closest tent-right at the edge of the camp.

Tom Carson pulled open the front of the tent and entered. It was empty. Softly swearing under his breath, Tom slid back out of his tent and stomped off down towards the centre of the settlement, the storm rising as fast as his temper. Mumbling to himself, he entered the village pub, which was easily the largest structure-it was built out of wood and not canvas.

"Mom? Dad?" he called out, as he edged his way through the crowded pub. After a few minutes search, he found his parents sitting at the counter, listening, enchanted, to a man with a long, white beard. On seeing Tom's curious face, the old man smiled and said something to his parents. Both his mother and father turned around, looked at him, and smiled warmly.

"Come Tom, let us head to our tent," his mother said softly, putting an arm around her son, "Professor Tranus has something to tell you." She gestured at the old man(who was clearly not one from the village), who smiled and nodded at Tom.

Tom Carson stared at the three faces in front of him, his eyes wide. He shook his head a couple of times. He blinked a few times and looked at the faces again. No difference. They all still smiled warmly at him.

"No. it can't be." Tom said clearly to the bearded face of Tranus.

"That was my first impulse as well, but after checking, double checking and triple checking, I have concluded that the message that I have received was correct. You ARE the one destined to end the war."

"No." repeated Tom. "Such a person would be much more talented than me. He would be the squire's son, not a cowherd boy! He would be a child with talent, a prodigy! It's not me!" He saw Tranus open his mouth, about to retaliate. "NO!" Tom shouted, and a crack of thunder from outside reinforced his voice. Before anybody could say anything, Tom left the pub.

He walked quickly in the rain, outside the village, towards the cows, which were still grazing, blissfully unaware of the wild storm.

My temper has been a little short of late, Tom grumpily thought, as he climbed up the nearest tree facing the cattle. Tom wedged himself between two sturdy branches and began to think seriously.

Before he thought too much, he heard a soft flutter of wings over the rushing of the rain and a soft voice called in his ear "Feeling a bit surly?" Tom turned to look. On his shoulder was what could be described as a small pixie. His entire body was feathery, with a feathery wing on each side of his body. His small body tapered down to a single, scaly leg which ended with a talon, much like that of a bird. He had a small toothy mouth at the front of his face below a single, large eye.

Tom called him 'Jynx', his private friend. Jynx described himself to be a Cyclops fairy-a fairy with a single eye. Tom met Jynx during his travels with the village, and after befriending him, allowed the little fairy to travel with him. Jynx always visited him when he was alone, tending to the cows, for his parents didn't know of his existence.

"Have you brought any food?" Jynx asked Tom excitedly. Tom shook his head,

Jynx's sharp toothed grin faded a little bit. Nevertheless, the little fairy perched himself on his friend's shoulder and asked in a gentle voice, "What's up Tom? I sense you are upset, angry, scared and irritated."

Tom sighed and looked at the little fairy on his shoulder. "Some guy arrived today, some professor guy. He claims that it's my duty to end the war, to fight for peace. To create a new empire."

Jynx sensed the youth's fear in his voice. He cooed softly, trying to comfort him, "but you have known this as well? So what is wrong? For the past four weeks you have played around with your magical talent, despite the fact that you are born to those without magic."

"You don't understand the whole thing, do you Jynx? I can do this," Tom snapped his finger, a small flame appeared at the tip of his index finger. He blew it off, and continued, "But will I able to fight? To kill? To conquer? To blow up troops and cast mighty spells? I doubt it."

"It sounds more like fear than lack of skills" Jynx quietly retorted, gazing shrewdly at his friend. Tom turned to look at Jynx.

"No! You don't understand Jynx. Humans are not so simple." Tom said, his voice pained, "I do not have skills to wield swords and bows and kill people. I am just an ordinary person!!"

Jynx gazed at Tom for a few seconds, "So you would rather let the world suffer than learn a few, maybe difficult, skills?"

Tom said nothing, but he simply glowered at Jynx for trapping him in such a way. He shook his head, showering water on Jynx, "I am NOT going to change the world. I am NO hero."

Saying so, Tom deftly slid down from his branch and landed on the ground. He tried to call the cows yet again, but they didn't listen, and he set off back towards his tent, hoping to be firm with his parents and Mr Tranus. As he strode towards the tent, the rain began to cease, just like his temper.

Somewhere above him, a bird of prey was planning on ambushing the boy and began to dive. As he adjusted his weight and began to plummet, there was a strong wind, blowing him off course. But the defiant hawk persevered. His figure resembled an arrowhead as he flew closer and closer to Tom's head, his speed increasing every second. All of a sudden, there was a flash of lightning. Within half a second, with a loud crack, a bolt of lightning hit the hawk from behind, the hawk was fried to a crisp and dropped to the ground like a stone. Tom was oblivious to this.

Tom slid into the tent to see his parents and their guest, still waiting patiently for him. Tom didn't meet any of their eyes, he felt shameful. But nevertheless, when Tranus quietly asked him what he had decided, he defiantly shook his head.

"So, you're NOT interested in training with me? Not interested in freeing the world?" Tranus asked quietly, "your parents have given consent that you may travel and learn with me. They also agree that you are one of extraordinary skill. What say, Tom?"

Tom shook his head yet again. "For the last time, sir, I am just and ORDINARY cowherd." The thunder outside roared with consent. The tent flapped in the wind, threatening to cave in if the listeners dared to defy the speaker.

~~~

# Master of the Trade

Mr Eggson Polkiss was one of the most controversial people in the history of the town. No one knew what he did for a living, but he was filthy rich. Some say he inherited it. Others say he stole it. The truth was, he had accumulated it after years of doing this and that. He used to appear in the papers once in a while, for taking up scenes in a movie, or producing movies. But the thing he was the most famous for were his controversial statements. Every now and then he would state something against someone, or strongly support some law. He once called the educators "Ambitious morons". This created quite an uproar. Two weeks later, he commented that a bunch of rebellious students he once met "Show us how blissfully unaware our youths are of our splendid educational systems." This made quite another racket. Especially when put against his previous remark....

All in all, Mr Polkiss was hated by many, and loved by many more. He was often used as a mascot for political campaigning. Today was one such event. Hundreds of people crowded the Main street of the city as they waited on either side of the street for the parade to begin. Millions of leaflets and banners for the Liberators' party crowded every possible surface. The main attraction of the parade was Mr Polkiss and the founder of the Liberators party.

In every large gathering, there were always a few people who absolutely despised the cause, yet, at the time of the event, they happened to find themselves amongst the eager crowds. They often arrived at these events just for the heck of it. Or just to show off to their friends. Bole Kirk was one of these people. No one actually knew why, but he had hated Eggson Polkiss from the moment he became famous. Bole had always thought that Eggson did not deserve the fame and attention and money that he got, he always felt that the money could have gone towards those who were more in need of it, such as himself.

On the morning of the day, despite all his hatred and ill feelings toward Polkiss, Bole inevitably found himself surrounded by excited fans at the parade. But he had come prepared with a plan. Today was no leisure trip. Armed with a backpack, he had a schedule to follow.

Bole Kirk purposefully strode through the babbling crowd toward a building. He entered the Bank of Georgeson to be greeted with a smile by the teller. "Hello sir, how may I help you?" Bole returned the smile, but shook his head "sorry, just gotta use the restroom, I'm in a hurry today," he nodded towards the door, and the crowd outside, "All the excitement and activity." The teller then noticed Bole's backpack. "Would you like to leave that in the cloak room sir?" he asked, indicating the backpack.

Bole vigorously shook his head. "No thank you, I don't trust anyone with my camera. Sorry." he said. He then asked the teller where the bathroom was, though he already knew, he was shown the staircase and given the directions. With a smile of thanks, he trudged up the stairs. Once he reached the upstairs corridor, he dashed toward a supply closet. He found what he needed and reached the restroom entrance. He peeked into the room. It was empty. Bole breathed a sigh of relief; his task would be much easier.

He unfolded the 'Cleaning in Progress' sign in front of the door, entered the restroom and locked the door behind him. Now he had to get to work. He walked over to the counter of wash basins and laid his backpack on it. The first thing he did was as planned; he pulled out the dark roll from his backpack and stuck it on to the window next to the counter. While doing so, Bole was too anxious to look outside the window.

He then opened the backpack completely and emptied the contents of the first pouch onto the counter. Two large black objects tumbled out. Bole immediately began meddling with these. He connected a few wires on each of these devices. He then fished into the next pouch and pulled out a third, small black object- a remote. He flipped open the black cover and connected two wires. The remote beeped profusely. Bole tightened the wire and the beeping stopped.

Bole opened a tap and washed his hands and face. One major part over, he thought, now the next task was to only set the bombs in their place...

He lifted his dripping face above the basin, when something caught his eye. He turned to the window. Bole's eyes widened. How? Had his plan leaked? Why hadn't he noticed before? His eyes were almost the size of golf balls when he realized what he should do.

But it was too late.

Before he could move, he felt the pain in his chest. As he slowly fell, he looked at his killer through the small hole in the glass, and thought he saw a tiny wink. And everything went black.

**********

Adam Donald arrived well ahead of the parade. Two hours. But even two hours before the whole ceremony, the streets were packed. People were already wrestling for the best spots and were already chanting slogans. But Adam was not interested in these people. He could barely see them, nor was he trying. He was far away from them. Higher above, would be a better description. He sat at the terrace of a tall building, somewhere midway down the road on which the parade was to take place. He wore a black jacket, gloves and baggy pants. His face was left open to the cold, harsh wind that blew across the rooftops. His sniper was fully assembled and was already scanning the road periodically.

Fifteen minutes before the parade was scheduled to begin, Adam noticed something. The Bank of Georgeson – The squat building across the street from him – seemed suspicious. He put his eye against the telescopic sight of the sniper and scanned the street again. Then he realized the change. A window on the first floor had been blocked. Upon further scanning, Adam discovered that it was not blocked, but just covered with a dark paper. He tapped a button on the side of the sight and his field of vision went purple. He could see through the film on the window.

Adam watched Bole through the film, as he emptied out the contents of his backpack onto the counter. As Bole picked up each bomb and the remote, Adam slowly understood what was going on. He had competition. After about thirty seconds (which, in Adam's case, was a very long duration) of internal conflict, he made up his mind. He wrapped his finger around the trigger. He zeroed in on his target's head. At that moment, Bole looked up.

Adam couldn't help but think of the irony of the moment. A smile twitched at the end of his lips as he thought: They were both here for the same mission, each one in their own path. Unfortunately, their paths had collided and the best man had to win. With a slight twitch of the eye, he gave a wink.

With a slight 'shut' sound, which was drowned in the wind, it was over.

Adam waited for the next ten minutes, hoping no one would find the corpse of his competitor yet. At the dot of ten, the parade began, with loud music and louder cheers. Float after float came down the street. Finally, half an hour since the commencement of the parade, Mr Eggson Polkiss himself stood on the next float. He stood, waving at the crowd, who by this time had gone completely haywire on seeing their hero right in front of them. Cameras clicked rapidly at the town's superstar. Somewhere high above all this, Adam was ready, with the trigger firmly in his grip. At the right moment, he shot.

Being the ace sniper that he was, his shot had the desired effect. There was a few moments lapse before the people realized what had just happened. These few moments were what Adam required to make his getaway. Before the police had reached the scene, he was gone.

No one ever managed to find out who killed Eggson Polkiss. But they did discover Bole Kirk lying dead in a bank restroom with two bombs next to him. They knew that he shared his murderer with Polkiss. Secretly, the police were grateful to the murderer for saving the city from two serial bomb blasts.

~~~

#  A student's Life, A Student's death

I doubt this will make much sense to you. You don't know the consequences.

There was the general clattering and chattering as forty six students pushed back their chairs and stood up. The soft murmur had grown into a steady babble of voices, drowning out the sounds of the evening outside. Students trudged out of the class, discussing weekend plans, cribbing about homework.

I joined into the crowd. I stepped slowly and quietly towards the door of the classroom with the others, talking to none. A friend of mine had been watching me throughout the class. He came up behind me and patted me reassuringly on the shoulder and told me I would be alright. I thought otherwise. Everyone trudged back to homeroom to pack up their bags and leave. I swiftly moved in another direction, a dangerous task ahead of me.

The corridor was empty and quiet. I could hear the last distant sounds of my friends laughing and talking as they left the building. I contemplated the task ahead, scanning my area of work. All the doors along the sides were locked. Only the door I was interested in, the one at the very end of the corridor stood ajar. The door of my interest was a solid oak door with a frosted glass panel. On the panel, in large letters, were the words "PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE". I took a deep breath, scanned my surroundings for any movement- there was none- and entered.

It was a dark and cloudy day outside. The blinds of the principal's office were drawn and the lights were off. The wood panelled office had a heavy air about it. In order to avoid attracting attention by switching on the lights, I pulled out a pen flashlight from my pocket, switched it on and held it between my teeth.

I had never been inside the principal's office before and thus, I drank in the scene as quickly as I could. The walls were covered with pictures of the principal in various situations-getting a prize, giving a speech, hosting a contest, inaugurating the new wing of the school and so on....

My attention was drawn towards the heavy oak desk. The surface was covered with books, papers, forms, leaflets, pamphlets and.....and a single homework diary......MY homework diary.....

I hastily snatched up my diary and stuffed it into my backpack, covering up the empty space with some pamphlets. I stepped away from the desk and observed my handiwork. The table looked unaltered. I heaved a sigh of relief. Half my job was over. Now the only challenge left was to leave undetected. The principal would not be able to write that note to my parents and I would be safe.

Unfortunately, it was at this point that I heard the approaching footsteps and voices. The principal was returning to his office, accompanied by the headmistress. By the sounds of it, neither seemed to be in a very pleasant mood. Panic seized me and adrenaline rushed through my bloodstream. I began to convulse with fright. Trying to keep myself from screaming, I acted out of sheer desperation.....

They found my rotting body four days later. A week later, the whole story was pieced out and people shook their heads as to how a boy could throw himself out the third floor window just to avoid being caught by the principal. In retrospect, even I find it quite strange.....but I've learnt my lesson; fear of being caught can kill....

~~~

# World War 3

The sound of a single gunshot echoed down the alley. Unfortunately, the alley was devoid of people. Except two men. One of which was the murderer, and the other, the soon-to-be deceased. The killer was not a criminal. He had no cases or files against his name in the police department. In fact, the world did not even know he existed.

He was a boy of around fifteen years of age, with spectacles and long hair. His complexion was not as fair as the Americans, among whom he was right now. He was holding his pistol as though he had never used it before.

Or so it seemed.

Before I dwell upon the murderer, let me describe the victim. The victim was a man several times older than his murderer. He was a man with a million dollar smile. And over a million dollars in his bank account. He had a face and voice that almost all the world knew. Frankly speaking, he was the most powerful man on the earth.

The president of the United States of America stared at his murderer. His eyes grew as wide as they ever would be, and then, he fell dead.

The fifteen year old boy pulled out a cell phone. It was not the top-of-the line cell phone. But it was savvy enough to have a decent camera. He snapped a few pictures of the dead body, which now lay in a growing pool, of blood. He then flipped the body over with his toe and took a few more photographs of the dead man's face. He then sent the pictures to someone and then, continued down the alley.

If someone had been there to follow him, they would have seen his motive and who he really was, and they would have probably ended up dead as well. But there was no one.

Three hours later, a garbage man who was doing his duty in the alley found the body. He reported it to the cops and was convicted of murder.

Over the next few days, the prime minister and queen of England, the entire Indian government, the president of France, the heads of China and Japan were all found dead. Soon the earth was left with a bunch of leaders, blaming each other for the murders of these powerful people. It took these people a few more days to remember and realize the cause for all these murders.

If one had seen any two of the murders, they would have noticed that the murderer was always the same, dark, bespectacled, long haired youth. And if one had followed that youth, they would notice that he always headed for the nearest open, flat, ground. Upon reaching this flat surface, the youth would just vanish. There would be a lull for a few seconds, and then, a sandstorm would break out. Even if there was no wind in the area, waves of sand would be swept all across the ground. As though an invisible vehicle was performing a vertical takeoff.

In fact, that is EXACTLY what it was.

It all started three weeks before the murder of the president of the U.S.A.......

It was a rainy day at Washington DC. But the rain did not dampen the tourists' enthusiasm. The Capitol and the Mall (which was a large stretch of empty land in front of the Capitol) was filled with excited tourists, who were snapping pictures of the Capitol, which looked even bolder below the dark clouds.

Through the entire morning, a steady drizzle fell on the Capitol. Toward noon, it got heavier. Tourists began to run to shelter, although the more enthusiastic ones continued admiring the monuments despite the downpour. Suddenly, a rift opened between two clouds, directly above the monument. One would probably expect a bolt of lightning to fall from that rift.......but I must say, a bolt of lightning, even if it killed several people, would be much better than what did drop from the sky.

A Spaceship.

It was a subtle shade of silver, in perfect condition despite the light years of voyage. It dropped slowly and majestically onto the mall. It stopped a few meters above the ground. A door opened on its side and a teenage boy jumped out. He wore spectacles, had long hair and a dark complexion. He wore a raincoat, thus no one could see more than his face.

The "alien" raised his hand to a headset in his ear and mumbled something. He gave a tiny nod and then spoke loudly. His words were amplified and broadcasted to the entire area.

"People of earth. We do NOT come in peace. We come with an offer. Give us your people and resources. And in return, we will let you live. I will now put forth this proposition to the president. Any attempt to attack me or my ship will result in your immediate death."

No one tried to stop the youth. He calmly walked into the Capitol. Fifteen minutes later he walked out and into his ship. Five minutes later, there was no trace of what had happened.

Now, three weeks later, the earth was left helpless against this mysterious alien threat.

A few kilometers above the Pacific Ocean, there was a shimmer in the sky. A docked ship- the same ship that made a public appearance at the mall. Upon that ship were four crew members. The one who had made the public appearances, for convenience sake let us call him Joe, paced up and down on the bridge. His crew-mate, Max, typed away rapidly on a computer, while simultaneously watching the ship's status. The third member, George, was in the next, auxiliary room, carefully scrutinizing earth TV footage about the alien invasion. The fourth member of the crew had gone on a "recreation trip".

Joe looked at his crew mate, Max. With a slight note of accusation in his voice he said "I've been doing all your dirty work for you, when is my time off?"

Max didn't take his eyes off the computer. He replied "Once Jerry returns from his time off". This heartened Joe. He quickly pulled out his own personal computer from within a storage unit and began browsing earth's Internet for world weather broadcasts. "There is a city in India, Bangalore, which has heavy downpour this evening. I might as well take my time off there." Max, the pilot of the ship, stared at Joe. But Joe remained unperturbed. Before either of them could say a word, the ship's hatch opened and a large man, soaking wet, entered the bridge of the ship.

Joe gave a whoop of excitement and a triumphant look at Max. Max glared at the newcomer with hostile eyes. The newcomer, Jerry, grinned at Joe and trooped into his quarters to change his clothes. Joe looked at Max and uttered one word-"Bangalore." With a look of resignation Max piloted the spaceship over the Indian subcontinent and slowly descended over the city of Bangalore. Once he reached the top of the dense clouds over the city, he stopped the ship and arrogantly crossed his hands. "That's all I'm going."

Joe didn't care. He opened the hatch of the ship and, with a running start, hurled himself out of it. As he dropped through the cloud-cover, his appearance began to change- to his normal form. Huge leathery wings erupted from his back, his eyes turned from chocolate brown, to sulphur yellow. By the time he reached the bottom of the clouds, he had rust-red skin, a long tail and claws on all appendages. Spreading his large, leathery wings, he swooped down into the pouring grey rain.

**********

Gary Pathan's life was by no means a happy one.

He was the son of a famous athlete. But he himself was a complete failure. Or so he thought. He had failed miserably in his last four tests, his friends had completely forgotten his birthday and his parents had lost hope in his success. He was a short, stout boy, who was completely lacking in sports abilities. His academic abilities, too had failed him at the time of their greatest need.

Gary's tastes, too, were quite different. While anyone at school would die for a nomination for the elections of school captain, Gary had just forfeited his nomination. He believed that Adolf Hitler was not a criminal, but an inspirational man. He believed that the education system, government and political system- frankly speaking-sucked. His tastes in music too, were different for those of his age. He was not a fan of psychedelic rock or pop or hip hop or blues. He was a die hard fan of the 60's band- The Beatles. Gary had always been isolated from the others at his school. They made attempts to include him in their chats but always ended up regretting it.

Gary Pathan stared out into Bangalore's pouring rain. He stood passively on the balcony of his apartment, watching the faint grey buildings in the horizon. After a few moments, he snapped out of his trance. He had come to a decision. THE decision. He trudged into the elevator and took himself to the topmost floor. He then stomped out into the lashing torrent with rebellious determination. He walked right up to the parapet wall and stopped. He took a deep breath. 'I must.'

He got ready to jump. He was however totally unaware of several things. For example, he was unaware that a few blocks away, his mother had just swiped her credit card to buy Gary a new laptop. He was unaware that, at that very moment, his friends were sneaking into his house, to throw a surprise party for him. He was also unaware that, on the opposite building sat a large, gargoyle-like creature staring at him with large, sulphur yellow, eyes.

Gary took a running start and jumped.

**********

Joe watched, perched on a building, as the short, stocky boy threw himself off the wall of the building. He had made up his mind. Max would loathe him to his core, but he wasn't really bothered by Max's feelings towards him. Joe watched the boy fall, and then slowly spread his wings. There was a strong gust of wind which kept the boy from reaching the ground immediately. Joe dived after the boy. With a flash of wings and a loud swish, he was gone.

*********

Gary Pathan ran through the rain and wind, he jumped onto the parapet wall and, like a spring, hurled himself into the air. An instant before he jumped, everything froze. He hung in the air for what seemed like eternity. And a single thought appeared in his head- 'But they love me.'

But it was too late.

Gary fell. His fall was not so direct thanks to the harsh wind. He dropped, drifted sideways, dropped some more. ' I can't die! Not now! I want to live! I want to live just for this! I want to FLY!' The feeling of dropping through the sky was absolutely wonderful and exhilarating.

It was at this point. At this very instant, when Gary was suspended midway through his fall to death, that Gary's entire fate changed. From a depressed and lonely boy, Gary, thanks to this very instant, became one of the world's most famous people. The details will be discovered as I go on.

All of a sudden, two large, rust red hands grabbed Gary from above. Clawed hands closed around his ribs, much to his surprise. He looked up and saw something that closely resembled what he thought was "the devil". The beast had bright yellow eyes, small pointed horns and a fang-filled mouth. Gary screamed, but his cry was drowned out by the rain and the loud thump of the creature's large, rust red, leathery wings, beating hard to lift Gary and itself back into the sky.

**********

The human struggled weakly as Joe clasped him firmly and rose to the roof of one of the taller buildings. He set the human down. Threw him, would be a more appropriate word, and stood in front of him. He seemed to be hyperventilating and muttering something that sounded like "please don't take me, I'm sorry...." Joe returned to his human form. Once he was in the shape of the tall, long haired youth again, his captive got the courage to speak.

"You alien?"

Joe nodded slowly. On seeing that his captive did not faint, he continued, his tone growing stronger and faster with every sentence. "Yes. I am an alien. THE alien to be precise. And a human is exactly what I need. The way you behave, I do presume you are not particularly fond of the rest of humanity?"

On seeing Gary's tiny, frightful nod, he gave a reassuring grin. Or that's what he thought it was, his teeth were still of his natural form and to Gary it looked like a snarl. Gary whimpered. Joe tapped the communication device at his ear.

"Max, bring the ship to where I am, I got our action man." He paused. "Although he doesn't look like much action now..." He then took his hand off the device.

His hair hung down over his face wet with rain. He shook it out of the way and sat down next to Gary. "So, what are you known as?" Gary took a moment to understand the question.

"Gary.", he said.

"You?"

"Joe."

Gary paused, surprised that an alien had such a simple name.

Gary, who believed in extraterrestrial life, slowly grew excited.

"Which planet are you from?"

"A very very far off planet," Joe said idly, still staring up at the sky for his ship. Gary saw it. It was an invisible disturbance in the sky, since the rain bounced off it. The rain free patch of sky slowly descended closer and closer. Joe put a finger on his communication device "Bring it down George!"

Slowly, a rope descended from the base of the disturbance. No super beam, no hatch which sucks you up. Just a rope. With a stirrup at its end. Joe caught the stirrup with one hand, caught Gary with the other and yelled "UP George!!" Slowly and steadily, the rope began to shorten, lifting Gary off the rooftop. Before he knew it, he was in the lower chamber of a spaceship. It was a dingy place, nothing like those described in science fiction. There was very little light, and Gary could see the dim outlines of large stacks of crates. He wondered what they were for. But he was whisked away into the upper portions of the ship before he could get any ideas.

************

The bridge of the spaceship was quite simple, yet it was elegant and practical. There was a giant screen in the middle of the room, on which the status of the ship and other information blinked steadily. In front of it was a holographic keyboard. Along the walls of the bridge, were windows. There were four computers along the wall, from which information could be pulled up about anything. Only one passage led off the bridge, to the residences.

Gary was lead into the bridge by Joe and a curly-haired, willowy boy, whom he presumed was George. When Gary entered the bridge, he saw the scrawny, bespectacled Max, typing away on the main computer. Joe introduced him to Gary. He gave a nod to Gary and furiously glared at Joe. Gary was then introduced to Jerry, who was an extremely bulky and muscular boy. He had ears that pointed outward, like fins and a big spike of hair on top of his head, like a dorsal fin.

Once the introductions were over, Max quietly said, "So shall we begin with our plans then?" Joe nodded. He walked out of the bridge and returned a moment later followed by two other men. Max introduced Gary to these men. Neither of them looked like they cared. Next, they were introduced to Gary.

"This is General Van Li" he said, pointing at a Chinese man who stood unusually erect. "His entire unit of soldiers have given their loyalty to us, so we have firepower in human form. This," said Max, pointing at the other man, who sported a sharp moustache, "Is Vincent Gecco. He is a don from Italy and will also be providing us with arms and men."

Gary gave a courteous nod to both these men, and then wondered what on earth, sorry, what in the universe had happened to his life...

**********

"The humans, like always are confused. It is this confusion that we must take advantage of. Our influence has been strong on the humans. They have reached the tipping point. They are slowly turning against each other based on their loyalty. One little push from our side will be enough to start a major World War." Joe stopped. He looked at each of his three listeners, the Chinese general, the Italian don and the Indian teenager.

"This is where you three come in." he said, looking at the three humans. Gecco and Li, we need your people and resources. Gary, you are our action man. But before we tell you about our plan, we want your word that you will not betray us." Joe produced a knife from his pocket.

With a sudden, swift movement, Joe cut a slit in the forearms of all the three humans. A single spurt of blood fell on Joe's chest, from each of their wrists. Slowly, it sank into his chest, glowing faintly as it disappeared. "The promise is done." He then sliced his own wrist and three spurts of his pale blue blood sank into the three humans' chests. "Now, none of us can betray you in any way."

He then looked at Max, who was standing all along behind Joe, holding some documents in hand. Max cleared his throat and came forward to meet the three men. He was about half a foot shorter than Van Li, who was the shortest of the three.

"Here's the plan...."

**********

The city of London, was bustling with activity. This was nothing new. It was the usual Wednesday morning activity. People going to school, work, tourist spots, hospitals and so on. Many were excited as the weekend was just two days away.

Somewhere, a few miles to the north of all this hustle and bustle, was a forest. Not a dense jungle, but a wooded area of a few hectares. Somewhere in the middle of these woods was a large, spacious clearing. On the seventeenth of July, two thousand and nine, a large crowd had gathered at this clearing. There was supposed to be a convention on "The Alien Threat to Humanity". There was a stage erected on one end of the clearing. On it stood probably the most powerful man left alive. He was a leading politician of Germany. His name was Hans Kolden. At noon, he walked up to the mike on the stage and cleared his throat. The large mass of the audience, which were mainly eminent politicians and military-men, fell silent. Among them was a short, stocky, Indian-looking boy. In his right pocket, he carried a revolver, in his left, an alien gun. Gary Pathan looked around. He noticed the camouflage-coloured troops hiding in the woods. He also noticed the faint wetness of the soil around the clearing. Everything was going according to plan.

Hans Kolden began his speech in his rough voice.

"We all know why we have gathered here. The alien threat is now upon us. We have already taken more time than they have given us. Any day now, they will begin their takeover of our planet. We must form enough resistance. But, unfortunately, like all wars, there must be traitors amongst us, whom we must weed out." He paused, looking around as though someone would lift their hand and yell "I'm a traitor!!" No one did. All this while, Gary was slowly moving forward. He was soon right against the stage.

Kolden continued. "All countries of earth must unite against this threat. The only problem is that we have no information whatsoever on these aliens. Where do they come from? How many are there? What technologies do they have? Why have they come to earth and not to any other planet, as far as we know? If we manage to obtain the answers of any of these questions, we would be better off in ensuring our survival. As of now, I have a crude plan of action." he said, pulling out a piece of paper from his pocket. "As of now our first priority must be to-"

He never finished the sentence. From the front row of the audience, a single bullet from a revolver hit the man in his chest. He collapsed instantaneously. The moment Hans Kolden hit the ground, Gary leaped onto the stage. Before Hans Kolden's bodyguards could react from the periphery of the platform, Gary seized the microphone and yelled "FREEZE!!!!" His word had its effect.

"Any attempt to attack me will result in everybody's immediate death. I do not stand here alone. Even if I am harmed, my allies, who are the aliens, will make sure of your immediate death." To show this resolution of his, Gary shot one of the guards, who moved toward him. The bullet tore through his burly chest, and somewhere in Jamaica, a four year old boy lost his father.

All of a sudden, things began to move quickly. Soundlessly, a shadow fell across the clearing. Several people looked up and screamed. It was the dreaded alien ship. A single, small cannon appeared from it and a single shot fired. This shot hit the edge of the clearing, which had gasoline in the soil (added before the meeting by Van Li's troops). Within ten seconds, the entire clearing was surrounded by a wall of fire. Gary continued to shout like a maniac, despite the commotion in the clearing

"The alien rule will succeed!!! The human government will fall!!! War will break out across the world!!! Either surrender to the forces of space, or die fighting!!! THE WAR HAS BEGUN!!!!!"

Security rushed upon Gary as he had expected. He shot down several of the guards. He then whipped out the alien weapon from his left pocket and began using it like he was taught. He blasted the guards into fried chunks of flesh. He then jumped off the stage and began shooting down random people. He was on a high. Adrenaline rushed through his blood. All around him, people tried to escape or kill each other. This was like hell. Suddenly from somewhere, a single stirrup attached to a rope fell in front of him. He grabbed on to it and was slowly lifted off the ground. His plan had been successful.

**********

Over the next few days, thanks to the media coverage of the seminar, the news of Gary's wild actions spread over the world. He was criticized by most, but secretly admired and appreciated by few. Then, one politician said that what Gary did was right.

And then it began.

The person who declared his allegiance to Gary and the aliens, was murdered shortly, then someone who tried to lead an anti-alien movement, was brutally killed. Each person, who made a public statement about the global crisis, was killed by one with opposing opinions. Soon pandemonium broke out. Within six months, as Max had predicted, a world war had begun. Cities began to get bombed, people were brutally killed on the streets.

One year flew past, the planet was still at war and the aliens still hung around high above the planet. They seemed calmer than ever. After the outbreak of the war, the aliens had come onto earth only once, to declare that if the humans do not surrender to them, their forces will arrive within a year to ensure complete annihilation of the human species.

The occupants of earth, who were already quite panicked at this time, turned absolutely frantic and began killing each other with more fury. Two other alien envoys had been killed. They had both been leaders of pro-alien troops. Gary managed to survive, despite the fact that he lead several attacks upon the anti-alien colonies.

The concept of cities had vanished with the oncoming of the war. People flocked into either pro or anti alien colonies, where they were provided bunkers, rations and arms. But, these colonies were the main target for most attacks. Including Gary's. Gary's life was a permanent adrenaline rush. His only aim in life was to achieve alien rule. Everything else lay forgotten.

**********

Aleesha Thakker, or Alex, as she preferred to be known, was Gary's best friend. At least that's what she thought she was, until she had personally watched him launch himself off his building, from her balcony. She had stared, her hurry to get out of the rain had vanished. He fell. And then there was the giant bat-thing which picked him up and carried him off. Alex stared, shocked. She craned her neck trying to catch a glimpse of the monster which had gone off with her best friend. But to no avail.

Few weeks later, her father, a news anchorman, told her that her friend was on TV and had lost it. She watched the media coverage of the seminar where Gary went wild. She recorded it and watched it several times, unable to believe that this was the Gary she grew up with. She watched, with disbelief, as Gary shouted like a madman and killed people mercilessly.

The war had begun. Alex watched as Gary's family was killed thanks to his stupidity. Along with her family, she left home and joined an anti-alien camp. Then the raids began. Planes roared into the camp, dropped bombs, sometimes troops, and left. Alex was taught how to use guns and grenades and the tricks of combat. After her training, she often left camp to join attacks on alien camps.

About a year after the beginning of the war, Aleesha saw Gary. He was barely recognizable. His face had lost its roundness, his eyes had become inhumane and his body toned. He stood at the door of his airborne helicopter, yelling out commands and pointing out the weak spots of the camp they were about to bomb. He looked down and saw her, and for a second their eyes met.

In that second, Alex made her decision. Her mind had reached a resolution. She pulled a sniper rifle from the stand of snipers nearby. Thankfully, she was on the roof of a watch tower, so she did not have to raise her gun to too much of an angle to see the helicopter through the telescopic sight. Her gun followed Gary as his helicopter circled the periphery of the camp. Then the moment presented itself. With a deep breath, she squeezed the trigger.

There was a bang. Gary's eyes widened and his hand flew to his chest. He lifted his hand up to his face and saw the blood on it. His eyes then travelled to his former best friend standing on the watch tower, gazing at him. He could see her expression. She wore an expression of sadness on her face. Anybody would, if they had to murder their best friend. But it was inevitable. Gary had signed his own death warrant by taking the alien's side. He gave her one last look, and fell from his helicopter. His body landed in the undergrowth on the outside of the camp. Alex wiped a tear from her eye and shoved the sniper back into the stand. The last envoy was dead. Only the aliens left to kill.

The camp broke into celebration. But Alex did not join in. she was thirsty for revenge. Those aliens had stolen her friend. They had made her kill her friend. She had to avenge his death...

After the last of the 'envoy is dead' partiers had gone to sleep at the crack of dawn, Alex set off with two guns and a bottle of water. By noon she had trekked all the way to the local airbase. She found a one-man aircraft lying abandoned in a hangar and piloted it off the runway. She had an emotionless determination in her mind. No thoughts interfered with her goal. She knew the co-ordinates of the alien ship by heart. Two hours later, she was thirty thousand feet above the Pacific Ocean and could see the shimmer in the air. Her aircraft was almost out of fuel....

Aleesha Thakker was by no means a religious person. Yet, at that moment before she jumped out of the aircraft, she prayed with all her heart.

**********

The news came in three days later, and all war activities ceased. The wreckage of the sleek silver spaceship was found floating in the Pacific Ocean, a few kilometers off the coast of a small pacific island. Inside the ship were four bodies. One tall bespectacled male with long hair, one muscular, bulky male with spiked hair that looked like fins, and two other males, one scrawny and pathetically built and the other willowy and curly haired. Meanwhile, the pacific island city of Honolulu had gained a new citizen, a young lady named Ms Freyda Focett, formerly known as Aleesha Thakker.

The world had awoken. People began to realize that the past year had no benefits, only losses. The aliens were dead; the alien invasion was over, unfinished. Thousands of lives had been taken, to no benefit whatsoever. Governments had been ruined, valuable politicians killed out of blind faith. The earth was left in a pitiable and pathetic state.

**********

Two hundred and thirty three years later, once the earth's situation was stabilized and man was able to travel into the stars, a startling discovery was made. After searching for several years about the alien menace that had once threatened the earth, information was finally found. About three hundred years ago, there had been an epic intergalactic war between two civilizations. The war lasted almost a century and finally, one of the races won. An entire civilization was wiped out because of the war. Only four survivors were left. Four survivors who had come to earth in the last warship left, trying to conquer lands to amass manpower to take revenge on their destroyers. Four survivors who had acted as though they had an entire planet under their control, ready to attack the earth. Four pathetic survivors who had terrorized billions of humans for an entire year.

Even two hundred and thirty three years later, one could see the wreckage of the silver grey ship at the bottom of the ocean from the surface. The clear water betrayed the last clues of that traumatized year faced by mankind, thanks to that depressed young man named Gary Pathan.

~~~

#  The Rebirth of Tyranny

23rd Market Street was a busy little place in the outskirts of the city. On one side of the street, were small wooden shacks which housed all sorts of small shops and the residences of their owners. On the other side of the street was bare land- space to set up temporary stalls. The street itself was quite narrow, and only about fifty metres long.

At one end, the road turned ninety degrees and went towards the city-a short walk away. The other end of the road wound off into the country side. On a clear day, one could see the edge of the forest from that end of the road.

The bare land on the side of the road had several tents pitched on it. It was almost a puny village- tents interspersed with fires and cooking pots. People, too, roamed around these tents, cooking, bathing (in the open), gathering food or just roaming. These people had no job, no education and starved through most of their lives. Their very existence was because of the shopkeepers' pity. They had spared a few metres of land immediately next to the road for the temporary stalls.

At night, this little colony bustled with life. Little fires blazed at small clearings between tents. Black, brazen, semi-nude men sat around these fires, cooking, talking or singing songs in rough voices. The women mainly stayed inside the tents, tending to their little pot bellied children.

It was one such night, when the howling winds made the tents flap dangerously, that the colony vanished. When the shopkeepers shut their doors, one by one, the cluster of tents seemed a little shaky due to the wind, but fine enough. But when they opened up their windows and doors the next morning, it was gone. The ground lay flat and new, as though it had never ever been trod upon, without a blemish on its smooth surface. Nobody knows how this mysterious transformation occurred. Nobody, except me. Here's what happened that night:

The wind and thunder were having something of a contest to see who was louder. Lightning streaked across the sky ever so often, like a faulty lamp. Rain rushed down with such force that everyone had to move bent-double.

Most of the shops had closed down for the night. A few lamps burned in some of the houses' upper storeys. Eventually, these lights went off as well. The row of shacks stood like wooden soldiers against the storm, creaking ominously.

Across the street, the little fires of the colony had been reduced to embers. Nobody roamed around the tents- they were all snuggled up in their little tents, which waved wildly like flags. These tents remained earthbound only by a few tiny pegs.

All of a sudden, one of these pegs gave way and the tent held down by it was blown airborne by the strong wind. With an eerie motion, the tent floated across the sky, leaving its inmates covering on the ground. There was a bright flash of lightning, and the airborne tent caught fire. The following crack of thunder drowned out the despaired cries of the villagers. The burning piece of canvas flew off into the distance.

It is at this point that my story actually begins.

There was a second flash of lightning. This bolt flew down from the heavens and struck the tarmac at one end of 23rd Market Street- towards the forest. There was an accompanying crack, which was barely heard over the wind. Once the flash of light had gone, there was a man standing on the place where it struck the earth.

He had a wide forehead and determined black eyes. His long white hair flew wildly about his face in the wind. His silver beard obscured the bottom half of his face. He wore a cloak of dull brown, which hid his tall body. This man looked like the personification of wisdom, experience and courage. His eyes were narrowed and his lips moved, but he did not utter a sound.

His narrowed eyes scanned his surroundings as he continued to chant soundlessly. There was a sudden flash of white light on the roof of one of the wooden houses. The old man's muscular face twitched briefly in a smile. He called out, in a voice louder than one would expect him to have, "Show yourself!!"

From the roof of the house, a figure dropped onto the street. Further observation showed that this was a feeble, elderly man-older than the silver haired man. His skin was yellow; his gnarled fingers gripped a walking stick tightly. He was bent double and his small, beady eyes were shadowed by his large, dome like, bald head. Apparently, this old man had leapt nimbly on to the street from the roof.

The bearded old man noticed this flaw too, for he called out, "You can't fool me Rufus!"

Rufus looked at the speaker through his tiny eyes for a few seconds. He shrugged his scrawny shoulders and called out in a feeble voice, "Well, it was worth a try!" Then, with unusual agility, Rufus twisted and turned. With a few loud popping cracks, the weak old man turned into an olive skinned youth with shoulder length yellow hair and a red tunic. He twirled his wooden staff and transformed it into a long, beautiful sword, which he sheathed. With one final movement, he rose up to his full height- a little taller than the old man- and strode down the street towards him with authority.

The old man smiled and held out his arms, "Rufus, my student, its been such a long time..." he smiled. Rufus, however, was in no mood to smile. His blue eyes burned with excitement and his voice poorly hid his eagerness. He didn't even bother about the raging storm. He just strode up to his master and asked in a low voice, "Well, have you brought it?"

It was visible that the old man did not want the topic to come up so soon, for his warm smile faltered. This momentary change in his expression was enough for Rufus to understand. Rufus' face expressed doubt, anxiety and anger, all in a second. He let out a loud, harsh cry. With a wave of his hand and a flash of purple light, Rufus' old teacher was thrown off his feet and hurled down the road, towards the countryside.

"Jerome you foolish old man, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH IT!?" Rufus' voice rose louder with every syllable. His anger was clearly visible on his face. He strode up to the old man, who had quickly got back onto his feet. All traces of warmth and kindness had vanished from old Jerome's face. "I destroyed it Rufus", he said simply.

Blank shock played on Rufus' young face. His knees buckled and he crashed onto the wet tarmac. He shivered involuntarily out of shock and cold from the pouring rain. He babbled a few nonsensical words in his shock. Finally, he was able to string together three words, "How...dare....you!!"

Jerome heaved a mighty sigh. "Rufus, I had too. You have no idea what you had discovered!! It is a secret unknown to the world and it is best left so! No! Listen to me!" he added urgently as Rufus managed to pull himself to his feet, looking livid. Rufus brought down his hand, which was about to curse his master yet again, and rested it on the hilt of his sheathed sword.

"If the information got out," Jerome continued, staring intently at his pupil, "the power hungry would find the pendant, put it on, and havoc would ensue. The entire Slewynic war would repeat itself!"

It was at this point that a roar of thunder echoed across the skies, as though it wanted to remind the two wizards of its existence. As the rain intensified and the thunder subsided, Rufus gave a snort of laughter as he said, "Yea right! I know the truth you old fool! You want the credit for MY discovery." Rufus drew his sword in one fluid motion and pointed it at his old master. The metal blade flashed menacingly, and a multi colour beam of light shot out of its tip.

Jerome reacted within a nanosecond. With a swift and well phrased spell, the sheet of rain immediately in front of him froze into a solid shield of ice and hovered on the spot. Rufus' spell was reflected towards the village, setting fire to about four tents. (I must add that it is at this point that the destruction of the colony begins)

"Credit?" scoffed Jerome, "I don't need credit, you foolish boy!! I'm trying to save the world from the reign of a mad wizard!!" the cries of the panicked people reached their ears. For a moment, both teacher and pupil turned to gaze at the primitive people running around the fire blazing deep inside the colony.

"Lord Slewyn was a great man. He tried to rid the world of its evils. He was a genius." Rufus said softly, turning back to look at his teacher.

Jerome's head snapped back towards Rufus, his face hardening with shock and outrage, "Great man? RID the world of evils? GENIUS?!? Boy, you better check your facts!! This man assassinated the greatest king in history and imposed his regime of evil. He CREATED evil! As for your opinion of him being a genius, he was mentally abnormal, it was a proven fact."

Rufus listened to the whole thing. "And how do YOU know all this? Did mommy tell you?" he asked, his sarcastic tone of voice indicating his rapidly dwindling respect for his teacher.

Jerome did not react to his student's sarcasm. In fact, an odd smile twisted across his face. "NO Rufus, mommy didn't tell me," he said quietly, "I know because Slewyn was my brother."

It was now Rufus' turn to scoff. "Brother?!" he asked incredulously, "for your kind information lord Slewyn lived over a thousand years ago!!"

There was a slight twinkle in Jerome's eyes as he said, "There is a lot one can do with magic if they know how to..." But his smile did not last for long, as Rufus quietly spoke again. "So you don't have ANYTHING?" Jerome shook his head sadly. Rufus finally accepted the fact with a small nod, heaving a sigh. Twelve years of research, all gone, destroyed by the man he trusted.

Suddenly a twinkle of hope emerged. He still had.......

A similar thought must have struck Jerome, as he suddenly called out in a warm voice, as though trying to forget their argument, "So where have you been for the last year and a half my friend?"

A small smile twitched on the edges of Rufus' lips. "Do you know why I set this mess," he indicated the colony, inside which the fire was spreading fast "as our meeting point?"

Jerome looked at the colony of tents, flapping in the wind, oblivious to the sound of its screaming residents. "Slewyn's castle. It stood right here, didn't it?"

Rufus nodded. He took a step toward Jerome as he slipped his hand into his cloak. A smile played on his lips as he slowly pulled out a thin black rope. His grin widened as he watched Jerome's expression go from curiosity to comprehension to shock to horror. By the time Rufus had drawn out the necklace completely, he was laughing- a wild evil laugh. The necklace was nothing but a thin black rope with a large, amber amulet. On the amulet was a large, intricate rune, shaped like an S

"No...no...it can't be" Jerome whispered, awestruck, "I hid it so well! No one would be able to find it..."

"Lord Slewyn knew. He knew what you were going to do and where you were going to hide it." Rufus said with a psychotic grin "He left signs everywhere for loyal followers like me. And now..."

Rufus made to put on the necklace, his eyes glinting maliciously. Suddenly, Jerome uttered a spell with a harsh cry. A bolt of green light shot towards Rufus and hit the pendant. Instead of shattering, however, the pendant absorbed the light and began to spin rapidly, shining brightly. Then, with a loud blast, the spell shot out of the amulet, towards the sea of tents. Within seconds, there was another fire, which joined the first to create a deadly flame, unhindered by the pouring rain, and killed many people.

At this point you must be wondering how come none of the residents of the wooden houses heard or saw the epic battle between teacher and student. This was simply because Rufus had effectively shielded their houses from all light and sound from that direction. The other question that might plague your mind is, why didn't any of the residents of the little colony attack the two wizards? Frankly- they were not smart enough to.

With a single victorious movement, Rufus donned the necklace. Several things happened at once.

The raging storm intensified to its maximum extent. The thunder gave its loudest roar and the lightning was as bright as day. The rain beat the two wizards like hammers and flails. The wind began to howl like it was being tortured.

Among all this, Rufus began to transform. The pendant was absorbed into his chest. His broad shoulders became narrower as he shot up several inches. His yellow hair turned blood red as though a bucket of paint was overturned on the top of his head. His hair lengthened until it reached his elbows. His eyes turned from honey brown to sickly yellow. His handsome crimson tunic turned jet black. But the most disturbing change was his skin. Rufus' skin turned from a rich olive tone to white. It was not a normal white; mind you, not egg white or porcelain white but a pale, almost colourless white. It was a white associated with death. Ten seconds after Rufus' put on the cursed necklace, Jerome stood aghast, staring at his younger brother after exactly one thousand two hundred and eighty three years.

Slweyn flexed his long white fingers, cherishing his return to life. He then slowly looked at his surroundings, observing- The shacks, the brother, the burning village. He tenderly held out a hand and felt the heavy rain pound on it.

His foul yellow eyes settled on his brother. He cocked his head, "Hello big brother!!" he said, his voice young and clear, "fancy seeing you still here...!"

"Yes Slewyn, I stayed. Just to protect the world from your return."

"Well you failed then, didn't you? Why I-"

Slewyn's retort was cut short as his gaze fell on the burning village again. His expression of soft curiosity changed into one of inhuman rage. His yellow eyes narrowed and his entire visage radiated anger. "What happened to my castle?" he asked, his voice venomous.

"I took the pleasure of mowing it down myself after I trapped you" smirked his brother.

Slewyn snarled. Then he shrugged. Without a word, he turned to face the tents, raising his hand up to the heavens, preparing for a massive spell. As Slewyn opened his mouth, Jerome charged.

With the agility and precision of a cat Jerome threw himself at his sibling. But Slewyn had already created a hard, transparent barrier around himself. Jerome collided with the wall of hard air and toppled onto the ground, causing no hindrance to his brother who had started murmuring under his breath.

By the time Jerome had broken Slewyn's barrier, the damage had been done. It took only twelve seconds for the entire settlement- including fires, people and tents- to vanish. Once the blinding bright red light subsided, the ground in front of the wooden shacks lay untouched. All traces of habitation upon it were gone. The ground lay untouched and new.

Jerome could only gasp. "No..." he mumbled, words failing him.

Slewyn gazed at his creation with an expression of smugness, casting a sideways glance at his devastated older brother. He smiled and said, "I will come back to rebuild my castle. But first, I must do some catching up with the age. I must find out the policies and systems of this age. But," he continued, smiling wickedly at his brother, "before I do ANYTHING else, I must kill you!!"

Jerome backed away rapidly, his expression one of horror not for the first time this evening. With high speed, Slewyn hurled a dazzling white ball of energy at his brother. A second before it hit him; Jerome launched himself into the air. The ball of energy exploded beneath him, but Jerome continued to rise rapidly against the force of the rain, unscathed. With one last look at his brother, Jerome flew off towards the distant forest. Jerome knew that he was no match for his newly reborn bother,

Slewyn made no attempt to follow or catch Jerome; he merely watched the fleeing figure. He could deal with his pesky brother later. Slewyn watched the distant speck of Jerome until he could no longer discern him. The sun was beginning to rise now, and the storm had dissipated. There was only a light drizzle, but Slewyn didn't care. He had business to attend to. He had a throne to reclaim.

That was a week ago. I do not dare reveal my identity in fear of my life. Slewyn has come back amongst us, ready to overthrow the government yet again. It is going to be a bad time for the magical and the non magical alike. I am sure that somewhere, Jerome is mustering resistance against his brother.

May the Gods watch over us.

~~~

# Memoirs

They are going to come for me. I'm sure of it.

I'm growing old, my faculties are weakening, but my hopes burn on. I have built a shelter near the sea and spend the cold nights inside. I am sure that they will come for me. They will come looking for me-their hero, the pioneer.

I spend the clear evenings gazing up at the skies, waiting for them. The other days, I wander around and try to improve my lifestyle. I have found leaves that I can weave into a blanket, I have found tasteless berries that keep me form dying and I have found caves that lead to nowhere.

But I still haven't found another living being.

The forests of yellow trees and red grass are silent. Wind is a rarity. The "ocean" has no waves and has sweet water. Sometimes I wonder how I've managed to survive fifteen years in this beautiful wasteland, but those thoughts are drowned out in confidence. Confidence that they will come for me.

Fifteen years. It has been fifteen years now, and yet, I remember it like it was this morning. Idle life gives you few memories. I can recall every single detail of that day as though the events have just ended.

It was a big day for the people. There was music, singing and celebration. The best astronaut on the planet was leaving on the largest mission ever. Oh! What would my fans have said if they had known that their hero was never coming back?

They loved me, those wonderful commoners, and I am sure that they are coming to get me. After all, how can they survive without me?

There were ten of us when we boarded the shuttle. Me and nine assistants. Launch was perfect and we were on course. Travel was faster than the speed of light and we covered more distance than any other space expedition. After a good year on that shuttle, we reached our destination. The planet looked beautiful from above. She was not very big-smaller than our earth, but she had cloudless skies and pristine seas of the brightest blue. Yellow and red forests dominated the plains and mountains. Greyish brown sands divided the forests and the seas. It was a brilliant planet. A planet of peace and silence.

Little did we know that the first sound she would hear was the roar of a crashing spacecraft.

It must have looked spectacular. A grey, sleek craft slicing through the thin air, heading towards a clear field of red. And, all at once, the explosion. The spacecraft burst like a fat grape, spewing out debris into the pure skies.

I was lucky. Having been at the controls at that point, I was the furthest away from the rear engine, which exploded. The explosion ripped through the frontal glass panels into the skies of the planet. I landed in the sea, and eventually made my way to shore. Shards of glass and scraps of metal were all that remained of the spacecraft. There were no remnants of my assistants.

Ever since that day I have been waiting. Waiting for my fans to take me back. Waiting for that grand welcome they will give their hero when he returns home.

Home. I barely remember my home. I remember it was a large structure around which my admirers used to gather, eager to catch a glimpse of the man they admired. Me. I haven't seen fire in years. Rain is just a vague memory. The sound of a dog barking or a child crying would be welcome. I can bless the child.

Sometimes I talk to myself. I remind myself that they are coming for me. I remember all the things people used to tell me and I tell myself those things. I tell myself how amazing I am and how the people loved me. I assure myself that they still do.

I don't live a life of luxury anymore. This planet has been like a vacation in isolation. A simple, sustainable life. I don't need luxuries, I just need food and water to keep me alive.

After all, they're coming for me.

# Spacewatch

August 8th 2138

For over two hundred years now, we have been talking about the dangers of debris and garbage in space: forgotten and disposed goods that have been floating around the cosmos-often harming spacecrafts and spacewalkers. The International Space Council (ISC) is in the process of drafting legislation to cut down on the production of such wastes, and even picking up existing garbage.

While these men and women of the ISC worry about the dangers of space debris, they seem to have forgotten the other kind of debris they have left behind on other planets-people.

It has been twenty five years since the departure of the much hyped Romeo XII, the spaceship that was to travel to the newly discovered planet X4534 located in the outer reaches of the solar system. After speculating about possible life on the planet, the ISC sent out Romeo XII and its ten person crew. After the one year journey, the spaceship exploded in the new foreign atmosphere, experts say this was because of a faulty rear engine.

However, despite this tragedy, the ISC confirmed to having received SOS signals from the planet-which meant that there were survivors. Further analysis concluded that it was the captain, renowned spaceman, Ed Frasier who had managed to survive the crash.

Edmund Frasier, 32, is most popularly known for his feat of being the first man to set foot on a meteorite. His achievement, not something trivial, was well publicised and talked about when it happened-seven years ago. However, rumour has it that Frasier, who has made two space expeditions besides the legendary "meteorite walk", suffered from some sort of personality disorder immediately after his first feat. Colleagues and friends say that the twenty seven year old Frasier became extremely "full of himself" after his (no doubt important but) somewhat minor feat. Sources say that he soon became unbearable to interact with and many say they do not miss the man.

It is well known that the relationship between the ISC and Ed Frasier has been cold, at best, but the hesitancy and reluctance of the ISC to send a rescue party is beyond shocking. No doubt, Frasier (or SIR Frasier, as he insisted on being called) was, to put it very mildly, conceited. But to strand him on a distant planet, is, in the opinion of this reporter, quite cruel.

However, the opinion of the public seems contrary to that of mine. A poll conducted by a magazine(that requested to remain unnamed) shows that over seventy percent of those polled(which was about twenty thousand people), felt that the often egoistic spaceman SHOULD be left on planet X4534, as some sort of ultra cruel solitary confinement/death sentence. The ISC, refrained from commenting on the said poll results, however, this reporter did note a slight smile on the face of the chairman on hearing this.

This reporter has to refrain from revealing his identity, because the ISC does not take very kindly to its detractors. Despite his egotism and flaws, it is extremely inhumane to desert a fellow human on a distant and unexplored planet, even more so if the one deserted suffers from psychological and personality disorders.

This reporter is very worried when he wonders what the world has come to.

~~~

# The Hostage Game

Gates plaza was the tallest building on the city's skyline. That doesn't necessarily mean that it was very tall-only twenty floors. But for a city the size of Goodane, it was a skyscraper. Known as Goodane's pride, the Gates plaza was the city's mascot. It also played host for some of Goodane's biggest events. The Gates plaza has also been historic in another sense- it has been the venue for one of the greatest crimes in the city.

One misty morning, at 5AM, two guards patrolling on the rooftop were gunned down silently by a passing press helicopter. Aboard the helicopter were two snipers, who had been employed for that particular job. Once the two guards on the rooftop had been killed, one of the snipers picked up a cell phone. He dialled a number and spoke. "This is Sniper 1. The job has been done."

Somewhere far away, on another aircraft, a young man nodded. "Very good Sniper 1, you will receive full pay at the base." The young man cut the line and then dialled another number on his phone. He looked out of a window in the aircraft and saw the distant spike of the Gates plaza on the horizon. "Hello? This is 6. You can eradicate Snipers 1 and 2." He heard the short, obedient reply on the phone and smiled, cutting the line. Stage one was half done. He sat in silence with his team mates and watched as their unregistered plane drew closer to the Gates plaza.

Once the plane had reached a fair deal closer, 6 got up and went into the cockpit. "Take her tangential, and open the loading dock" He commanded shortly. He then returned to the cabin. "Its time" he informed his team mates. All of them trooped down into the loading dock and waited. Slowly, with a loud metallic groan, the dock opened and they watched the ground slide under them. Then there was a quiet beep from 6's watch. Without a single word, the young man, clad completely in black, took a running start and leaped off the platform. With a flourish of his arms and a twist of his spine, 6 unlatched the wings of his suit from their compartments. There was a swish as the two small fins from his wrists and the larger pair of wings from his back caught the wind. Within seconds, 6 was sailing smoothly and quietly over the city of Goodane. He heard similar swishes behind him and knew that his team mates had followed his lead.

With a graceful movement, 6 shifted his body from a horizontal position to a vertical one, and landed smoothly on the rooftop of Gates plaza. Within the next few minutes, 6's entire team had landed, though not all as graceful as he had landed. When the last man, a large burly blonde, had arrived, 6 began giving out the instructions.

"Jerry, I want you to secure the security office. The entire building is closed today so there are only guards patrolling all over the place. Kill any guard you see. The conference begins at 8 AM. It is now," he consulted a complex looking watch on his wrist, "6AM. We have two hours to secure the entire building. Jerry, wait till all seven of them have entered and then lock the doors. Lou, I want bugs on all sides of the building, pronto." Jerry, the large blonde, and Lou, a small, mole-like man, both hastily departed into the building.

6 then turned to look at the five other men standing around him. "Team Murder, stand by for Jerry's signal before carrying out your plan. The two of you," he said, rounding on the last two men, "are going to head up to the main office and wire up the laptop and sound system." Everyone nodded and left to perform their functions. Within a few minutes, 6 was left standing alone on the roof in the light of the rising sun. He swiftly strode indoors and found an empty office to wait inside. Within a few minutes, the word came from Jerry on the walkie talkie. "Hey 6, I'm giving you your Christmas present early man. You owe me." The voice sounded friendly and informal. 6 and Jerry were long time friends.

A few seconds after this, there was a rough voice on the intercom. "All security please report to meeting hall 4, I repeat, all security please report to meeting hall 4, we have an urgent and important announcement to make. This is for the security and guards ONLY. No logistics staff member should be present. The issue will be addressed to the logistics later. Thank you."

6 whipped out his walkie talkie. "Team Murder, this is 6. You heard Jerry; you know what to do don't you? Remember, show no mercy. Over and out" With a satisfied smile, 6 went back into his meditation.

**********

Team murder, as the name suggests, was 6's weapon of mass destruction. Consisting of three psychologically disturbed teenagers, it was quite a lethal weapon indeed. 6 had often used this Team Murder to get rid of people quickly in sticky situations. The worst part of it was that the three young men enjoyed what they did.

Within ten minutes of Jerry's announcement, meeting hall 4 was quite packed. Members of the security stood in small circles, discussing what this sudden meeting might be about. In front of the hall was a small stage. It was from the door behind this stage that the three members of Team murder emerged. Two of them vanished into the crowd of guards while the biggest, Rex called for everybody's attention.

He waved a big hand to the gathering and called out in his friendly voice, "People, may I have your attention please?!?" Most of the people in the hall went quiet; listening to this young man they had never seen before.

"Yes, umm...thank you. Now I would like to make a small announcement before the day's duty begins. I would like to thank you for every good deed you have done for the world, we will miss you."

With this statement, Rex produced a submachine gun from the holster on his back and opened fire on the hall. Similarly, in two opposite corners of the hall, the other two members of the team- Raj and Antony- mimicked this action of Rex's and opened fire on the bewildered security.

It was chaos. It was chaos only Team Murder was capable of causing. Guards ran for their lives, pushing shoving other people out of their way, their personal survival their highest priority. A few braver guards began to return fire with their pistols. But before they could let loose an entire round, several slugs tore into them, killing them instantly. Everywhere, men fell like bowling pins. The three teenagers continued to pour bullets into the hysteric mass of people like hosepipes into a garden. Each one with their own reason for vengeance on innocent humanity.

After five minutes of continuous fire, taking small breaks only to reload, the job was done. Meeting hall 4 resembled a bomb site, except there was not much damage on the building in this case. The floor was filled with bullet holes, bodies and blood. The three-man holocaust regrouped near one of the doors. Exchanging triumphant grins, they set off for their next stop.

**********

6's eyes snapped open yet again when another announcement pierced the building's PA system. "Would the security please get back to respective spots? Thank you. The Logistics staff, including the cooks and hospitality staff, should please assemble in meeting hall 3. I repeat, this is an urgent announcement and no staff member should abscond. Please assemble in meeting hall 3. Thank you."

6 pulled out his walkie talkie, "Team Murder, well done. I hope you have eliminated the security completely. Continue to meeting hall 3 and do your stuff. I'll meet you there in seven minutes." With a swift movement, 6 leapt off the table on which he had been meditating, and prowled out of the room. He first ascended to the topmost floor to check how his other two colleagues were doing.

He easily pushed open the swinging door and strode into the largest room of the Gates plaza. The far wall was made completely of glass and hence showed 6 the entire cityscape, bathed in the bright rays of the morning sun. He found his two colleagues, immersed in the wiring of two laptops, both on the largest desk, which stood facing the amazing view.

"I hope you know what you're doing." 6 retorted as he watched the two men plugging and unplugging various wires. 6 had no interest or skill in the field of technical expertise. His field was.......well it was above the field of all other men. "Wire up the laptop to the PA system. Also, get the feed from Lou's bugs. One more thing, find out the phone number of that pay phone in front of the building." He gave a little smile at the bewildered looks of his men and left.

By the time 6 had reached meeting hall 3, Team Murder had already completed its job. 6 entered the hall to find it completely covered in bloodstains and the floor littered with bodies. Trying to hide his disgust, 6 indicated the three teenagers to follow him and left through the door he used to enter.

He waited in the carpeted corridor, his back facing the door, for all three of them to assemble. Once he heard them, he began. "Well done boys, you really have proven yourself." But in reply, 6 received only a loud click. He immediately knew what was going on.

He switched to a different track, "I wouldn't do that if I were you, Reynold Dredger, escaped patient of Goodwill mental rehabilitation centre. Mass murderer and serial killer since the time you were twelve."

The silence from behind him was a clear message of the shock that Rex was facing at that moment. 6 smiled, "There are no secrets you can hold from me Rex, now put down that gun like a smart boy. I thought you would be happy with the amount of murder you have done today." More silence. Within a quarter of a second, 6 whirled around, whipping out a pistol from the depths of his apparel as he did so, and faced Rex. Rex's face had blanched, but his gun still stood at chest height, though it was shaking. Rex's team mates stood watching, awestruck, uninvolved.

It lasted only a second. Rex made a slight twitch. With a loud bang, a bullet pierced his chest and he was dead in an instant. 6 pocketed his pistol and dragged Rex's body into meeting hall 3, Raj and Antony stayed rooted to their respective spots, too terrified to move. After stripping Rex of his gun, walkie talkie and every other indication of his involvement in the plan, 6 re-entered the corridor. He saw the two frightened teenagers staring at him and broke into a smile. "I'm not going to hurt you guys; I trust the both of you. Rex was getting a bit cocky." He gave a small laugh, but became serious again "If any of you follow his lead, I'm afraid I'll have to repeat this incident."

6 then proceeded to instruct the two remaining members of Team Murder on what they had to do next. With a final nod, he strode off to the main office. Once he had gone, Raj and Antony looked at each other. "What d'you think? Is it worth staying?" Antony gave a thoughtful glance at 6's retreating figure, "He said he trusts us. I've heard that when he makes a friendly statement, he means it. I'm staying." With this statement, Antony strode off towards the large foyer of the building, closely followed by Raj.

**********

At Seven thirty five am, three vans pulled up to the front of the Gates plaza, each with different news broadcasting companies' logo. A reporter and a cameraman emerged from each of the vans, the excitement on their face showing through the sleepiness. Four men and two women entered the gates plaza and were welcome by an Indian teenager. With a warm smile he directed them to a room off the entrance chamber in order to give them some instructions.

I assume you can guess the rest. Only the reporter and cameraman from the government news agency were allowed to survive. They were sworn to silence at gunpoint and their cell phones were taken. They were then lead by Raj, closely followed by Antony, to the main meeting hall.

The hall was huge. Measuring the entire width of the Gates plaza, it was ornately decorated with huge pillars and towering windows. The fact that it was three storeys tall only added to its grandeur. In the center of the hall was a long wooden table, set with seven chairs, ready for the arrival of the seven biggest businessmen in the country. Everyone in the country had eagerly been awaiting this meeting for several months now, for its outcome could change the county's economic policies, financial state and could possibly monopolize the economy of the country.

All over the country, families gathered in front of their TV sets, eagerly awaiting the results of the biggest and most important meeting in recent history. At eight o clock, the broadcasting began on the government news channel. But it was the only channel. Two other private news channels who were supposed to broadcast the meeting were facing "technical difficulties". So everyone eventually switched to the government channel and by eight ten, the meeting began.

**********

Angelina Fent was renowned for her good looks and better reporting skills, especially among the male viewers. Her charming behaviour and pretty looks increased people's interest in the daily news. She had won several awards for her reporting skills and was a reputed reporter. Thus, it was not unexpected that she was chosen to be the spot reporter for this meeting.

But unlike her usual composed self, today Angelina looked different. Her hair was not neatly tied in a ponytail as it always was. Her face seemed unusually pale. Her eyes kept flicking to a point behind the cameraman as she spoke. Perhaps it was because of the fact that a submachine gun was trained on her from the youth in the corner of the room.

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen, this is Angelina Fent reporting for the government news. I am standing here," she indicated the vast hall behind her, "at the gates plaza where one of the most crucial meetings is going to be held. The twelfth annual financial meeting is said to bring several changes to our economy this year. The seven super tycoons are ready for the meeting. Mr Jay Edison is about to begin the opening speech of the meeting, let's see what he has to say."

The camera panned across the hall and came to focus on the large elderly man standing at the head of the table. He cleared his throat, smoothed his slick silver hair, picked up a sheaf of papers from the table in front of him, looked at the six other men at the table and began his speech. It was at that point of time that millions of TV screens across the country went blank.

As suddenly as they went blank, a clear, young voice played out from the static.

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I have officially taken over this meeting. Every action henceforth will be on my instructions. Disobeyers will be killed. If the police makes any attempt to attack or enter the building, I will be informed and I will detonate the foundations of the building, turning the tower into dust within minutes. Hope you enjoy the morning!!" and there was nothing but static.

News channels went into frenzy. The video and audio footage was played repeatedly on every single news channel. The police force was deployed within seconds but did not dare venture too close to the building, in fear of losing Goodane's pride. Citizens watched their TV screens with anxiety but even the news channels had nothing new on the subject.

It was, however, a different story inside the main hall of the Gates plaza.

Jay Edison listened with rapt attention as the voice pierced the P.A. system, his hands still clutching the sheaf of papers. All around him, his fellow tycoons were also listening, some with anxious expressions, and some with anger. Once the announcement was over, an uneasy silence swept over the hall. The seven important men mumbled amongst themselves and the reporter and her cameraman stood, stunned.

All of a sudden, four men emerged from various shadowy corners, each armed with a lethal looking machine gun. The cameraman made an attempt to get his camera rolling. There was a small bang from one of the guns and a bullet embedded itself into the video camera.

Antony raised his gun. "Whoever does not want to be shot, should line up on this side of the table." He indicated a side of the table. He then looked at Angelina and her cameraman. "The two of you will head up to office number 12. Remember, you are being watched throughout, so don't try anything funny."

The two slinked away. When they reached office number twelve, they were swiftly and silently killed. Angelina Fent and her cameraman were not heard of again.

**********

6 sat alone up in the largest office of the building. So far so good, he thought. He watched the police force assembling at the base of the building, all armed. They seemed to have taken his warning to be true and were too afraid to storm into the building- just as 6 had wanted. He heard a chopper flying near the building.

6 held up a walkie talkie to his mouth, "All ready Jerry?" he asked quietly.

"Ready to roll dude!" came the reply. 6 nodded, picked up the phone and began to dial.

**********

Officer Stephen Frost was forty two years old. He had a wife and two children. He was also the most experienced cop still serving the Goodane police department. So it was most natural that, on seeing the interruption of the meeting and hearing the message, Officer Frost rushed to the base of the Goodane tower, swearing under his breath.

There were already a few policemen at the base of the tower, discussing their plan of action, when he arrived. He hurtled out of his car without switching off the engine and sprinted up to the group of officers, his grey hair unkempt, and his chin full of shaving cream.

"Any further news?" he asked one of the officers as he wiped the shaving cream off his chin. The officer replied in the negative. Frost took the liberty of swearing some more before marching up to the officer in charge.

"What do you have to say Darson?" he asked the man who looked the most anxious. Darson stared at Frost, almost shivering at the sight of his superior "I have no idea Steve. I dunno what's goin' on....I set some of my most talented officers on duty in there an' now its been "taken over"....nobody's answering their cell phones....I swear I ain't got a clue what's goin' on!!"

Frost's expression softened, Darson seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Frost held his junior officer by the shoulders and said in a reassuring voice, "All right Darson, you go home, take some rest. I hear you've been up all night...tell 'em at the station that I've taken over this emergency."

All of a sudden, the pay phone on the sidewalk began to ring. Everybody in its vicinity stared at it. Frost, however, strode determinedly towards it, saying as he went, "Darson, go home. You there," he pointed at a young technician who nearly fell over in alarm of being called, "record this conversation." The technician nodded. Darson, who had seated himself in his car, wished everyone luck and drove off.

Frost stood by the booth, watching the phone ringing and ringing, while the techie set up the recording system with an unusually high speed. Once the table was set up and the techie sat behind it, he gave Frost a thumbs up. Frost scooped up the phone on its last ring.

"Hello?" said Frost, addressing the unknown.

"Hey there. I hope you police goons have taken my warning seriously. I want no choppers, no commandos, and no bugs of any sort near the building." said the voice. Frost quickly assessed the quality of the voice- it was young, composed masculine and radiated power.

"Who are you?" Frost asked, not responding to the voice's warning.

"That, my friend, is insignificant. Just listen to what I have to-" but the young man was cut off again, "What are you going to do with the businessmen? What do you want? I'm ready to hear your demands..."

"My dear man, to hear my demands you must let me SPEAK!! I do not want any kind of object. All I am going to do is play a little game with these businessmen. Understand?"

Frost spluttered, what was this? "A GAME?" he asked incredulously. Of all demands, this was the most unexpected.

The voice seemed unconcerned with Frost's ludicrous tone of voice. He just carried on, "Yes, that's right. A little game with my hostages. Would you like to join in?"

Frost was taken aback. First of all, a terrorist playing a game? Next, he was inviting him to join in? Crazy!! Frost considered. "What happens if I win this game of yours?" he asked slowly.

The voice on the other end laughed. It was a light youthful laugh. "I will give you the rules of the game once you are inside. The consequences as well. I just want to know: are you playing or not?" There was a short pause. Then Frost replied, determination in his voice, "Yes. I'm in."

The voice now lost all traces of politeness. It was hard and businesslike, "Good. You will do EXACTLY what I say or I will see to it that you are shot. You will enter the building through the side entrance. No communication devices, cameras, phones or any explosives should be brought inside. You will enter and must proceed directly to the 13th floor. No stopping on the way. Use the service elevator. You will not diffuse any bomb, should you see one. Remember, you are being watched throughout."

Frost took a few seconds to ingest all these instructions. "Can I bring my gun?" he asked quietly. The youth laughed. "Yes," he said, "you can. But nothing else. By the way," he added, "you're recording station or whatever? It's going to explode in ten seconds. See you." There was a click.

Frost looked at the young technician, his eyes wide, to see the young man staring back at him, equally fearful, his headphones askew. With a frantic gesture of his hand, Frost bade his colleague to move. The technician nodded. He swiftly threw off the headphones and put as much distance as he could from the recording system.

Sure enough, within five seconds, there was a small explosion and thousands of dollars' worth of recording equipment changed into shards of metal and glass. Thankfully, nobody was hurt. Frost exited his phone booth and stood by the smouldering wreckage. The technician joined him. He was pale and sweaty but seemed unhurt. Frost noticed 'Stanley Morel' was the name on his badge.

"You alright Stan?" he asked kindly, putting an arm on the twenty-something year old's shoulder. Stan nodded, unable to speak. His eyes were still on the spot where he stood ten seconds ago. He then slowly opened his mouth, "That guy, was a kid. Not older than me." He said slowly. Frost nodded.

"I sent the voice data to the main computer," he gestured towards a laptop propped open on a bonnet, "we can analyze further details from there." Frost clapped him on the shoulder, "Good thinking." He said encouragingly before walking off to relay his conversation to the officers looking anxiously in his direction.

All six of the officers seemed as incredulous as he did when Frost told them about the game. Just as he had finished describing his conversation, Stan hurried up to him, quickly pushing his spectacles higher up the bridge of his nose as he approached. He shook his head, "Absolutely nothing on the voice search. This guy is a total newbie. Seems to me like he's some nutter who's got himself into such a meeting by chance."

Frost scratched his half shaved chin, looking at the tower in front of him without seeing. "Did you run a search on terrorists playing-"

"-Games? Yes I did. That was a total dud as well. Dude's totally crazy. Are you going then?" Stan asked, looking at Frost, his eyes full of enquiry and concern.

Frost looked at Stan for a moment, steeled himself and said in his most confident voice, "Yes, I am." After a moments pause he added, "Well, I better get going, I don't want to keep my mystery host waiting." He cast a look at the top of the tower, and began to strip himself of all gadgets, save his gun. Finally, after bidding a polite farewell to all his fellow officers on the site, Stephen Frost entered the building.

**********

The lounge on the 13th floor of the Goodane tower had the atmosphere most unlike that of a lounge. Tension crackled in the air. Seven business tycoons were seated quietly on various chairs and couches, each one engrossed in his own thoughts. Four gunmen stood at various positions, all cradling their guns and keeping a sharp eye on their hostages.

Nobody dared to move and the only sounds in the room were the muffled footsteps of the gunmen walking around and the eventual heavy sigh of a businessman. After several minutes of anguished silence, there were heavy footsteps out side the lounge. All the occupants of the room turned to look at the door through which the sound was heard. A policeman walked in, his hands by his sides, followed closely by a fifth gunman. The officer's escort gave a curt nod to his four team mates within the room and walked out the door through which he entered.

"Steve!" cried one of the businessmen, rising from his chair as he gazed at the new arrival. "Steve, what's going on? Are you here to get us out of here? What is the police doing?"

But Steve did not reply to any of his questions. He merely shook his head and walked over to a bar chair and seated himself on it. He then laid his head in his hands and waited. One of the gunmen pulled out a walkie talkie and spoke into it. Seconds later, the entire Tower echoed with the same calm and youthful voice.

"Since everyone is set, let us begin. The game has only one objective: to find me. I will allow you to roam the building, each one separately. The first person to find my location wins. Understood?" There was a pause in the room as the eight "contestants" looked up and got up from their various positions. "Very simple rules actually," the voice mused, "nothing you great gentlemen can't understand....All right then!! We're ready to go!!"

"Wait!!" one of the tycoons called out, "What about those of us who don't find you? The losers?" There was a pause. Jay Edison didn't expect a reply, so he was surprised when the voice on the PA system replied to him. "Well, lets just say, your fate will be unknown. Sort of gives you an incentive to find me, doesn't it?"

There was a loud silence in the room, as the seven tycoons looked at one another- newfound enemies. Just as one of the suit-clad men was about to reach for the door handle to leave, there was a scuffle on the other side of the door. The door burst open. Two fast moving bodies fell in through it. After a few seconds, Frost recognized his escort gunman, holding a young man in a full nelson. The gunman threw the youth onto the floor and pointed his gun at him. "Freeze," he said in a clear voice, "or I'll blow your guts out."

The figure on the floor lay still for a moment. Then slowly, he got onto all fours, and then stood up with his hands in the air. Frost took care to analyze this new, unexpected entity. He wore semi formal clothes, stained with dust and sweat. He had a mop of red hair and horn rimmed spectacles. His eyes were pale grey in colour and his nose was almost pointed at the end. A thin back scar ran across one of his cheeks. He had an air of cool arrogance about him.

"What's going on? Who is this new arrival?" said the omnipresent voice on the PA system. Frost made a mental note to himself that the man on the phone (who happened to be the one speaking on the PA system) was not lying- Everybody was being watched.

"Some young kid was found sneaking around outside. I dunno how he got into the building sir." One of the gunmen called out, keeping both his eyes and his gun trained on the new arrival.

"I am NOT some young kid," the youth said angrily in a hoarse voice. "My name is Neil Straford and I'm the heir to the Straford chemicals industry. I figured there should be a representative for the Straford industry and I figured it should be me!!"

This caught the tycoons' attention. Julian Straford was the only businessman who had not been called for the conference because he was disliked by all the other men of money. It was very much like him to send his son to spy on the meeting. The voice, however, was obsessed with his game, "I don't care who you are, and who you represent. Since you're in here, you will have to play along. I believe you know the rules. Gentlemen, you may leave the room to begin your search. Remember, you are being watched throughout."

One by one, seven multi-billionaire men left the room with anxiety and fear in their eyes. Finally the young boy exited the lounge. The Hostage game had begun.

**********

Zeus Machden had been named after the god of gods. For the past fifty four years, he had managed the country's biggest construction company. Machdan constructions was the company behind almost any legal building in the country. All competition in the field had been crushed brutally and Machdan was almost synonymous to the word "construction". But now, the owner of all the wealth, the creator of so many wonderful buildings, was shivering uncontrollably as he left the lounge.

As he walked through the deserted passages of the Goodane tower, Zeus tried to think rationally. His first impulse was to throw himself out of the window....no, that wouldn't work.....he then decided to check the basement. If there was a bomb in there like the guy really said, Zeus was sure that he could defuse it since he had spent four months in the company of a bomb squad. Zeus slowly dragged his small body into the next elevator and headed down to the basement.

Two minutes later, with a loud ding, the elevator opened out into the musty basement. Zeus pulled out a pen flashlight from his suit pocket and shined it around. The room was filled with old furniture covered with sheets. Zeus stopped moving for a moment and listened. No ticking, no beeping, that was a good sign. He then slowly delved deeper into the labyrinth of unused and dilapidated furniture, looking for either a bomb or the host of this ridiculous "game". The basement is a good place to hide things, he mused, especially if the basement happens to be as vast as this one.

After a few minutes of wandering around, Zeus stopped and leaned heavily on the back of a sofa, thinking. Zeus began to idly twirl the flashlight in his hand, making the beam of light fly around the dusty room like a hyperactive spotlight. As he gained more speed in twirling the light, his thoughts began to move faster as well. He decided that he would go back to the elevator and go up to the topmost floor. Zeus had been to the Goodane tower before and he knew that the office on the highest floor was the most superior position in the building. He had slowed down the rate of spinning his flashlight and was about to stand up and go back to the elevator when he heard the click.

Zeus Machden spun around. His flashlight gripped firmly in his hand, his eyes frantically searching for the source of the mechanical click. But whatever it was, it escaped the beam of his flashlight. Zeus heard a soft footstep and he sensed something moving- he began to panic. He pointed the flashlight at a corner of the room where he suspected the noise came from, what he saw made him blanch with fear.

A dark figure stood in the corner of the room, Zeus only had a second to see him before it happened-and in that second he only saw a silver silenced pistol. And then there was a silenced "phut" and before he knew it, Zeus Machden was dead.

**********

About four floors above Zeus Machden's freshly killed body; Francis Colt was gazing dreamily out a window. He could not see the police gathered at the foot of the tower. Francis gazed out at the skyline. Drifting away into his own dreamy thoughts. He was the least bit interested in this game. He had been forced by his father to enter the family automobile business. All he wanted to do was become an author.

As he threw open the window of the hall in the Goodane plaza, Francis Colt forgot where he was and the consequences of being idle. He murmured a poem under his breath as a cool breeze caressed his face. He began to wish for a new life-one that did not involve being forced to worry about the latest models and the fuel consumption. He was good at the trade, no doubt, but he absolutely LOATHED it.

"Oh! For a new life..." Francis muttered poetically under his breath. The light whispering of the breeze was the only sound that filled his ears. Little did the poetic millionaire notice his "new life" stalking quietly up to him. There was a 'thunk' of metal on bone, and young Mr Colt was winging his way to his "new life".

*********

Remus and Romulus Trent were twins named after the two founders of Rome. In their early thirties, these two brothers had just recently taken over from their father and currently headed Trent AgroTools. Remus and Romulus, being extremely close to one another, obviously decided to tackle this unexpected event together. After Remus left the lounge, he waited outside for his twin brother. After a quick session of strategizing, the twins set off confidently towards the topmost offices.

The silence deafened Remus Trent, as he walked a few paces ahead of his brother, down the carpeted corridor. Having lost an argument with his brother, the older of the two entrepreneurs was forced to walk ahead of his twin brother.

"Hey Rem," came the voice from behind him, sounding very soft in the muffling silence, "Hey Rem, what if he's in one of these rooms? We could just walk past the fellow without a clue!!" Remus halted in his track. Little bro could be annoying at times, but he had a point. Facing his brother, Remus asked him, "So what, you wanna bang open every door?" Romulus nodded. "Go ahead then..."

So the two brothers continued down the hallway, up the next staircase and across the next corridor. Remus stalking cautiously in the lead, his stance ready for action, while his brother threw open every door the two passed by- to no avail. But as they approached a T-junction, Remus stopped. He held out an arm to stop Romulus from throwing open another door. "Listen," he said, "do you hear someone?"

Romulus stopped. His expression became one of rapt attention. His ears keen for a sound. He turned to look at his brother and nodded. They both looked keenly at the T shaped junction of three corridors in front of them. Sure enough, within seconds, the footsteps became louder and a person appeared.

It was the Straford boy. He prowled past the twins, without looking at them, down the corridor in front of him. Remus waited till he could no longer hear the footsteps before cautiously continuing towards the T junction. As they neared the well lit intersection of corridors, he heard the soft voice of his brother from behind him.

"I don't like the looks of that kid. Seems fishy."

"I know."

"Did you hear it?"

"What?"

"The Straford kid, he was saying something"

"What?"

"I dunno. Couldn't catch it, he was whispering to himself."

"Probably just a prayer or something. Guy wouldn't have expected such an event in the meeting. He was just sent to spy." The whole conversation was held in whispers.

They had finally reached the intersection. Remus cast one look at the passage down which Neil Straford had gone- he was no longer visible- and shook his head. "I'm not followin' that foul kid." He muttered, and took a right at the junction, the direction Straford had come from, with his twin brother at his heels.

"What time is it?" Remus asked his brother, too lazy to check his watch. He no longer whispered as he knew he was out of earshot of anyone other than Romulus.

"Quarter to nine." came the reply, "If we don't find anything interesting down this-" There was a sharp gasp of pain and a thud. Remus whirled around.

His brother was lying on the floor, in a rapidly growing pool of blood, dead. Remus looked up to see his brother's murderer, holding a silenced pistol, grinning.

"You!!" He spluttered, "You filthy-"

"There's no point swearing, you're already dead" smiled the murderer, and he shot Remus. The killer took one last look at the two brothers, identical dead bodies on the floor, and left.

**********

Alexander Font heaved a heavy sigh. Never in his life did he expect himself to be in such a position. He shifted his weight on to his elbows and continued to crawl down the air vent. He heard a distinct whirring noise in the distance- the central air conditioning. Font knew that once he reached the vertical central shaft he could access any part of the building. He expected that, if the central cooling system was in good condition (which he was quite sure it was), he wouldn't drop like a rock down the vertical shaft.

The reason Alexander Font knew all this was because the entire Goodane plaza's cooling system had been designed by Font ambience services. Alexander considered the Goodane plaza's system his best work- subtle, yet powerful, and minimalistic on space. He had been given the pleasure of designing the entire ambience of the building. By "ambience", one means the design, lighting, spacing, furniture, arrangement and so on. So, all in all, it could be said that Alex Font knew the building off by heart.

Crawling through the air vent was slow work. Despite having a small and light frame, Alex had to heave himself through the vents at a crawling pace. He was no longer in the prime of his youth. His handsome face had become lined, a large bald patch was on his head, and his bones were weaker than before.

It was because of his bones being weaker due to old age, that Alexander did not enjoy the ten foot drop from the vent onto the floor.

With an almighty crash, a panel below him gave way and Alexander collapsed onto the corridor below headfirst. Uttering a long list of profanities, Alexander heaved himself up and propped himself against the wall, checking to see if any bones had been broken. Once he had assured himself that he was fine, only a bit shaken at the most, he got to his feet and set off randomly down a corridor.

Alexander had been walking aimlessly for a few minutes when he heard the sound of running feet. The carpeted floor could not hide the loud thumps as they drew steadily closer to Alexander. Shaking with fright, Alexander drew himself against a wall, bracing himself. All of a sudden, a large suited figure hurtled around a corner and came at him. Uttering a small gasp of shock, Alexander fainted.

When he came to, Alexander found himself lying in the arms of one of his business partners, Carlos Mayo. Carlos seemed pale and frightened, unlike his normal calm self, but continued to earnestly fan Alex with his handkerchief. Once he realized that his friend was awake, Carlos heaved a sigh of relief.

Alexander got up and looked at his friend. He definitely seemed disturbed in some way. "What's up?" Alexander asked Carlos feebly. Carlos shook his plump head, his normally rosy face dead pale. Carlos took a deep breath trying to calm himself, looking most unlike a media tycoon.

Finally, Carlos stopped gasping and spoke in a shaky voice, "Dead...All dead" he said. Alexander shook his head, trying to make sense out of his friend's words. "Whose dead, Car? What happened? Why should anybody be dead?", he asked rationally.

"Trent twins...dead. Colt....dead. All...dead." Carlos gasped.

Alexander tried to follow, "They're....they're dead? How? Who killed them?"

Carlos shook his head frantically. "Dunno" he muttered.

Alexander stared at the wall in front of him, thinking. This seemed like some old horror flick he had seen. But why, the logical part of him mused, why should they be dead? Perhaps Carlos was a little dazed. Maybe he had fallen over or something and gotten hit on the head. That's probably more likely to happen than people being randomly murdered, Alex concluded.

But Carlos continued with his narration, "Two meeting rooms, filled with dead bodies. Security people and Hospitality staff, all dead. Blood all over the walls. I freaked out. I wandered some more and I found Colt. Colt was knocked in the head pretty bad." He said slowly, "both the Trent twins had been shot. Their bodies were still warm when I found them, right in the middle of the floor sixteen corridor. I was looking at them, I heard footsteps. I ran for it." He uttered a low groan and fell still.

Alexander looked at his friend to make sure he was still breathing- he was. He began to stroke his beard, an act he always did when he was in deep thought. Perhaps Carlos was telling him the truth? He was not one who lied often. Especially in things like this. But who was this mysterious murderer walking around killing people? Was it one of the tycoons? Or was it some anonymous person. Perhaps it was one of the terrorist's men. Yes, thought Alex defiantly, the crackpot on the P.A system sounded like one who'd do this.

All of a sudden he got up with astounding grace and speed. "Come on Carlos," he said, giving a hand to lift up his bulky friend, "we better win this "game" and get out of here!!" With a grunt, he heaved his friend on to his feet. But before they could start down the corridor, a soft, composed voice played out from behind them.

"Congratulations gentlemen, you've just won the game!!" Both men spun around, pale with fright. A tall, muscular, blonde man stood in the middle of the corridor. His eyes were confident and his hands held a golden pistol, pointed at the two businessmen. "You're prize," continued the voice, in a calm and pleasant tone, "is an all expenses paid trip to heaven."

With that the blonde gave a charming smile and shot a bullet directly at Alexander, whose frail body crumpled on impact of the bullet. Carlos Mayo gave a loud squeal any large pig would be proud to produce, and ran down the corridor, his large feet thumping on the carpeted floor. With evident ease, Jerry shot another bullet right into Carlos' back, sending the large billionaire crashing down onto the carpeted floor.

Jerry pocketed his pistol and slipped back into the security room, talking into his walkie talkie as he went. "Font and Mayo down" he reported into the little black device, "thanks for lending me your voice."

"Sure thing" said 6's voice from the other end of the communication line. Jerry seated himself in front of the many monitors again, smiling to himself at the fact that neither of the two tycoons had noticed that the voice they heard had not come from him, but from his pant pocket.

**********

Officer Stephen Frost stalked slowly down the corridor, clutching his gun with both hands. He had heard the two silenced shots from the corridor in front of him, he was going to investigate. Just as he reached the corner, he heard loud, heavy footsteps. The runner seemed to be running away from him. Frost quickly bounded up the corridor and swung around the corner, his gun at the ready. He only saw one large foot vanishing around the next corner in front of him, but it was enough for him to guess that it was Carlos Mayo. But before he could run in pursuit of Mayo, he stopped at the sight on the floor.

Frost crouched over the Trent twins' bodies, conducting a quick post mortem check. Having been in the police service for so many years, he had picked up bits of forensic science as well. After several minutes of examining, Frost stood up and heaved a sigh.

It was very obvious that the Trent twins had been shot. Frost concluded that Mayo had not been the murderer as the bodies had been shifted slightly. Remus Trent was lying on his side, a position which could not be his original position as he had been shot in his chest. Frost assumed that Mayo was just checking out the bodies, just as he himself was. He must've heard my footsteps, panicked and ran, thought Frost.

Steve was about to continue up the corridor, now looking for the murderer as well as the terrorist, when he heard footsteps approaching his location. Thinking quickly, he dived into one of the adjoining rooms, making sure the door was ajar so that he could keep an eye. The footsteps grew louder and Jay Edison trudged into Frost's line of sight.

Frost heaved a sigh of relief, Jay was someone he trusted. Nevertheless, he continued to watch him without interrupting. Once Edison showed the same shock and alarm on seeing the dead bodies, Frost decided to reveal himself.

"Halo Jay." He called as he suddenly emerged from his hiding place.

Jay jumped, "Good heavens Steve! You scared me! Did you see this?" he asked, indicating the two bodies. Frost nodded. Before Jay could complete his question, Frost replied, "I don't know who did it. But I think we should stick together for now." Jay nodded, "Agreed. Two floors above, Font and Mayo are dead too."

Frost stared at his friend with shock. The old, lined face showed no hint of lies or jokes. His black shadowed eyes remained as serious and solemn as ever.

"It was a different gun," Jay said, looking at the two bodies on the floor, "They were a lot messier. Blood all over the place."

Frost nodded silently and indicated that they start walking. The two men proceeded walking in silence. Frost quietly suggested that they should ascend to the topmost office, Jay silently agreed. After knowing about the demises of their associates, neither felt like mincing words.

There was a loud "ding" from the elevator as the two men arrived on the topmost floor. A single closed door in the wall in front of them. The two men looked at each other once, nodded, and Frost threw open the door.

A thin figure stood silhouetted against the massive skyline of Goodane, the young figure of Neil Straford. Neil turned to look at the two men who entered the room. "Hey", he said, "look at all this stuff I found here."

He indicated the two laptops lying open on top of a table facing the view. Frost immediately walked up to the equipment and began examining the laptops and their contents, while Edison continued to stand at the doorway, staring at the young boy. Who was carefully reaching for his pocket

Suddenly, the room was rent with a loud cry, "STEVE LOOKOU-"

There was the "phut" of a silenced pistol and a loud thud as Jay Edison collapsed on the floor. But he was not yet dead. With a mighty groan, he heaved himself onto his feet, the hole in his chest bleeding profusely. He threw himself onto the young villain, hoping to distract him while Frost pulled out his gun.

But Neil was agile and he twisted out of Jay's reach. Neil shot one more bullet into Edison's body, killing him. He then nimbly dived behind the large, heavy desk which held his equipment as Frost began firing wildly, shattering the glass front of the luxurious room. There was a lull for a few seconds.

Frost took this time to flip a large couch onto its back and take cover behind it. Neil quickly reloaded his gun. The two quickly exchanged a few shots but neither was hit. During the next few seconds of silence, Frost peeked at the scene from behind his couch.

He could just see the top of Neil's red head behind the desk. Firing a few shots into the desk, Frost called out, "Come out! You are under arrest for the murder of Jay Edison!"

Neil merely laughed. All of a sudden, he threw himself on top of the desk, scattering the equipment, and began to fire continuously at Frost. Muttering a prayer under his breath, Frost hoped that the couch was thick enough to protect him.

Phit. There was a small hole in the fabric an inch to his right; a hole the size of a bullet- the couch was not thick enough. Frost took one final deep breath to calm himself. It was a fight to the death. He would either kill, or die with honour.

Stephen Frost stood up, facing his enemy, who was perched on the desk. The two men pointed their gun at each other. Frost squeezed the trigger, bracing himself for the blast. 'Click'. Neil rolled onto the floor in order to evade the bullet, but no bullet came. His gun was empty.

Frost swore. He knew his game was over. He was at his enemy's mercy. He dropped his gun and waited for the final shot that would finish him off for good.

But it never came. Instead, there was a soft voice, "Go." Frost opened his eyes, looking at Neil Straford. His face showed resignation, his gun dropped a fraction of an inch. "Go." He repeated.

"What....?"

"Leave now!" Neil said, his voice sounding stronger now. "Go before I change my mind and blow your head open." Frost didn't care to say anything. Thanking his gods, he quickly scooped up his gun and proceeded out of the room. He took the elevator down to the ground floor and sprinted out of the building as fast as he could.

Once outside, he was greeted with the welcoming cries of his fellow officers, who had grouped anxiously around the entrance. Frost shook his head at all their questions, he was too shaken up. After a few minutes he finally spoke, "He's still up there. Send in the copters. Open fire." A few officers bustled off, obeying Frost's commands. Frost threw himself onto a chair and took great gasping breaths. Stan, the young technician, approached him.

"Sir?" he asked cautiously, edging towards Frost with a pen and paper in his hand. "Did you happen to look at the terrorist? Could you describe his appearance?" Frost nodded, and attempted to smile.

"You know Julian Straford? His son, Neil, was the terrorist. Guy was like nineteen years old, about five eight, not very fat. He had red hair, grey eyes, glasses, a scar across his cheek, and a rather pointed nose." Frost noticed the confused expression on Stan's face. "What's wrong?"

Stan shook his head. "Julian Straford has a son sir, as you said, around nineteen years of age. But the guy is called Mark. Not Neil. And he's one of the fattest kids around" Stan looked at his senior with a worried expression. "You sure he said Neil?"

Frost nodded and continued, "I'd bet my right hand that he was the terrorist." He violently smacked his forehead with his hand, "I SHOULD HAVE REALIZED!! I KNEW STRAFORD'S SON WAS CALLED MARK!! IT SLIPPED MY MIND!!" If only I had known then, all those tycoons wouldn't have died..."

Frost looked up and saw everyone's faces showing pure shock. He had forgotten that they did not know this. He quickly explained the rules of the game and its disastrous consequences. He watched as his listeners' faces grew more and more aghast. "I'm still not sure why the kid let me go," he concluded, "but I thank him and I thank my stars for that...."

Frost heaved a sigh of relief that this ordeal was over. But he knew, somehow, that he was going to see more of this mysterious young man.

**********

6 stood alone for a few moments in the topmost office. Only him and his emotions. He was still trying to figure out why he let the cop escape. Stephen Frost appealed to 6. He liked his style, his bravery and his attitude. He was a worthy foe for 6. That's why I let him go, 6 thought, as he heaved a heavy sigh and pocketed his gun.

With a jolt, 6 realized that however much he admired Frost, police forces would be on their way up the building. He pulled out his walkie talkie and shortly commanded everyone to get onto the roof. He then began to run towards the roof himself. As he ran he whipped out his cell phone. He dialled a number within seconds. "Pilot," he said urgently, "we need to leave. Now."

Five minutes later, 6 along with his six team mates stood on the roof, gazing out into the bright sky. There was a low droning noise as a helicopter in the distance began to approach the Gates tower. "Quick quick quick!!" 6 muttered under his breath as he paced up and down the open roof anxiously. Sure enough, within seconds, a second, louder sound filled the air. The sound of another chopper.

A black police helicopter rose over the side of the tower, its two menacing machine guns pointed at 6 and his team. There was an instant, as the pilot of the chopper met eyes with 6. And then the guns began to blaze, filling the air with lethal bullets.

6 managed to dive behind an air conditioning vent before the bullets reached him. But, unfortunately, all his team mates were not as lucky. Jerry gave a roar of pain as a bullet pierced him in the shoulder. He dropped onto the floor in order to avoid any more shots. Another man in 6's team, Lou, was hit squarely in the chest by a dozen bullets, dropping dead on the spot.

6 crouched tersely behind the vent and waited. He knew Lou was dead, but he couldn't undo it. "Guys, stay low, Pilot's gonna be here in a few seconds." he called out.

Sure enough, the second helicopter rapidly approached the building. This helicopter, however, looked quite different. Two large barrel-like objects were on either side of its body. As the helicopter approached the building, there was a loud roar as a large black missile shot out towards the police helicopter from the belly of the chopper.

There was a loud crash as the police helicopter exploded, showering the five living men on the roof with shards of glass and metal. The second copter hovered low over the roof and the five men climbed in using the rope that dangled below the helicopter.

Once all of them had climbed on, the copter spun around, towards the countryside. Blue flames erupted from the barrel like thrusters on its sides, and it shot off at amazing speed, towards base.

Once aboard the helicopter, 6 finally relaxed. He sat on one of the assorted chairs in the main cabin, watching Antony tend to Jerry's arm. With a moan of relief, 6 pulled off the red wig, shaking his black hair loose. He cautiously removed the horn rimmed glasses and, after folding them, he put them into a case. With a quick swipe, he pulled of the fake extension on his nose. Finally, he pulled off the scar sticker stuck to his cheek. He then went into the cockpit and clapped the Indian pilot on his back.

"All went well?" asked Pilot Singh, looking up at 6.

"Perfect," said 6. "Drop me off at the garage, I need to go home."

Pilot nodded, and continued to fly the copter under the noonday sun.

**********

One week had elapsed since the dreadful events at the Gates plaza. Far far away from the busy city of Goodane, in the countryside, a large farmhouse was perched upon a green hill. The air was quiet and calm. In the distance, one could hear the crashing of the waves onto the shore, eventually pierced by a cry from an animal in the surrounding woods.

In the living room of the farmhouse, an oldish woman, in her lower fifties, paced tensely. Every time she reached the window she paused and took a vigilant look outside. Her eyes lit as she heard the sound of wheels on tarmac and the slamming of a car door. She quickly darted to the front door just as a young man turned the key and walked in. on seeing the young man, the woman let out a squeal and hugged him.

"Oh, Alfred! Are you alright? I saw the news of the Gates plaza and I was TERRIFIED!" she looked up at her nephew, who was as good as a son to her, "You're fine aren't you?" she asked lovingly. The young man gave a smile and nodded.

"I'm perfectly all right aunt Mabel," he told the anxious woman in a calming voice. "I was nowhere near the place when it happened."

The young man brushed his long black hair out of his eyes, walked over to the table and seated himself. "Jerry says hi, by the way." He said as he busied himself with his large backpack. "Guy's wearing a cast for a few days, got hit by a vehicle in the arm." Alfred continued digging his bag as his aunt tutted sympathetically, "I don't know what you boys do in the city to get such injuries..." she muttered as she poured cereal and milk into a bowl and kept it in front of her nephew.

"Here," said Alfred, lifting a black case out of his bag, "I got your new spectacles. As per your latest report. Try not to break them" he smiled. Aunt Mabel took the case from Alfred and opened it. She pulled out the horn rimmed spectacles and placed them on her nose.

"How do I look?" she asked, peering at the mantelpiece mirror.

"Tired" replied Alfred, "Have you been doing extra work around the farm? The doctor told you specifically NOT to exert yourself." He said, sternly gazing at his aunt. Aunt Mabel shook her head, "After the farm employment law we've been very short staffed. Annie had to go, Jessie had to leave, Burton works only part time. I've been doing a lot of work Al."

Alfred shook his head sadly. "Curse those people. They have no experience of agriculture and they make laws about it. Damn tycoons. And by the way, your wish came true didn't it?" he said.

On seeing his aunt's quizzical glance he continued, "Didn't you wish all those tycoons went to hell?" He grinned as his aunt looked exasperated, "Come on Aunt Mabel! You suffered so many losses because of that! So some guy must've heard you and killed them for us! You'll have to thank the murderer!"

"Oh Alfred," said Aunt Mabel, as she bustled around the kitchen preparing lunch, "I will never understand you."

~~~

# Moonlight

The moon slowly floated over the night sky like a pockmarked pearl. It bathed the earth below in eerie silver light. Thin wispy clouds drifted carelessly across the night sky, allowing the millions of stars to be exposed. A cool breeze tickled the trees of the wood, making them rustle and shake their leaves with quiet ecstasy. The creatures of the wood had retired to their homes, and most of them were fast asleep. Even the omnipresent cicadas had stopped their high pitch chirping, creating an almost deathly silence in the wood.

There was a loud crunch as a small foot stepped on a dried leaf. The sound echoed through the quaint little clearing, waking up the birds sleeping on the nearby trees. The child looked around him, desperately trying to find a way to detect the way out of the forest. He sniffed loudly, tears welling up in his eyes, and started walking away from the clearing, down what seemed to be a previously trodden trail. An owl hooted somewhere above him. In the distance, a jackal howled. Or at least, he thought it was a jackal.

The child walked slowly, his large eyes taking in every detail of the forest around him. He took care to avoid stepping in the pools of bright silver moonlight, as he didn't want to lose the game he had been playing with himself all evening. He was still not sure when he lost the group, but he was determined to find them before the morning. He was only eight years old, but he had been in the forest so many times that he was quite confident that he could find his way around and out of it.

Unfortunately, he had never stayed in the forest beyond sunset.

The child suppressed a little gasp as he heard something moving behind him. He turned around. Nothing. He was hearing things. He shook his head and continued down the path, wondering how he could be so tense in his own backyard.

A soft chuckling could be heard from somewhere up ahead. A soft, fast, inhumane chuckling. The child had never heard that sound in the forest before. He began to shiver. He was about to start crying when he remembered his parents' advice: when you're feeling lonely and scared, sing. And so he began to sing his favourite song.

"In the town where I was born,

Lived a man who sailed to sea,

And he told us of his life,

In the land of submarines"

His voice sounded squeaky and high pitched in the echoing silence of the forest. But he continued singing to keep his courage burning. He could no longer hear the chuckling, but he was pretty sure he could hear the bushes on his right rustling. He pretended to ignore it and went on to the next verse.

"So we sailed on to the sun,

Till we found the sea of green,

And we lived beneath the waves,

In our Yellow Submarine"

And then he realized that he had left his toy submarine in the garden. The sun had set hours ago and his favourite toy submarine had probably been chewed up by Fluffy. That broke him.

And then, the lost explorer in the woods turned into the eight year old child that he truly was, and began to cry. Tears rolled down the child's plump cheeks as he opened the floodgates of his mental dam. Pent up emotions poured down the child's cheeks as he began to sob profusely. He stumbled over a fallen branch and fell on the soft forest litter. But he made no effort to get up. He lay on the ground, sobbing, the pain from the new cut on his knee only adding to his tears.

Another long, eerie howl echoed through the woods, causing more jittering and chuckling from the creatures in the bushes. The child held his breath, his small ears listening sharply for indications as to where the howling creature was, but he found none.

Silence. Deathly silence. The sound of his breathing was the only indication that the child had not gone deaf. Slowly, he hoisted himself up on his tiny feet, looking around him cautiously. He was pretty sure something was moving on his left, but he couldn't see anything despite the silver light of the full moon, so he decided that he was just hearing things again.

He continued down his path, still humming under his breath, still avoiding the splashes of moonlight on the forest floor, when he suddenly remembered the stories his big brother used to tell him about the wood. A shiver ran down his spine as he recalled the stories of werewolves and demons that his brother used to tell him in the dead of the night: Stories about thieves and murders and brutal killings that happened in the forest on moonlit nights.

As though on cue, a low snarl tore through the quiet atmosphere of the wood. The sound was so guttural and deep that the child could feel the ground beneath him resonate. And this time, he could not pass it off as his imagination as he could sense, through some unknown gut feeling, the presence of a large creature somewhere in the bushes around him. He heard the panicked chattering of the birds in the trees as they took wing and fled into the silver black skies.

He broke into a trot, down the path that lead to nowhere, the moment he heard the muted thuds of padded feet. He knew that something was stalking him, and he didn't like it one bit.

The bushes began rustling wildly as the child scrambled down the path, panting desperately, in an attempt to outrun the hidden beast that was pursuing him. He stuck to the side of the trail, STILL avoiding the moonlight for a reason only he could understand. The beast now took no care to silence its footfalls, and its thudding gallops seemed to shake the trees of the forest themselves. The child began to cry as he ran, fear and adrenaline making him run faster than ever before. Plants brushed against him like clawed hands trying to hold him back. But he rushed on through them, ignorant of the scratches they created on his face and hands.

After several minutes of running, the trail ended. In front of him was nothing but more savage undergrowth. He was cornered. Trapped. Dinner. With a loud wail of sorrow, the child threw himself into the bushes, flailing desperately trying to move forwards. The rustling of the leaves around him and his own grunts of effort were the only things he could hear. He didn't know where the beast was, and at this point, he did not care. He wanted to go home. He wanted to fall asleep in his mother's lap and never enter the forest ever again.

All of a sudden, the bush opened out in front of him as he collapsed into yet another clearing. He wiped the mixture of sweat, tears and blood from his face with his sleeve and continued running through the forest, determined to get out alive. The galloping beast was still somewhere near him, he wasn't quite sure where it was. It seemed as though the creature was merely toying with its eight year old prey.

And then it showed itself.

An enormous black shadow heaved itself onto thee path in front of the boy. With a low growl, it began taking slow, deliberate steps towards the shivering child. It stepped into a pool of moonlight, and the little boy finally saw what he was up against.

It was tall- The size of a horse, or maybe even bigger-Standing on four slender yet muscular legs, each ending with razor sharp claws. Two shiny red eyes peered sinisterly at the child from behind a long canine snout. It was completely covered in shaggy brown hair.

The werewolf threw its head back, looked at the full moon, and let out another piercing howl. He looked back down at his victim, who was now paralysed with fear and was incapable of motion, and began advancing, smiling in a sinister, vicious way.

After what seemed like all of eternity, the child found his feet and began backing away from the fiendish werewolf. In his hurry to escape from his pursuer, he forgot about his little game to avoid the moonlight, and stepped directly into the silver light from the full moon above.

The moment the moon illuminated the child's dirty skin with its pearly rays, he froze. Calm came over his entire body and he relaxed, looking at his foe with a slight smile on his face. He took another step into the puddle of moonlight. And another. The werewolf watched with curious eyes as its tiny meal gave it a sly smile. It noticed the change in colour of its victim's eyes from light green to blood red, but it still didn't panic. After all, one swipe of its claws and the child would be dead.

He smirked at the werewolf. He could feel the power flowing into him from the moon. He threw back his head, and howled- an eerie, inhumane, werewolf howl.

~~~

# The Laboratory

JJ Labs was located in the industrial sector of town. Surrounded by dilapidated warehouses, it looked quite forlorn from the outside. The street rarely saw traffic, only trucks at the most. Most of the warehouses around the lab had shut down or been abandoned, so one can safely say that JJ Labs was the most active establishment on that street.

In today's world of science, computers and other such technology, one would rarely expect to see a chemist's lab. Laboratories were now large sectors of private or public companies. Be it pharmaceutical or for testing purposes, labs almost always belonged to a company. But in this case it was different. JJ Labs belonged to one Mr Jacob Jackson, an elderly chemist. He was the founder, chairman, R&D head, marketing head, accounting department and lab personnel of JJ Labs. In other words, he was its only employee.

But Jacob didn't mind his solitary life. He had developed the habit of talking to himself, so things didn't seem too lonely anymore. The small, excited man would earnestly carry on with his own experiments day after day, without caring for the rest of the world. Once in a while he would leave the haven of his Lab (for he slept there as well) in order to purchase groceries and chemicals. In his early seventies, Jacob had no family. His brother and sister were long dead. His wife had abandoned him because he had shown more interest in his experiments than in her. But he didn't really fret about his past troubles, for every day was a new adventure for him.

You must be wondering at this point of time, as to how such a small scale laboratory is financed. It is a queer matter, so to speak. Jacob Jackson got his income through assorted means.

Every week, the young paper boy of the neighbourhood used to pick up his grandfather's "special" medication on paying about a third of his weekly income. Such medications were not sold in the market and, even if they were, they were too expensive for the paper boy. So, as long as young Max wanted his grandfather alive, he had to pay Jacob.

If one saw a silver Audi parked in front of JJ Labs, it meant that an eminent personality is going to die soon, for the assassin, who went by the name Adam Donald, was a regular at Jacob's lab. He used to drop in every now and then, and pay a handsome sum for assorted poisons. Miraculously, JJ Labs had never been traced as the source of these poisons, probably because very few people knew of its existence.

If there was a compact car parked in front of the Lab, it meant that chef Voltaire from the local restaurant was out of his "special ingredient". About two times a month, he would send one of the waiters to JJ Labs for a paper bag of the stuff, which only Jacob Jackson knew the composition of.

These people were the regular sources of Jacob's income. But other than them, Jacob also had people who turned up occasionally, demanding certain compounds or chemicals. All in all, in fiscal matters, JJ Labs was fairly steady. Jacob lived a simple life at the back of the Lab, and was very satisfied with his standard of living.

The interior of JJ Labs, if one had the privilege of going inside, looked like a fusion of a medieval and modern chemist's lab. A computer sat in one corner, showing latest chemical discoveries, or the uses of certain compounds in poison making. The main room of the lab was filled with tables, forming some sort of a maze to reach the back. On these tables stood an assortment of flasks, beakers, glasses, burners, stoves, tubes, and stands. The air was filled with fumes of different colours, emitted from different sources. The sounds of fizzling and bubbling liquids were permanently in the air.

Along the walls were several rows of shelves, with hundreds of jars. While some of these jars held things like sulphur and sodium chloride, others held more obscure substances such as eyeballs(bought from the local hospital), fingernails(all belonging to Jacob), Urine(various jars, from various animals) and various other body parts of animals and organic substances. Jacob, being an animal lover, obtained these body parts only after the animal had died.

Somewhere within this labyrinth of glass objects, you would find the tiny Jacob, twiddling with test tubes or mixing together flasks of liquids, often resulting in minor explosions. Thankfully, Jacob didn't have any neighbours. Jacob rarely injured himself grievously, and if he was too weak to work, he would take leave.

Jacob lived in a small room at the back of the lab. Fitted with a bed and a bathroom, it was enough to satisfy his needs. Every morning Jacob woke up at eight. By nine he would enter the lab, coat and all, ready to work. Throughout the day he would mix this with that, pour that into this, heat these with those, and put out a few fires. If he had a client, he would work only on their demands with determination. If not, he would continue on his own studies, trying to achieve a goal only he knew about.

One cold day, Jacob found himself devoid of any client to work for, so he set about working on his personal goal. "So close...." He muttered to himself, as he checked his enormous log book, which tracked his progress towards his discovery. Jacob had a tingling feeling in his gut that perhaps...perhaps today was the day. The day he had been labouring towards for the past thirty years.

Quickly seizing a couple of flasks, Jacob began pouring out both their contents into a beaker. The liquid in the beaker turned bright yellow. Jacob held his nose over the mouth of the beaker and sniffed, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the pungent smell. "Acid. I don't want acid." He muttered into the beaker. Jacob set down the beaker and ran to one of the shelves and picked up another jar. He took a measured quantity of the green, viscous liquid in a test tube and poured it into the yellow liquid, causing it to fume and hiss wildly. Muttering rapidly under his breath, Jacob set down the beaker, allowing it to fizz, as he combed the shelves for the item he needed.

"Ha!" he said triumphantly, as he picked up the jar containing a large number of minute eyeballs. Using a tiny spoon to scoop up about five of these, he dropped them into the fizzling liquid, making it lose its entire colour. The fizzling abruptly stopped as well. Jacob tittered excitedly. This could be it. He cautiously lifted the beaker up to his lips, and took a tiny sip.

Within a second, his face contorted in disgust and he retched loudly. The drink tasted horrible. Nevertheless, Jacob continued to run the routine tests to check the effect of the drink. He spoke a standardised sentence-no change in pitch or loudness of his voice. He held his breath and timed how long he could do it-no change. He ran up to his room and back-nothing new. He tried to lift up his desk-and failed. Mumbling rapidly to himself, he shook his head as he jotted down the composition and effects of the chemical, keeping in mind that he could use this in case he needed anything to taste bad or rotten.

In this manner, Jacob continued testing various combinations of organic and inorganic compounds, drinking each one to test its effect, unconcerned of the consequences.

It was not until the afternoon that he was blessed with success. Jacob had skipped his lunch break yet again, for food was not very important these days, and was busy cooling a liquid down to 0 degrees before adding a few more substances to it. When it reached the desired temperature, Jacob sprinkled some blue salt into the beaker.

"Perhaps," he muttered, as he watched the colour change from milky white to purple, "Perhaps the gastric juices of a bull? No...no!! That would poison!!" he contradicted himself, shaking his head vigorously, "Unless...unless it was added ALONG with bile!! Yes...yes! I think I've got it!!" with a triumphant whoop, Jacob ran into his personal labyrinth of jars and chemicals, emerging with a small jar in each hand. He mixed exactly ten millilitres of the two pale yellow liquids in a separate tube and added the resulting substance into his purple chemical.

Thick smoke erupted from the surface of the beaker, blinding Jacob. But, being an experienced chemist, Jacob was prepared. He deftly slid a glass lid over the beaker and placed it inside a refrigerator. As the liquid cooled further, Jacob continued searching his shelves. Finally, he returned to the refrigerator, mumbling with satisfaction, holding a tube with a colourless liquid inside it marked 'Crushed pituitary gland (bull)'.

He pulled the beaker out of the fridge and added ten drops of the colourless liquid to his experiment. With a final, satisfactory sigh, Jacob picked up the beaker and took a measured gulp of the liquid.

Burning in the throat, tingling in the limbs- these were the first sensations perceived by Jacob. Without concerning himself with anything else, Jacob began conducting his tests. He spoke-no change in voice. He ran- no change in speed and no reduction in breathlessness. He jumped up and down- nothing happened. Finally, he walked up to his heavy looking desk and attempted to lift it up.

There was a loud clatter as several books, pens and paperweights crashed onto the floor. Jacob looked up; the desk was vertical, in his hands. It felt as light as a piece of foam. With a loud gasp, he dropped it. It fell with a deafening 'clunk'. Whooping and shivering with excitement, Jacob sprinted towards his room. He reached the door. He lifted up his hand, and brought it against the centre of the door to his room, slowly. There was a splintering crash as the door split vertically into two pieces.

Eyes wide with excitement, Jacob ran inside the room. He slammed his fist into the wall next to his bed. It crumbled in a cloud of paint and plaster. Dust filled the air and Jacob began to cough. This was amazing!! This could change the entire world!! I want to try it one more time, thought Jacob, ignoring the tingling feeling in his hands. He walked up to his iron bed. With a low groan, he lifted it vertically, just as he had lifted his desk. There was a pause for one triumphant second. All of a sudden, the bed seemed to be gaining weight rapidly. Jacob tottered wildly as the full weight of the iron bed fell on his weak arms. Slowly, Jacob began falling forwards. With a loud 'thunk' the bed crashed back onto the ground and Jacob collapsed onto the bed, wheezing and massaging his arms.

The effect must have worn off, he thought, as he threw himself off the bed and trudged into the lab. He picked up his log book and began fervently scribbling the details of his latest discovery. Once he had finished, he was about to take another dose of the miraculous chemical, when, all of a sudden, there was a knock on the door.

With a curious gaze at the door, Jacob wound his way towards it. With an eager face, he pulled open the door, only to see a serious faced police officer at his door.

"Doctor Jacob Jackson?" the policeman asked with a serious face. On seeing Jacob nod, his face became graver. "Mr Jackson, I'm afraid you're under arrest for creating and trading poisonous chemicals." The officer gave a nod to someone next to him, and the next thing Jacob knew, he was being ferried out of his lab by four burly policemen.

"Wait!!" he cried desperately, flailing around his guard, who didn't let go. "Wait! You must see my latest discovery!!"

"I'm sorry Mr Jackson, you will remain in police custody for the next forty eight hours, following which you will face a trial. All experiments must be put on hold"

"No! You don't understand!! The latest chemical will increase your muscle power! Drastically!! You must listen! It will do wonders for the country! For the military!"

"I'm sorry sir; you can share all this information at court. Get into the car sir." said the officer, clearly uninterested. He piloted Jacob into the police van parked in front of the lab. Once he had shut Jacob into the back, he looked at one of his colleagues and sighed. "You gonna take him to court, Steve?" his bearded colleague asked him.

Stephen Frost shook his head. "He played a critical role in the assassination of the president ! I ain't wasting my time with the judicial system. It's a straight life term for him."

With a heavy sigh, Officer Stephen Frost got into the driver's seat of the car and started the engine. He was mentally prepared to jail the genius sitting at the back, regardless of his latest discovery.

~~~

# Soldier

The office was empty. The lights were off, plunging the large room into a blue twilight. Most had retired to their quarters for the night. The low hum of the air condition sounded reassuring and calm, omnipresent. Occasionally, the loud whine could be heard, as a drone flew overhead. The office seemed to be in decent condition, save for the mess of papers all over the floor. It had been over a week since the last attack.

Among the honeycomb of little cubicles that filled the floor of the large office room, one was illuminated. Hunched tersely over his computer, illuminated only by the light of his desk lamp, the young man gazed at the monitor from behind his anti-glare goggles. His twelve fingers poised above the keyboard, ready to start typing in an instant.

The monitor was constantly updating the status of his virtual probe. A probe into a Chinese server. If it hit a target, he would have to overload the target with so much code that it would collapse under the pressure. He took a moment's rest from his duty as he smirked to himself, this war, was the war of the geeks, he thought. The big brutes were quite useless in the third world war. Their only use would be to capture Chinese bases once the U.S troops discovered their positions.

He twitched his little finger and gratefully sucked juice out of the straw that extended from his life support system-his computer. It was his fourth month on the job now, and only two more months before he could return to the comfort of his home. His unit had lost about six men since he had joined. A few had been overloaded, but had managed to survive the explosion of their overloaded computers. They were sent home to rest before returning to the war front.

He heard the fizz and crackle of a computer being hit, and instinctively cowered. On cue, he heard an explosion somewhere to his right, a computer overloaded. Not taking his eyes off his own screen, he called out into the darkness of the office, wondering if anyone had been hurt by the explosion. There was no response. Deciding to be a bit optimistic, he concluded that the terminal had been unmanned when it was attacked.

His thoughts were drowned out by a loud whine as an unmanned drone flew outside the office. He prayed that it was a friendly drone, and not a bomber. He knew that most people had moved to the underground colonies after the Great Flood of 2012 and those who still lived on the surface-the desperately poor outcasts and eccentric millionaires- had been shifted to the underground cities since the beginning of the war. Nevertheless, he still felt a gut wrenching fear every time he heard a drone fly overhead. He himself had never walked on the surface of the earth. He was truly a child of the core, as the group of underground dwellers called themselves.

Ping. His probe had acquired a target.

Instantaneously, his fingers flew to the keyboard, hammering out code at a speed which would seem almost inhuman to civilians. Lessons from training camp 404 flooded through his mind as he evaluated the various strategies he could use against the newly discovered Chinese computer.

Line after line of green code appeared on his computer screen as he tried out his first weapon- the opener, as they called it in camp. He was trying to gain control of the Chinese computer from his little cubicle in New York. He finished his block of data and hit enter, waiting with intense anticipation as his code flew through various networks and wrestled with the Chinese firewalls.

One.

Two.

Three.

And he began banging out more code, as he realized that his initial attack had failed. If it hadn't failed, he'd have received data from the Chinese server. He decided to change the nature of his attack and fizz out the circuits of his enemy's computer. His fingertips were almost a blur now, and all his idle thoughts of home had been replaced by syntaxes and logic. One error in either would be a fatal loss of time, giving the enemy the time to destroy his computer and, in the process, him.

He hit enter again and, before he could relax his tense fingers even a bit, was confronted by a large "ATTACK DETECTED" prompt on his monitor. Shit. He had been detected by the Chinese soldier.

He took roughly four seconds to analyse the code that had been thrown at his computer from the other side of the planet. It was simple enough to beat, but something about it bothered him. Unable to put his finger (or mouse) on the problem, he quickly typed out a little program that would undo anything the Chinese guy's program did. He then added two more lines and completely nullified the code, allowing it to get stored in the quarantine for analysis at a more peaceful time.

And then he saw what was bothering him. The code that had attacked him was from a different address, not the one he was attacking. With a quick two line program, he realized his horrible error. He had wasted precious time and code. He cursed himself for not verifying the authenticity of his initial target.

Bile rose up to his throat as he realized that his enemy now knew his location and his attack style, which was pretty much everything he needed to know. Calming himself with deep breaths, he decided to continue his attack anyway, changing the new code to match his enemy's true address. He quickly created what was commonly called a "faker". A piece of a program that looked threatening but in reality worked on the defence. If his opponent fell for it, he would have control of the Chinese computer. He took a deep breath and threw the code yet again.

And then there was a beep as his computer was caught in the coils of another chunk of Chinese code. The prompt appeared and he opened the program that would seize his computer if he couldn't disarm it in the next ninety seconds.

For the first time since camp, the young man found himself staring at a code which he couldn't follow at all. He gazed at the green text in front of him, his heart beating fast and his brain working faster, trying to comprehend the mass of letters and numbers in front of him. He saw the anti-keylog, something that would make his keyboard useless. That was not something he saw everyday. And then he read the little conditional statement: IF the anti-keylog worked, and then IF he hit a key on the keyboard, he'd be a burning mass of flesh within a nanosecond.

The clock was ticking on the corner of his screen as he started working on a way to free his computer, slowly at first, but rapidly gaining speed and confidence. His eyes kept darting between the timer and the code, trying their best not to succumb to the burning sweat that was dripping into them from his wet forehead.

The clock ticked down, unhesitant. His code was not close to completion. Almost unconsciously, thoughts of death began to enter his head. He had an urge to get up and dive out of the way before it was too late, but some internal determination kept him rooted to the spot, typing incessantly.

The timer hit ten seconds and an incessant beeping began to emanate from the machine, urging its user to leave. But his confidence in himself and his programming ability prevented him from heeding to its urges. When the timer hit five seconds, he finished his program and executed it.

There was a pause.

And suddenly, the beeping and the timer stopped.

He sighed. He was safe. He took a moment to wipe his sweaty forehead and take a deep breath. His computer pinged optimistically, and his eyes lit up-his faker had worked! Pulling himself quickly together, he siphoned out all the data from the Chinese computer into the common server in the next room, and then he did what he was paid to do: He destroyed the Chinese computer. It was a simple process, and he did it within a few seconds. He had taken another life.

"Forgive me lord, for I have sinned" he murmured, eyes closed, as he thought of the Chinese youth who had just lost his life.

He checked his watch. It was a quarter past one in the morning, and yet, sleep hadn't caught up with him yet. His shift was over. With a sigh of relief, he switched to a secure local network, one in which he can't be attacked.

He opened a search engine, typed in a few words, found the page he was looking for and continued doing what he had been doing for two days now. He read the article keenly, his lips silently forming the words that went through his mind.

He massaged his temples as he read the article, as he tried to figure out what the war was about.

~~~

# The Tigress

The tigress stalked slowly and silently through the tall jungle grass. She quietly adjusted her weight on her large, padded feet. Her honey brown eyes searched among the herd of deer in the clearing for a suitable candidate for her meal. She took care to select the weakest, most tender looking fawn of the herd for today was the first time her four young cubs would taste meat.

She set her sights on her victim-to-be and adjusted herself into a proper angle to leap onto the fawn. Step-by-step, she drew closer to the clearing, giving no indication whatsoever of her presence.

Her thoughts strayed back to her four little cubs, three males and one female. They were probably gambolling around in the safety of their den. She fondly remembered the day they opened their little eyes to the world, the day they first left their den...

A rustle of leaves to her left. Her thoughts snapped back to the present as she scanned the dense foliage around the clearing for the source of the rustling. There was none.

But the disturbance had taken its toll. Several deer stopped grazing and began to frantically look for the source of the sound. Some of the more timid deer began to flee. The tigress' young target slowly raised his head to see what all the commotion was about. The tigeress realized that it was time to act.

She charged into the clearing, adding to the mounting hysteria of the herd. With two huge bounds, the tigress was close enough to pounce on her target. By the time the young fawn realized what was going to happen to him, it was too late. Suddenly, a deafening bang rocked the clearing.

With a thud, the tigress fell to the ground, the bullet hole in her shoulder bleeding profusely. She was going to die!! Who would feed her cubs? They would starve to death! She gave a moan of grief and pain as she realized the fate of her cubs. The tigress' vision slowly faded into nothingness.....

**********

The hunter stood up. He had a wide grin on his face. Nothing beat the classic stone-throw trick. Cause a distraction, create a ruckus, and get the game. But today was different. Today was the greatest day of his life!! Today he had shot down a tigress!! He examined his victim's beautiful coat, calculated its market price, hoisted her body over his shoulder and left the clearing.

Two weeks later, a report came into the forest department. Four dead tiger cubs had been found. Three males and one female. All four seemed to have died from starvation as the report claimed that they looked as skinny as rats.

A few days later, a hunter had just made half a million dollars by selling a stunningly beautiful pelt of an adult tigress.

~~~

# The Last Concert

When Al Hewitt walked on to the stage, wearing a huge grin, no one knew that he was quaking like a frightened child on the inside. He strode easily onto the large stage, taking care to step over the many wires running all across. The crowd went mad. Al shook his long hair over his shoulders and waved out to the crowd. They went absolutely ballistic. People screamed, screeched, hooted, shouted, jumped, waved and even saluted on seeing the world famous rock star on stage. Little did this mad mob know the significance of the concert they were attending.

But Al knew.

Today was his last concert. His security was extra – extra tight. His moves, dialogs and interactions had been strictly scripted and his songs were a mix of his best and his latest. Al Hewitt did not plan on retiring from his music career. He was about to be assassinated within the next five hours. This much, he himself knew.

A gut feeling within him knew that despite the security, this would be Al's last concert. He knew nothing about the assassin, the type of kill he was in for, or the reasons for the assassin to kill him. All he had received the previous morning was a small note. It had been couriered to him and had said:

Goodbye Al Hewitt, tomorrow will be your last concert. Enjoy it, don't cancel it, I'll be waiting there to finish you off.'

Al's manager had immediately called for the cancellation of the concert. But Al had stopped him before the command went through to the authorities. Al did not believe in protecting himself. He believed in fate. Al believed that his life, and everybody else's life as well, were predestined and what was to happen, was to happen. Al had decided, if this was what was coming to him, he had to take it head on. He won the argument with his manager, and thankfully, he had no loved ones to worry about. His wife had died about four weeks back. And if fate wanted him to get out of this world, he would get out singing, he thought.

"Good Evening Londoners!!!!!! Thank you all for coming!!!!! I hope you enjoyed your own awesome local bands?" Al called out to the crowd, recollecting his script.

The crowd roared. Al could hear them chanting his band's name over and over, "Si – lent Knights!! Si – lent Knights!!". "So you all want to hear the Silent Knights?" he called into the crowd, pointing at the young Londoners. They went crazy again. He asked them again, they went even crazier. Finally he gave a nod to his band-members, who were waiting off stage, and they trooped on to the stage, all smiling and waving at the crowd. Al remembered that they had no idea about what was going to happen quite soon. He was reassured by the fact that he had written his will and his farewell note on a piece of paper which was currently in his pocket.

No time to recheck it now though. Now was time to act.

"So, as you all probably remember, that's Jamie on the drums, Alec playing lead guitar, Goldie on the bass and Steve on the rhythm guitar. And that's Gloria playing the keyboard for us" The crowd had become quieter now, now that he was preparing to actually sing. "Okay, I'm going to start off tonight with a brand new song, I wrote about two days ago. Its called, 'I see you coming'!!!"

Although they hadn't heard of the song, the audience, who expected a lot from Al Hewitt, burst into cries, cheers and applause.

The lights dimmed, Al held the mike up to his mouth, his eyes scanned each person amongst the crowd, looking for his killer. He wanted to look him in the face before he died. The music began to play...Jamie gave a slow and steady beat. Alec Goldie and Steve slowly joined in as well. Al started singing...

" In this Dark-ness

Which is the light

I know you're approaching

Ready for a fight......

I can hear you're footsteps

coming close.....

They're getting louder

But I'm ready for you!!!"

Al stretched on the last word. Jamie changed the pace of the beats, he began banging away on the drums as the three guitarists, too, began to play louder and more complex sequences. Al tapped his foot in rhythm and began to sing the chorus in a loud voice.

"I know you're out there,

I just Don't know where,

I can hear you comin' with all your might

and I am ready for the fight!!!"

Alec began to play a solo. Jamie was freaking out with the beats. Al walked forward onto the ramp in front of the stage. Onto the perfect place to be assassinated. As he continued to sing, he scanned the audience for someone who looked suspicious.

Al's heart skipped a beat as he saw someone bending down, as though to pick up a gun. But he heaved a sigh when he saw a crying infant in the man's arms. He saw a bunch of girls screaming and squealing in delight. He waved to them as he sang, one of them fainted. Al was not alarmed, such things were a regularity at his concert. His eyes strayed up to the highest stands, a perfect vantage point for a sniper. But there were only a bunch of shirtless hoodlums dancing to his song. None of them looked like they would hate him. His eyes fell upon a beautiful girl who quietly watched him. There was no compulsion that his killer was a male. And she looked as though she was the kind who would kill men.

Only one other person amongst the entire twenty thousand who had come for the concert, understood the symbolism and irony of the song that Al sang. He was a grumpy looking, middle-aged man. He had an unkempt air about him. His hair was matted and had flecks of gray in it, the face below it was heavily lined and a rough stubble grew on his chin. He had entered the stadium a few minutes before the Silent Knights had begun to play. He surveyed the security equipment at the entrance to the stadium with bloodshot eyes. Reluctantly, he allowed himself to be frisked. The search revealed nothing. Probably because the security personnel at the concert did not have the time and equipment to check the man's large, thick boots.

He stepped into the stadium, found himself a suitable spot to watch and passively watched Al sing. The moment he heard the song, he knew Al had received his note and had accepted his fate. He knew the plan. It was simple and easy...

Al finished his song. He was still alive. That was good. Perhaps his assassin was running late, or better still, he had been caught and arrested. Despite Al's belief of his fate and his acceptance towards it, he was scared. Who wouldn't be? When any second you could have your head blown apart.

The Silent Knights trudged off stage for a break before their next song. The moment Al reached his dressing room, he sank into his chair. He was safe here. There were four burly guards outside his dressing room, just in case anyone tried to kill him when he was inside. Ten minutes later, his manager popped his head inside and told Al to get on stage in five minutes. Al heaved a sigh. He got up and looked at himself in the mirror, maybe even for the last time. He slowly walked out of his dressing room, all his calmness and opinions about fate washed away by pure, raw fear.

The Silent Knights performed song after song. They had come on stage for the first time at seven in the evening. It was now nearing ten. Al's heart was still pumping frantically, as though it was trying to see how many times it could beat before he died. Still no trace of an assassination attempt came to the notice of the guards or Al. Finally, Al finished the last song. The audience gave a huge roar along with the final note of the final song. Al set the mike down on the stand, took a deep breath and shouted "Thank you London!!!!!"

He waved to the crowd and walked off the stage. He gave a quick farewell to his band-mates and left the stadium. He wanted to get back to his mansion. Quick. He walked out the exit and into a crowd of photographers, news reporters and fans- another likely location for an assassin. He tried his best to move as quickly as he could.

But suddenly, he froze. There were people on either side of Al, snapping pictures, asking questions, asking for autographs, screaming to get his attention. Amongst them was one man. THE one man. He showed no curiosity, nor love, nor admiration. He had an expression of calmness on his face. At once Al knew that this was his assassin. He walked up to the shabby looking gray haired man. He looked him in the eye, his feelings of calmness and belief in fate began to return to him. "You're the one aren't you?" he asked. The man slowly nodded. Al sized the man up. He was about thirty to thirty five and looked a bit older than that. He wore a red T-shirt and beige pants, no possible place to conceal a weapon. But somehow, Al was sure that this was his man.

"Fancy a drink?" The man asked Al quietly. Al was startled, he had, by no means, expected such an invitation from his assassin. He nodded. The man slowly started walking and Al followed him. "My name is Rupert Lawrence." he said.

Rupert lead Al to a mid sized Ford which was parked a block away from the stadium. Al got into the passenger's seat. Rupert began to drive. "I know a good all night place, a few streets away. By the way, aren't you afraid?" Al thought for a moment. "No. Not really. It's my fate to die like this, so let me accept it.". Rupert looked at Al, "As a great Englishman called Shakespeare once said, 'It is men and not their stars which are masters of their fate.' Your actions, and not your fate, are the reasons why I want to and am going to kill you." Rupert said, his British accent in stark contrast to that of Al's American accent.

Rupert checked the rear view mirror and saw the black car right behind them. He also saw the sub machine gun held by the man in the front seat . "You better call off your guards. They're getting suspicious." Al turned around and saw the guards. He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and with a quick call, dismissed them.

Rupert halted the car at the opening of a small dark alleyway. Al felt the moment approaching. He reached for the door handle, but realizing that his host had no intention of getting off the vehicle, he sank back into his seat.

"So, what happened to poor Linda Hewitt?" Rupert asked casually, staring straight ahead. Al looked at him and saw, in the faint light of the nearest street lamp, that his eyes were wet. "She died of unknown causes...The doctors weren't sure what it was that killed her" the rock star quietly said. Rupert seemed to be trembling now. With what looked like a great effort, he maintained a calm voice as he said, "Al, do you know what Linda's last name was before she got married to you?"

Al looked out the window, looking at the blurred, fuzzy street light, thinking. "Linda.......err.......Linda...." Then it hit him. He looked at Rupert, his eyes were wide with shock, horror and amazement. But now, Rupert was no longer controlling his tears, they flowed down his lined face and dripped off his nose. With a quick action, he reached down into his large boots and pulled out a revolver. He began sobbing and looked at Al with anger and grief filled eyes. "That's right you goddam rock star, that's right, her name was Linda Lawrence, MY Linda."

With a suicidal grin, he pulled the trigger of the revolver. A loud bang ensued and a second later, Al Hewitt was dead. One second later, another bang was heard in the neighbourhood. Rupert Lawrence had committed suicide.

Ten minutes later, the police, along with Hewitt's bodyguards had reached the Ford. Within seconds, they broke open the door and discovered the two bodies inside. One of course, was the legendary rock star, Al Hewitt, the bullet from the revolver through his head. On further investigation, a suicide note was found in his coat pocket. The note claimed that he knew about his assassination and that no one was to worry about it, as it was his fate.

The other body was not as famous as his victim's. Further inquiry lead to reveal that he was a certain Rupert Lawrence. There was no doubt that he was the assassin. Despite the bullet through his temple, Hewitt's guard could identify him as the one who drove Hewitt away. On the back seat of Lawrence's car was a folder which had been labeled 'Police: Read this'. The folder contained a certificate of marriage between a certain Rupert and Linda Lawrence, a picture of the assassin, though he looked much younger and happier, with a young, pretty woman next to him, and two newspaper articles. The first one showed a picture of Al Hewitt with the same young woman, both dressed up for a wedding. A caption below the picture read 'Rock Legend Hewitt weds small town girl Linda Lawrence.'

The other newspaper cutting was a small article which read 'Rock Legend Al Hewitt was devastated on Sunday when his wife passed away at the Felrock hospital. She had succumbed to a case of tetanus.

Despite this loss, Hewitt has decided to continue his tour of London, "I will continue, for her" Hewitt told our reporter at his California Mansion.'

The final page of the file was not a newspaper cutting nor a photograph. It was a sheet of paper. On it, in an untidy scrawl read the words, 'YOU CANT BUY LOVE ALBERT HEWITT. BUT YOU BOUGHT MY WIFE'S LOVE. YOU WILL PAY. I LOVE YOU LINDA.'

~~~

#  The Monster and the Angel

Gregory the fifth, popularly known as Grey, was a monster. He took pride in this fact and looked and behaved as monstrously as possible. His entire body was covered in long, matted heir which was tinted green with mosses and fungi. Several species of mosses grew ONLY amongst his hair, nowhere else on the planet. He was bipedal and sported two huge, hairy arms that ended in wicked looking claws. He stood on two pillar-like legs which, in times of trouble, could carry him at great speeds. At about seven feet in height, Grey was someone nobody wants to mess with.

But there was nobody to mess with Grey as he lived alone in the swamps of south Sudan. He lived his life in solitude, preying on the small birds and animals that lived in his swamp. Occasionally, he would treat himself by munching up a lost traveller. In short, Grey was little known to the world, and he cared very little about it.

One warm day, while Grey was asleep, half submerged in sticky brown sludge, he was blissfully unaware of the fact that his fate was being decided several miles away. Indeed it was, at The Hague, Switzerland- home to the United Nations General assembly. Somewhere inside the palace, a Sudanese delegate was shouting himself hoarse in his local tongue, a language nobody could understand.

A few hours later, with the help of a rather flustered translator, the message managed to get through. The Sudanese delegate seemed to be complaining about his wife's bad food. She never makes what I want, he seemed to be saying, and whatever she makes, she makes badly. There seemed to be something wrong with him, delegates generally did not discuss wives at the meeting.

A few minutes and a few more translators later, it was understood that the Sudanese delegate was complaining about a large monster who resided in his country's swamps. He claimed that the monster had eaten up over half the population of a rare, endemic species of bird.

So, like they always did at the UN, the delegates took a resolution-to pray to god. As stupid as it sounds, they wanted to humiliate the Sudanese delegate as he was wasting their valuable time with his useless banter. What did they care if there were fewer birds in Sudan?!

So all the delegates joined their hands, closed their eyes, bowed their heads and prayed to god. What they were unaware of, was the fact that a godly parliament was being held at that very moment, and the gods "hearkened" their prayer. The gods sat in silence as they heard the quiet voices of a hundred delegates, asking them to get rid of the Sudanese monster.

After ten minutes of vicious debate and several zaps of lightning on Zeus' part, an angel was sent down to Sudan to take care of Grey. The only problem was that the angel had a temper shorter than freshly mown grass. He also had an extremely sharp sword.

Our story now returns to Sudan, where Grey was attempting to make a meal out of a particularly angry lion. The two beasts slowly circled each other, growling. It was at this point of time that the angel arrived at the swamp.

He set down his suitcase, made a quick call home to say that he reached, and quietly watched the two monstrous beasts circle each other. He softly spoke to the lion. With a rough growl, the lion pounced on Grey. The angel watched, with an indifferent expression, as the two beasts grappled on the slushy floor of the swamp. There was a loud ripping and cracking noise as the lion was torn apart, literally, and thrown into the underbrush. There was a soft moan, and the lion did not emerge from the bushes.

The angel shortly commanded Grey to stop killing endemic species. Grey grunted and drooled. He politely asked again, Grey vigorously shook his shaggy head. For the third time, the angel asked Grey to go vegetarian. Grey let loose a lethal roar.

Two seconds and three swift slashes later, Grey lay dead on the angel's feet in a pool of blood. The angel smiled in a satisfied way. It was satisfaction of a job well done.

The angel turned away from Grey's body. He pulled out a printout from his briefcase and surveyed it wearily. He then shook his head as he replaced the printout back into his briefcase. Too few birds remaining. He would not be able to revive the endangered species- Grey's damage was done.

With a heavy sigh, the angel grimly set out on a task- to erase all records and memories of the rare Sudanese winglet. With several exhausting spells, the angel standing in the middle of the swamp erased all records, memories, photographs, censuses, discussions and websites about the bird.

The angel slumped down on to the swampy floor, exhausted. After a few minutes of rest, he stood up, prodded the corpse of Grey with his sword again, sheathed his sword, hoisted up his suitcase and caught the next flight back to heaven

~~~

# Highway Robbery

It was 3 am. Nocturnal silence had engulfed the city. Deserted streets lit by bright orange lights. Here and there, a few homeless people lay curled up by the roadside. An occasional car whizzed through the streets, a nocturnal traveller or a night shift worker.

The National Bank was situated at a generally busy intersection. An old and regal looking building, it was said to be one of the safest banks in the city. Jewellery and cash worth millions was stored within the vaults deep inside the building. Guards prowled through the vaults and outside the building twenty four hours a day. Thus it was highly unusual that on that particular night, there was no guard outside the bank.

Across the quiet street from the entrance of the bank, on a public bench, sat a ragged old man. He sat upright, slightly hunched, and held a copy of the evening mail in front of his unkempt face. Over the top of his newspaper, with glinting eyes, the old man observed and noticed this lack of guards in front of the National Bank. He slowly put down his paper beside him, pulled out a suave cell phone from his pocket and sent a text message to an untraceable number, with only one word: Tonight

Within ten seconds, the old man's phone beeped as he received a text message. It read: Confirm escape route and reply. The old man's eyes swept through the message and he pocketed the phone. He lifted up his paper again and began to cautiously scan the front of the bank over the top of it.

All of a sudden there was a muffled bang. An explosion deep within the bowels of the bank. The old man on the bench perked up, almost as though he was getting ready for something. He watched the entrance of the bank with extreme attention, barely blinking. Sure enough, within five minutes, two masked men emerged from the heavy doors, each one dragging a hefty sack behind him. The two men quickly loaded their two sacks into the back of a black van, the kind of van generally used by small scale delivery companies.

The old man on the bench watched keenly as the two thugs swiftly darted back into the bank and re emerged dragging two more sacks. Once they were heaved into the van, the two men quickly got into the front of the van and started the engine. Strangely, throughout this entire event, no alarm sounded from within the bank and no guard emerged.

As the van pulled out and gathered speed, the old man quickly got off his bench and slid onto his motorbike, which lay behind his bench. Within seconds, he was off, following the black van at a distance.

As the old man tailed the van, the driver did a very curious thing. Once he was a fair distance away from the bank, he pulled down the window and held a lighted cigarette lighter next to the body of the van. Bright flame ignited on the black paint, spreading steadily over the vehicle, burning away the black paint, leaving a white body beneath it, with the large words "Johnny's Pizza" printed across the side.

The moment the bike riding old man caught sight of this, he pulled over, satisfied. He pulled out his cell phone yet again and rapidly typed out another text message: Route taken: West road. going 2 highway? White van- Johnnys pizza.

He waited for a reply, watching the white van disappear down the road. His phone beeped yet again. Good job! Dismissed! :)

With a quiet smile, the old man started his bike again, turned around and drove off to his home- for a good night's sleep.

**********

The north-south highway was deserted at three thirty in the morning. During the day this very road tended to have major pileups and cause severe delays. But at the early hour of the morning, it was deserted. Cars occasionally zoomed through at high speeds, taking advantage of the emptiness.

About a hundred metres above the four lane highway, a single helicopter hovered. It was a rather odd helicopter, with two barrel like thrusters on either side. It hovered in the same spot, As though it was waiting for something. In the cockpit sat an Indian Sikh, complete with the turban. He carefully watched the road below him, scanning the few cars that went by below.

"What's the status 6?" he called tersely into his microphone.

A calm voice crackled in his earpiece, he could hear it faintly from the cabin of the chopper as well. "Relax pilot. They should be here any second. This is the exit to West road, right?"

Pilot Singh nodded, not taking his eyes off the road below him "Yes it is. But why should they take a road so far away from their base?"

"Disorientation tactic," 6 said casually, scratching his new, long beard and pattering away at the keyboard of his laptop, "The police, if they follow, will think the base is down south, and thus block the southern exits. But the crooks go high north, thus escaping. But just relax Pilot..."

But Pilot Singh remained as alert as ever, maintaining the chopper's position above the highway. Within a few minutes, a white van whooshed silently below his chopper, continuing innocently down the highway, heading north. Pilot immediately came to life.

"They're here. Get ready." He called into his microphone as he brought his chopper lower and forward, tailing the car. He moved at a steady speed, above and behind the white van streaking down the highway, lit only by the lamps. As pilot watched, two black SUV's drew up on either side of the white van, in a very casual manner. They were maintaining the same speed as the getaway car.

All of a sudden, in one sweeping movement, the two black SUVs converged on the white van, trapping it in between them. Pilot knew it was time to act, whether 6 and Jerry were prepared or not. With the expertise of a seasoned pilot, Pilot Singh brought his chopper almost vertically above the getaway vehicle, moving at the same speed. He flicked a few switches on the console and heard the metallic rumbling as the hatch of the helicopter opened. "6, Jerry, you guys better be ready!" he called into the microphone. "Antony you okay with the cables?"

"Fine." Came Antony's voice, hoarse after the night's concert. Pilot knew that Antony was a singer by profession these days, and was doing 6 a favour by helping him right after a concert. "6 and Jerry have descended. Hold position for ten minutes."

**********

The driver of the Getaway van swore profusely under his breath. Within seconds, things seemed to be going haywire. He had just reported to base that the schedule was working, when an SUV rammed into either side of his truck. His partner, seated next to him, gaped at the car right outside the window, the windows were tinted, giving them no clue of its driver.

The van continued to whiz down the highway. Soon, another sound was heard over the purr of the motor- The roar of a chopper. The driver paled. This wasn't good. The chopper sounded extremely loud, almost as though it was right behind the van. The driver sped up a bit. His three pursuers matched his rise in speed. He looked up at the large green board above the highway. Twelve miles more in order to reach the exit near base. This was bad.

To add to the woes of the getaway driver, just after he passed underneath the large green board, he heard two whumps from the back of his vehicle and felt his back tyres lose air. Turning the steering wheel wildly, trying to keep control, the driver glanced at the rear-view mirror and roared with fury.

Behind the large green board, clutching his long rifle, crouched a small made sniper. He had just successfully taken out the escape van's rear tires, leaving it to be controlled by its two large, black escorts.

The driver let go of the steering wheel and reached into the glove compartment. He pulled out two outdated but compact Glock 19 pistols. He handed one to his partner and nodded ominously. They were going to fight back.

**********

It had been five years since 6 last faced such action. He barely remembered his escapades at the Gates Plaza. But now, as he stood on top of the speeding van, he had no scope for memories. He watched as Jerry slowly landed beside him, trailing a cable back to the chopper, just like himself. There were two quick whumps, and the van shook a little bit- the tires had been blown. 6 gave a thumbs up to Jerry and said, "Lets go. Phase one."

The two twenty-something year olds made their way to the back of the van, moving slowly to avoid falling. As they reached the back of the van, Jerry pulled out a small explosive from the pocket of his suit and planted it on the top of the door to the storage area of the van. 6 and jerry took a few steps backwards as with a small explosion; the two doors to the back of the van blew open and collapsed onto the road with loud metallic scraping sounds.

Jerry and 6 calmly drew their twin pistols and stepped off the edge of the van. Their cables lowered them in level with the floor of the fairly spacious storage area. "Take her a little behind the van Pilot" 6 called loudly into his radio.

Without a reply, the chopper veered backwards, maintaining its speed, but allowing the two men dangling below to look into the back space with ease. What they saw wasn't pleasant.

Four large sacks sat against the back wall of the van's cargo hold. But what made Jerry swear profusely were the four, fully armed guards in front of the bag, pointing their guns at him and 6. This was unexpected.

But the guards didn't open fire. They had their guns up more as a defensive manoeuvre than as an order. They just looked at the two intruders, suspended from their backs. Then the man who looked like the leader nodded.

"UP!" 6 shouted a second before the submachine guns began to blaze. Just in the nick of time, Anthony operated the cable controls, lifting up 6 and Jerry, unharmed but shaken. The gunfire sounded loud, and created sparks on the road, followed by tiny bullet holes. 6 and Jerry stood on the roof of the van for about half a minute, still thinking what to do about the new and unexpected threat. That was when the third party joined the chase.

There was a loud wail of a siren and the distant flash of red and blue lights as the cop car roared towards the weird convoy of three automobiles and a helicopter. In the drivers seat sat a young night shift officer. In the passenger seat sat a man with dark hair, flecked with white. He had a square jaw and an air of determination about him. Unlike his partner, he showed no surprise on seeing the odd chase, for he was an experienced cop.

Stephen Frost had now been doing small jobs for the police department since his ordeal at the Gates plaza. He had switched to an advisory role in the Goodane police department. He had done night patrols, chased petty criminals and a lot of paperwork. He tended to stay away from the major scenes of action. His mental stability itself had been shaken up terribly after he witnessed the death of seven eminent businessmen and came and inch from death himself.

But Stephen Frost was nearly back to normal. He had regained his sense of humour, his mental alertness and had almost forgotten the dreadful memories of the tower. However, he knew he would never forget the face of the terrorist who put him through that torture. Though he knew that the man was disguised, he always associated the terrorist with the scarred cheek, thick glasses, red hair and steely grey eyes. Frost had made it his life's ambition to rid the world of that young man.

**********

The four guards looked at the police car with mounting shock. They wondered whether the men on the roof were associated with the police as well. But it was no time for speculation. As the police car drew closer to the open backed van, one of the men called out to his comrades, "We take out the driver. That would set them back for now." He heard noises of agreement from around him.

As the police car came closer to the fast moving convoy, Frost leaned out of his window, securely grasping a pistol in his hand, his hair flying about. He saw two men standing on top of the van, suspended from the chopper. He also saw the four guards aiming their guns at his partner, who was driving. He stood up in his seat, allowing his torso to stick out of the window and aimed his pistol directly at the biggest guard.

"Bring us closer!!" He yelled at his partner, waving his left hand wildly. His partner nodded determinedly, unaware that his life was about to be taken away any second by the largest gunman, who had waved a hand, dismissing the others from this task and had carefully taken aim.

Frost looked at the big guard and his heart jolted, his eye was in level with the barrel of his gun, taking careful aim at his partner's head. Without panicking, Frost brought his gun forward and shot, from the window of a moving car. A red hole appeared on the burly man's chest, forcing him to take a step back, and making him drop his gun in surprise. The periodic flashing as the convoy went under a streetlight did not allow anyone to see anything properly.

There was another bang, and another red hole appeared in the guard's apparel. He looked up to see the middle aged officer smiling grimly. Before he could blow his head of with a burst of SMG fire, the guard felt a third bullet hit the base of his neck. He gave a strangled cry and dropped dead on the floor.

One of the other guards looked for a moment at the corpse on the floor. "Open fire!" he called. Gunfire rang out along with the noise of the chopper and the roar of the engines. Frost's young partner swerved wildly trying to avoid the bullets. Frost returned fire to the van and managed to take out another gunman with a head shot. As the gunfire continued, pock marking the police car, a black-clad figure swung down from the roof of the van. Another larger figure followed behind him.

Before either of the two gun men could react towards the new arrivals, their guns were wrestled out of their hands and they were thrown out of the van, crashing onto the road with two identical thuds. The police car swerved past them, still in hot pursuit of the van. The two young men were never heard of again.

**********

Jerry and 6 watched quietly from above as the middle aged policeman expertly fired a few shots from his window. They heard a dull thunk from below as the burly guard collapsed on the floor. They heard the hoarse cry of "Open fire" and the rapid fire sounds of the SMGs.

Jerry nudged 6. "Look, it's the old cop from the Gates plaza. Recognize him?"

6 nodded, gaping at Stephen Frost. Of all cops in the city, he was the one who was unfortunate enough to pursue these robbers...and meet 6 again. But there was no time for reflection. The two young men heard the sickening splat as the second guard died. Nodding to each other, they swung down from the roof, despite the blazing guns and wrestled their opponents into submission.

Once the two had dumped the guards onto the road, they busied themselves with the four large sacks propped against the back. An occasional bullet pinged against the metal walls of the van as frost shot a few bullets at the two new thieves, but none reached their intended target.

Quietly and swiftly, 6 and jerry unlatched their harnesses and fastened them around the mouth of a large, money filled, sack. 6 quickly gave the command to Antony and both the sacks left the van, were dragged to the opening of the storage area and were lifted out into the cold night air, less than a metre above the road.

There was a lull in the back of the van for a few seconds as the bags were being reeled up to the helicopter. The police car was closer than ever now and 6 saw Stephen Frost clearly through the windshield of the car. He seemed to have aged sufficiently after his ordeal at the Gates plaza. As he locked eyes with the square jawed officer, 6 doubted that he would recognize him. 6 had been disguised during the encounter at the Gates plaza. Also, ever since he started growing his beard, 6 looked quite different.

But despite all this, something passed between the two men as they locked eyes. Frost's eyes widened with shock and fear. After a minute second, he nodded, as though confirming to himself that this was the same person. How he knew, 6 didn't know. Frost lifted up his gun and, with vengeance making his aim more precise, he shot four bullets from his pistol. 6 dropped onto the floor of the van with a shout, narrowly avoiding the four bullets that shot out of Frost's pistol.

"He's calling for backup!" Jerry cried, as he saw Frost reach into the car and talk into a mike.

"Antony!!" 6 called into his mike, "how is it going? Things are heating up down here!!"

Antony, who was once part of a psychologically disturbed group called "Team Murder" called tersely into his mike, "The empty cables should be reaching you any second. Send the bags first. The winches can't handle more than that."

Sure enough, the two cables swung down in front of the van's rear door. Jerry lunged out, grabbed the two cables and swung one to 6, who, like Jerry, began fastening it to the mouth of the remaining two bags. More bullets pinged the walls. 6 began to sweat, this was going to be tough.

**********

There is more than one way of recognizing a man. And Stephen Frost knew all of them. Despite the five years gap between the previous incident and this, despite 6's thick beard, Frost recognized him as the man who caused him endless nightmares. His sharp eyes, which last glared at him from behind horn rimmed spectacles, his slight slouch, his style of walking, his excited expression, all reminded Frost of the terrorist at the Gates plaza.

He shot several times, but the youth managed to dodge them. Frost ducked into his car to reload his pistol. His young partner gazed at the road, pale with sweat. As frost reloaded his gun, however, he heard a squawk over the car radio. With a flash he realized that he could call backup and kill the young terrorist once and for all. Frost yanked the mike and began to order immediate back up to their co ordinates, informing base that the situation was dire.

He heard confirmation that backup was on its way and felt mildly reassured. But that was when his windshield exploded with a loud shatter.

"Duck!" he called to his partner, who did not hesitate to oblige. His partner sank down, grasping the steering wheel with outstretched hands and crouching on the accelerator. Frost, however, had different plans. With a swift motion, he slid onto the bonnet of the police car, holding his pistol in front of him, his hair flying in the wind. He watched as the two youngsters sent off the second batch of stolen goods. With a flash of an idea, Frost began to shoot the large sacks which were now suspended slightly above the van. But it didn't matter. The holes were too small. And now the occupants of the van had begun shooting at Frost, small sparks were erupting all around him.

"Bring her as close as possible!" Frost roared at his driver, who nodded hastily. He could now hear the distant sounds of the approaching police vehicles. But they were not going to be fast enough. The two sacks had already disappeared into the helicopter. Frost's car was now almost bumper to bumper with the getaway van. He began to move slightly on the bonnet to avoid the bullets, which now drew closer and closer to his body. He fired more shots into the van, blindly, and was happy to hear a loud bellow as he hit the terrorist in the arm.

And that was when things went from crazy to haywire.

**********

The driver of the van was having a bad time from the start. He was trapped between two large cars, his back tires were blown, and the helicopter descended over the whole scene. Then he heard the siren of the police car. He listened to the voices of the four guards on the radio with mounting terror as two of them were killed by the cops and the other two hurled unceremoniously out of the van. All this time, he was maintaining the same speed- maximum. Once his guards were dead, it was only him and his quiet partner in the getaway van. They listened in tense silence, as the men in base decided what to do about the situation.

"Sorry men," came the voice over the radio, from the base "The guards tell us that you've lost the loot as well. Sorry guys, you're on your own..." and the communication was cut.

The two men looked at each other for a moment, both looking orange in the periodic flashes of the sodium streetlights. "We're deserted." The driver said softly, summing up his disastrous situation. "They've left us for dead. If we go to base now, we'll be shot. So we're dead in any case." His partner nodded. Then, in a weak voice he said, "I'm jumpin' Bob. I ain't got the guts to fight. I'm jumpin'!!"

With that, he frantically scrabbled at his door, managed to get it open and hurled himself out onto the road rushing beneath him, narrowly missing the bonnet of the SUV on the van's left side. Bob was not sure if he had survived the jump or not, but he ploughed on regardless.

Once Bob knew he was about a kilometre away from the point where his partner made the jump, he decided to fight back. He cast one glance at each SUV on either side of him and decided what he was going to do.

Bob slammed the breaks.

The getaway van screeched loudly and burnt tire marks onto the road as it careened into one of the cars next to it. The police car ploughed into the back of the van. The helicopter shot off by itself, continuing forward. It abruptly twisted it face the van and flew back over the van, the two cables hanging uselessly below it.

Bob smiled. He had created the effect he desired. Resting his bleeding head in his hands, Bob sat still, waiting for death through blood loss. Within minutes, he was dead, a slight smile on his face.

**********

With a loud screech and a violent lurch, 6 was thrown off his feet and slammed into the wall of the van with a dull thunk, his left shoulder burning like crazy. Jerry, too was hurled bodily into a wall with a grunt and a thud. The police car's bonnet was now halfway through the floor of the rear hold of the van. The officer crouched on the bonnet tumbled into the van's hold, disoriented, but alive.

The young driver, was slumped awkwardly on the driver's seat, his head bleeding copiously. After a few seconds, his low moans stopped, so did his breath. Frost mumbled something under his breath, shaking his head sadly. With a loud groan, he hoisted himself to his feet, absorbing the scene around him.

Glass was scattered in a thin layer across the three lane highway in front of the three large cars. The getaway van had ploughed right into the SUV that was blocking its right hand side. The SUV that had been on the left was a few metres away, its tire marks and position indicated a frantic halt. The helicopter thundered above them like some omnipresent bird, facing the way they had come from. The backup cars were now easily audible-the sirens wailing loudly through the cold, dark air.

Frost focused on the two men lying in a huddle at the back of the van. He cocked his gun and held it in one hand, drawing out a pair of handcuffs in the other. One of the men, the large blonde, moved slowly, groaning as he did so. He looked up, saw the pistol pointing at him and paled. His friend- the one who had caused all the trouble at the Gates plaza, stood up in one fluid motion- without any apparent pain. His left hand was at an awkward angle, Frost proudly noticed this.

"You are under arrest for orchestrating and operating the Gates Plaza tragedy. You have the right to remain silent" Frost said smugly, pointing his gun at the young terrorist's heart, he had waited years to utter this line. The terrorist gazed at frost's gun, a grim expression playing on his face. He said nothing.

Frost moved forward, gun in his right hand, handcuffs in his left. He extended his hand forward to bind the young man's hands.

That was when the colossal explosion occurred.

**********

From the time the pile up had occurred on the highway below, Pilot Singh had been warbling desperately into his mike. He got no response from either of his team mates. He watched with mounting dismay as the events unfolded below on the highway. He also kept an expertly trained eye on the four approaching vehicles- three police cars and one van. It was the van which he was the most wary of, because of the gun turret mounted on its top. Which was presently manned.

"What's going on?" came a soft voice at Pilot's shoulder. He turned around to see Antony standing behind the one man cockpit, drinking in the scene below.

"Uh-oh"

"Yes. Definitely. And look at that." Pilot pointed out the gun turret atop the police van, which was currently trained on the helicopter. Antony swore profusely. Pilot tried yet again to contact his two grounded colleagues, but instead caught a faint voice in his earphone saying the words, "...arrest for orchestrating.........Plaza tragedy...."

That was enough for Pilot to know what was happening. He knew that 6 and Jerry were about to get arrested. So he did the only thing he could to save them- cause a distraction. With expert skills, he flicked a switch and jammed a button, sending a missile zooming towards the van, the second vehicle in the convoy of police force.

The missile hit its mark, and the van transformed into a ball of flame, sending the surrounding cars veering away. Pilot finally heard 6's voice in his ear. It was a single word- "Retreat!"

Pilot didn't need to be told twice. With a twitch of the control stick, the helicopter zoomed away, its mounted boosters aflame yet again.

**********

The blast was all 6 needed. As fast as light, he whipped out a pistol and fired three shots at Officer Frost, none of which hit its target. But it made the policeman duck. 6 rapidly vaulted over the policeman, Jerry following suit, scrambling out of the half wrecked vehicle, towards the undamaged SUV. As he ran, 6 pulled up his collar mike. He spat a single word into it, "Retreat!". Heaving a sigh of relief, 6, followed by Jerry, bounded into the back of the waiting vehicle, which, in a squealing of tyres, was gone.

Stephen Frost uttered an inarticulate roar of rage as he tried to follow the two crooks. He pulled out his pistol and took several pot shots at the two fleeing youths. Three out of five bullets pierced into Jerry's back, hurling him onto the ground. His distraught team mate hefted him onto his shoulders and continued his run towards the car. Hopefully that would take him down for good...

Frost watched the SUV shoot away from him, picking up speed every second, and knew that there was no chance of catching that vehicle, even with backup. He shook his head warily. "I'm retiring today." he muttered to himself, making a mental note to send in his resignation letter, for his young rival had thwarted him again.

**********

The steady "beep....beep" of the electrocardiogram was the only prominent sound in the room. The old lady lay on the bed, in a peaceful sleep, her grey hair spread across the pillow. A single youth sat in the visitor's chair, his head in his hands, in deep thought.

There was a soft creak as the door opened and a doctor entered. "So Mr Jackson? What have you decided?"

The youth looked up weakly. "The surgery will be successful? Definitely?" he asked quietly. The doctor adopted a neutral expression. "We can never tell. There is always that small chance of a failure."

Alfred stood up. "I'll opt for the surgery. I assume there's some paperwork involved?"

The doctor nodded solemnly, "If you would just come with me to the office, we could finish it up in about half an hour..."

Alfred nodded and stood up shakily. As he followed the doctor towards the door, he heard a feeble voice behind him.

"Alfred?"

Al turned around, his aunt had woken up. Her eyes stared up at the ceiling, and her hands clenched the crisp white sheets of the hospital bed.

"Alfred?" she repeated softly.

"Yes Aunt Mabel?" came Alfred's reply, slightly faltering.

"Are they going to do the surgery?" she heard Alfred's reply and asked him to come next to her. She sensed his presence next to her and, with a great effort, reached out to grasp his hand. She felt the smooth, hard skin of his palm.

"Alfred, who is going to pay for it? Do you have so much money?" Alfred took a deep breath, squeezed his aunt's hand and confidently said that he had the money.

"I am not going to ask you how you got the money Alfred," Aunt Mabel said softly, taking great pains to look her nephew in the eye, "But I just want to ask you one thing, have you EARNED it?"

Alfred thought for a moment, gazing deep into his aunt's blue eyes. His mind drifted to the four guards he had killed, and their families. His mind drifted to Anthony who had taken a day off his busy rock star schedule and was now dead tired. His thoughts finally went to Jerry, lying in the intensive care unit of a not so luxurious hospital, recovering from three bullet wounds in the back. He firmly looked his aunt in the eye and confidently declared, "Yes. I have earned it."

~~~

#  The little narration that doesn't deserve a title

He fell.

The wind roared in his ears. The roar of the wind was all he heard, saw, smelled, tasted and felt. It was as though the wind was trying to kill him before he hit the ground. To him, it didn't matter how he died, he was going to die anyway.

His vision cleared up enough for him to see the grey cement ground. He made a mental note that it was going to be quite messy. He tried to open his mouth to scream, but it was over.

Colour. Bright pink. The sound of flowing water. A low hubbub of voices. But he didn't have a body.

He imbibed his surroundings, becoming a part of them. He seemed to be some sort of gaseous substance that could occupy the entire atmosphere at once if he wanted to. He tried it. The sheer vastness of his senses overwhelmed him. He got a headache. A few seconds later, he realized, that he couldn't have a headache as he didn't have a head. After several minutes of debate, he came to the conclusion that headaches are actually mindaches.

He drew himself together, literally, and tried to take in his surroundings. The sky was baby pink, several gaseous bodies such as him were floating around. The ground was liquid, a sloshy orange fluid with several colourful platforms rising up from it. People stood on these platforms, in little groups clutching wine glasses in their hands. The sound of conversation drifted through the air along with the sloshing of the liquid below.

After taking a few minutes to figure out how to move(which involved stretching and contracting various parts, like a worm), he made his way to a platform and compacted himself into a body. He stepped on the platform and walked to the nearest group of men and women, who were in the middle of a song.

The men wore flowing robes of deep maroon and the women wore flowing dresses of deep maroon. They welcomed him with warm smiles and pressed a glass of red liquid into his hand. He took a sip of the red liquid and felt better than he was already feeling- which was already better than ever before. They insisted that he sing along with them, but he didn't know the song, so he just hummed smiled and waved his hands around a bit before breaking off from the group and moving on.

The platform was large and spacious, and had nothing on it other than people and desks. Behind the desks sat blue men in white coats, tapping their fingers importantly on the desks. People were queuing up in front of these desks to talk to the blue men, who replied succinctly and continued to tap their fingers importantly on their desks.

Further inquiry proved that the lines were to make bookings on the next flight to the world. When he asked people what the world was, they just stared at him with looks of pity. He shrugged and joined the nearest line.

The line moved with excruciating slowness. People seemed to have long conversations with the blue men who spoke curtly. Finally, just as he reached the front of the line, the blue man stood up, placed a large "CLOSED" sign on his desk and dove off the edge of the platform for a refreshing swim. Well, wherever he was, it was quite similar to where he was from.

He noticed that everybody was crowding around the edge of the platform, looking down at the liquid below. Before he could go over to investigate, an enormous rocket ship emerged from below the surface, spraying all observers with the sweet, sticky liquid. With a roar that drowned out everything else, the ship launched off into the pink sky. Until the roar became a din and was soon so soft that it was drowned out by the voices of the people.

He was now confused. Totally confused. With a worried expression, he walked up to one of the robed men and asked him where they were. The man smiled- a broad smile that turned his entire face into a series of wrinkles. He then began to laugh- a full, wholesome, carefree laugh.

"We are, young child, only in the lobby. The real deal, is nothing like this. Or so I've heard...." He broke off, mumbling to himself. The young child tried yet again to figure out where the ship was heading to and how to board it.

In his second attempt, he asked a robed woman. She smiled a broad smile and laughed a carefree laugh.

"They just go where they think is a better place, but they end up coming back here. Trust me. This is the end of the line......How do you get on to a ship? Well you book a ticket at one of the desks and then you just dive in and find a seat. But trust me, it's the same as down here."

She gave him a maternal smile and ambled away, enthusiastically joining in to the song of the nearest group, leaving him more confused than ever before.

He swore under his breath. Actually, he didn't quite swear. He uttered the words "god dammit" Unfortunately, when one is in a place that one reached after one's death, it is quite unwise for one to utter any phrases regarding gods as it may result in strange consequences.

The moment he uttered those two and a half words, the entire area fell silent. Every single being on every platform in sight turned to look at him. Thousands upon thousands of eyes turned to look at him.

Blue eyes, green eyes, black eyes, brown eyes, lazy eyes, blind eyes, eyes on stalks(there was one creature on a platform far far away, which had an eye on a stalk), bloodshot eyes, drugged eyes and some closed eyes. All turned to look at him.

Naturally, he did feel a little conscious. He smiled nervously at the nearest group of robed men and women, who began to back away quite vigorously. The orange liquid began to churn; tall waves began crashing against the base of the platform. The previously clear pink sky began to slowly darken to a shade of orange, mirroring the "sea" below, and darkening further to a deep shade of red. As one, all the men and women began to chant strange long incantation like song. Its words were not English(their previous songs were popular numbers from the twentieth century) and it had a ghastly air about it.

He began to panic. The crowd of men and women, who looked quite hostile now, began moving towards him. He started moving away from them. He looked behind him, he was getting close to the edge, he began to fear for his afterlife. If he fell, he wasn't sure what was going to happen to him, but he didn't want to fall anyway.

He reached the edge. He was now panicking. The crowd of men and women drew closer, grinning maniacal grins and chanting with great intensity. One more step and he would fall of the edge. One woman stretched out, reaching to grab his throat. He was terrified. He was either going to fall or be throttled. He held his breath.

And then everything changed.

With a loud 'ping', the woman reaching for him disappeared. This was followed by several loud 'pings' with which everybody disappeared. There was a loud swooshing sound and the sky changed from deep red to a bright acid green. He covered his eyes to protect them from the brightness of the green sky. He now stood alone on a platform in the middle of an orange ocean.

The sound of his breathing was the only thing he could hear. Even the orange waves that lapped against the base of the pillars made no sound. For an infinite amount of time, he stood alone, looking out at the orange sea with an expression of confusion. He tried shouting a few phrases in every language he knew. Nothing happened. The deafening silence continued to overwhelm him.

After a while, he sat down, dangling his legs off the platform, contemplating jumping off. Anyway he was dead, that was for sure, why not see what happens? He couldn't swim very well and was quite sure he would drown within minutes. He had just stood up on his two feet, stretching before jumping, when a voice spoke out from behind him and nearly made him fall into the water.

"Hello there, son"

He whirled around, expecting to see another maroon robed murderer. Instead he saw nobody. He shook his head, assuming that he was hearing things and was about turn back when the voice spoke again.

"Look again boy."

He looked again. And he realized that the voice was coming from a white, bespectacled duck, which was about a foot tall. The duck looked up at him and calmly spoke, in a clear, androgynous voice. The voice was gentle and caring, but nevertheless, had a firm tone.

"I believe you asked me to damn something?"

What the hell? THIS was God? GOD WAS A DUCK? He stared at the little white bird with disbelief, his eyes growing to the size of dinner plates. He was somehow unable to utter a coherent sentence. The sheer surprise and unexpectedness of the situation managed to shut his voice into his throat. So he began to shake his head wildly, swinging it from side to side. Finally, after several head shakes(all being watched by the God-Duck) he managed to splutter out a sentence.

The duck heard him and looked at itself for a moment. And then spoke in a rather surprised voiced "Oh dear! Am I still like this? Give me a moment and I'll be with you in a non freaky form yeah?"

With those words, the bird launched itself up into the air. With frantically beating wings, the duck flew off the platform and plunged into the sea below. A moment later, he heard a splash and a very wet man flew onto the platform from below.

He was not very old, he was not very young. About forty-ish. He wore baggy pants and a loose orange tie and dye shirt. Several rings adorned his fingers and a pair of shades was propped on his forehead. Wet brown curls fell over these shades almost covering his green-blue eyes. He gave the young man a warm smile and beckoned him to stand besides him.

"So......" said god, as he sat with the dead boy on the edge of a platform. "So....whats up?"

Our young hero was flabbergasted. A few hours ago, he was falling from a tall building. Now he was being "supped" by a hippie who claimed to be god. His life/death had probably reached the epitome of its weirdness.

"Can we have all the people back?" he requested, "Its getting a bit quiet and eerie."

With a nod of assent, the god-guy snapped his fingers and everything resumed to normal- Robed men and women appeared and immediately began singing a popular Beatles number. Blue men popped into existence and began impatiently tapping their fingers on the counter. The hubbub grew and everybody began going about their business completely indifferent about the fact that they were missing for a few minutes.

"Okay" the boy said, now that some amount of normality had been returned to the so-called-world around him, "WHERE the hel-" He cut himself off before he used another meaningful word, "WHERE on eart-" Nope. That wouldn't work either. "Where am I?"

"Hmmmmm" He looked out over the vast expanse of fluid. "Hmmmmm"

"You are..." he began slowly and thoughtfully, "you are.....err...how do I put it? You are.... "There"" He looked at his young acquaintance's puzzled expression and sighed. And continued slower and graver than before. "The world where you come from is neither here nor there. This" he said, indicating the orangish pink world around him, "is 'there'. And those rockets, which leave every half hour-"

On cue, a rocket shot out of the orange waves, drowning out the man's words in a roar. Speaker and listener were doused in orange ocean as the purple craft juddered off into the upper reaches of the atmosphere of the world known only as "there"

"shoot off to the third place, 'here'." Continued God, as though they had not been interrupted by a giant purple rocket that shot out of the orange sea. "And your world is neither here, nor there. Its everywhere else. Do you follow?"

He nodded, his mind heavy with thoughts, questions, information and dustballs. He stood up and stretched. He had been here for......how long? Ten minutes? Half an hour? Two days? Two weeks? Four years?

The concept of time seemed to fade into a distant memory as he realized that there's no indication of time in this world. Or, in fact, no such thing. It was perpetually the same "time" of day/night there, and he soon grew accustomed to it. Or atleast, he THOUGHT he soon grew accustomed to it, but he had no idea as to how long he took. Time didn't exist.

After several million breaths of air(since that was probably the only indicator of time) he grew tired of the world where he lived. He tried to buy a ticket on a shuttle to 'here', but he wasn't allowed to. So he got extremely ticked off and decided to drown himself in the perpetually dynamic ocean of orange below him.

As he stood, poised on the edge of a platform, ready to jump, he took one last look at the world around him- men and women in maroon robes, chanting and boozing away to bliss. Blue men in white coats sitting impatiently behind counters, tapping and swearing away to glory and, he was not quite sure if he actually saw it, a line of ducks, following a big fat duck which was dressed in an orange tie and dye shirt.

He swore, and jumped.

Now read the whole story again.

~~~

# The Sorcerer

There were seven of us in total.

We were riding from the southern province to the Northern Province. We had orders specifically from the king, to visit the court of King Frederick of northwinds. Those were the days when the northern and southern provinces were at war with each other. Crossing over from one side to the other was banned without a permit. But the king of southerland had given us a permit as we were riding on his orders. We were to inform King Frederick of the recent murders of southerland traders who strayed too close to the borders.

The sun was setting and the wind rushed against our faces. The galloping of hooves filled our ears. Being the captain of our squadron, I had the privilege of being slightly ahead of my comrades. We were bathed in orange light as we sped towards the north. To our right, the East, the mountains were visible, like a row of deformities on the earth's smooth skin. To our north west, there was the dark outline of a forest. We were close to the northern border of our province, too close for any villages to exist, yet we were a fair distance away.

Over the clopping of seven horse's feet, I called out to the others "We'll stop for the night at the edge of the forest. Possibly near a stream or something." I heard the voices of the others agreeing. For a few more minutes, we rode on peacefully, wind and scenery rushing past us. It was about twenty past six on that summer's evening when we saw the man.

He first appeared as a distant speck. As we sped northward, toward him, the speck grew. I pointed him out to my comrades and, since we were on a flat plain, we easily maneuvered towards him. About ten meters from him, I pulled my chestnut horse to a stop. The others stopped a behind me.

He wore a long grey cloak, so I could discern nothing about him from his looks. He was slowly trudging his way southward. I called out to him. "Mister! Where do you hail from?" The cloaked figure stopped walking and looked at the seven horsemen. Though he could see us, I could not see his face. A hood hung over it. He called out to me in the voice of a fairly young man. "Hullo Officer!! I was just out on an evening stroll." he began to walk again. This time, with a quicker pace. I coaxed my horse closer to him. "Stop there sir. I need to see your border pass." I examined his cloak for any marking or sign of his province, but there was none.

The man ignored me and continued walking. One of my comrades, Raphael, pulled his horse ahead of me and called out to him, "Sir, if you do not reveal your identity, we will have to use force on you." This stopped him. He stood rooted to the spot for a few minutes.

Until this day, I neither know what happened then, nor why. With a swirl of a cloak, his hand flew up into the air and pointed at Raphael. I thought I heard a soft whisper of a word. There was a second's gap. By this time I was on Raphael's side. I turned toward him to see what the man was pointing at, only to see his eyes go wide. His horse's knees buckled as he slid sideways off it. Then with a loud thud, Raphael and his horse collapsed on to the hard ground, clearly dead.

I was awestruck. I pulled my steed away from the man as quickly as I could. I caught sight of the lower half of the man's face under the hood – It was stretched in a smile, showing sharp pointed teeth. I was absolutely horrified. Edward, my second in command, realized this and, sensing danger, gave the order "Circle round him men."

With soft clops of hooves, six horsemen circled around the man in the cloak. He seemed unperturbed. He surveyed us as we took our positions around him. I looked at Ralph, a strongly built man with a clean shaven head. He was staring at Raphael's body, his lips were trembling. He then looked up to stare at Raphael's murderer. Raphael happened to be his brother. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had picked up his sword and launched himself at the man.

That was exactly what he did. Except, not at once.

The cloaked man looked at him in the red light of the setting sun. The flowery landscape of the plains was in stark contrast to the emotions and events in our little circle. As the six of us watched, he raised his arm yet again, and this time I am sure he muttered something. A spell? Yes possibly. Ralph's horse was dead on the ground within a second. Ralph managed to jump off in time. Then, with a single fluid movement, he drew his sword and charged toward his brother's murderer, as we watched.

Even today, I regret not helping Ralph. He was a good soldier and a wonderful person. Also, if we had all worked together, possibly, just MAYBE, we could have killed that man. But we believed in the saying 'Every man for himself'.

And so, Ralph charged at our captive with a loud bellow, fury etched on every line of his face. He reached him. With a powerful slash, he beheaded him. Except, the sorcerer was no longer there. He had vanished. Ralph spun around, sword at the ready, rage contorting his face. He spun one full circle, then, under the impression that the man had fled, he called out into the open, "YOU COWARD!!! YOU FILTHY COWARD!!" Ralph's eyes then strayed to Edward, who was staring at a spot about twenty feet above the ground. Ralph followed his line of sight and saw the sorcerer, standing with his arms crossed, twenty feet above him, his long cloak whipping in the wind. "COME DOWN HERE YOU NO GOOD CHEAT!!!" Ralph bellowed.

The sorcerer vanished in a small wisp of smoke and reappeared behind Ralph. Within a fraction of a second, there was an outstretched arm balled into a fist and Ralph was soaring in the air. He landed with a dusty thud on the hard ground. With a slight moan he pushed himself on his elbows. But it was too late. The sorcerer was already in the air, his right hand balled into a fist, surrounded by a bright orange flame. He brought his fist down on Ralph's chest like a hammer on a smith's anvil. There was a convolution across Ralph's body as the small wave of flame traveled across it. And then he died.

I was born and brought up in a society that shunned the rumors of magic and declared them myths. But what I was seeing today went against all my principles for the past twenty eight years. As I watched, my friends and comrades were murdered with just a few words. Terror pulsed through me faster than blood. If I managed to survive this ordeal, I resolved to worship magic as much as possible.

And then we understood our mistake. Only five of us left now, we understood that we had to work together. We stood around the man, awaiting his next move, each of us praying, that we weren't his next victim.

But the sorcerer did nothing to harm us. He stepped quietly over to Ralph's body and bent over it. I wanted to shout at the man and ask him to get away, but his powerful magic seemed to have left me speechless. One glance at my comrades told me that they shared the same situation as me. All four of them, Edward, James, Ken and Nott, seemed nervous and looked like they wanted to say something but couldn't. The man in the grey cloak whispered something, and Ralph's body began to glow a bright blue.

"Stop it!" I called out, "Leave him!'. But it was too late. The sorcerer took no heed of me and Ralph's body suddenly vanished. All five of us watched in mounting horror, as he did the same for Raphael and both the brother's horses.

Once the body of the second horse had vanished, the sorcerer returned to his position in the center of the circle. The circle was now free of any evidence of any of the murders, it could have just been a dream.....But I knew it wasn't, I knew that this man was going to kill us all for unsaid reasons.....

With a loud war cry, the oldest and most experienced of our group, Nott, charged toward the man, followed by Ken and James. Edward and I remained in the sidelines as backup.

The action was fast. Like a spring, the sorcerer jumped out of Nott's sword's range. He ducked and twisted away from James and leapt right over Ken and his horse. Ken gave a bellow of surprise and yanked his reins; his horse turned around and charged yet again. But this time, the sorcerer was ready. He vanished yet again, with a wisp of smoke.

James spotted him first; he had reappeared about fifty meters to the east. "Get him!!!" James bellowed and directed his horse toward the sorcerer. We watched James gallop off to the east but lost sight of him in the fast fading light. "Light your torches men", I gave the command with as steady a voice as I could muster. After a minute, all four of us held burning torches in our hands, though the light they cast was rather poor because of the harsh winds.

After a minute, we heard a loud cry. Ken turned to look at me, his face was pale in the torchlight, "Capt'n, do we go after 'im?". I swallowed and shook my head, but before I could speak, another voice spoke through the darkness. "Don't you worry Kensington, James is fine, he's just a little upset that he can't find me..."

All four of us spun around, looking for the source of the voice. A strong cold wind began to blow, and I could barely hear my own voice, "Stick together men." I called out over the wind. The remaining four of us grouped together, back to back, I noticed that all our horses seemed rather nervous, pawing the ground and tossing their heads. The voice came out once again from the darkness, and somehow, the wind didn't seem to howl over his voice like it did for us. "I think I'll dispose of James now..." he said softly. Before I could say anything, there was a humungous blast, and a loud shout from the east, which faded into nothingness. I didn't have to make any further investigations to discern that he, too, was dead.

Fear clawed my insides but I tried my best to maintain a calm voice. "The least you could do is reveal yourself." I called out into the darkness. All of a sudden, the howling of wind stopped. For a moment, I thought I was dead, but then I noticed that I could still feel the wind blowing through my clothes. The others seemed to be as perplexed as me. "What the...?" I heard Nott whisper. The following clattering and twanging noises told me that he had just strung his bow. I heard Edward and Ken string their bows as well. I decided not to.

This time I definitely heard it. It was a soft whisper of a word. From what I heard, I deduce that the word he said was "Illuminous". There was a soft whooshing noise and a ball of bright light floated above the four of us. The light was stronger than any of our torches and didn't seem to be affected by the wind. And from the shadows, the sorcerer stepped into the pool of white light, with his hood lowered.

I shall never forget that face. Even today, he haunts me in my dreams. The sorcerer looked barely older that twenty. He had a thin, long face. His eyes were quite narrow and his pupils were coal black. His long face ended with a pointed chin with a rough stubble. His hair was dark brown and held in a high ponytail. The man's sharp pointed teeth glittered menacingly in the white light.

His voice was soft and polite. "Captain Augustine Clencher?" He asked, looking at me inquiringly. I nodded. His grin grew wider. "And I presume these men," he indicated my three accomplices, "are your band of loyal soldiers?" He saw me nod again and spat on the ground. I heard him mumble something that sounded like "Pathetic".

All of a sudden, with a quick movement, Nott pulled an arrow from his quiver and placed it on his bow, pointing it at the sorcerer's heart. Nott's wrinkled old face was contorted with hatred, it was radiating anger. To my surprise, the sorcerer smiled. "Henry Dredger Nott, you will be the next to perish." He mumbled softly.

He clicked his fingers and the arrow flew out of Nott's bow, turned around in mid air and shot straight into Nott's chest. With a grunt of surprise, his eyes widened and he landed on the ground with a soft thud. Nott's steed, a white mare, on seeing her owner dead, gave a neigh of terror and fled into the darkness. The sorcerer did not try to stop her. I gave a glance at Nott's body; there was already a pool of blood around it. It was at that moment that I made up my mind. All the bravery and valiance left me. There was only one, primitive instinct left in my head: RUN!!!!

Within an instant, I dug my heels into my horse's sides and bolted towards the mountains. The night landscape rushed past me and the wind began to roar in my ears with renewed fury. After covering a satisfactory distance, I chanced a look behind me. There was no light. I could see the faint flicker of a torch lying on the ground, but it was off before I could make sure. Deciding to take no risks, I sped off away from that dreadful spot.

I have lived in the mountains of Klaar for twenty years now. From the edge of my cave, I can still see that spot on the plains, which changed my entire life. I live a life of seclusion and feed off mice and insects. I have never seen any of my comrades or that man again. Though, I often see battalions of soldiers, much like that of ours, crossing the plains; but never was there a sign of that dreaded cloaked figure.

I have a feeling that he is going to come back one day and kill me, so I have prepared this journal. This is Captain Augustine Clencher, saying goodbye.

The above journal was that of a cavalry captain from the province of Southerland. He was found dead in a cave on one of the highest peaks of the Klaar range. His face wore an expression of welcome, as though he were meeting an old friend.

~~~

# The Ironies of Life

I had heard of life's little ironies, but I had never expected them to happen to me and so was not mentally prepared when they really did. The incident that I narrate is actually quite a big irony for that matter. The whole thing started about six months ago.

I was a big shot back then(today I'm a bigger-shot). Fortune was smiling upon me and life was favourable towards me. I lived in a huge mansion, drank the finest wine, dined with all the "cool" people. My name was one that commanded respect in the English speaking world. My life was filled with autographing sessions, talk show interviews and even a few movie appearances.

Once in a while I used to retreat to my "Secret hideout" in the mountains and work on my next novel. After a few days of quiet mountainside life, I plunged back into the world of glitteratzi, headfirst.

But a high flying life came at a price-stress. The flashing cameras gave me headaches, the noisy crowds irritated me. The frequent travelling made me feel nauseous quite often. The deadlines by publishers often resulted in panic attacks.

It was one evening- after several hours of autographing and smiling for cameras- that I collapsed in my large armchair in the middle of my mansion's large library. As I massaged my aching temples, my butler- or as he preferred to call it, "manservant"- Bert, came to my rescue with a large bottle of whiskey. As he massaged my aching shoulders, I complained to him about the stresses of a high flying life. Bert, in his calm and formal way, informed me about one Rishi Swamynatha who lived in the Himalayas. Bert told me that one week with the rishi would change me completely and help me manage stress. Why not? I thought.

So, after prior E-booking at the rishi's website, I flew to Delhi from Yorkshire by private jet and drove up the mountain in a Range Rover. There I met the rishi and his four current disciples (All four as sophisticated and well to do as I, I must add)

The rishi, of course, was clad in saffron and had a lot of grey hair. He welcomed me with open arms and soon I followed his schedule of rigorous meditation and simple, vegetarian, meals. This in itself might be quite ironic- a rich, sophisticated, millionare writer living with a simple saint in the high Himalayas. But it is actually now that my story begins.

My four fellow disciples were all rich tycoons from various countries. However, money is never enough, and so, five sets of eyes focused not on the rishi but on the golden crown a little way behind him, gifted to him by the king of Nepal.

I had arranged to stay with the rishi for two weeks. The other four (I will not include their names) were at various stages of their stay. One was leaving at the end of my first week while the rest were to leave after me.

The human mind functions quickly in times of need and greed. And five minds are better than one. Thus, by the end of my first week, a plan was formulated to steal the crown. All five of us decided to steal the crown and split the profits. The South African tycoon was to stow the crown in his suitcase and leave. We were to regroup at a Swiss resort one month later to split the profits of the crown, which the South African intended to sell in the black market. On the day the south African was leaving, the plan was set into motion.

The crown was kept in a niche above the rishi's bed. And the rishi rarely left his bed except for his baths and to pluck his meals. As it was his last day, the South African bathed in the creek with the rishi and the other three disciples. I, faking a stomach upset, stayed behind. While the four disciples and the rishi bathed in the holy creek, I did something holier-I stole from my teacher. It took less than three minutes- walk into the rishi's room, steal the crown, walk out. I slipped the crown into the African's suitcase and went back to bed, victorious.

The four men saw off the African (and his suitcase) and went to the orchard to pluck out lunch. Victorious, I fell asleep. By evening, the whole scenario had changed.

The South African had been caught in the woods with the crown in his hand-he was checking if it was real since he couldn't trust me. The rishi's CCTV camera picked him up and the rishi quickly texted the local police, who arrested him. He named the three disciples, other than me, were also arrested for scheming. Thankfully, nobody named me since I was a key stakeholder in all four men's businesses.

The day I, the only disciple, left, the rishi gave me a small package. In it was the king of Nepal's crown. The rishi dramatically confided in me that the crown would never be safe with a simple man like him, thus it was ideal for him to give it to me, a dear disciple of his.

Trying my best not to whoop with joy or faint with irony, I accepted the package, keeping in mind that silence is golden.

The rich don't feel guilt.

~~~

# To Avoid Pain

Footsteps and grunts echoed loudly in the night as an old, ragged man tottered down the empty street. With a loud hiccup, he grabbed a lamp post to steady himself and hummed a few bars of Mozart under his breath. In the strong light of the lamp, one could see his bloodshot eyes had dark circles below them. His hair was a tangled grey mass and he hadn't shaved, giving his already ash coloured face a rougher look.

Tiny white clouds erupted from his nose and mouth every time he exhaled. But the man seemed oblivious of the near zeros temperature, and he continued humming and whistling. He swayed from side to side as he continued down the street, trying and failing to walk in a straight line. He paused, and took a large gulp from the opaque, unmarked bottle he held in his right hand. He shuddered violently, coughed softly and carried on down the road.

His breathing was in loud rasps that carried easily through the cold, quiet air of the night. His appearance seemed like he was once a rich man who had fallen upon bad times. His olive green button down shirt clung on to his thin body with sweat. His designer jacket lay in a dumpster a few blocks away, discarded by him for some obscure purpose. His, once well pressed, grey trousers were ragged around the ankles. Several bead necklaces hung around his neck, rattling whenever he shuddered too violently.

With a final moan of resignation, the man collapsed on the footpath, face first. The bottle in his hand broke with a sharp crack as it fell on the pavement and an amber fluid flowed down the sidewalk, into the drain. The man adjusted his face, making himself feel more comfortable on the hard, cold pavement, mumbled something, and fell into a deep slumber.

**********

Loud noise. A continuous chatter, harsh and unpleasant to his ears. He opened his eyes, realizing that the air he breathed was no longer the fresh and pleasant air of the outdoors, but rather stale and musty. The floor beneath him felt harder than the pavement did the last night. Harsh daylight flooded into the little room through a barred window. He could see bright colours and vigorous movement on the other side of the vertical bars that blocked the entrance to his room.

He rubbed his eyes and hoisted himself up with a grunt. He groaned, his head felt horrible, his mouth tasted bitter. For several minutes, he passively stood behind the bars and watched the goings on on the other side of the bars. Men in uniform marched in and out of the room, often leading people behind them. Phones were constantly ringing and the hubbub of voices hurt his head even more.

With the wave of his hand, he caught the attention of a plump officer who was idling near his cell. On seeing the elderly inmate waving, the officer waddled over.

"You can't arrest a man just for taking a nap, I can sue you for it"

"I'm sorry sir, in these troubled times everybody is treated as a potential security threat unless proved otherwise"

"I see. And how do I get myself OUT of this hell hole?"

"We need identification proof and we'll run it through the sys-"

The officer was cut short as the man rudely shoved a driver's license into his face.

"Can I leave now?"

**********

Half an hour later, he found himself standing outside the police station, in the fresh, yet polluted, air of the morning. The sun had risen and the traffic was steadily piling up on the streets of the city. Briskly walking down the sidewalk, he began to reflect. He kind of regretted doing what he did last night. And now it continued to haunt him. He had even dreamed about it in his slumber. He doubted he'd ever stop thinking about it.

He wasn't particularly bothered about being holed up in the police department for the night-it was just bad publicity, which he could deal with quite easily. He had other, more serious things on his mind than bad publicity.

He knew, even last night, that it was a reckless decision to drink the tonic. But, after what he had witnessed, it was almost necessary to do something reckless just to distract himself. He resolved to find and talk to the man he had met last night, the man who had showed him everything-the one who called himself "the mystic".

He was sipping a decaf at a street side café, watching the cars honk at each other, when he realized that the tonic facilitated the perfect cover up, he did not remember where he had met the mystic, or where the man had taken him. Heck, he didn't even remember how and where the police had found him. The only thing that he COULD remember from the last night was the face of the "mystic"-long, hairless and deathly pale. With tiny, piercing, black eyes.

With a flash of recollection, he remembered that something happened in his apartment last night. It all started in his apartment uptown. Perhaps he could get a clue of the mystic's identity from there. Seized with a grim purpose, he downed the last of the decaf, left a generous tip and sprinted off towards his apartment, a few blocks away.

He arrived at his doorstep a few minutes later, completely breathless. His age was catching up with him. He doubled over, panting heavily, for a few minutes before throwing the door open and bursting into his spacious and luxurious apartment.

He was in the middle of a forest. Few pillars of yellow sunlight streamed through the dense green canopy above. He was completely lost and had no idea how to leave the mossy clearing he found himself in. strange cries echoed from the depths of the forest. He looked around frantically, trying to find a way out, but he was stuck.

A harsh, inhuman cry pierced the air as a sharpened spear whizzed over his head, ruffling his grey hair, and embedded itself into a tree trunk with a loud thud. Instinctively, he dropped to his knees, with his hands over his head, in an attempt to protect himself. But he heard the footfalls of the tribal, and he knew that his end was approaching rapidly.

He looked up and saw the dark skinned native staring it him. Its eyes were bright white, contrasting against its jet black skin. The eyes shone with an evil hatred, from beneath a broad forehead which was painted in war paint. He still wasn't sure what he had done to earn the native's hate, but he knew he was going to suffer regardless.

The tribal lifted a hand over his head, his eyes wide, and hooted shrilly-some sort of war cry. In his hand was a wickedly sharp, glistening white fang. The fang glinted in the half light, covered in some unknown fluid-poisonous, no doubt.

With a final cry, the small native brought his arm down, and instantaneously, he could feel horrible pain in his chest as the six inch long fang penetrated right through his sternum.

He choked- the fang had pierced his wind pipe. Pain tore through every nerve in his body like a wildfire. The venom began to spread through his blood. His breathing turned into a low wheeze, as he collapsed on the ground. He looked up and saw the native, dressed only in a loincloth, settle himself down on the ground, watching his victim die with a calm patience.

He looked into the pitiless black eyes of his murderer and saw an infinite abyss-one he was soon going to plummet down. He coughed, and spat out a glob of blood. His vision began to turn red, and the noises of the jungle began to die down...

Pain was his universe now, and even using his mind pained him. He stopped trying to pull the fang out of his chest, and his hand fell pathetically by his side, useless. He stopped struggling and tried to wait out the pain. The pain flooded every pore of his body. He took one last gasp of air, which gave him infinite pain, and then he died.

His face shone with sweat as he collapsed on the leather sofa. His breathing was fast and shallow. He could feel his heart beating against his rib cage. Desperately, he called out to his butler for a glass of water, and he was shocked by how weak his voice sounded. He waited for the water, trying to calm himself down, and held his head in his hands, trying to stop his mind from spinning out of control once again.

The mystic had warned him of flashbacks-random bursts of the vision he had experienced last night. He held on to the sofa, trying to assure himself that he was not dead yet, but deep down inside, he knew that visions of his own death-what he had experienced last night-were going to haunt him until the moment actually presented itself.

James, the balding butler, delivered the man's glass of water and left him to his thoughts, as he always did. As he gulped down the cool, refreshing water, he heard the words of the mystic echoing in his head, and nearly choked.

"No matter WHAT you do to avoid it, you CAN'T change the way you die."

Despite this warning, the old man had asked the mystic to show him his own death. And he had. He had KILLED the old man-made him experience the pain and horror of his own death. In the middle of a rainforest, murdered by a native. His inevitable death.

No. he would not die that way. Not with such pain. The materialistic hedonist that he was, he could not tolerate such pain. Still unable to calm his racing heart, he tried to work it out logically. If he wanted to avoid that death, he would have to avoid the rainforest. And he could avoid the rainforest if......

He made up his mind on the spot. He had little to lose. His affairs were in order and he had achieved everything in life that he had wanted to.

With a grim determination, he stomped into his large bedroom and locked the door. How could he fail? He pulled open a drawer and picked up a tiny pistol. With shaking fingers, he loaded the gun and held it to his temple-there was no way he would live through this. Now way he'd go to a jungle and get stabbed.

He winced as he heard the click of the little gun cocking. He took one final look at himself in the enormous mirror in the bedroom-his grey hair, his grey skin, his grey eyes, his well toned physique- took a deep, deep breath, and pulled the trigger.

**********

In the shade of a big oak tree in the park, an extraordinarily thin, pale, bald man smiled at his newspaper. He folded the newspaper carefully, tucked it under his arm, and set off briskly towards his home.

All it had taken was one simple hallucination. One projection, and he was a million bucks richer. His equipment was doing him proud. he had built it himself and it hadn't yet failed to produce a lifelike hallucination.

He reached his tiny little apartment in the middle of the city and walked in. he hated the people who showed off their wealth by living in large, luxurious and impractical houses. This was an added benefit, seeing that most of his victims were of that sort.

Once inside his home, he meticulously cut out the article that had made his day(much sooner than he had expected)-"millionaire kills self after being found drunk on the streets". He used his printer/scanner/copier to make a copy of it. He slipped his pale, slender hands into padded gloves before picking up the warm sheet, folding it into thirds and placing it in a thick white envelope. Before he put it in, however, he wrote "one million pounds" followed by a bank account number on the back of the sheet. He sealed the envelope, addressed it, and left it on the table, making a mental note to send it as soon as possible.

The original article was carefully placed in a thick file labelled "portfolio"

He switched on the radio and found himself a carton of apple juice from the refrigerator- he never touched liquor. He stood on the balcony of his apartment and sipped his juice as he watched the world go by below, enjoying its lunch hour. He chuckled and nodded to himself when he heard the song playing on the radio:

"Another one bites the dust"

~~~

#  A world of chaos: My mind

An untidy scrawl littered the page as I began to write. The "Scritch scratch" of the led pencil was almost inaudible over the gentle strumming of the guitar from my iPod(Paul McCartney's guitar if I'm not much mistaken) as the Beatles play for my ears.

Finding an object or theme to write about can often be quite a challenge. Most of my stories till now have been derived from news items or just random things. Often, a single sentence(uttered by me) sparks off an entire story.

A gentle rumble occasionally rocked my hand as the cell phone on the table vibrated with an incoming text. I snatched up the phone and replied- a purposeless conversation held just to pass our time. The sender of the message is in another part of the country-a city I have visited only once.

My stories are rarely very complex-to me. They may be short and unexplained, but never too complex. There are few references to history (except when I have created that history) and even fewer secret organizations. My stories may seem quite un-happenable, but quite possible (in my opinion)

If I had the resources and/or guts and/or motive, I would definitely carry out 6's tasks. I would also converse in 143 languages and build a space shuttle out of paper clips. I would climb Mount Everest on my hands and sacrifice a goat on the summit.

If you(the eager but dull reader) have found no trace of sarcasm in the above paragraph, you are a superb....DOLT!

As I sharpen my pencil to continue writing, pencil shavings form a strata to cover my study table. The table is supposed to be a work station. Its more like a miniature junkyard. A fine, even layer of dust is omnipresent on my table surface. I believe it protects the beautiful surface of the table from any physical damage. I say "physical" damage because the table's MORALE has probably gone below zero.

My stories, I reflect, are very morose in nature: They often regard killing, bombing, fighting, drugs and murder. This, I feel, is because of the world I was brought up in. 9/11 took place when I was around seven years old. I've always hated bloodshed and violence. And through some ironic bit of psychology, I write mainly about the said topics. The human mind is strange.

The maracas, pianos and "ooh oooh"s of the Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" enter my ears. I always loved that song. The Devil is portrayed as a man with class, not some brute who gobbles men. I would love to star in a music video of the song. In a tuxedo. It was the WORDS of the song that appealed to me, more than the music, which is also good!

I often yearn to write a story about time travel, but it is the "How" that often escapes me. Time travel results in status quo for the present-no change at all. Whatever you do in the past is what makes THIS situation in the present. Confusing, isn't it? That's time travel for you. Travelling to the future is one option I still should consider...

My thoughts often make me question things. Some things I question are: The purpose of life, the concept of a "word", the inspiration for a song(often answered by my trusty friend called the internet), and of course, the most questioned concept, my sanity. All these questions and pondering thoughts disillusion me. Reality and Dream merge as on e. I unfurl my leathery wings and fly to the roof. The passing birds tell me about Einstein's hair stylist. I sit atop the moon's tallest mountain and write this.....passage. Like I said, Dream and reality merge into one. After all, this is only a dream.

###
