A TALE FROM THE PAGES OF PAST

NIGHT OF TERROR ||

BHUMI SATYADEV

The rains are not stopping as my tears went dry. I was numb. After death of my mother he was my mother the one who raised me. He never remarried again thinking someone else won't be able to treat me properly. I know he will leave me once but I never thought like this. Not this fast. His head was just few feets away from me. I regretted that I never got the chance to tell him good bye. To tell how much I live him. To thank him for taking care of me. The thunders now no longer fazed me as I quietly sat there waiting for one of it to fall on me and take my life this instance. I heard heavy footfalls in my part of palace. I understood them very well.

"This is not supposed to happen." I heard Maharaj Surendra mumbled as my father's head caught the same black fire and disintegrated right in front of my eyes. I didn't moved. "Not a word about this to anyone Bhumi." Maharaj said in a threatening tone as a humorless laugh escaped my mouth. The tears returned to my eyes. "Or what ?" I said drying of my checks. I stood and looked at him through pure rage. "Or what Surendra. You will kill me as well like my father or Jyotish ji." I said staring right into his eyes. Not wavering infront of his threatening and angery gaze at my disrespect. I walked forward till he had to take a step backwards. "You got it all wrong. Ravi was my best friend." He tried to defend himself. "Friend." I let out another humorless chuckle.

"This petty games of the fort are like the small puzzles I used to solve in my childhood Surendra. That day what ever Jyotish ji said about upcoming calamity, about upholding the Silver Assembly which you still hosted after his brutal death. You even hosted it after the death of two officials. You think I am blind and deaf. Those two officials were not in finance but they were your own personal gaurds. Those two were the of our most trained gaurds who used to stick with you like leeches. They were the only two other than me who listened to what Jyotish ji said. About the transit..." I was cut off as a tight slap resonated through my chambers. I fallen on the ground due to the blunt force of it.

I can feel entire left side of my face throb with pain and then lose the sensation of that area altogether. I spat out blood due to brutal force he used. He can easily kill me if he want. He is much more trained in all aspects than me. "I never interfered in the matters of court yet you hurt me. Keep in mind Surendra the day I found out who had role in killing my father they will curse the day they were born." I yelled out angrily as he left my room banging the door. My entire body was filled with rage as I glared at the door through which he left. My fingers went to the Rudraksha iny neck. I had a feeling that the shadow was trying to warn me not kill me.

What ever secrets the fort walls are holding in the shadow was the strange yet the only key for this mystery. I took a deep breath and tightened my grip on the rudraksha and ripped it off my neck. It went flying across the room banding on a vase as the cooling chill which at first disturbed me returned. At first I felt unnerved but then they clinged to me like my second skin. They felt as similar as my father's embrace just they were much more colder and unfamiliar to me. All the lamps in my room fluttered and then went out. Dosing me off in a complete darkness. The rain had ceased but the thunders didn't still casting disturbing shadows in my room.

I found myself turning towards the balcony not knowing what to aspect. Soon the black shadow came towards me. First time I looked at it without any emotion. My eyes were trailing it's every moment. How it glided effortlessly glided over the marble floor. My father's ashes flowed along with the current of wind as the shadow came eye to eye with me. It examined me for a second before flowing past me towards the door. As soft sounds of anklets resonated through the palace which I now definitely know the shadow's doing. It passed through the door. I got up and followed it out towards the place it is showing me.

I had this feeling this shadow can't harm me but the terror of unknown became much more imposing than the need to follow my institutions in out past encounters. I tripped several times as I followed the shadow and the sound of anklets resonating in the corridors of my palace. The lightening is in symphony with the loud crashes of Alaknanda along the anklets were creating weird rhydhm which sounded as if it can terrorize the greatest of great. The shadow travelled through the throny forest present in the backside of Aavesharahit Mahal. The last corner of the fort, present slightly lower than the rest of the palaces. A place no one ever ventured in.