The arrow of death

Chapter-9

The rest of the day flew by with me in a daze. Before I realized it, it was already time to go home. I was feeling weird. I put a hand on my shoulder. Now it didn't feel any different. I could've sworn that the skin on my shoulder had burnt off but now it felt fine. If I had never seen her, the 'ghost', I probably would've thought that all that happened to me was a bad dream. But I had seen her so I knew better than to doubt what I had just experienced. The only thing left to figure out was what she meant by "they're coming for me". Like, I really don't think that I'm valuable enough for someone to try and kidnap me and as far as I know, I had avoided standing out in school to stay clear of making any enemies. 

As these thoughts were running through my mind, I failed to realize that my class had gone silent. They were all looking out the window towards something in the distance. 

My shoulder started to itch. Actually, no. It felt like a giant cat was scratching me with its claws out trying to rip off my skin from my shoulders. The feeling came upon me so suddenly that I almost fell out of my chair. Thankfully Arun had good reflexes. He held on to me before I could hit the ground. 

"Bro you okay?"

"No"

"Good"

The pain suddenly disappeared, almost like the quiet before the storm. The atmosphere felt weird. The children were all quiet which felt unusual for a bunch of teenagers. I looked around and was shocked. All the kids were looking straight at me. Their eyes, glowing white. 

If that wasn't creepy enough, they all started speaking in unison.

"Karan Bisht"

The voice made me stumble and almost fall again. It was unlike any I had ever heard. Even though it was clearly the kids who were talking together it felt like one person was speaking, its voice unable to be contained by a single mouth. But at the same time, his voice came from all directions at once, The bass in the voice could put the speakers at wedding parties to shame. But the weirdest thing was that I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman speaking. The voice felt like an adult and a child at the same time. 

I looked to my side but Arun still looked normal. He seemed to be just as shocked as me, his eyes wide open and his jaw almost on the floor.

"Bro you seeing this?" I asked

"I...I don't know" he said, his voice shaky. "This has to be a dream right?"

"Seems unlikely that we would be having the same dream together"

Karan Bisht, the voice repeated. As the voice spoke the room seemed to shake and warp as if just by speaking the person behind the voice was distorting the space around us. My knees felt weak and I doubted that I could even get up on my feet even if I wanted to. 

"What do you want?" I asked

No reply.

"Who are you?"

No reply. 

I was confused. why wasn't it answering? The room seems to have stopped distorting. The glow in their eyes was dimmer now. I looked around and I saw her. Aasha Agarwal. The girl that had stolen my heart.

She stood at the doorway, holding what looked like rosary beads in her hands. Looking at her standing there looking pretty as ever made me almost forget about our situation. She turned her head to stare at me directly with her beautiful eyes and piercing gaze. It almost felt like I was looking into the deep ocean where I could swim for... Sorry went off track for a bit. Getting back to the events.

She looked frantic and her mouth was moving furiously but no voice seemed to be coming out. I tried asking her what she was trying to say but I couldn't hear myself either. I put a finger to my ear and was shocked when I saw blood. Her eyes went wide as she also seemed to realize that I couldn't hear. She started gesturing with her hands giving me a sign to go out. I looked over at Arun and he seemed to get the message too.

We got on our feet and ran out of the classroom, or at least we tried to. The damage in our ears had probably affected our equilibrium as I felt disoriented. Kinda like when you spin in a circle for too long.  Almost tripping over ourselves we ran out of the classroom. As soon as we did, I felt extreme heat on my back.

 I turned around as the classroom exploded in flames.