Samsaara : Devadoot

Until the Fat Lady Sings

The red moon filtered its ominous glow through the sky. The monsoon raindrops were tinted into a glistening blood red as they made puddles of scarlet-brown. A girl ran through the downpour under the veil of darkness as she was pierced by the cold needles of rain. The girl appeared to be in her late teens, hastily dressed in a pair of torn jeans and unkempt hair. Her eyes, bespectacled by black and blue bruises. All of her exposed skin bore scars of some form. A woman of the night. She kept glancing behind as if trying to escape from something.

The sounds of men chasing her from afar and the dogs barking were the only signs of life on those silent roads. She had barely escaped their sight in the dark of the night as she reached the entrance of Bonta Park. She pushed against the metal gate and paint and rust flaked under her palm. The gate let out a loud cry as it opened, announcing her location to those after her. She ran past the castellated Flagstaff tower and scampered into one of the many trails that start there.

The sleeping tribes of Macaques and Langurs, startled by her running began grunting and hooting to warn others. The ruckus awoke the colony of fruit bats who tore through the sky in coordinated circles with their slender wings. The men chasing her met with these bats and were slowed down momentarily but they gained on her soon. The uphill run had exhausted her and her breathing grew heavy. She veered on a wooded trail on her left and began making her way downwards, hoping that would throw the people off her trail.

The trail led to the infamous 'Khooni Jheel', not that anyone remembers what it's called now, nor was the sign board visible in the dark. She pushed through the wooded path to hide herself and found herself on an old bridge. The boards on the floor of the bridge creaked under her weight but her fear of men was far greater than her fear of falling, and rightly so. She went across the bridge and slid down the steep slope that bordered the pond. She sighted a patch of dense shrubbery near the pond and went and hid amidst it.