As they moved on ahead, the crowd began to get even thicker until eventually they found themselves squeezing through sweaty and bloody bodies again. A few times he even felt some of them nudge themselves into him and he’d groan as elbows would dig into him painfully. At the front, he could catch a glimpse of the slaughter grounds ahead but it was near the front when he dropped dead in his tracks. He felt the whistling in his ears return as his brain struggled to process what he was looking at.
It was a bloodbath. The grounds ahead were full of butchers slaughtering people that were being dragged one by one out of rusted and smelling cages, like they were cattle while the others chained inside watched in horror. Among them he also saw women and children screaming and crying, begging for mercy but the butchers paid no heed as their blood sprayed onto their clothes and faces. The ground was completely red, so much so that it looked like the plains of Hell itself. He had been shocked when he had seen all this from the roofs but it was up close here where all of it hit him. He wanted to disintegrate there and then. He wanted his soul to be ripped apart and to just dissolve into the stars, as if it had never existed or felt the pain and horror that he was experiencing right now.
He realised that in his shock he had lost Khalid among the crowd and began to panickedly look for him. All he saw around were the grinning dark brown faces of the village men, like demons in the Hell he had found himself in. He had to find him and he had to do fast because Khalid was his only chance of survival among these people. He was practically a walking hunk of dead meat in the crowd. It would be only a matter of time unless they saw him.
The static of a speaker interrupted his thoughts and everyone in the crowd turned to face a small stage in the middle of the slaughter ground, which Faizan had failed to notice before. He saw there were a few big speakers set up there along with a small pedestal where a mic was placed. An aged man with a blazing red hennaed beard and wearing an immaculate white shalwar kameez was standing at the pedestal. He gently cleared his throat into the mic which sounded very familiar to Faizan. As the mullah spoke into the mic, Faizan realised it was the same voice he had seen coming from the masjid speakers set into the giant minaar.
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“Greetings, my fellow brothers! I hope all of you are enjoying this holy occasion of Eid. I have been making rounds of our village and the dedication I have seen from you has been nothing short of amazing. I bring glad tidings to all of you that God is very pleased with you. Congratulations!”
Everyone in the crowd cheered and began to shout slogans out. Faizan did not follow along with them and instead began looking around for his friend but could not find them among the flurry of fists and arms that were being pumped into the air.
“You have done so well slaughtering the sinners, the pagans, and the witches. See how their flesh has been made delicious for you so that you may be rewarded with a feast for your hard work. Surely God is the greatest of them all!”
They cheered even louder and Faizan was starting to get claustrophobic as he found himself being jostled in the crowd. Where the hell was Khalid?
The maulvis tone suddenly changed and he quieted down. “But there is one place where all of you have been lacking, and that is in dealing with the kids from the city.”
Faizan felt his heart drop and froze in his place, making sure he could stay as incognito as he could. He stood no chance here without Khalid, who he hoped too was being careful about not being found out. Faizan felt that him being in the crowd while the maulvi talked to them about finding him was a terrible idea and he was shocked as to how he had found himself in the situation in the first place.
The crowd quieted down as well and turned to look at the maulvi whose face was dead serious now. There was disappointment in his face.
“God has expectations of us and although he is merciful, we should not push our luck with it. We are among the blessed of his ranks and must do better. The people from the city must not be allowed to roam our streets freely lest they taint our lands with their poisonous free thinking and their technology.”
The villagers had their heads lowered in shame now and he could hear some of them cursing themselves under their breath. He could hear some of them even hitting themselves nearby in a frenzy.
“Do not worry, however,” said the mullah and his voice rose again. “For one of our very own has captured a man from the city. Bring him up!”
He saw the men standing next to the maulvi instructing a nearby cage to be opened. The cage was so full of people that some of them were chained to each other. He could not make what was going inside until someone was pushed roughly out of it.