He willed himself to move. The hay rustled as he tussled with it to get up. He left the safety of the hay womb, a city boy in the village now transformed into a traumatised man who had barely escaped death and was still not out of the thick of it. He looked around and saw that he was in a small courtyard that was being used as a small farmyard. There were a few goats and cows, who had been awakened by his fall, but they turned away once they realised he meant no harm to them. Their eyes glinted in the moonlight making it look as if they were monsters hiding in the dark. But they knew, and Faizan knew, that the real monsters were out there killing their own kind. They’re probably glad they’re not the ones being slaughtered out there. Karma, I guess.
The house the courtyard belonged to looked abandoned and there were no lights in any of the houses nearby. It seemed to him as if the house he had fallen into was the border between chaos and complete and utter darkness. The house facing away from the slaughter looked completely dark and abandoned. He wasn’t sure why that was the case but either way, he did not want to walk on the streets. He noticed that some of the neighbouring houses were interconnected through small, crudely built dusty passageways that were full of cobwebs and ceilings that were too short. He had to hunch over a little bit as he walked through them, all the while wary of no one discovering him. Some of the neighbouring houses were not connected through these corridors so he had to either climb up small fences or walk up to rooftops and quickly jump down to the ground before he was spotted. He was intent on avoiding the rooftops as much as he could.
The whole time he stared up at the mosque’s minaar, using it as a marker. He was quite sure that he had closed quite a bit of distance to the mosque now but not sure how much because of the ever growing pillar in the sky, it’s sharp end piercing the night sky. What if the car had not been taken to the mechanic there and Daniel had been abducted before he could have done so? What if it was burning to a hunk of metal among the burning fires he had seen all around the village? Had he been cursed somehow? If only he could find one of his friends, maybe he could get some information about their whereabouts and how things had gone to shit so fast. If any of them was alive, that is.
The smell of the burning fires and meat was starting to die down and yet it would not go away. Faizan was sure that the smell had tattooed itself to his mind and would never go away the rest of his life. The very thought of cooked meat made him gag now and suddenly veganism did not sound like a bad idea. Would becoming a vegan make him a blasphemer? After all, it was ordered by God himself to eat the meat slaughtered during Eid. He did not know why but the thought t made him laugh and he was glad for it, because the laughter and the tears that ran down his eyes were a nice release of all that pent up stress inside him. What the hell had he gotten himself into? Was this God’s version of hell and he had somehow died in his sleep? Was this what his life was going to be from now on?
Faizan was in an utter state of shock. All the events he had gone through had hit him like a truck-
Something slammed hard into him, like a truck, something huge. He had seen the rush of movement at the last second of something huge, and heard the sounds of mournful moaning, but was given no time to react as he soared into the sky. The slight gforce he was experiencing had his brain doing somersaults but he managed to instinctively raise his shoulder as he braced for impact against a small wooden utility shed. He hit the shed hard but luckily the force of the impact was reduced by the shed completely falling apart and absorbing the blow. Planks of the rotting wood fell all over him, and he felt splinters, rusted nails and chunks of wood poking into him as he hurriedly got to his feet. He still hadn’t processed what happened when he saw the giant figure heading for him again, charging at him.
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He quickly got to his feet and scrambled to get out of the way of the charging figure. He almost slipped backwards on the sawdust that had spread all over the wooden remains of the shed, and barely managed to escape out of the way. The figure had been moving with a lot more momentum than before, and Faizan felt the rush of wind reverberating in his body as it went past him. He knew he would’ve lost his life there and then, if he had been struck.
The figure reduced the wooden remains to a complete cloud of dust as he ran for his life, to put as much distance as he could between him and the thing. To his surprise, he turned around to see the small building next to the shed fall apart completely, like a wrecking ball had collided into it. The figure had used the house as a way to stop its momentum and now he saw its dark silhouette slowly darkened in the cloud of dust as it walked towards him. The moonlight and fires rising above the small village houses served as enough light for Faizan to see the giant figure that walked out.
The figure was that of a giant man, wearing a bloodied shalwar while his upper body was completely naked. The brown skin of his body was gleaming, as if he had spread something greasy on it. His thick muscly arms were raised on his sides, like how Jesus was crucified on the cross, and Faizan noticed to his horror a thick metal beam jammed through the arms and his back, holding them in place. On either side of the beams, there were two figures hanging lifelessly, with hooks attached to chains lodged into their spines, their moans had now turned to screams after the hook in their backs had reignited the pain from all that movement. Faizan could not make out their faces but could tell they were men. He was horrified by the way their bloody, damaged bodies contorted in pain and knew he had to be careful if he didn’t want to take one of their places.
The man had a strong, stout face with a jaw so strong it looked like it could break stone. There was a thick metal helmet on his head that was shaped like the designed skull caps that Muslims wore in Pakistan. It was painted green with religious calligraphy painted on it in gold, that had begun to slowly fade and yet its fiery glinting could still be made out. Behind the helmet, he saw a small figure holding on to his back, like a deformed child. It was a man suffering from dwarfism and a mangled body; hunched over back, growths all over the body and face and limbs that were of various sizes that made him look like a sickly creature. The small creature’s face had lit up in anticipation and it was smiling at him, whispering into the larger man’s ear, while Phelwan simply addressed him as Bhai (Brother). His whispers weren’t being heard because of the hanging mens’ screams and so the creature slapped at them and shushed them to be quiet. They paid no attention to him, lost in their reverie of pain.
Barring the grotesque modifications made to the large man’s body body, he looked like the pehlwan wrestlers that he had seen on the internet, except they looked like midgets compared to the man towering over him, and he realised this was the man named Pehlwan that the villagemen had been talking about. Pehlwan smiled at him, a terrifying smirk that showed off the immaculate set of teeth that looked more like huge ivory rocks set into his mouth. He walked towards him, his pace slow and steadily rising as the creature on his back encouraged him with what sounded like religious chants, For God, until he was jogging towards him, the force of his stride sending vibrations all the way to where Faizan stood. He was charging at him again.
Faizan ran for his life, harder than he had ever run.
He ran aimlessly at first, towards the outer gate of the house he was in and barely managed to exit it as Pehlwan came charging in. As he jumped out of the way on the streets, he heard the sickening crunch of the giant metal gate as it bent over and then flew off its hinges, slamming against the other side of the street and denting the wall.
Faizan had slipped over the small beam at the bottom of the gate and had ended up face first into the gutters. The smell of filth and blood violated his nostrils as he struggled to get up. He screamed as he saw the wife open frightened eyes of a child’s head looking deep into his eyes, the horror she had experienced immortalised on her face. Faizan would have hurled right there and then but he had to continue running so that he could put enough distance between him and Phelwan to jump out of the way. The small creature on Pehlwan’s back laughed, amused by Faizan’s horrific reactions.
Faizan ran down the narrow streets, panting like mad, his heart thumping against his chest doing its best to keep pumping blood throughout his body. He heard the vibrations from the ground increasing as Pehlwan took up another run up, roaring as he shifted into a run. Faizan realised he had messed up by running into the streets because now the only way he could run was straight and there was not much room to dodge. He tried to push open gates of the houses he came across but they would not budge and now he was starting to panic again. Death was right at his heels.
And it was catching up.