Chapter 8
Ravana saw the girl getting dragged away. Realizing that the girl was the one who carried him to the hut and to safety, he had already felt indebted to her. Seeing the bandits dragging her like that he knew that he had to help her. So he had moved towards the bandit.
Even he was startled at the speed at which he had moved. There must have been seventy meters between him and the bandit. In a blink of an eye he had already reached the bandit. He didn’t realize the physical change he had gone through as he ran out of his home. He didn’t realize before that his rage and other emotions had broken some kind of barricade inside of him and released something. He saw the eyes of both the bandit and the girl widen when they saw him standing in front of him.
The bandit was at first scared when he saw the speed at which the man came. But realizing it was just a young kid his uneasiness and fears disappeared.
"Haha, little kid, you startled me. What, you want to act as a hero and save the damsel in distress?" he threateningly spoke and took out a saber from the sheath at his side releasing his bloodlust, thinking that the kid would back away, seeing this.
To his surprise not only did the kid not move, but he suddenly extended his hand. Before the bandit could even realize what was happening, Ravana caught the bandit by the throat and threw him away like a ragged doll.
Time seemed to freeze as the other bandits and the citizens of the village saw this. Anger and a little bit of shame could be seen in the eyes of the bandit when they saw one of their own being so easily flipped by a child. Hope and surprise could be seen in the eyes of the villagers. Both the opposite parties started tightening their hand on the weapon that they were handling.
Arun was the name of the leader of the group of bandits currently in the village. He once used to be a thief who stole only to gamble it all away. He had been black and blue many times by the men of the village. But things changed when the meteor fell. Suddenly many of the strong people of the village were taken away and only the women, children and old people remained along with few of the able men remaining. Seeing this, he knew it was his time to rise. He joined the group of bandits that were forming. He flattered the Chief of the bandits who pleased by his flattery granted him his own group through which he could raid the villages. He had gone to raid in other villages as well. He and his group had taken whatever they wanted and those who had tried to stop them had been silenced which had prevented the other people from doing the same due to fear. He had thought that today would be no different. Then he saw one of his men being flung over by one of the childish looking youngster. Thinking that the man must be drunk due to which he was easily flipped over, he got off from his horse and started moving forward towards Ravana and the girl.
The villagers seeing this knew that the man must be planning to do something horrendous to those children to establish his dominance. And they knew that they had to stop him from doing so. Even thought they didn’t have proper fighting equipments in contrast to the bandits, they were pure and simple minded with a conscience which didn’t allow them to see anything happening to those young looking children. So they started forming a line between the bandits and Ravana.
But the villagers were weak, since most of the warriors had been taken. So they could only produce a small amount of resistance against nearly fifty men. The old woman Sundari too was there hitting the bandits with a log of wood. By chance, while Sundari was trying to hit the bandit the wood slipped from her hand and hit Arun in the head.
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Arun was hit in the head so hard that he saw stars during the daylight. He had seen the old woman throw the block of wood. Feeling the blood dripping off his head, he was enraged to the point of seeing all red. Without even thinking about the age difference or the respect to the elderly he punched his fist out, which hit Sundari in the face. The poor woman flew out like a leaf blown by the wind.
Ravana was about to move toward the girl who was sniffling when he saw the scene of Sundari getting hit occurring. He saw her hit the floor, feebly shaking and moaning in pain. Memories flashed in his head seeing the old woman laugh and cry, seeing her feeding him the food and playfully hitting him. Then something inside him snapped. All the rage he felt, the unfairness of the ways of the world just bled from his heart. The scene of his powerlessness when his father was taken kept on flashing right before his eyes.
A power unlike anything he felt before rose from his chest and only a ringing sounded in his ear
"KILL, KILL, KILL!"
He didn’t realize that he had shouted it out loud. The bandits who had broken through the resistance line of the villagers snickered as they charged toward Ravana. Ravana moved forward to meet them as well with nothing but his hands. One of the bandit seeing Ravana appear before him freaked out and tried to slash his sword. But before he could even move his hand, he felt an intense pain coming from his chest and flew backwards crashing into a hut. Another bandit nearby the previous one was stunned seeing this. But before he could even freak out about it he felt a wind pass by him. He flinched a little and closed his eyes as he felt the hand of death hovering over him. But all he heard were cries of the people. As he opened his eyes, he saw a blurry vision of other bandits getting gutted by their own swords and weapons. Some were even killed or torn apart with the bare hands of the little devil covered in red. Even though he saw his friends and comrades dying the bandit was happy that he was alive until he felt himself falling and his vision turning upside down. As he fell, he saw a headless body standing still. Even as his consciousness faded away, he kept on wondering why the headless body looked so familiar.
Arun with cold sweat running behind his back, started backing up as he asw this. Many of his fellow bandits had treid to attack the boy seeing him kill their friends. But they too had died cruelly at the hand of the child. Some of his friends had tried abandoning them and running away. but they was tragically killed by the spear or other weapons thrown by Ravana. Even the horses had run away neighing and buckling as they ran. It was as if they could sense a predator that was starting its hunt.
Before long all the bandits had been killed by Ravana except Arun.
"Spare me, Please." Arun started getting on his knees and begging. If one looked closely, they would see a yellow spot forming in his trousers. He slammed his head down as he said it. "They forced me to join this gang. I haven’t done anything wrong. I was just following them so that I could have something to eat and feed my children. Please spare me for the sake of my children." he started babbling about nonsensical things.
Then he saw Ravana turn his back towards him. Thinking that Ravana must have forgiven him and it was his cue to leave he started scampering. As he turned backwards he froze when he saw the villagers surrounding him. Before he could even plead or say anything, the villagers started stabbing him in all the parts. Many of them were women who he had taken by force and many were children who he had beaten up.
As the villagers were busy taking their revenge, no one saw Ravana. No one saw, that the death god who had just saved them and killed those bandits cruelly, had a greenish pale face which looked like it was about to puke any second. None of them realized the psychological trauma Ravana was going through as he saw the carnage painted in blood by his own hands. No one saw the hollow look in his eyes and no one felt the despairing sadness emanating from him.