Chapter 9

The whole village was filled with the sound of happiness that night. People were seen dancing and laughing everywhere, smiling at each other. Maybe it was because it had been a long time since they had a reason to be happy, they let themselves go all out. All the young people and the old ones drank their heart out and no one put a stop to it at all.

The atmosphere was infectious. Even Ravana, who was in depressed mood, who was trying to figure things out like whether he did the right thing killing them all or not was infected by it. Ravana after all was only fifteen. Living in an isolated world, he barely knew anything. Even though he had killed animals and beasts before, it was different from killing humans who talked like him, walked like him and showed plenty of emotions in their faces. And seeing the people happy he decided as a way to escape from his guilt of killing those people.

Some of the younger people of the village, who had started idolizing Ravana  seeing his feat of wiping out the bandit, came closer to him and started offering him wine and fruit to eat. Ravana had never drunk wine before. So the bitter taste which came due to swallowing it was kind of new to him. He wanted to spit out the whole thing but seeing even the kids younger than him were drinking it easily he swallowed it down, just to maintain his pride. As the night wore down, the wine started flowing as well. Due to it being his first time drinking, naturally his tolerance was low. He started getting tipsy and drunk. At first, when the villagers themselves who were already drunk saw this they started laughing as Ravana drunkenly swayed around. But as the villagers dwindled in their own drunkenness, they failed to see the situation of Ravana.

At first the dizziness and euphoria was good for him. His mind was numbed after drinking a lot of wine. All the people who had drunk with him were already faint and sleeping. Ravana in his drunkenness was smiling happily in a lazy kind of way. Due to drinking too much he had to go and take a piss. As he moved towards the bushes near the river, he saw a blurry shadow of a man near a tree with his back faced towards him. Ravana didn’t mind it at first but seeing the man standing in the same position as he was in before, Ravana started feeling a little uneasy.

Slowly the man tuned towards him. Even through the blurry eyes of Ravana, he could clearly see the gaping wound in the chest of the man. As his fuzzy eyes started left the bloodied gaping chest of the man towards his face, Ravana froze and lost all remaining colors of his face. This was because the man he saw was none other than the bandit he had killed with his own hand. As he froze, the man slowly started creeping towards him. As he got closer, Ravana saw many other men following behind him.  Some of them were headless with the head carried in their arms. Some of them were crawling casue they had no legs. But all they had in common was that they were the men that had been killed by Ravana just before in the day.

  Ravana just remained frozen as those dead men surrounded him. He could feel the bile rising in his throat as he saw those men. He had the urge to vomit but somehow managed to stay still not because he wanted to, but because an unknown emotion had gripped him tight in his heart.

They all parted to reveal a man with wounds riddles on his whole body. Ravana recognized the man as the leader of the bandits who had been killed by the villagers. His skin was blue and black in color not because it was natural but because he had been beaten black and blue by the villagers and died due to the hemorrhaging of the blood inside.

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The man came forth and spoke "I had a son, a daughter who is waiting for me to come home. They must be hungry and waiting for their father to provide them with food. Now that I am dead who will provide them with food? What are they going to do now that they don’t have a feeding hand? Who's going to tell them that their father's not coming home? It's your fault that I'm dead. And if my children die then it's on your head too." Cruelly laughing the bandit said" How does it feel to know that you just destroyed an entire family, huh? Do you feel glad, you little monster? "

 Another man came forward and said with a snide tone" No wonder your father left. Knowing how horrible his son is, how could the man stay with him?" heering laughter followed.

Ravana even in his fear gripped state murmured "No, father only left because those men forced him to. It's not my fault.."

Yet the laughter and the accusation continued with no respite. Everyone of the dead people had their own sayings to say.

"My old mother……. "

" My Father….."

"My Wife…."

Hearing all the accusation and the state their family would be in, Ravana's leg quivered and he fell down on the ground. He covered his ears to stop those sound from reaching him. He tried to crawl so that he could leave them far behind. He shouted at them but nothing worked. Eventually they surrounded him. With tears and snot running down his face, he tried to run, but just stumbled and fell.  They were about to reach him and their cruel faces with blood running everywhere came nearer.

Suddenly a hand grabbed him in his shoulder and threw him into the river. Ravana thought the men he killed had came for their vengeance and were thinking of drowning him. As he spluttered and gasped for air while coming to the surface of the river, he tried to swim towards the other way. However, someone caught him and once again threw him to the shore. As he kept on panicking and trying to stay above the water, the hand slapped him hard.

"SNAP OUT OF IT!!!" A booming sound rang in his head. As the voice entered his head, his mind suddenly got clear. The panic seemed to recede a lot in his mind. Through the moonlight shining, he looked around to see if those men were there or not. He didn’t see any of them. The forest which just before seemed to be covered in blood was now green with the grasses. He gasped for breath, as he thought what must have happened when suddenly a voice behind him spoke in a wry voice

"Whatever you just saw was just a figment of your imagination. The wine must have helped a lot in causing that."

Relief flooded through him as he hard this. His head was now clear of any vestiges of the numbness and was suddenly fresh and sharp. He turned around to thank the man who helped him

"Thank y…." he froze as he started thanking the man. This was because he saw who the man was. The man sighed and came forward towards him.

A complex emotion rose in Ravana's heart as he saw the man. This was the guy responsible for his family separating. But again this man was supposed to be his grandfather as well. Also he had saved his family and now he had helped him as well. Ravana didn’t know what to say to the man

The man was none other than the sage Kashyapa.

The amount of resentment that Ravana had for this man was great; however he knew he was really weak in front of this person. Also the hallucination he just saw of the men he killed made him have a lot of self hatred and loathing. Coupled with the things that had happened a few days ago, it truly was too much for a young child to handle.

Perhaps Kashyapa could sense the emotional changes of Ravana, but there was no reaction from him at all. After a while Kashyapa just sighed and spoke softly

"You truly have a naïve and soft heart."