The Blood Canvas

Chapter #3 - Red Room Of Death

The iron door of the Red Room of Death shook again. This time it was stronger, followed by a loud bang as if a heavy body had hit its surface from the outside. Fine dust fell from the ceiling, landing on Hamzadi's tense shoulders. Hamzadi did not move. He stood firm, strengthening his posture, holding a dagger in his right hand and a handful of camphor powder in his left. His breathing was slow. Ready to fight if needed.

The Malay Breathing Technique that his teacher had taught him to concentrate internal energy in the center of the body. In the room, the paintings on the walls were getting louder and shaking with loud noises. The trapped ghosts were cheering, feeling that the walls of their prison were about to collapse and they were about to get out, which they would definitely try to kill Hamzadi if they managed to get out.

"Silence!" Hamzadi snapped without turning around. His voice echoed with the authority of a prison guard. The screams and scratches from inside the paintings subsided slightly, turning into evil whispers.

Bang!

A loud bang made the hinges of the iron door warp inward. The thick metal began to bend like a crushed aluminum can. Hamzadi knew the door wouldn't last long. He had to make a quick choice: stay inside this fortress and risk being trapped if the enemy managed to get in, or go out and attack and keep the threat away from his art collection.

If the creature outside managed to get into the Red Room of Death, the negative energy it brought with it would become a duplicate key that would unlock all the prison cells.

"I won't let you touch my work," Hamzadi hissed.

He strode quickly towards the door, kicked the iron latch up, and with all his might pushed the door open. His action startled the intruder outside. The heavy iron door slammed into the creature's body, sending it staggering backward. Hamzadi took the opportunity to leap out into the pitch-black living room.

In the dim light of the streetlights that filtered in through the window, Hamzadi again saw his guest. He was big. Very huge and damn big. His body was nearly seven feet tall, hairy and jet black like a bear, but standing tall like a man. Its smell was a combination of old blood and wet earth, lava of volcano and the strong scent of death filling the entire narrow living room. Its eyes were blazing red without pupils but only just two balls of fire staring hungrily.

"Ghost of Eid-Mubarak Ramadan! Fasting is here!" Hamzadi snorted.

The creature snorted harshly. It looked at Hamzadi, then its thick lips parted in a terrible smile.

"Hamzadi..." Its voice was hoarse, vibrating like a grinding stone.

Hamzadi recognized the tone of voice. It wasn't the creature's original voice. Ghost Raya wasn't good at speaking with human intonation, they only knew how to follow orders. The voice that came out was the voice of the owner of the body who was borrowing his slave's voice box.

"Pandika, did you send your dog to pee in my area?" Hamzadi replied calmly, even though cold sweat was starting to wet the back of his shirt.

The creature laughed. It sounded like suppressed thunder.

"I just wanted to make sure you were still sharp, old friend. But it seems you live like a rat. Hiding in a dark hole."

"This rat is the one who taught you how to hold a brush first," Hamzadi sneered.

Without warning, the Ghost Raya rushed forward. Its movements were fast, out of proportion to its gigantic size.

The hairy hand the size of a banana stem swung at Hamzadi's head, but Hamzadi managed to drop his body, sliding across the slippery parquet floor, passing under the creature's crotch.

The creature's attack missed, shattering the teak dining table behind Hamzadi into small pieces. The glass bottles on the table shattered.

Hamzadi quickly got up behind the creature. He continued to throw the camphor powder in his left hand right at the back of the creature's neck.

"Hiyargh!"

The powder exploded slightly when it came into contact with the creature's skin, releasing white smoke that smelled hot.

The creature roared in pain.

The skin on its back blistered as if it had been splashed with acid. Camphor is a natural enemy for the earth jinn, because it is 'hot' and painful. However, the pain only made it angrier. It spun around, its eyes burning even more.

Hamzadi knew that normal physical attacks would not kill this thing. The Ghost of Raya had a natural invulnerability. Iron was impenetrable, bullets were impenetrable, to defeat it, Hamzadi had to use artistic methods.

He ran towards the decorative cupboard in the corner of the living room. There was a container of rose water that had been mixed with black Chinese ink and a little soil from the cemetery consisted of skeleton ashes mixed with black dog’s blood. This was his 'bullet' of choice.

The Ghost of Raya pounced again. This time it grabbed Hamzadi's left leg. The grip felt like an iron vise. Hamzadi's dry bones cracked softly. The pain spread straight to his brain.

"You think you can run?" Pandika's voice mocked the creature's mouth.

Hamzadi gritted his teeth to hold back the pain. He turned his body upside down, and using the momentum of the creature's swing, he stabbed the dagger in his hand into the creature's arm.

The knife didn't penetrate the flesh, but the writing on the blade was a finely carved verse of the Kursi, this was to burn the creature's arm so that its grip would break.

Hamzadi fell to the floor. He rolled quickly, reaching for a modified spray can on the shoe rack. He got up, ignoring the throbbing pain in his leg.

"Do you want to see my art, Pandika? I'll show you," Hamzadi shouted.

He pressed the nozzle of the spray gun towards the Ghost of Raya's face as it was rushing towards him.

Pussshhhh!

It wasn't ordinary paint that came out, but rather a viscous silver liquid that glowed in the dark with magic spell. It was a mixture of mercury and iron powder. The liquid stuck to the creature's face and eyes.

The Ghost Raya screamed, his hand trying to scratch his face, but the liquid hardened quickly. In a few seconds, it formed a layer like a metal mask that blocked the creature's vision.

"Now!"

Hamzadi wasted no time. He ripped off a long tablecloth, jumped onto the sofa, and pounced on the creature, who was now blind. He wrapped the cloth around the creature's neck, pulling it as hard as he could from behind.

"Go back to where you came from! Earth returns to earth, fire returns to fire! Ashes to ashes, duat to dust!" Hamzadi shouted.

He recited a spell to break the bonds. His goal was not to kill the Ghost Raya (because ghosts cannot die that easily), but to sever the invisible cord that connected the creature to its master, Pandika. Without the cord, the creature would lose direction and energy.

The creature's body trembled violently. Black smoke began to come out of its pores. The room shook. The street lights outside flickered rapidly, the atmosphere at that time changed suddenly.

Suddenly, the creature stopped struggling. It was stiff.

Its head turned 180 degrees back, it was something impossible for humans to do, its face looked straight at Hamzadi's face even though its eyes were covered in a layer of silver paint, but Hamzadi could feel the creature staring intently at his face.

"Do you remember that easily?" Pandika's voice whispered, this time clearer, as if he was standing right next to Hamzadi's ear.

The creature's chest suddenly swelled, getting bigger and bigger like a balloon about to burst.

Hamzadi's eyes widened.

"Damn." Hamzadi groaned as soon as he regained consciousness. He released the wrap and jumped behind the sofa.

BOOM!

The Ghost of the Moon's body exploded. Not a burst of fire, but a blast of black wind that smelled bad and was sticky with slime. The force of the explosion pushed Hamzadi and the sofa was thrown against the wall. The window glass shattered. Dust and ashes filled the living room.

The atmosphere was silent again.

The only sound was Hamzadi's heavy breathing due to fatigue. His ears were ringing. He got up slowly, brushing the glass fragments from his clothes. His body ached here and there, bruises from the crash, and the struggle with the creature.

Hamzadi looked to the middle of the living room. The creature was gone. The Ghost Raya had been destroyed or, more accurately, Pandika had severed the connection by blowing up his own servant.

A cruel but effective action to eliminate evidence, or perhaps Pandika was worried that his great soldier would be caught by Hamzadi. However, what was left on the floor made Hamzadi's blood boil.

The black slime left by the explosion was not scattered randomly. Instead, it formed a pattern on the wooden floor. Hamzadi stepped closer to the pattern.

It was the shape of an eye. An eye that was wide open.

And in the middle of the pupil, there was a physical object left behind. A small card.

Hamzadi picked up the card with the tip of a knife, carefully worried that there was magic poison in the slime or that it might be a trap. Hamzadi looked at the card, and it turned out to be an invitation to an art exhibition. It could be the Death Art Exhibition.

Hamzadi crumpled the card. This was not just an attack. This was an invitation to war. Andika had deliberately sent the creature to deliver this message. He wanted Hamzadi to know that he was now a public figure, a famous artist, and he wanted Hamzadi to come see him in his open "court".

Hamzadi looked around his ruined house. Cracked walls, broken furniture, flying daggers and the smell of corpses everywhere. This place is no longer safe. Once the defensive walls are breached, even if the enemy is gone, the "smell" of the house will change. Other creatures out there will be able to smell this weakness.

He needs to move the paintings in the Red Room of Death. But where to? Hamzadi walks towards the broken window. The night wind howls in, bringing a chill. From the top floor, he can see the view of Kuala Lumpur.

The KLCC Tower gleams in the distance, a symbol of grandeur that hides a thousand and one filth beneath its shadow with bright night life under the moon.

As his eyes dart down, towards the quiet road in front of his shop building, he sees something. On the street lamppost across the street, there is a crow perched. It is not moving. It is not looking for food. It is just looking straight at the window of Hamadi's house.

Hamzadi turns his gaze to the roof of the next building. There is a black cat sitting there, also looking at him. He looks down again. A mangy dog was sitting by a large trash can, its head tilted upwards, staring at the window of Hamzadi's unit.

Hamzadi felt a chill creep down his spine. Not one or two. But dozens of pairs of animal eyes around the area were watching him. Observing all his actions.

"Spies..." Hamzadi whispered.

He realized now. Pandika wasn't just using jinn and devil. He had mastered the knowledge of the King of the Jungle, allowing him to see through the eyes of animals.

All this time, probably every time Hamzadi went out to paint on the street, there was a pigeon or a street cat that became Pandika's living closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera or the hawk eye.

Privacy was a luxury that Hamzadi no longer had.

Hamzadi stepped back from the window, closing the torn curtains. He returned to the Red Room of Death. The bent iron door was pushed as close as he could, even though it could no longer be locked properly.

He sat in his work chair, surrounded by hundreds of haunted paintings that were now silent, as if they too were afraid of the explosion. Hamzadi looked at his still trembling hand.

There was a blue-black bruise on his wrist, where Hantu Raya had gripped him earlier.

He took some sea salt oil from the drawer, mixed it with cigarette ash, and applied it to the bruise. As he massaged, his mind raced with thought.

Going to the exhibition was a trap. That much was clear. But he still needed to go but if he didn't go, Pandika would continue to send out stronger waves of attacks. Tonight Hantu Raya, tomorrow it might be Polong or Bajang or Pocong or Orang Minyak attacking from a distance, injecting poison into his body without having to face him face to face.

Hamzadi had no choice. He had to face Pandika. But he couldn't go empty-handed. He needed a weapon more powerful than just a dagger and camphor.

His eyes focused on a corner of the Red Room of Death. A small safe hidden under the wooden floor, covered with a shabby carpet. Inside the box was a set of brushes he hadn't used in ten years.

The brushes were made from the hair of a murdered corpse, and the handle was carved from the thumb bone of a Land Goblin inherited from his Tok Guru. It was the cursed tool his teacher had ever used. A tool that could "paint" reality, not just trap spirits.

Using the tool meant pawning a part of his own soul. Every time it was used, it was like shortening the user's lifespan.

"To fight monsters, we have to become monsters," Hamzadi said slowly.

He stood up, lifted the carpet, and placed his hand on the cold lid of the safe. He could feel the dark energy pulsing from inside the box, as if it were beating to the rhythm of his own heart.

The real fight had just begun. And Hamzadi knew that, starting tonight, he would no longer paint to save people. He would paint to kill.

Outside, the crow on the lamppost cawed loudly.

Kaak! Kaak! Kaak!

The sound sounded like Pandika's laughter flying through the night sky of Kuala Lumpur, mocking the fate of street artists who tried to fight fate.

Hamzadi took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and opened the box. The red light in the room seemed to dim for a moment as the black aura from inside the box was released.

It was time to return to the world of darkness. Ready to ignite the long waiting war of 2 world.

To be continued….