StarGaze

The Two Headed Lion

"Okay, so you didn't realize that he was starting to slowly slip inside your head, and he didn't realize it either." the tree of life said, somewhat surprised. But we can only assume because his voice was always so f*****g calm.

"Yeah. But the realization came soon enough, and it scared the s**t out of both of us..." Thomas said.

The young men in front of Thomas had no idea what they were going to fight for, but they were happy to oblige as far as the general's army fed them. Thomas was feeling energy inside him, and it was a strange sensation to him after all this time. He walked past each soldier, correcting postures and speaking motivational things that he himself did not believe. And then the first incident happened.

The ringing in his ears steeped as he fell on the ground and rolled around in pain. The soldiers were quick to rescue but they had no idea what was happening. Thomas suddenly opened his eyes and they were turned into immovable stones. He saw everything, the brutality of the day Raghav had acquired powers-

At five o’clock in the evening, we take a little helicopter ride to an airstrip in the Alwar district. From there, we board a Global master en route to Rome.

We are accompanied by a lot of others, most of whose faces are dropped. Clearly, life didn’t work out as expected for any of us. But in those random faces, a face draws my attention. Dark skin, light brown hair, a slim body, and a scar on his left cheek. Himanshu and Mandeep are fast asleep. So I take off the katana from Himanshu’s back and walk towards the dropped face.

“I believe this belongs to you,” I say, putting down the blade in his lap. Yash looks up in amazement.

“Raghav?” He asks in a shaky voice. After the confirmation, he jumps up and straps his hands across my back, “I thought you all were dead.”

“And we thought you were dead,” I said, feeling the purest form of joy I have felt in years.

Nobody around us seemed to give a s**t about this meeting. No one even cared to lift their head.

“Why didn’t you come to our school?” I asked after some time.

“Let’s just say that I got stalled by something.” He says. That’s one of the reasons I love Yash, he is not much of a talker, just like me.

“Where are the others?” he inquires after spotting Himanshu and Mandeep. I nod in reply, and a dreadful silence prevails for some time. I tell him my story during the rest of the journey.

I must say, Rome looks beautiful even in ruins. The beauty almost made me forget that death crawled in its streets. We were taken to a laboratory situated on a mountain where it was impossible for the bonies to reach. Before entering, we were all tranquilized to protect the ‘secrecy’. Who would I sell the secrets to anyway, the bonies?

When I wake up, I am lying in a chamber, naked, with my hands and legs strapped. After getting the news of my waking up, a doctor appears in the room.

“Hello there, you are an early riser. Now listen to me very carefully. You will now be injected with a formula to increase your body strength and at the same time, reduce your weakness to a minimum. But unfortunately, you cannot be given any anesthetic to relieve you of the pain. That is because the pain will increase your blood flow and reduce the operation time by a significant amount. Also, gas will be released into the chamber which will prevent you from passing out. Now, you may die during the procedure. So if you have any last words, say them now.” The doctor says. I don’t think I need last words, because I am absolutely positive that it is not my last day. So I simply nod in reply.

“Very well then, good luck.” The doctor says and pushes a red button while pulling a shiny lever attached to a gas tank.

My heart beats speed up as I watch a blue liquid flow in the drip attached to my hand. At the same time, a pungent gas starts to spread in my chamber. The feeling after the solution entered my body was comparable to this-

Suppose someone takes a red hot iron rod and pushes it inside your veins. And as every second passes, the heat spreads to every corner of your body. And the worst of it is that you cannot even pass out. I felt like being skinned alive while forced to feel every moment of it. I was in a shock too deep that I even forgot to scream. No wonder only one out of fifteen survived this treatment.

After about ten minutes of the tour in living hell, blackness fell over my eyes. Following the darkness were flashbacks, when I ran away from home at the age of seven, when I first stepped into the fighting ring, the first time I broke someone’s jaw, the moment when Udbhav killed the cook and my world fell apart within seconds, and finally the night well spent with Emily. Teardrops rolled out of my eyes as I felt the pain washing away. I felt my body swelling up and the fog clearing from over my eyes. I was alive, and the chamber was open.

“Come on out, son. You did really well. Now it’s time for your training.” It was the doctor, the first person I saw after my rebirth.

I took a look at my body. Well, my muscles were bigger than ever before and in perfect shape. I also felt a little taller than before. My head felt dizzy and I walked in a hangover. I don’t remember what happened in the next five minutes. The next thing I knew was that I’m standing in a large, empty room with a sealed door on the opposite wall. I was just looking around when a voice struck my ears.

“This is the patriot testing room. This room is to test whether you can handle the power that your body holds. Exactly after one minute, the door in front of you will open and you will face fifteen dead opponents who used to be patriots before getting bitten. This means they are no less powerful than you and probably have an advantage. So you better take a hold of your senses quickly.”

“Can I at least have my blade?” I say, almost pleading.

“Good luck.” The mystery man says before turning off the microphone.

“Well, the old street fighting then,” I whisper to myself while cursing the mystery man.

After shaking my head a few times, I feel my dizziness fade away. I can sense the power and rage flowing inside me, waiting to rain itself on anything it can find, which is, for the moment, a group of bonies who have the same strength and healing capabilities as me. But they will surely be dumb like the others, and this gives me an advantage.

The gate makes a rumbling sound while splitting into two parts and a gang of roman bonies emerges. I think the officers have specially chosen the big ones for us. None of them is weaker than me. And the leader seems to be an alien. He is more than eight feet in height and has a perfect muscular body to support his massive frame. I wonder which bonie was strong enough to bite this beast.

But now my super senses are at work. I quickly pick out the weak ones to finish first. One of them has a limp which makes it easy to knock him down. Another one has an eye missing. So he won’t see an attack coming from the right. And I have the greatest advantage over the leader, who is too slow to keep up with my agile body.

With no time to waste, I dash straight towards the leader. He swings his hands in hope of catching me, but I drop down and slide from between his legs to his back. My legs collide with the limp’s legs who is walking right behind the beast. Without giving any time to recover, I quickly get up and envelop my left hand around the leader’s throat, hoping to drop him on the floor. But instead, his head unhinged from his body. Whoa, I do have super strength. There is a wave of nervousness in the others after seeing their leader fall so easily. So I take full advantage of the window and turn to the limp, who is still lying on the ground. I press his body to the ground with my right leg and rip off his legs with my hands. I use one of his legs to strike down another slow one who is within my five-foot range. The blow on the face makes his head spin 180 degrees and pops his eyes out of the sockets. I now run back to my original position to get some time to catch my breath. It was a nice brawl, but I am still outnumbered thirteen to one. The bonies are starting to advance now. But I have strength and training on my side. What’s the use of learning martial arts for fifteen years if you can’t use it at a time like this? So I drop the filthy legs which I hold in my hands. It’s time to use the fists.

A black one approaches me and tries to take a hold of me. But I block his arm with my left hand and retaliate with an uppercut. After that, I plant a punch so beautiful that a fountain of blood starts flowing from his shattered nose. It is succeeded by two other punches which are enough to open up his forehead. Another one tries to sneak on me, but instead gets his skull shattered by a flying knee.

I change corners from time to time to avoid getting surrounded. After killing eleven of them, I am surprised that I don’t observe any sign of fatigue. One of the two survivors is standing in the middle of the room, frowning at me. I take a small run-up and lift my body, thundering down a punch in his head. The intensity of the blow sent my fist right inside his brain.

The lone survivor is the limp whose legs I ripped off. He missed most of the action. But he is now pleased to see me coming up to him. I relieve him of his other two hands, and he hardly notices it. He is opening and closing his mouth again and again to get a piece of meat. So I decided to him some. I stuff his hands inside his mouth right before smashing his skull with my bare hands. If Emily had seen me now, she would probably have second thoughts on loving me.

The deep gasp made the soldiers around Thomas move a step away as he reacted like he just escaped drowning. He launched his hand and held a soldier by his collar.

"Where the f**k am I? Where are Yash and the others?!" Thomas yelled, and that's where it happened.

The thread of space-time shred and mixed up the existence of beings from two different dimensions. And what shape this crossover would take? Would it be the end of the universe?

Turns out, it didn't mean s**t to the universe. Thomas was just f****d up in the head, but he didn't realize that all this was closely planned by a higher power he didn't even know existed.