ZUBE

“Chocolate?”, Kenny asked, raising his eyebrows.

Kenny was my brother, seventeen years old, and three years elder to me. One of the brightest students of the Imperial College Of Nuclear Sciences, Delhi. The two of us had been staying together since our parents had vanished four years ago. Once in a while, Kenny’s girlfriend Jessica would join us for dinner, who by the way seemed a pretty impressive catch even for Kenny's standards, but it was usually just the two of us. Kenny was the kind of person you'd notice very easily, bright-eyed, cheerful and with a smart chiselled face. He had an uncanny affection for blue colour. The kitchen lighting just always had to be blue, that was his rule. So even though Alexa came with thirteen different kitchen colours, forget changing, it was banned to even check out the other colours.

A BIG FAT NO!

NO!

“Yup”, I nodded.

“Alexa chocolate milkshake”, he dictated. A few seconds later, he set down a large mug of milkshake in front of me. Now my brother happened to make the most perfect milkshake you'd ever have. No kidding, that stuff is heavenly. 'It's all about proportions', he'd tell you.

Kenny pulled the chair and sat down on the opposite side of the table. There was a similarity in the way we looked. The same chiselled cheekbone and brown almond eyes- while Kenny preferred to keep his brown hair short, I liked my jet black hair, long and wavy, coming down to my shoulders and covering the forehead. It helped me blend more easily into the surroundings and spared me the vexatious second glance from most prying eyes.

Kenny was scrolling through the news on the inbuilt screen in the table, which also happened to be connected to Alexa.

A frown appeared on his brow, “forty-seven soldiers killed and a hundred and fourteen drones lost this morning”, he read out, “the war is getting worse”.

I set my mug down and twiddled with the ring on my finger, my father had given it to me, on my fourth birthday. It had a spherical blue-tinted glass on it, which contained a drop of mysterious violet fluid in it.

Kenny continued reading out the news, “New Delhi on high alert after reported razellair sightings”.

“A razellair”, I raised my eyebrows, “in Delhi?”

“Yeah”, he chortled.

I took a sip of my milkshake. Razellair's happened to be just the dudes you don't ever want to meet, big burly serpents with ultra poisonous fangs, whose discovery was a direct result of World War Three, No thanks! They were scary enough on TV and I wasn't really dying to meet them but I would surely die after I meet them. Long ago there was an instance, mothers always told their babies this story to warn them of the Serpent. A Razellair had sneaked into an Australian warship, don't ask me how such a huge creature can even hide. Many believed it was lured there by the Chinese, no hard evidence was found. Half of the crew suffered a brutal death, others drowned, few did make it to the lifeboats. Sadly for them, razellair's in water happen to be five times as lethal, reaching speeds of seventy-seven miles per hour in the water (so you should consider skipping them, in your pool party list). It followed the lifeboats all the way, across the Southern Ocean until an Indian Warship blasted it with a pulse cannon.

So you guessed right, the moral of the story is- razellair's DON'T make ideal pets and you SHOULDN'T try tagging a leash around one. There are a few crazy people you'd find on Instagram with hashtags #iloverazellairs, #razellairmybaby #littlecuteraze, #booboorazellair, #myprincesssrazellair and #razeloouwu. Some did even manage to get a selfie clicked with the beast and well, SURPRISE! SURPRISE! They weren't ever seen again. So take my advice, razellair's aren't your babies or your booboo princesses. So listen to your mommies and stay away from those cuties.

"I-uh", I began. "Yeah?", Kenny perched. "got a mail..."

"You got a mail…..so?"

“From Zube".

"Woah", he straightened up and a grin flashed on his face, "no you didn't".

"I did"

"What did it say?"

Just then I decided to make this moment a bit filmier. I took a deep breath.

"I got selected.....

“Ark Angel Phoenix”, Kenny spoke slyly.