BIZZARE

After his little breakdown, he dressed up to eat out with his uncles, who lived in Delhi. He wasn't particularly excited for this, he never is. His 4 cousins and 3 uncles, a pretty big family, they are gathered at some hotel for dinner. The general chit-chat took place; as usual Arjun wasn't paying attention to any of it.

The food was tasteless to him, it felt like eating water, he heard a sharp ringing noise in his ears, he clenched his eyes. And felt an ice cold palm on his left shoulder, in a reflex he opened his eyes, he was paralyzed, he couldn't move a muscle and to his surprise, he was sitting alone in the restaurant. All the people he was sitting with, just disappeared, the noisy place, went dead silent. His eyes wide open and his body frozen.

"Arrr-juun!" a high pitched, shrill voice echoed across.

He felt it all but couldn't react.

Soon enough he came back to his senses and in a jerk he turned to his left, not a soul. He took some long breathes, and continued eating, the food was still tasteless.

"Bizarre." He said to himself.

On their way out, everyone was still chatting as Arjun and his mother, sister and paternal grandmother waited for their cab. His father had already shifted to Pune and so was he, his flight being the next night.

His younger sister Mihika, 12 years old was in the mini garden cum playground with their other cousins. Out of nowhere, Arjun sensed something and he turned to Mihika on his right in the playground, and in a whip, a monitor lizard jumped out of the bushed and went for Mihika's hairs.

She shouted in pain as everyone ran to the rescue.

The lizard had caught onto her hairs and was chewing on it. Mihika kept crying in pain as one of the uncles pulled away the lizard and threw it over the compound wall.

It did cause some noise and mess, grabbing everyone's attention, but soon enough it was all gone.

His cab showed up and they headed for their home.

What he had seen and felt was strange, nothing normal. Every night for two or three hours, Arjun watched some movie or scrolls on Instagram. That night he was awake way past his normal time.

He just laid on the bed, staring at the fan as it creaked and moved. It was 23rd March, the summer was rising and the fan was on full-throttle.

He kept staring into the fan as he noticed something unusual. There was a hole in the fan's motor.

He stood up to have a closer look, he focused on the hole, "How did this end up here?" he said to himself as an eye blinked in the hole visibly.

Arjun gasped and fell down as his vision blurred out.

He slept through the night as he woke up when his family was having tea in the drawing room. He woke up to the noise of some car horning in his society and some Bollywood song playing in his house.

He stood up from his bed shaking, he looked up at the fan which seemed just fine to him, he walked out of the room, his mother and grandmother were sitting in the drawing room and some commercial was playing on the TV.

"We can see you!" the person in the commercial spoke as Arjun's head felt a strong pinch from the inside and he held his head between his hands and groaned a bit and breathed heavily.

He looked up at the TV, the screen was frozen, the person in the commercial was pixelated and glitches all over the frame, it looked peculiar, like some monster with two huge horns on his head and bulky body.

"We can watch you!" a very rugged voice came from the TV, the screen still frozen. He looked at the screen and kept looking at it and in a whip, the TV went back to normal, back to some commercial break.

"This TV is broken; I will ask Keshav to get a new one in Pune." His mother, Sunita said. "Get fresh, have some tea." She said to Arjun turning to him.

Arjun nodded his head and headed to the bathroom.

Somewhere far away, in some place unknown to mankind.

It was large room with Arjun and family moving around in some form of hologram. Two large shadows stood in the room, watching the family. It was a very dark room with fog all over and a red light spread across.

"Arjun Bhairav?" one of the shadows asked in a very rugged inhuman voice.

"Yes sir. The ritual has begun." The second one replied in a not so different voice.

"How far are we done?"

"We have just started. We will make it before the Blood Moon."

"Get the forces to work!"

Somewhere on Earth, a typical bedroom with a setup of three monitors, one guy sitting in front of the screen.

"We have to stick with the plan!" he said, looking at some airplane booking website.

"It's very risky!" another guy sitting few feet away from him exclaimed.

"We don't have any other choice!" The guy said, turning his chair to the second guy and two ladies sitting beside.

"We need to do this!" one of the ladies said.

It was 24th March, the family was supposed to leave for Pune via flight, the flight being scheduled at 10 pm.

They reached the airport at 5 pm, considering Arjun's grandmother's theory of why you should not travel at late night in a cab with a stranger driver. All they had to do was wait now, and in the ample time Arjun had, he scrolled Instagram throughout.

It was about 6.45 pm, he went to the washroom, there was a strange dull vibe in the washroom. It was posh as an international airport is, but it felt weird. He stood up into one of the urinals, unzipped his pants and urinated, he felt weak, he struggled to keep his eyes open as he looked down at the urinal, he was peeing blood. Seeing the red blood made him uncomfortable but it felt like his body was out of his control, he kept peeing looking the urinal and the red blood.

He zipped up his pant and panted as he moved to the wash-basin. He was sweating, he took support of the marble basin to stand upright, and looked at himself in the mirror.

On the other end of the mirror were the two large shadows, the same entities that watched over him at his home, looking at him, standing in low light.

"It is working." One of them said in hard voice.

"Hell yeah, it would work!" the second one replied.

On this end, Arjun washed his hand as slowly the mirror caught flames from one corner. He breathed heavily washing his hands as the entire mirror was covered in flames.

He wanted to run, but it felt something was stopping him, some strange force.

He finally moved back a couple steps, panting and sweating, he tripped over his own steps and fell on the floor, looking at the mirror burning.

"What on Earth is happening now!" he said to himself.

The fire spread across the mirrors and the basins to the ceiling, the walls and the floor. Arjun stayed there not able to think anything, or even move.

He panted as he struggled to stand up and luckily he mustered up enough energy to stand up and walk out of the washroom.

He rushed out as everything went back to normal. He could breathe again, he wasn't sweating anymore and felt fit.

"The fuck is happening?" he wondered.

Time went by, Arjun kept thinking about what just happened. He was clearly hallucinating.

It was nearly 8 pm, the airport was as busy as it could be, and to break the ice, two military trucks pulled up in front of the entry gate, and an announcement was made.

"There is a bomb alert on the premises, all the citizens are requested to form lines and head towards the inspection tables made. The military would be taking control of the situation in the meantime."

Everyone panicked as people chattered amongst them, noise rose as the military personnel rushed in and started seizing the perimeters. Soon enough another couple trucks showed up and rushed across the airport.

"This is not a drill, do not rush or panic. Kindly follow the instructions." Announcement was made.

Few police cars with sirens blazing showed up, it was serious.

Meanwhile, a guy sat in a car parked few meters away from the airport, he had a Bluetooth in his right ear and a mobile with some application open in his hands.

"Is it clear?" he asked.

"All clear, all the public is inside. We are good to go." Someone replied over the Bluetooth.

"T-minus 3…2…1…" he said as he pressed some button on his mobile.

All the public inside the airport were now in lines ready for the inspections, the condition was tight as a loud BOOM! Thundered from outside the airport. 6 cars in the parking lot blasted off altogether.

Arjun startled at the noise as everyone else. Chaos struck, everyone tried peeping to get a look to what had happened.

The two giant shadows were still watching over Arjun, they sat on some black rocky couch in a dark room as the entire airport's hologram played in front of them.

"Not this guy!" One of them groaned angrily in rugged voice.

"What do we do sir?"

"We wait."