The muffled struggle was his compass. Gangesh ran towards it, his Garba-weary legs burning with a new, frantic energy. The silence of the lane was now a taut canvas, and every sound—a grunt, a scrape, a whimper—painted a picture of horror upon it. He rounded a final corner into a dead-end alley, a concrete pit stained with garbage and shadows.
The absurdity of the scene hit him first, a bizarre and terrible tableau. Three men, their faces hard and indistinct in the gloom, had cornered a young woman. She was about his age, her vibrant chaniya choli torn at the shoulder, her eyes wide pools of pure, animal terror. One man had a hand clamped over her mouth, his other arm locking her thrashing body. The other two stood guard, their postures coiled and predatory. And in their hands, knives caught the scant light—not clean blades, but crude, wicked things that promised pain.
But it was the girl's eyes that sealed his fate. They were a mirror of a hypothetical horror, a reflection of what could happen to anyone he cared for—to Suman, to Kusum, to Sandhya. To Anya.
The connection was instantaneous and volcanic. A fury, white-hot and absolute, erupted from the core of his being. It was not the principled anger of the classroom. This was something primal, a seismic shift in his soul. The image of Anya's brave, responsible face superimposed itself over the terrified girl's, and his mind simply broke. Thought evaporated. Logic died. His vision tunneled, the edges tinged with a pulsing red haze. He felt the adrenaline surge through him like a divine, violent current, making his hands tremble and his veins pop against his skin like ropes. He could not think. He could not ignore. He could only act.
With a raw shout that was more beast than man, he launched himself forward.
The men spun, startled. Their surprise lasted only a second before it morphed into snarling aggression. "One fool!" one of them spat. "Deal with him!"
The two with the knives marched towards him, their movements practiced and cruel. The world slowed down, becoming surreal, a dance of shadows and sharp edges. The first lunged, the knife a silver fang aiming for his gut. Gangesh didn't dodge with strategy; his body moved on an instinct he never knew he possessed. He twisted, the blade slicing through his kurta, a line of cold fire against his ribs. The miss threw the man off-balance. Gangesh's fist, fueled by pure rage, connected with his jaw. The sound was a sickening crack, like dry wood snapping. The man stumbled back, spitting blood.
The second was already on him. Gangesh saw the knife arcing towards his face. He threw up his arm, deflecting the blow, the impact jarring his elbow to the bone. He drove his forehead forward, a brutal, clumsy move. It connected with the man's nose with a wet crunch. The man howled, stumbling back, clutching his face.
He had no purpose, no plan beyond the single, burning commandment that now roared in his blood: *Protect her. No matter what.* This was not his philosophy. This was Maa Durga's. It was the principle of the Goddess he had just been dancing for. *Protect those who are in need. Do not forgive those who are a blight upon the world.* He didn't know where he'd heard it; he only knew it was true. He would die here in this filthy alley before he let them take her.
"Hey! Where did that idiot go?" Aditya's voice echoed, unnaturally loud, from the mouth of the main road. His words were slurred with exhaustion and worry. "I swear he was right behind us."
"Your strategy of 'he'll find us' is clearly flawed," Karan retorted, his own voice strained. He was peering down the dark lanes that branched off like veins. "We should have implemented a buddy system. A post-Garba retrieval protocol."
Sagar, leaning against a wall, mumbled, "Can't we just sleep here? He'll turn up. Maybe he found a quieter street to nap on." Even his laziness was tinged with concern.
"No, something feels wrong," Aditya said, his usual hot-headedness replaced by a grim intuition. "He wouldn't just wander off. Not after… everything." He took a tentative step down the lane Gangesh had taken. "Gangesh! Stop being a drama queen and get out here!"
Back in the alley, the fight reached its brutal climax. The third man, the one holding the girl, shoved her violently against the wall. Her head snapped back with a dull thud, and she slid to the ground, dazed. The man drew his own knife and advanced, joining his two recovering companions. Now it was three against one, all armed.
Gangesh stood panting, his knuckles bleeding, his side burning. He was cornered. The girl, momentarily free, scrambled backward on her hands and feet, a terrified crab, before stumbling to her feet and making a desperate, weaving run for the alley's entrance.
"Get her!" the leader snarled.
One of the men broke off and sprinted after her. She was almost to the corner, freedom a few feet away, when his hand closed on the torn fabric of her choli, yanking her back with a brutal force. She screamed, the sound finally piercing the distant worry of Gangesh's friends.
"That was a scream!" Aditya yelled, all fatigue gone. "THAT WAY!"
The three friends, propelled by a sudden, cold dread, started running.
In the alley, Gangesh saw the man catch the girl. A fresh wave of fury, purer and more potent than the last, obliterated his pain. He ignored the two men in front of him and charged the one holding her. He moved with a desperate, unstoppable velocity, lowering his shoulder and ploughing into the man's side, tackling him away from the girl.
It was a sacrifice move. As he wrestled the man to the ground, he felt a searing, white-hot agony explode in his leg. One of the other men had stabbed him in the thigh. The pain was electric, nauseating. He roared, rolling off the man, clutching his leg. Blood, shockingly warm and dark, soaked through his white pants instantly.
The girl, seeing her chance, finally broke free and vanished around the corner, her footsteps echoing into the night.
Gangesh was on his knees, his leg a torch of pain. The three men closed in, their faces twisted with rage. The knife was still lodged in his thigh. This was it. He had failed. He looked up, ready for the final blow, his mind offering a final, fleeting image of a sky he could not reach.
And then, a new sound filled the alley.
"GET AWAY FROM HIM, YOU BASTARDS!"
Aditya exploded into the dead-end, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated rage. He didn't hesitate. He didn't assess. He saw Gangesh on the ground, bleeding, and he launched himself at the nearest man with the force of a cannonball.
Karan and Sagar were right behind him. There were no strategies now, no plans for laziness. There was only the visceral, protective fury of brotherhood. Karan, usually so clumsy, found a fierce precision, grabbing a loose piece of wooden crate and swinging it like a club. Sagar, moved by a energy he never knew he possessed, tackled the third man with a guttural yell, his weight and surprise enough to bring him down.
The alley became a whirlwind of chaos. Aditya was a tempest, his fists flying, taking a cut on his arm without even flinching. Karan's makeshift club shattered against a man's shoulder. Sagar wrestled on the ground, fighting with a desperate strength.
The kidnappers, outnumbered and faced with a fury they hadn't expected, broke. Seeing their prey gone and these new madmen upon them, they scrambled back, disengaged, and fled into the deeper darkness at the back of the alley, vanishing like the cockroaches they were.
The fight was over as suddenly as it began.
The silence returned, but now it was broken by ragged, pained breathing. Aditya stood over Gangesh, his chest heaving, his eyes wild. "Gangesh? Hey, look at me. LOOK AT ME."
Gangesh looked up. The red haze was receding, leaving behind the stark, painful reality. The knife in his leg. The blood. The trembling in his hands. He met Aditya's gaze, and in that moment, everything was said without a word.
Karan was already on his phone, his voice shaking but clear, calling for an ambulance and the police. Sagar, breathing heavily, slumped against the wall, his hands scraped and bloody.
Aditya knelt, his voice dropping to a whisper, fierce and protective. "You idiot. You glorious, stupid idiot. What did you do?"
Gangesh tried to speak, but only a shuddering breath came out. He had followed a principle greater than his own. He had touched the sun, and it had burned him, but he had, for a moment, held back the night. The image of the brave girl, Anya, guiding her friends, was now joined by the image of a terrified girl, running to freedom. And in the searing pain, he found a terrible, costly peace.