Amitesh stirred from the depths of unconsciousness, his world a void of unrelenting black. A coarse blindfold scraped against his eyelids, binding him in darkness. He tested his limbs—arms bound tight behind his back, legs lashed to the legs of a rickety chair. Panic clawed at his throat.
"Where am I? Why have you kidnapped me?" His voice echoed in the unseen space, hoarse and defiant.
He summoned his power, a flicker of heat building in his palms, flames eager to erupt. But before the fire could bloom, a brutal force crashed against his skull—a heavy club, perhaps, or a pipe. Pain exploded like shattered glass, warm blood trickling down his temple, matting his hair. He toppled sideways, chair and all, slamming into the cold floor. The world spun in nauseating loops.
"Don't even think about using your powers," a voice snarled from the shadows behind him.
Rough hands seized the chair, hauling him upright with a jolt that sent fresh agony lancing through his head.
"Why are you doing this?" Amitesh gasped, tasting copper on his lips.
"You will become the food of our great god," the voice replied, laced with fanatic zeal. "To the divine Ascendants who have stepped upon this earth to erase sadness from the world."
Amitesh forced his breathing to steady, his voice trembling despite his resolve. "So you're the idiots who created this mess."
"Who dares—" The words cut off in rage, followed by another savage blow to his head. Stars burst behind his eyes, blood now streaming freely, soaking his collar.
His vision swam even beneath the blindfold.
"Stop! We need him alive to serve the god," another voice intervened, sharper, commanding.
"Which god are you talking about?"
Amitesh spat, his words slurring
through the haze of pain. "Just who do you think you are, calling those ugly creatures gods?"
"Shut up. You know nothing." The first voice returned, closer now, breath hot and foul against his ear. "And as for who I am... I am Deyvalo, the messenger of the new god of this world."
Amitesh couldn't help it—a bark of laughter escaped him, shaking his battered frame. The chair creaked under the strain. "Heh... haha..." His body convulsed with mirth, ribs aching. "So, Deyvalo, do you have any family members? Or were they eaten by your so-called god too?"
Deyvalo hissed. "They were not eaten. They were purified. They escaped the sadness of this world."
"Oh, so why doesn't your god free you from your sadness? Don't you think a god doesn't need a man to do his work?"
"Shut up! My god is great. He keeps me to deliver his message to you people."
"Oh? And what message does your god have for me?"
Silence stretched, thick and ominous.
Then Deyvalo spoke, his tone reverent. "My great god's message is: Hey, humans, serve yourselves to us. Let us free you from this earth and send you to heaven."
"Interesting," Amitesh murmured, sarcasm dripping like his blood. "So how many people have you sacrificed before me?"
"You are the first. Consider yourself lucky." A new voice slithered in from the side, colder than the rest.
Relief flickered through Amitesh's pain-fogged mind. At least no one else had suffered this fate yet. Heh, these idiots are going to serve me mushroom heads. I can't imagine their faces if they knew I eat their 'god' for breakfast.
"Now, throw him in that room," Deyvalo commanded.
Two pairs of hands untied his arms from the chair but left his wrists bound, dragging him roughly across the floor.
They hurled him into what felt like a smaller, damper space, the door slamming shut with a metallic clang that reverberated in his skull.
Man, my head is spinning like crazy. The bleeding's stopped, but why do I still feel... off? Maybe that injection they gave me...
He fumbled with his bound legs, managing to loosen the ropes enough to free them. With trembling fingers, he tore off the blindfold. Pitch blackness greeted him. He ignited a small fireball in his palm, its orange glow casting eerie shadows.
And there they were: five mushroom-headed abominations surrounding him, their bulbous caps pulsing with sickly veins, tendrils of roots writhing like exposed nerves on the floor. Their "faces"—if you could call them that—were grotesque maws of jagged teeth, dripping with viscous slime that sizzled on the ground.
Amitesh's lips curled in disgust. "Wow, I have to say, I'm impressed they managed to capture five. But bad for them—they won't be around much longer."
He surged to his feet, flames engulfing his hands like molten gloves. He lunged, seizing the nearest by its spongy neck. It shrieked, a wet, gurgling wail, as fire consumed it. The others scattered, their roots skittering like severed limbs, trying to burrow into cracks in the floor.
"Not today," Amitesh growled, his hands darting forward.
"Raktbeej: Stop," a voice echoed in his mind—his inner power, or perhaps something more.
"Huh? What happened?"
"Raktbeej: Let them combine."
"Combine? What—"
He watched in horrified fascination as the charred remnants crawled toward each other. They merged with wet, sucking sounds, flesh knitting together in grotesque fusion. Five separate horrors became one colossal mushroom head, its cap swelling to the size of a man, roots thickening into whip-like tentacles that lashed the air.
Pus oozed from seams where the bodies had joined, and a low, rumbling hunger emanated from its core.
"Oh, this is new," Amitesh muttered, grabbing it. But the thing retaliated, its roots coiling around his arm, burrowing into his skin like parasitic worms.
Pain seared through him as they pierced flesh, drawing blood that bubbled and frothed on contact.
"All devour," it rasped, a chorus of five voices mangled into one.
---
Outside the room, a motley
congregation huddled—devotees in ragged robes mingled with outcast criminals, their faces etched with fanaticism and fear. Deyvalo stood at the center, his eyes gleaming.
"Thanks for the information that someone new has come," he said to a man with uneven teeth, his head swathed in bandages, a grotesque smile splitting his face.
"No problem. I should thank you for handling that kid."
A sudden knock echoed from inside the door. Hearts froze; breaths hitched.
Amitesh's voice lilted through the metal, mocking and melodic. "Oh, hello, Deyvalo. Your god says I don't taste great, so he tells me to get out. Please open the door."
Deyvalo's face drained of color. "No... it's not possible. How can he be alive?"
"Please open the door," Amitesh sang again.
Silence.
"Twenty meridians active," Amitesh intoned from within.
With a thunderous kick, the metal door exploded outward, hurtling like shrapnel into the crowd. Screams erupted as it crushed bones and tore flesh.
"Why don't you people listen?" Amitesh stepped out, flames flickering in his eyes.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three bullets tore through the air. One grazed his scalp, parting hair and skin in a bloody furrow. The next pierced his shoulder, shattering bone with a wet crack. The third lodged in his thigh, muscle ripping like wet paper.
His vision blurred; the world tilted. Huh, why does my head feel lighter? Oh, he shot me... but three times? Did I scare him that much? It's like I'm going to die... my body feels like it's floating...
"Raktbeej: Need help?"
"If it were normal circumstances, no. But now... yes."
Amitesh's body crumpled to the ground, blood pooling in dark, sticky rivulets.
Deyvalo exhaled sharply. "Phew, this boy is really something." He turned to the trembling crowd.
"Don't worry, everything is under control. This man must be a great sinner—even our kind god refused to give him peace."
But the faces around him were masks of horror, legs quaking, eyes wide.
Deyvalo sensed it—a chill slithering up his spine. Something stirred behind him.
He whirled.
Amitesh was rising, his movements jerky and unnatural, like a marionette with tangled strings. Bones ground audibly as shattered limbs realigned themselves with sickening pops. Blood reversed its flow, snaking back into wounds that sealed with glistening scars. He lifted his head, eyes rolled back to pure white orbs, veins bulging like black rivers under his skin. A wide, inhuman smile stretched his lips, baring teeth stained red, splitting his face in a rictus of madness.
Amitesh's body lurched forward, a puppet animated by something far darker than life. His fingers, twisted into claws, clamped around Deyvalo's throat like iron vices forged in hellfire.
Flames licked from his palms, not the clean burn of controlled power, but a seething, oily inferno that bubbled and spat like molten tar. Deyvalo's eyes bulged, veins popping across his forehead as the heat seeped into his skin, blistering it instantly. He screamed—a raw, guttural wail that echoed through the dingy chamber, bouncing off the blood-streaked walls like the cries of the damned.
"Please... mercy..." Deyvalo gurgled, his voice cracking as his windpipe began to char from the inside out.
But Amitesh's white eyes held no recognition, only a void of primal rage. Slowly, deliberately, he tightened his grip, the flames burrowing deeper, melting flesh layer by layer. Skin sloughed off in blackened strips, exposing raw muscle that twitched and sizzled. Deyvalo's tongue swelled, forcing its way past his lips in a grotesque protrusion, before it too began to cook, curling like overdone bacon. His screams devolved into wet, choking rasps as his larynx liquefied, blood foaming from his mouth in crimson bubbles. Finally, with a sickening pop, his neck gave way, vertebrae crumbling to ash. Amitesh released him, and Deyvalo's body slumped to the floor, a steaming husk with a face frozen in eternal agony, eyes boiled to milky orbs.
The room erupted in chaos. The devotees and outcasts—two dozen souls twisted by fanaticism and desperation—scrambled like rats in a trap. A burly criminal with tattoos snaking up his arms lunged at Amitesh with a rusted knife, his face contorted in terror-fueled fury. Amitesh pivoted, unnaturally fast, his arm snapping out to seize the man's wrist. With a casual twist, he shattered the bones, the crack resounding like gunfire.The knife clattered away as Amitesh drove his flaming hand into the man's chest, fingers piercing skin and ribcage with the ease of a hot blade through butter.
He wrenched inward, grasping the beating heart, which sputtered and flared in his grip. The man howled, blood spraying from his mouth as his organ was yanked free, still pulsing, veins dangling like severed roots. Amitesh crushed it in his fist, letting the gore drip down his arm, before hurling the corpse aside like discarded refuse.
Panic spread like wildfire.
A woman in tattered robes, her eyes wild with devotion gone mad, hurled a chair at him. It splintered against his shoulder, but Amitesh didn't flinch. He closed the distance in a blur, grabbing her by the hair and slamming her face into the concrete floor. Once, twice—each impact pulverizing bone, her nose exploding in a spray of cartilage and blood, teeth scattering like broken pearls. On the third slam, her skull caved in with a wet crunch, brain matter oozing out in grayish-pink rivulets, mingling with the pooling crimson. She twitched once, her limbs flailing in a macabre dance, before going still.
The uneven-toothed man, his bandaged head already a testament to prior pain, backed away, babbling prayers to his false god. "No... the Ascendant will protect—" His words cut off as Amitesh's foot stomped down on his knee, reversing the joint with a grotesque snap that echoed like a breaking branch. The man collapsed, screaming, but Amitesh wasn't done.
He seized the man's jaw, forcing it open wider and wider until the hinges tore with a fleshy rip. Flames poured into the gaping maw, igniting his tongue and throat from within. The man's eyes rolled back as his insides boiled, smoke curling from his nostrils and ears, his body convulsing in seizures as his vocal cords melted away. When the flames reached his lungs, he asphyxiated in silence, his chest heaving futilely, skin blistering outward in bubbling welts.
One by one, they fell in a symphony of brutality. A young devotee tried to flee; Amitesh caught him by the ankle, yanking him back and swinging him like a ragdoll into the wall. Bones shattered on impact, limbs bending at unnatural angles, shards of humerus piercing through skin in jagged protrusions. He finished the boy by driving an elbow into his spine, paralyzing him instantly, then peeling back the flesh of his back with flaming fingers, exposing vertebrae that he snapped like twigs, one by one, drawing out the agony.
An older criminal fired a pistol wildly; bullets tore into Amitesh's torso, punching holes that wept blood but sealed almost as fast, flesh knitting with squelching sounds. Amitesh retaliated by embedding his hand into the shooter's gut, twisting intestines around his forearm like ropes. He pulled, uncoiling yards of glistening viscera that steamed in the air, the man vomiting blood as his innards were dragged out, inch by agonizing inch. The shooter collapsed, clutching at the empty cavity, his screams fading to whimpers as shock set in.
The air thickened with the stench of charred meat, urine, and voided bowels. Bodies littered the floor—limbs akimbo, faces mangled beyond recognition, torsos eviscerated with entrails splayed like grotesque decorations. Amitesh moved through them methodically, his white eyes unblinking, that rictus smile never fading. A final pair huddled in the corner: a devotee and an outcast, clinging to each other in futile prayer. He tore them apart literally—ripping arms from sockets with wet pops, blood arcing in sprays that painted the walls. He impaled one on the other's severed limb, bone protruding from the chest like a spear, before incinerating their heads, skulls cracking open from the internal heat, brains boiling over in frothy spills.
When the slaughter ended, the room was a charnel house, silent save for the drip of blood from the ceiling. Amitesh's body shuddered, the white fading from his eyes as control returned.
He surveyed the carnage, breath steadying. Then, with grim purpose, he began to drag the bodies. One by one, he hauled them to the center, stacking them like macabre building blocks.
Limbs intertwined with torsos, heads perched atop like crowns, blood-slicked flesh molding together in a throne of the dead. Deyvalo's charred form served as the seat, his hollowed skull forming an armrest. Amitesh stepped back, admiring his work—a grotesque monument to madness, bones jutting like thorns, faces frozen in eternal screams. He sat upon it, the squelch of settling flesh beneath him, and let out a low, weary laugh that echoed through the blood-soaked hall.
***
Amitesh eyes open again from a sound.
Amitesh froze at the sound of the knock, soft but insistent, pulling him from the blood-soaked abyss of his mind.
Knock. Knock.
"Hey, Amitesh! Wake up already!"
Zoey's voice filtered through the thin door, bright and teasing. "If you're planning to skip breakfast again, at least come down so I can steal your plates. Fair trade, right?"
He sat up slowly on the edge of the bed, the mattress creaking beneath him.
One hand rose automatically to rub at his temple—then stopped mid-motion.
His palm was slick.
Dark red streaked across his fingers, caked under his nails, smeared in uneven patches up to his wrist. Dried flecks clung to the fine hairs on his forearm like rust. His breath caught. He turned his other hand over—same story. Crimson lines traced the creases of his palm like lifelines written in murder.
His eyes widened, pupils swallowing the irises.
Zoey knocked again, louder this time. "Hey! How long are you gonna sleep? The cafeteria's gonna run out of parathas!"
Amitesh swallowed hard, throat dry as sandpaper. "You… you go first," he called back, forcing his voice to stay even. "I'll come after a bath."
A beat of silence.
"Fine," Zoey huffed, but he could hear the grin in her tone. "I'll wait for you downstairs. Don't take forever, sleepyhead."
Footsteps retreated down the corridor.
The moment the sound faded, Amitesh lunged off the bed and bolted for the bathroom.
He flicked on the light.
The mirror showed a stranger.
Hair matted and dark at the roots—not from water, but from congealed blood that had trickled down his scalp in thin rivers overnight. Crimson streaks painted the side of his neck, disappeared beneath the collar of his sleep shirt. The fabric clung to his chest in stiff, rusty patches. His lips were cracked, and when he opened his mouth to breathe, he saw faint red staining the edges of his teeth.
He didn't remember smiling like that last night.
He tore off the shirt, buttons popping, and balled it up with shaking hands. Pants followed. Underwear. Everything went into the plastic laundry bag he kept under the sink—then, on second thought, he doubled it, knotting the top so tightly his knuckles whitened.
The shower hissed to life.
Scalding water hit his skin. He stood under the spray, head bowed, letting it pound against his skull. Pink rivulets swirled around the drain in lazy spirals, then darker, then almost black. He scrubbed with soap until his skin burned red, nails digging into his scalp, scraping at invisible residue. When he finally shut off the water, steam hung thick in the air and the mirror was fogged over.
He wiped a stripe clear with his forearm.
The reflection stared back—clean, damp, ordinary. No blood. No madness.
Just him.
He exhaled, long and shaky.
He dressed quickly: plain black hoodie, jeans, sneakers. Combed his wet hair back hard enough to hurt. Checked his reflection one last time—eyes clear, hands clean, no tremor.
He opened the door.
Zoey was leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed, one foot tapping an impatient rhythm. Her hair was pulled into a messy bun, and she was already wearing her favorite oversized sweater—the one that swallowed her hands.
"Finally decided to show your face," she said, pushing off the wall with a dramatic sigh. "I was about to send a search party."
Before he could answer, she reached out and grabbed his arm, tugging him forward.
"Let's go before everything's over. I'm starving, and you owe me at least two extra parathas for making me wait."
Amitesh let her pull him along the corridor, her grip warm and solid against his still-cold skin.
He forced a small, crooked smile.
"Yeah," he murmured. "Let's go."
But as they walked, the hallway lights flickered once—briefly, almost imperceptibly.
And for just a heartbeat, he swore he felt something move beneath his ribs.
Zoey's grip on his arm tightened as she practically dragged him down the last flight of stairs.
"Come on, come on, move your legs like you mean it!" she hissed, half-laughing, half-serious. "You already made me late. If the idli runs out because of you, I'm stealing your kidneys next."
Amitesh let himself be pulled, boots thudding against the worn steps. The cafeteria was already a riot of noise—clattering trays, overlapping voices, the metallic scrape of ladles against steel vessels.
The smell hit him first: hot ghee, roasted cumin, steaming sambar, something faintly sweet from the aloo sabzi. His stomach twisted—once in hunger, then again in something darker.
The queue was a serpent of sleepy students winding back almost to the entrance. Zoey groaned theatrically when they joined the end.
"See? This is what happens when Amitesh decides beauty sleep is more important than my breakfast rights."
He didn't argue. He just stared at the back of the person in front of him, counting the frayed threads on their hoodie collar, trying to keep his breathing slow and even.
Every few seconds his gaze flicked to his own hands—clean now, nails scrubbed raw, but he could still feel the phantom stickiness, the weight of something that wasn't there anymore.
By the time they reached the counter, the server was scraping the bottom of the last idli steamer.
"Five idli," Zoey declared, holding up five fingers like she was bargaining at a street stall. "Extra sambar. One plate pulao, one aloo gobhi, and three chapati. For both of us."
The server grunted, piled everything onto two steel thalis without looking up.
Zoey snatched both trays before Amitesh could reach for one.
"I've got it. You just follow me and look guilty."
They turned, scanning the crowded tables for empty seats.
From the far corner, near the window that overlooked the rain-slicked courtyard, Gauri raised her arm high and waved it like a flag.
"Over here! Saved you both spots!"
She sat flanked by the twins—Priya and Diya—each of them already halfway through their plates, spoons moving in perfect, synchronized rhythm. Identical dark braids, identical sleepy scowls, identical smears of chutney at the corners of their mouths.
Zoey marched over like she'd just conquered territory. Amitesh followed more slowly, tray balanced carefully so nothing sloshed.
They slid onto the bench opposite the girls.
"Late as usual," Gauri said, smirking around a mouthful of pulao. "What was it this time? Dreaming about world domination again?"
Zoey snorted. "More like dreaming about sleeping through breakfast so I'd have to feed him."
Amitesh managed a weak half-smile and started eating mechanically. The idli was soft, almost melting, the sambar sharp with tamarind and curry leaves. He ate three in quick succession, barely chewing, letting the heat and spice drown out everything else.
Then it hit.
His stomach clenched—suddenly, violently full. Too full. As though something massive had been packed inside him overnight and was only now making itself known.
Memories flickered behind his eyes like bad film reels:
Charred skin peeling away in strips.
A heart pulsing once, twice, then crushed to pulp in his fist.
The wet crack of a skull giving way.
Smoke curling from melted eye sockets.
The copper-salt-iron taste that had coated his tongue while he—
He lurched forward, hand flying to his mouth.
Gauri's spoon froze mid-air.
"Are you okay?"
Amitesh nodded jerkily, pressing the back of his wrist harder against his lips. The nausea crested, then slowly receded, leaving a sour burn at the back of his throat.
"Yeah," he rasped. "Just… don't feel like eating anymore."
He pushed his half-finished plate across the table toward Zoey.
"Here. You take it."
Zoey blinked, caught off guard. "Hey—I was joking earlier. You don't always have to give me your food, you know."
He didn't answer her. Instead he looked across at the twins.
Priya and Diya had paused, spoons hovering, watching him with those unnervingly identical dark eyes.
"You two eat it," he said quietly. "You're still growing. Finish it up."
Riya gave a single, small nod—almost regal in its simplicity—then reached across without hesitation and pulled the plate toward herself and her sister. They divided the remaining idli and chapati between them with the same silent coordination they always had, as though they'd rehearsed the motion a thousand times.
Zoey leaned closer to him, voice dropping. "You sure you're good? You look like you saw a ghost."
Amitesh forced another smile—this one thinner, more brittle.
"I'm fine," he lied. "Just ate too fast."
Under the table, his fingers curled into fists so tight the knuckles bleached white.
He could still taste it.
Not the sambar.
The ash.
The blood.
And something inside him—something that had smiled with his mouth last night—was already hungry again.