"T-This makes absolutely no sense!" Anita said as she gazed upon rows of text that were now displayed in her retina.
Life wasn't a game. The fact that something like this was presented before her seemed to unnerve her emotional state.
All the lines of text were in a shade of purple as they hovered before her eyes. As Anita swiped her hands at the floating lines of text, her hands seemed to pass through them as if they were just illusions.
When the rows of purple text hovered before Anita, it just looked like faint wisps of purple smoke were floating before her to the eyes of Prakash.
"Don't look at me, I'm about just as confused as you are," Prakash said as a row of text materialized before him that gave off purple radiance as they silently floated in the air, just like Anita's.
This set of words and numbers told them almost nothing concrete. Moreover, it only served to further increase their questions.
"Did you feel anything different after your second kill?" Anita inquired as she inched closer to another twitching mosquito.
"Nothing concrete," Prakash replied as he too walked towards another mosquito.
'Stab'
Anita killed her second mosquito when her hair turned purple, veins bulged on her skin and her eyes glistened in a purple hue. The effect faded within a second and her eyes regained their clarity.
This time, her trance seemed to be different. She couldn't quite put a lid to it but it seemed as if her body was wrapped in something, something warm and sticky. But since it was a fleeting memory, she couldn't quite make out anything concrete from it. Without proper evidence, all assumptions on her part were just useless.
The row of purple letters still silently hovered before her as Anita noticed some changes in it.
It had increased from 1 to 2 but Anita let it rot at the back of her head for now and decided to research it in the future when she wasn't pressed for time.
Prakash and Anita had killed off the rest of the mosquitoes and dashed along the trail of ant carcasses. Every time they killed an insect, their bodies transformed into that purple figure and they felt pain course throughout their bodies.
They had to be careful and vigilant while killing other insects because they would be momentarily incapacitated while that 'Purple Transformation' occurred. They decided to name it that way for their convenience.
With just a thought, the purple letters converged into a ball and entered into their bodies. With a thought, faint mist seeped out of the pores on their skin and once again formed into that display.
As they trailed after numerous ant carcasses, they came across some ants that were still alive. Lone ants didn't pose much of a threat against their armed selves, not to mention these lone injured ants that were quickly finished off with a stab of their refills.
Prakash sighed as he looked at the changes taking place on the purple screen after every creature he had killed, of course, excluding the 'Purple Transformation' that occurred after every kill. The only difference being the decrease in the duration of their 'Purple Transformation' and the resulting trance-like state it induced in them.
Ant-7 (0.00%)> He decided to call it 'Record' as it seemed to be recording his activities or, his kills at the very least. "Slow down!" Prakash immediately motioned for Anita to slow her pace as a horde of Ants came into their view. The horde happened to be scurrying towards a location and didn't seem to have noticed the couple who were just 4 feet away from them. As the couple carefully inched closer, they saw the ants climbing up along the legs of a cradle all the way to the top. "Dear!" Anita bellowed; her face full of worry. "I know!" Prakash hollered in response as he tried to think up a way to scale up the cradle. The cradle was more than two feet high without any shafts in between the top and the bottom on which they could leverage upon to climb up. It wasn't impossible if they really began to climb along its legs like a koala bear. People from their hometown climbed coconut trees every day in such a manner in order to harvest coconuts so they had sufficient experience in this regard. But, the horde of ants that numbered in the thousands was the real problem. The room consisted of a cradle and a wooden bed near it in the middle and a couple of small shelves along the edges. It was only used to take care of their child Akash when they couldn't be in his presence due to some work. So, the shelves only had some picture books, stuffed dolls, and a few scattered toys. "We can only try to scale up the bed and somehow reach the cradle from it. We have no other option." Prakash said with gritted teeth as he felt helpless when faced with such a situation as he rushed towards one end of the bed that was away from the horde. Every second he delayed, something unimaginable might happen to their only child. The bed had exquisite woodwork done on it as it was inlaid with carvings of beautiful sunflowers. The couple made use of the extrusions and indentations of the carvings to climb up. 30 seconds later, they were finally atop the mattress when their view was filled with red. Ants! Ants! Ants everywhere! The entire surface of the mattress seemed to have been filled with ants that were rushing off somewhere. The couple treaded along the edges of the mattress that seemed to be the only place on the wide mattress that had a relatively lower number of ants. Bracing their refills near their hips and tilting the sharp nib downwards and crouching a little, the couple sprinted. Every ant they came across was spearheaded to its death as the couple charged like two mad bulls. 10 seconds later, the couple had a clear view of the top of the cradle where they saw…..nothing. The ants that were on the cradle marched over to the top of the mattress over a tension line created by the linking of countless ants in the air. It was a bridge of ants that transported more ants to this side. The antennae of the surrounding ants twitched as they unanimously charged towards the couple. "We have to follow in the direction where the ants are charging towards. Our chances of finding Akash would be higher." Anita said as she glared at the ants that were charging towards them. "They are going in the other direction on the opposite end of the mattress. How are we supposed to rush through this horde?" Prakash inquired as he couldn't find a way to break out from their current encirclement and rush towards the other side of the mattress through thousands of ants. As Prakash gazed below him from along the edges of the mattress, he saw ants on the sides of the bed too; they were rapidly climbing up in their direction. The ones on the mattress were just a couple dozen centimetres before them. They were literally surrounded on all sides. "If there's no way around them then we'll trample over them. Follow my lead!" Anita shouted a war cry and speared straight towards their destination. Her sharp eyes glistening with viciousness and her concentration was stretched taut as she stepped on the bodies of the charging ants and ran. Each of her feet perfectly stepped upon the body of an ant as she propelled herself forward. The impact from her weight instantly shattered the legs of the ants she stepped upon; even their thick exoskeleton armour on their bodies cracked under the pressure and caved in. Thankfully, they didn't seem to die for the most part. As for when they did? Anita's eyes shone with a purple hue and became cloudy as she seemed to have entered into a trance once again, her initially sprinting legs abruptly stopped their running motion as her body was carried by her momentum and fell forward, trampling upon the bodies of countless ants as she slid on the mattress. A second later, her eyes opened up like a bolt of lightning as her body shot up and began running once again. She didn't bother to remove parts of ant carcasses stuck on her body since they would serve as her armour the moment her next 'Purple Transformation' activates once again, which activated immediately after one of her steps accidentally took the life of an ant. The same process repeated many times as Anita lost count of the number of ants that were trampled over to their deaths by her feet. Various degree of injuries began to accumulate over her body every time she fell down, either parts of her body or mostly her feet while running came into contact with the sharp clutching mandibles of the ants. Prakash hesitated for a second as he saw her charging figure and he too charged forth on a path parallel to her. If he had decided to traverse on her path where there were plenty of ants lying in a near-death state, he would die before even taking ten steps since each of his steps would kill an injured ant and activate his 'Purple Transformation'. He would then be besieged by ants in his trance-like state until not even his bones remained. Prakash experienced a long dream. He felt being encased inside a white shell that was filled with some viscous liquid. He neither had hands to touch and feel nor legs to gain some balance. He continued to float within the viscous fluid, unaware of the world beyond that white shell. Time seemed to flow as usual, like an unstoppable river, yet Prakash's life was dull as he lay suspended in the viscous fluid. Days passed in the blink of an eye as a wriggling creature that looked like a maggot kept banging upon the shell that was encasing it. 'Crack' First, a tiny crack formed after the maggot-like creature banged against the walls of the shell hundreds of times. 'Crack' 'Crack' The cracks progressed further along the surface of the shell as the maggot-like creature kept pushing at it when finally, a crisp crack resounded as a part of the shell broke off, allowing the maggot-like creature to gaze at the vast world beyond its shell. Prakash finally saw traces of light seep through the cracks of the shell (It was more of a feeling thus far, he actually couldn't see) as he kept pushing against it. After a final mounted struggle, Prakash finally broke through the shell restricting him and slowly crawled his way out into a wide space, a vast world infinitely larger than his constricted shell. 'I'm finally free' as this thought appeared in Prakash's mind; the entire scenery began to turn purple and instantly became half-transparent. Moreover, he could finally make out another transparent 'Wall' approaching him, no, he seemed to be approaching it at a fast pace. Before he could gather his thoughts together, the previously purple half-transparent scenery abruptly vanished as the solid image of a wall rapidly approached him. 'Shit…' Before Prakash could curse out, he crashed into the wall.