'B-Boom'
Thunder rumbled in the sky as the initial heavy downpour had now transformed into a light drizzle. The entire surroundings were filled with the sounds of croaking frogs and chirping crickets.
Suddenly, the entire cloudy skies brightened up as if the sun had decided to make an impromptu visit. There was a yellowish-red colour in the sky that added a shade of blackish-red on the edges of the thunder clouds. The bright light faded after 2-3 seconds as the sky once again resumed its darkness.
Approximately 20 seconds later, a loud Earth rumbling sound reverberated through the air as the glass windows of every house shattered into pieces, cars began to honk and a tremor passed through the ground.
'Boom'
"Aaaaaaaaaa..." Prakash jolted awake in fright at the thunderous sound that was followed by the glass window beside the bookshelf shattering into pieces and falling along with the raindrops. It made clinging sounds as the shattered glass pieces impacted upon the surface of the bookshelf.
"Huff...puff" Prakash took deep breaths as he sought to calm his rampaging heart when he felt some weight press on his back. As he craned his neck with great difficulty and gazed behind him, he came across the visage of a sleeping face of Anita.
Her forehead creased as she seemed to be experiencing a nightmare while her hands were in a tight embrace around his hips and seemed to have no intention of letting go even after he tried to free himself numerous times.
"I guess I'll let her sleep for some more time." Prakash thought as he gently rubbed over the head of Anita with his right hand as his left hand embraced her. She seemed to have subconsciously eased up a little as she felt his embrace, her expression considerably lessened to a light frown as her breathing further stabilized to a slow rhythm.
"I promise to find Akash no matter what." Prakash resolved himself as a determined expression appeared on his face.
It was at his time that his surroundings lit up like it was dusk for 2-3 seconds and gradually darkened as if the entire phenomenon was a mere illusion.
Prakash stared at his surroundings in a daze as his comprehension capability failed to keep up with the changes. He couldn't think up a reason for the occurrence of such a phenomenon that could bright up the skies during the night when thick dark thunder clouds hovered high up and even blotted out the moonlight.
Prakash spent some time as he tried to figure out the cause of the phenomenon, but as time elapsed, the speed of the thoughts that kept churning within his mind gradually slowed down to a halt as his eyes felt heavy, a sense of drowsiness washed over him.
'Boom'
A sudden thunderous sound, as if the very Earth had shattered jolted his mind awake. A faint trace of purple blood leaked out of his ears due to the impact of the powerful sound. The bookshelf rattled like a boat in the raging seas due to the shockwave when he saw the figure of Anita sprang up in motion like a cat that had been frightened.
"Godzilla! Die!" Anita bellowed as she sent a punch forward and created a powerful impact on the stomach region of Prakash. Since he was initially on the floor with Anita on top of him, he could only face the brunt of her punch with no room for escape.
"Guh....." All the air that he had inhaled into his lungs gushed out through his mouth as Prakash reeled from the impact; never had he expected even in his wildest dreams that Anita could possess such terrifying strength.
"Eh....?" As she felt some reaction from her fist that made contact with something soft and squishy, Anita slowly regained consciousness as she gazed at the strained visage of Prakash that looked on the verge of crying as he clutched his stomach.
"Prakash! Thank heavens, you are alright now." Tears streamed out of her eyes as she hugged Prakash in a tight embrace, it was as if a heavy knot that had formed in her heart had dissolved as she saw him.
As if she had realized something, Anita left his embrace, walked towards a nearby spot where a fresh stream of rainwater was flowing and scooped out a handful of it in her palms.
"Here, drink it. This would heal your injuries." Anita said as she forced Prakash to drink the water from her hands.
As the mouthful of water flowed through his food-pipe and ended up in his stomach, Prakash felt a warm feeling circulate through his body starting from the stomach as the phantom pain he felt at various places on his body began to alleviate at a rather quick pace.
"W-What is this medicine? It's like the miracle elixir from the legends!" Even though he witnessed Anita scoop it out from the nearby stream of water, but Prakash couldn't come to terms with the fact that some plain water could have such astounding healing properties. It went against his common sense that had been established over three decades, even though it got shattered into bits and smashed into mush numerous times within a single day.
"Ignore the details; we have no leeway to conduct proper research on it. Let us focus on your recovery for now." Anita said as she dragged Prakash towards the stream despite his inhibitions. The plain water did a wonderful job in completely healing her injuries and brought back Prakash from a near-death state so she didn't have much room for doubt; she had no choice in the matter but to use everything at her disposal for the survival of herself and her family.
"Wait, wait, wait. My body feels perfectly fine, I don't need it." Prakash protested.
Anita turned towards him in response, walked closer until her face was just an inch before him who seemed to have gotten flustered on getting such a unique gesture from her.
'Bam'
Anita sent a straight right towards his gut as Prakash curled in response to her light punch, clutching his stomach in reflex even though such a light punch hardly tickled him.
"You are now injured," Anita said as she pushed him into the stream that barely flowed over his toes and literally spoon-fed him mouthful after mouthful of water until his stomach was on the verge of bursting.
She herself then drank a few gulps and then proceeded to inspect Prakash's body for any leftover injury.
As her hand swept over the smooth glossy skin on his back, Anita teared up once again as she recalled how he hung on the refill that had lodged into his back all the way till his stomach.
"Stupid idiot; don't leave me alone." Her mind gradually regained its stability as she pressed her ears on his back and heard his strong momentous heartbeat.
"Don't worry. Yama doesn't like me, so he has no plans of inviting me over to the afterworld; neither does he fancy you nor our child." Prakash said as his gaze turned fiery. He was frustrated over the fact that he couldn't reach to his son's side before when they were just a couple of feet apart from each other, a paltry vertical distance that was a fart when they were big but now looked like a wide chasm that was impossible to cross.
Now, they were unaware of the whereabouts of their child with the only clue pointing towards the living room, the details of which had just been relayed to him by Anita. They were heading for a blind search while their son was helpless in the darkness of the night at some corner, braving vicious attacks from numerous predators.
"Let's go." Anita let go of her embrace as she picked up their refills and gave one to Prakash while she held onto the other in her hand.
-----------------------
"Huff..... puff...how are you able to descend like that?" Prakash regained his breath as he stared at Anita in wonder.
As they began to descend the rows of the bookshelf, Prakash bore witness to the fact that Anita could scale the walls like a gecko and quickly descended to the tiled floor in a matter of seconds. Prakash could only grit his teeth in frustration as he descended down in the same path that he took to scale up; through a myriad of water-soaked books.
They could definitely have arrived at their son's rescue if only they could have executed such a climbing manoeuvre at an earlier time.
"I managed to figure out this method in a trance when I was climbing earlier..." Anita had just begun to recount her experiences when she noticed to her surprise that her surroundings had suddenly become bright like it was during dusk hours.
"This is the third time already!" Prakash shouted in alarm as he hurriedly informed her of the previous two phenomena.
"Close your ears and brace for the sound waves."
"Alright!"
'B-Boom'
The couple heard a loud Earth-shattering sound that felt like a meteor had crash-landed near them as the ground tremored in response; bizarre birds and insects made frightened wails and the books in the bookshelf behind them tumbled down the shelves.
"Watch out!" Anita let out a shrill cry while her hands still clutched onto her ears to shield from the loud sound waves as she kicked Prakash and made use of the rebound to jump back. Her timely reaction allowed the couple to avoid getting crushed by a thick book that fell on the spot they were previously standing at.
The couple rolled on the floor, took long sliding dives, and sought cover between thick sturdy books. They barely managed to evade the shower of books by doing so.
"Phew, that was a close shave. Thank goodness you reacted in a timely manner; otherwise, I would have been a goner." Prakash calmed his thumping heart and proceeded towards the door that led to their living room alongside Anita.
Prakash gazed upon the scattered remains of various ant carcasses that were left unattended on their journey. Some were punctured in their heads; some were clearly severed in half while the rest were crushed into a mush.
As the couple proceeded further, Prakash managed to pick up faint traces of multiple scents through his olfactory senses. The information relayed to his brain through these new scents was clearly unfamiliar to him; they were weird and so was his sense of smell that became stranger as time passed in silence. The scents that he picked up through his senses were faint in the beginning but managed to curve up in magnitude within a few seconds until they almost overwhelmed him
"A-Anita, I feel weird," Prakash said.
When Anita gazed at him in confusion, shock filled her eyes as she pointed her trembling fingers towards the forehead of Prakash.
"Dear, something sprouted out of your head and is still growing in height as we speak." Anita freaked out.
"What?" When Prakash lifted his hands in shock to touch and have a feel for whatever was growing on his head, his hand abruptly came to a halt midway.
"Dear....?"
"Aaaaarrgh.....it hurts.....aaaa" Prakash clutched his head as he screamed in pain at his olfactory senses overloading his brain's capacity to perceive receptory signals.
"Dear, whatever it is, try to pull it inside you. It should be possible for...dear?....dear!" Anita hollered in fright as she held the flailing Prakash. If this overgrowth on Prakash's forehead was something similar to what happened to her palms and the soles of her feet when she used the purple mist in her body, then there was a chance that Prakash could control the growth of the two appendages and turn the transformation OFF in a similar manner. But, it looked as if her words fell on deaf ears as Prakash hollered in pain.
"*&@$*@&$#*@&$@*@&&@$@*$#@$@*--$#@*@"
"&@$@*$$#######$@*@@$$$"
"@$@$@$$****"
A massive amount of unintelligible information blasted his senses haywire and his mind into overdrive. This sensory overload immediately resulted in his mind shutting down within a couple of seconds. He had fainted.