That night, it was dark. Darker than I have ever seen it before. Without the blaring background noise of the city lights, the suburbs were wreathed in quiet stillness.
In the shadows, monstrous creatures prowled and above these ghastly spectres of the night, countless stars glittered like jewels in the crown of the sky.
The moon glowed with a hint of ghostly silver and seemed closer than it ever had before. When I went out into the garden that night, I was spellbound by the vastness of it all.
And then, I was spellbound by something else. Out in the depths of the glowing night sky, at the edge of the tapestry of countless stars, there was an empty spot.
In this part of the sky, not a single star sparkled with life. It was completely devoid of anything. This empty spot stretched across one corner of the sky in a band of nothingness. Like someone had deleted a portion of the sky.
Usually, you couldn't see many stars while in London due to light pollution, so I had no idea what the night sky here was supposed to look like. Nonetheless, this felt... wrong. I felt as though, there should have been stars there and yet, there were none.
All of a sudden, a sharp yelp pulled me from my revelry, jolting me back into the world. I ran back into the house and found the door that August had told me to keep closed open.
I could see the shadow of a person in the doorway. They were hunched over and retching.
Before I even went into the room, I knew exactly who it was and what had happened.
Steeling myself against what I was about to see, I set my jaw and walked through the half-open door. The room I entered smelt bad, really bad.
And it wasn't just because of the fresh pile of vomit on the ground, there was another smell besides that. A thick bloody scent hung in the air, along with the beginnings of rot.
On the floor, Kyle was crouched up in a ball, his head tucked between his legs. I could hear him muttering to himself over and over again, "It's just a dream, It's just a dream."
I didn't shout at Kyle for entering the room. Chances were, that in the intense darkness that shrouded the house, he mistook this room for the toilet or something like that.
In these sorts of situations, shouting won't do any good. It's important to speak calmly and clearly. I tried to reach out to pat Kyle on the shoulder, but he slapped my hand away. "Don't touch me!" He yelled.
Honestly, I could somewhat understand what he was feeling. When I had first entered the room, my gaze had immediately been drawn to the bed and the mauled corpse that lay upon it.
It was impossible to tell whether it was a man or woman anymore due to the deep claw marks that covered the body. The sheets of the bed were stained red around the corpse, like a flower in bloom, a rose of blood.
The curtains of the room were drawn tight and a small shelf beside the bed that contained a few mementoes was the only clue as to who the person who now lay dead here used to be.
A book, a glass of water, a thick brush that didn't look like it was for human use and an inhaler. Above the bed, was a framed picture of a thin man with spectacles. He was hugging a tabby cat against his chest and smiling.
Taking another glance at the corpse, I could see that it had some similarities to the man in the photo.
Aside from Kyle's fast breathing, the room was deathly silent. I could almost hear his heart hammering in his chest.
Another sound appeared in the quietness of the house. Hurried footsteps were coming down the hallway towards us.
And, before I had the chance to stop whoever it was from entering, Kashyap burst into the room. "What's wrong?" He shouted as he entered the room, "I heard a shout and..." He trailed off when he caught sight of the body.
"Oh," He said quietly, after a moments pause.
Kashyap looked back and forth between me, the corpse and Kyle, taking in the situation in its entirety. After a moment, he seemed to have fully understood what was going on and nodded to me.
"Kyle," He softly whispered. When he spoke calmly like this, he seemed very mature. Well, he was very mature, I would guess he was in his thirties, but most of the time, he didn't look it. Only when he got serious did he become more adult.
Kyle didn't reply, simply rocking back and forth on the hardwood floor.
"How about we get you out of here?" Kashyap asked softly.
Kyle didn't look up, but I could faintly see him nod. So, Kashyap and I picked him up and carried him out of the room, leading him back to the kitchen.
I left Kyle with Kashyap and made my way back to the room. I needed to check something.
Although I can handle dead bodies well enough, the inhuman state of this one unsettled me. Claw and bite marks covered the entire thing and I dreaded to think what manner of beast did this.
Despite this, I needed confirmation on something, thus I reentered the room, careful to avoid looking at the bed.
I stared intently at the picture that hung above the bed. Not at the man, but the cat he was holding. It looked familiar, but where had I seen it.
While trying to remember all the cats I had seen recently, I left the room again. The putrid smells made it hard to stay in there for long.
Closing the door behind me, I made my way toward the kitchen. Kyle and Kashyap were sat around the table. Kyle was shakily holding a glass of water between his hands.
In the quiet of the night, it wasn't hard to make out what was being said, even though Kashyap was speaking softly.
The only light in the kitchen was from a flickering candle Kashyap had found earlier while we searched the house.
In the orange glow of the candlelight, Kashyap comforted Kyle gently. With the way he was speaking, it would have been more fitting if he was talking to a young child, not a young man.
"Have I ever told you how I got here?" He asked Kyle.
Kyle didn't speak. He just looked down at the glass of water in his hands and shook his head.
"This may be shocking to you... but I am from India," He said with a chuckle.
Kyle didn't smile at the little joke, he just nodded plainly.
Unperturbed, Kashyap continued his story. "I'm not from the slums or something, so don't get any weird ideas. My Father and his Father before him ran a repairs shop and we did well enough to get by. We had a small house at the edge of our town and did general repairs. If someone's tractor broke, we would fix it, that sort of thing." As he spoke, his eyes grew slightly distant as memories play out in front of them that only he could see.
"When I was young, I would help out in the shop and in my free time, I went out into the fields. The village we lived in had quite a few kids my age and we would run through the fields and play in the river, making up little games to entertain ourselves as kids often do."
"One day, we ran into a nearby farmers orchard. We were determined to steal bananas for a treat. We knew that, even if we got caught in the middle of our heist, the farmer who ran this orchard was good-natured enough to only send us away with sharp words, not fists."
"A young boy came with us that day. He was too small to climb up and pick the fruit. So, while we all clambered up the trees joyously, he was left to scrounge for fallen fruit on the ground."
"While I reached out precariously over the branch, trying to reach the ripest bunch I had seen all year, I heard a strangled yelp. Thinking that someone had been caught by the farmer, we all scrambled down the trees and spilt off in random directions, scattering into the thick groves of trees,"
"It just so happens, that the direction I ran, was the direction the young boy had gone earlier. When I found him, he was lying limp on the ground his arm outstretched with two nasty welts at the wrist. His face was pale and his lips were blue, they looked so swollen I thought they might burst. I could hear each strangled breath as he tried to breathe through his rapidly closing throat,"
Kashyap looked solemnly down at his own hands as he spoke, "I never saw the snake that bit him. Only the two puncture marks it left behind on his arm. And I will never forget the strangled cries he made as he struggled to breathe, desperately trying to survive. But, even though I have never forgotten that day, it has been many years since then and it no longer hurts so much to remember it,"
Kyle looked up at Kashyap, "What does this have to do with you getting here?" He asked in annoyance.
All of a sudden, Kashyap's facial expressions that had been extremely solemn flipped into a grin, "Oh that, I got a scholarship to come here," He said while laughing.
Both Kyle and I were stunned. We didn't know what to say. Surprisingly, it was August, who had woken up from where he was sleeping in the living room and eavesdropped on Kashyap's story that put it into words for us.
"What the fuck was the point of that?" He asked incredulously.
Kyle and I nodded in agreement. What indeed was the fucking point of that?
Kashyap shrugged and looked thoughtful for a second, "Uhmm... time heals all wounds I guess, I don't know I was just trying to distract him a bit,"
August didn't look pleased with this excuse, "Next time you tell a story, get to the point quicker," He said in a huff.