Finally, it's what you all have been waiting for, it's the final nail in the coffin, it's the place where I was going to die.
As soon as the whole of the stadium vanished into nothing, I ran into the forest trying to find a way out of this forsaken pine forest. Now it seemed like everything was more than what was visible to the naked eye, everything was part of something greater and grimmer.
It seemed like I ran for hours and hours and couldn't find any way out, I thought I was going in circles but later realized that this pine forest is infinite.
At this moment even an encounter with a Pishach would be a sign of relief because killing it would at least end this nightmare but was this even a nightmare?
The moon was still up in the sky, shining as red as it did before, I realized this is a moment stopped in time forever and made infinite. I sat down on the base of a pine tree and hugged myself, a sense of fear now took over me and unable to bear the moment anymore I fell asleep there.
It must have been hours when I woke up again with a sharp ache in my stomach, I was hungry enough to eat for hours or even days. I tried to stand up, but darkness covered my eyes and I fell on the ground.
I was feeling no strength in my body, my limbs were all, but bone and my skin was black and bluish. I could even feel my rib cage protruding out of my chest. For how long I was sleeping, I screamed my thoughts out loud?
To my surprise a rough voice from above laughed as if making fun of my thoughts and I was terrified out of fear. I turned up and saw a naked Vedanth hanging upside down from the bark of the tree. he jumped down to where I was sleeping before and said in a broken voice, "I watched you sleep for sixty-seven full moons", as if he was still learning to speak.
I didn't say a word and then he further added, "you killed the mutation", I realized he was talking about the Pishach that I killed in the physics lab and then this time asked, "How are you here? You shouldn't be here, is it because you traveled through the cave to hell?"
This thing was now speaking to itself, asking questions to me and answering by itself, as if it knew that I knew nothing and I will have no idea.
The sky crackled above and started tearing itself with red comets entering the sky. The air shifted; it became heavier, unable to breath.
"They are here." The creature said in a broken whimpering voice. It now seemed as if its gaze was fixed on the falling comets. I took my chance and ran away in the opposite direction. The pines were moving too as if they were returning to their original position in a hurry.
Still feeling weak darkness surrounded my vision and I fainted into a dream. Yes, a dream. I was floating in the clouds above the pine forest. It was cold not because of the winds but because of the altitude. I saw my body lying down from above and from far I saw the creature in the skin of Vedanth approaching my body at an animalistic speed.
I swam towards my body as I was in an ocean and felt this weird power in my limbs. The creature sensed me approaching towards my body too and slowed down.
The next moment our eyes met the creature on the ground and my consciousness in the sky and my body between us.
"This body is useless now", the creature stated, and added further with a more formed voice, "I can smell the rot inside, mortal beings can't breathe in this forest"
I was understanding what the creature was saying but couldn't make sense of it. That was my body, and it was rotting from inside, that explained the weakness and the darkness surrounding my eyes.
I was now trying to feel myself and return to my body, but the creature looked at me with shock as if I was committing a taboo.
"Your consciousness left your body because you are mutated and the mutation is spreading the more you stay here, you must wake up" the creature said in the voice of Vedanth as if it was worried about me.
How do I wake up? I was already awake. A sense of terror took me as a scream from deep inside the pine forest blasted at us. The comets had blasted as soon as they landed.
I saw my mortal body turning black and rotten branches rising from it, slowly engulfing my whole body and finally forging into a pine tree as I watched in horror and didn't feel a thing.
The creature climbed the pine tree like a predator and took a leap towards me. As soon it was just a second away from me it plunged my heart and a sharp pain ran through whole of my nerves and things started to again phase out.
A solid freezing water surrounds me and my eyes open. I found myself on the floor of a shark tank with slabs of ice floating above me.
With hazy glass I saw figures standing outside and shouting, "break the glass- break the glass". Then the glass broke and with all the water I slipped out of the tank on to the floor of what seemed like an abandoned underground parking lot.
One of the guys said as soon as all the water was out of the tank, "welcome to the mortal world dead boy"
It didn't make much sense at that time but by not dying when I was supposed to, I changed fate and became a mutated Pishach. If you all are wondering when I was supposed to die and how I got mutated? The simple answer for that is I was marked to die on the trip but somehow managed to get mutated by the Pishach and escaped through the cave to hell.
Yes,to your lingering if you are thinking that I am dead now. I die on the last day of school because of my mutation, I transported myself to the pine forest of rot, time doesn't move here. The rot swallowed my mortal body but because of the mutation my consciousness was able to escape.
If you are thinking I have a body now you are right but there is a twist to it but it's not going to be bigger than the whole Pataal Lok I was going to discover as an undead.