"Aum," chanted Khushi Khayal the sacred syllable after which she'd named her son. "You say it too, Aumi!"
Reluctantly, Aum Khayal repeated his own name as he followed his mother through the temple gates, their feet bare and hands joined.
His mother was a woman of faith, and she'd only become even more devout since the heavens shattered and monsters from beyond it erupted upon Earth.
"Faith can only be tested in the hardest of times, my sweet boy," Aum's mother believed. "Adversity reveals character. So, now that we know rakshasas do indeed exist, do you still deny the existence of our gods?"
Aum Khayal was once a believer, when the world had been a brighter place. But now he refused to accept anything that made him feel even smaller than he already was.
"We are indeed small," Ma had said to that once. "The same way a drop in the ocean is small. But is any drop distinct from another? The small makes the big, son, there is no big without the small. Because the small is the big.
"So, the same way every drop of water contains within it the entire ocean, likewise every sliver of soul contains within it the entire universe. We are within this world as much as this world is within us."
That was her philosophy; she didn't consider death to have the same rigid finality declared by science, or life to have any origin it could speculate on.
It is as it was and it will be as it is, she believed.
This allowed Khushi Khayal to act fearlessly even in the most perilous of situations, as she considered good actions led to good outcomes, and bad ones to bad ones.
But what bad had a child of thirteen years old done, Aum wondered now that he was older, to have his little sister and father be taken away from him by monsters with fangs and claws?
"Everything, breathing or otherwise, has a soul," his mother had told him and his sister in a better world. "And every soul is bound by the Law of Karma. You reap what you sow, my dearest son."
Did that mean her daughter deserved her grim fate? Had her husband brought his own brutal end upon himself?
"We shouldn't be so sure of matters beyond our understanding," was Aum Khayal's philosophy. "Perhaps some of them are too big for us hairless apes to comprehend."
Who knew whether the gods were real? But until they showed up before him solid as their idols, Aum would remain unconvinced of their existence.
But that hadn't been why they decided to visit a temple while out on their daily hunt for basic resources on this late spring morning.
It was a deliberate choice, forced upon Aum by his mother.
He'd agreed to it in the end without much back and forth with her, ignoring his fear and anxiety for the sudden change in their routine.
After all, she was all he had now in this damned world—he'd be a fool to fight her over such petty matters as their clashing beliefs.
Yet still, as the silence lingered about the stone temple, Aum felt as if they were being watched, deciding he was an even bigger fool for not fighting against his mother's decision.
"Don't you remember what special occasion we have today, my dearest son?" Khushi asked smilingly, as if the answer would make him smile as well. "Take a guess!"
Aum's nervous gaze kept sweeping in every direction of the temple for any overlooked danger still hidden within its walls. "Are we honoring Shanti and Pa?"
It had been four years since their family had been reduced to just the two of them. But even now every reminder of the other two brought them renewed sorrow.
His mother's smile was forced now. "Who could ever forget that old man and that loud girl? They won't let us!"
She shook her head, as if trying to wave their absence away from her mind. "Today's your seventeenth birthday, my sweet Aumi! That's why we're here: to ask the gods to bless you with a long and happy life!"
Even if they were real, a blessing was undoubtedly the last thing someone like Aum would receive from the gods. "Let's be quick, then, Ma. It has not even been two weeks since that band of hunters was eaten."
Rakshasas were known to be nocturnal creatures, true, but the man-eating beasts were bound only by their hunger, and their hunger itself was boundless, not knowing day from night.
That made life nowadays, with those monsters roaming every town and city, nothing but a dreadful struggle to make it to the next day.
And the way Khushi glanced over her shoulder, it was apparent she was just as shaken as Aum by that recent rakshasa attack.
A hungry predator was dangerous enough, a mutated one simply meant death.
"Come, then," Khushi said, leading him into the temple. "Do as I do."
It was rare to find a temple these days that wasn't thoroughly destroyed by monsters or furiously desecrated by men.
The places of worship of all faiths had been targeted from the very day the skies cracked, for if the gods adorned within these holy structures were truly real, was their reasoning, they wouldn't have punished their devotees with such blind wrath.
"The people who commit such ignorant acts are not the true followers of any faith," Khushi Khayal deemed. "The gods punish all sinners, and sacrilege is the worst sin of all. Belief should never rely upon your convenience. They were tested, and they failed badly."
Aum didn't know much about that, but even a non-believer like him regarded defiling holy places to be a seriously scummy violation of civil society.
But as they stepped closer to the shrine at the back of the temple, touching each grey-white stone-brick step with gentle fingers then their foreheads afterward, Ankur noted this one was relatively unspoiled.
The cylindrical pillars in all four cardinal directions still stood strong, and even now the engravings of ancient myths and mantras on the shrine's entrance were readable.
The two most prominent carvings on its arches were that of the ancient symbol for aum: the sacred syllable of his family's faith after which he was named; and of the endless knot of karma, representing the cyclical nature of life.
A much bigger surprise than the fine condition of the sacred shrine waited for them inside its painted walls, where amidst the shadows, the large idol of the Great Mother Goddess was still proudly mounted upon her fierce tiger, which was said to be tamed by her fiercer spirit.
She was widely believed to be the deity of motherhood and strength, and among the mightiest gods in their pantheon, known in ancient legends for being a ruthless slayer of sinful mortals and evil rakshasas.
Khushi Khayal smiled in relief at this sight, bowing down and touching the feet of the painted stone statue. "Victory be!" she exclaimed. "Glory to the Great Mother!"
Then it was his turn.
Aum imitated his mother, going through the motions of offering his customary greetings to the goddess without a shred of genuine faith in his heart. "Victory be. Glory to the divine."
If there was actually some kind of divinity ruling over them all, surely a sacred shrine was the rightest place for them be in for their prayers to be heard and answered.
"So, hear me and answer," Aum thought in the shadows. "What even is the difference between you deities and those demons? As far as I've experienced in these last four years, both of you have only made my life more miserable."
As expected, no answer.
"He may not have any faith in his heart, O Great Mother," Khushi prayed smilingly with her head bowed to her joined hands, "but he still has a good one. So, I hope you can recognize it and bless my son with an equally good life."
Aum mimicked her posture, looking up into the stone eyes of the painted idol. "This is pointless." His thoughts bittered. "The day statues start speaking, I'll start believing in the gods myself—"
"I honestly don't care about him having a good heart," the statue spoke in a grainy rumble without moving its painted lips. "As long as he still has one to offer, I'll be satisfied."
"Huh?" Aum's brows furrowed as he turned to his mother in confusion. "Ma, did you also hear—"
Blood gushed out of Khushi Khayal's eyes and ears and nose as she fell upon her knees before the painted idol. "R-rak—" She coughed red as her face lost all smiles and color.
"Ma!" Aum Khayal lowered himself to keep his mother from falling as the shadows within the shrine darkened.
Who were they praying to all this time?
His mother grabbed his hand strongly. "Whatever happens, happens for the best, Aumi," she whispered with bloodshot eyes. "The Law of Karma binds all. None can break the endless knot."
"Don't speak, Ma, don't move!" The young man shrank to a boy again as he held his bleeding mother in his shaking embrace, growing cold from the sheer horror of her sight. "I'm here! Nothing will happen to you—"
Within half a blink, the darkened shadows inside the sacred shrine gathered behind the stone idol of the great deity.
Before a monster emerged from that deep blackness, prowling forth to reveal its imposing form.
"Why?" The boy felt betrayed by the universe itself as he blankly stared at the alien creature. "We could've never prepared for anything like this. It's just so… unfair."
Why did those bound by nature need to suffer the consequences of those outside it?
It simply made no sense.
The demon had the form of a tiger, nearly twice as big as it should've been, with its blazing red eyes masked in sooty shadows, above a maw of serrated teeth, and claws of glinting metal.
But the most unearthly aspect of the evil entity was its black stripes, each one of which dripped from its fiery fur as if painted on with shadowy ink.
Aum Khayal never knew when he'd stopped breathing, but some primal instinct screamed within him to keep it that way if he wanted to draw another one ever again.
The tentacles of darkness wriggled and wreathed about the beastly demon, forcing Aum to accept his death the moment it seized Khushi with those black tendrils and left the shrine.
Only then the boy realized how weakly he was holding his own mother.
The faces of his long-gone loved ones flashed before his unblinking eyes when he found himself frozen on his knees before the silent goddess.
Were they looking at him with pain… or disgust?
"Never again," the boy had vowed after losing his little sister. "Next time, I'll fight back."
So, he did.
But by the time the boy gathered enough courage to stand against the rakshasa with a knife out, it'd already devoured his mother whole.
Then it was his turn.
Yet even with his back against the ground and its deadly canines about his throat, the boy stabbed the demon in one of its burning eyes as one final act of defiance against this damned world.
His mother was all he had. Now he'd lost even her.
That left him with only his life, which was worth less than nothing, and with the question he still repeated despite knowing there was no one listening to him to answer it.
"What was it all for?" Aum Khayal kept muttering in a daze. "Why am I still alive?"
The knife sunk into the shadows cloaking the rakshasa, but instead of pulling back from its edge, the demon pulled the blade deeper into its blackness.
"A fool," growled the rakshasa as its body swallowed the entire steel, leaving the boy emptyhanded. "I'm fond of fools. They taste same as the brave."
To not get eaten, you must kill.
The boy had tried that and failed.
Yet the need for survival still lingered within his morbid heart. And there was only one other way to survive a rakshasa.
Before he could even think about it twice, however, his primal instincts overtook his being.
"Don't eat me," the boy heard himself plead desperately. "I will serve you."
The rakshasa growled in amusement. "You can serve me nothing but your own heart, kid." Its teeth drew his blood.
"I can," the boy blurted in his panic, clinging to his life as it slowly slipped away. "Two hearts. No, three hearts. Maybe even five. Spare my life and I'll bring you ten more you can devour!"
The rakshasa grew curious. "You would betray your own kind to save yourself?"
"You ate the last person in this damned world I care about." The boy's voice was dead. "The others are nothing to me but strangers."
"Oh?" The rakshasa laughed. "Then prove it to me, boy. Make a pact of your promise."
The boy had heard of pacts with rakshasas. They were contracts signed by their souls, breaking the terms of which was fatal for either side.
"What do I get in return?" He regretted the words instantly.
"An absolute fool!" The rakshasa roared mockingly. "Bring me a dozen human hearts within a week, boy, and in return, you can keep your own! That is what you get!"
With this pact sealed by their blood, the rakshasa returned to the sacred shrine it had no right to even step into.
And the boy left the temple he should've never even entered, dragging himself through the broken road, wandering away aimlessly from the accursed shrine where his innocent mother got eaten by the tiger rakshasa, searching for a way to end his guilt.
Which wasn't too hard to find.
After all, monsters were everywhere since the heavens shattered.
"You reap what you sow," Aum Khayal told himself. "I deserve this."
The rakshasa blocking the road charged at him, and this time, the boy didn't fight back, for he had nothing left to fight for.