The Cursed Shell

40

Dhawan threw the spear and disabled the camera. He entered the room and it didn't take much time for him to realise that it was the room where he was tied at first. He got to know this after seeing a wheelchair and a cut rope spread on the floor around it.

He was feeling irritated now as Josh's location in the tower was still unknown.

He was just about to turn back when his eyes fell on the thing which started it all - the manuscript. The manuscript which made Josh aware of the cursed shell. This manuscript was an indirect reason for the deaths of the scholars and all the others who died for the holy activity of Josh.

Dhawan picked it up from the table on which it was kept. He was holding the entire manuscript with all the eight parts pasted together by Josh with some kind of glue made of a sacred paste.

Dhawan walked out with the manuscript and walked on the corridor. Suddenly he stopped and his eyes went wide in horror when he saw a working CCTV camera in front of him.

'Wait a second,' Dhawan thought, 'the weapons are not working?'

Josh was aware that these were the last hours of his life. And he did not want to waste them. He had closed his eyes, and was trying to remember all the unforgettable moments of his life. These were the moments of his life which he enjoyed. Most of them were those which he spent with his mother.

'Every time I woke up,' Josh thought, smiling, as he could still feel those moments, 'I used to see her. As if she knew I was going to wake up. Her timing was more accurate than my alarm-clock. If I ever denied eating, she would not eat as well. Until I used to come downstairs and tell her that its not me, but my stomach who is hungry. She would hug me, and I would hug her back. If I ever got angry or sad for anything, she would make faces to make me laugh.'

Then Josh slowly broke into a frown and a tear-drop flowed off his right eye. 'And then came the day,' Josh remembered, 'when I woke up, but didn't see that cheerful face which was always visible before I used to start my day. As she had gone to live her afterlife the night before.'

Josh kneeled down. He didn't have the courage to open his eyes. "Mother," he said, "if you're hearing me, I want to say that I know I didn't grow the way you wanted me to grow. And I am sure that you are not at all happy from my doings. I killed my father. I killed my friend. I killed all those scholars. I have become a criminal which you never would have wanted."

"But it was necessary," Josh finally opened his eyes, "I have to do this crime for a better world! I know that I and you will never meet again. As you are in Heaven and I will be sent to Hell. But I am ready to face that fate. I will be pleased when I'll erase the Gods who snatched you from me. They snatched everything from me. And I will punish them for that. And this is my eternal oath!"

He stood up and walked till the domed corner of the room. He pulled the semi-spherical cover of that corner's dome off and sneered at it. 'As I said,' Josh thought, 'Dhawan will not kill me. He will get a chance, but unwillingly, he'll have to lose that.'

"So..." Krystene said, "What are we going to do now?"

"We cannot sit like this", Duke Stain said.

"We have to find Dhawan and stop Joshua Lamb from whatever he is going to do," Dunkirk said, "we have to free ourselves from these ropes around us."

There was a long silence.

"What would Dhawan do?" Brute finally broke the silence. "What would Dhawan do in such a situation? Just think of it."

"I would do this", came a voice from the entrance of the room. Everyone whirled their heads towards the sound.

"Dhawan?" Dunkirk exclaimed when he saw badly bleeding Dhawan standing with the support of a spear at the room's entrance.

Dhawan walked in and cut the ropes around each of them with the spear.

"Oh my God, you are bleeding so bad", Brute said.

"Sit here", Duke let Dhawan sit on one of the wheelchairs. Then he took his own shirt off and wrapped it around the injury on Dhawan's stomach and back.

"So you are a doctor too?" Dhawan said.

"We are trained for such emergency situations," Duke said, ensuring that the shirt was wrapped around the wounds properly. "Just make sure it doesn't get loose."

Brute hugged Dhawan as soon as Duke was done wrapping the shirt around the wounds.

"Brute, listen, I need your help," Dhawan said, handing the manuscript to Brute, "I want you and Krystene to stay here and I want you to read this."

"But I've already read this", Brute said.

"I know, but I want you to read it again," Dhawan said. "You have read it in a hurry. It's possible that you missed something. Just read it again, properly. Whatever Josh is doing, he is inspired by this manuscript only. So it is necessary for us to know his exact motives before he performs the holy activity he is talking about."

"Holy activity?" Dunkirk crossed his eye-brows.

"Yeah," Dhawan nodded, "that's what he said to me."

"I will read it again," Brute said, "and I'll ensure to read it properly by paying attention to each and every line."

"I'm proud of you", Dhawan said, smiling.

"I just have two requirements for that", Brute said. "The first requirement is time."

"We'll try our best to give that to you", Dhawan told Brute.

"And the second one is - a father who will never leave me again", Brute said.

Dhawan smiled and hugged Brute. "I promise you to be a that kind of father if I remain alive after this all."

"We should go now," Duke said, "if we want to stop Josh on time."

Dunkirk turned is eyes towards Duke and stared at his shirtless body.

"What?" Duke asked.

"No, nothing," Dunkirk replied, "it is just weird to watch you half naked for the first time."

Everyone laughed.

"Okay, so we shall go now?" Dhawan stood up and then turned towards Brute. "Take care."

Dhawan, Dunkirk and Duke walked out of the room. Dhawan still had the spear in his hand. Duke was supporting him from one side so that he was able to walk properly.

Josh was watching everything through the CCTV cameras. "Well done, Dhawan. You have passed your test. You are perfect for this ritual. Now I need not to stop you anymore as the Sun is going to drown very soon."