KATHA

KISAN - THE FOUR.

Standing on the weathered balcony of the top floor, I surveyed the sprawling expanse of the abandoned school building, I could see it all- the faded echoes of it's former glory, the stories etched into every brick and beam that were now tainted with blood and wails of innocent lives.

The central courtyard lay before me, a tangle of overgrown greenery now drenched with the gushing blood of bodies piling there.

As I looked down, I could see the balconies of every floor that housed rows upon rows of classrooms. Classrooms that once held laughter and life of children were now abysses of helpless cries and wreckage of little lives.

I wasn't a stranger to violence.

To blood.

To death.

I was very well acquainted to the terms since the age of eight. Since the moment Kalki picked me off the slums that festered along the darks alleys of the gutter end of Bombay.

In fact, It was all an art for me. It was an art so beautiful to rid the world off it's filth. It was an outlet for me just like it was for Kalki, Ikka and Varnan. An outlet to purge that energy that bubbled my blood and burned my veins. It was my retribution until Gazal came along.

An art.

And even greater art, the masterpiece, was watching Kalki in action which I'd done since the past fourteen years of my life. And never gotten enough.

He killed like a sensuous poetry in motion. Effortless and touching. He killed like he was made for it.

He was.

Kalki Samrat was a beast. Like a God of Death. A force forged deep within the unholy depths of hell. And there was nothing more awakening than watching him tear men with his bare hands, consumed with rage so visceral he was barely containing it. For the first time in five years, I wanted him to unleash. We'd be sooner out of this hellhole if he actually let of go that barrier he'd entrusted me with a long time ago. To bring him back. To keep him from plunging into the abyss.

Because the entirety of Bombay didn't have it in it to survive what lurked beneath his skin. If that dark energy was a boiling bloodstream rushing through my veins, red hot lava roared along his. I knew it. I'd seen it. Five years ago. When he massacred the Don's family before taking over Bombay's throne.

My eyes followed his every move.

Power.

A reckoning.

The harbinger of doom.

That was what Kalki Samrat was.

From my vantage point, I watched as he emerged from the shadows like a force of hell unleashed upon the world. I could bet there wasn't a crease in his expensive suit as he tore through throats in a dance of dark energy, a symphony of brutality and purpose with not a beat of hesitation. Kalki was an unforgiving, a man driven by visceral bloodlust. A primal need.

Varnan hauled another butchered man from the third floor right into the courtyard where bodies were piling up into a mountain. Kalki hauled six yet and it was a third from Varnan. His twin, Ikka dangled his fifth prey, laughing like a maniac. It was a bloody mad house. Not only they were killing men who had run the human trafficking ring but they were killing the customers who dared to pay for the ruination of those little girls. Kalki moved to the fourth floor, his steps a calculated cadence of destruction. I sighed. They had used this abandoned school as a brothel and turned the endless classrooms into custom little hells to butcher helpless females. Little girls. A goddamn school. A temple. And they'd turned it into a disgusting nightmare. I gritted my teeth with force enough to snap and shatter, anger danced in white spots before my eyes. My heart was thundering, my skin clammy from the filthy air of the place. I was about to go down there to let some steam off when I caught him again.