Kama: Liberation (Vol-I)

Chapter 16: Pasha's Petra

Sometimes, the last pages of a story remain blank, incomplete, to be filled in by another birth.

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Panting for precious peace, the Rajan closed the door and slid down the sides, devastated beyond repair. Unable to walk as the evil within forced him to be an animal, he crawled towards the much cherished fabric.

Rudra was finally here– the place where only he could come.

The forbidden room.

Dark.

Burnt.

Despite never being licked by flames.

Her smell was present in the beautiful crimson-bordered white tunic and the dhoti. Her strands of hair, that the beast had pulled mercilessly, coiled in corners of this room. Rudra had gathered them from Revat but couldn't save the divinely beautiful owner.

"My Petra."

And I am yours, only yours. Rest in the arms of clouds, know I have died with you. Sins have touched me and gone, unable to thrust our souls asunder.

His eyes could not hold in anymore. Bhagvan had betrayed him. Bhagvan had snatched away her happiness and respect that day and still, was named Bhagvan. "Dhikkar!" He spat. "You are what humans created to shower on us pain. You kill as you please, you strike when you see fit. But if I kill to mourn my love, they call me unwanted," he cried. A gaping chasm opened in his heart. He screamed and howled, letting the misery stream down. "They call you the greatest because you gift and take away life as you wish. But who gave you the right? At least I didn't."

Tears fell silently, choking the husky voice that had announced so many victories. "I will always remain a loser."

He often wondered why even after being called the son of Shiva, why even after being named Chandrasekhara he was unable to rescue Petra. The one he ran after, the one he protected like his own, the one for whom he had been changing his introverted heart– that lady had jumped into a fire which could protect her dignity better than him.

"So much like Sati..." His wolf stirred. He stared at his palms, watching a line of fur starting to cover his hands. He was transforming.

This was his identity now. She would never love this monster.

"I am a failure."

The walls echoed a hysterical laugh.

"I was called a big and bold man, the most handsome and the strongest, yet could not even save my lovely wife! Such a poor thing." A melancholic smile tugged at his lips.

She had left Rudra and ran away to death's arms, to the fire of Shiva– the Shiva who couldn't save her despite all her devotion. The Shiva, who destroyed the whole world when his wife had died, but didn't shed a tear when his devotee burnt.

"God, eh?"

He cackled like a possessed entity. It tore through the uncanny silence of the room, reverberating in the so-called most haunted place of Ishgar.

The former bedroom of Petra and Rudra, in the royal palace of the Rajan of Aryavarta.

Rumours went around that one could hear her crying in the dead of the night. Yes, she cried. There was no difference between her and Rudra.

"The twist is, nothing happened here. Nothing happened here. As long as you were with me, you were safe. But no," Rudra stood on all four, tears dropping on the marble floor, "you had to go to your friend. That fiend just fooled you." Rudra snarled. "He...he assaulted you..."