The Crimson Interval (03-12-2023)
The MG Highway did not belong to the living. At 2:00 AM, it was a desolate ribbon of black concrete cutting through the throat of the city. There were no speed breakers here, no stuttering trucks, no witnesses. Only the wind, and a sky so dark it looked like bruised velvet. But beneath the stars, one orb refused to be silent. It was a Crimson Dark star, pulsating with a rhythmic, predatory heat that warped the starlight around it.
Inside the van, the atmosphere was a toxic slurry of arrogance. Seven friends—men who had traded their souls for the thrill of the hunt—sat amidst the wreckage of a woman's life. One of them held a beer bottle, the amber liquid drizzling onto his shirt. "Man... that lady was hot," he slurred, his voice scraping against the silence. "But she was a screamer. My ears are still ringing."
The driver didn't look back. He gripped the wheel with a casual, murderous indifference. "Shut the hell up. Just remember that the beer in your hand was bought by the jewelry we stripped off her cold body." A jagged roar of laughter erupted. It was the sound of the Sin itself speaking, laughing, mocking the very idea of a moral floor. To balance this absolute decay, there was an Angel waiting in the dark—an Angel who was about to turn Sin into a Sovereign Inferno.
400 Meters. Arush stood in the shadows of a roadside pylon. His knuckles were no longer skin and bone; they were white-hot iron. Tears of liquid flame tracked down his cheeks, evaporating into steam before they could touch his collar. The air around him didn't just vibrate; it bent.
200m. The van's headlights cut through the dark like twin scalpels. 150m. The laughter inside peaked, a crescendo of filth. 100m. The Crimson Star in the sky flared, turning the horizon the color of a fresh wound. 50m. Inside the van, the beer bottle slipped from a greasy grip. It shattered on the floorboards. "Useless bastard!" the driver cursed, his foot hovering over the brake as he glanced at the traffic light. He looked up. He didn't see the light change. He saw the Star descending.
The Strike. It wasn't a crash. It was a Molecular Deconstruction. The figure struck the van with the force of a falling moon. The road ignited instantly, the tarmac turning into a river of molten tar. The van was hurled sixty feet across the highway, rolling until it was a mangled knot of chrome and human remains. Metal pierced through bodies like needles through silk.
The figure stood in the center of the road, his tail lashing through the superheated air like an obsidian blade. He lifted his hand, concentrating the molecules of heat into a localized gravity well. The air shivered. A door groaned. A survivor crawled out, his leg a shredded mess of muscle and white bone. He dragged himself through the glass, driven by a primal, bloody instinct. He looked up at the sky, his eyes reflecting the dying embers of the van.
Before he could even pray, the Beast moved. He grabbed the man's back. With a surge of Raw Sovereign Strength, he drove his fingers into the spine. He didn't just kill the man; he audited his biology. He gripped the spinal cord and pulled. The sound was like wet leather tearing. He extracted the bone in its entirety, but with surgical malice, he left the Nervous System intact—hanging like a weeping willow from the lifeless torso. He wanted the man to feel the void where his soul used to be.
Another survivor crawled toward him, hand clamped over his mouth to stifle the sobs. The flames were violent, turning the man's vision into a flickering hallucination of hell. He saw the Beast walking toward him, grabbing him by the face. "Let my sin be forgiven!" the man wailed, blood-thick tears wiping the grime from his face. "I'll pray to God! I'll give it all back!"
The figure palmed the man's face, the heat from his skin charring the eyebrows instantly. "Then let me do sin... so God has a reason to kill a bastard like you." He closed his fist. The skull imploded. The Iron-Blood in the man's veins reacted with the Beast's flames, triggering a micro-nova that consumed the remains. When the Beast let out a roar, the sound didn't just travel through the air—it shook the foundation of the highway.
(The Next Morning)
The sun took over the dark sky, establishing a new day with a cruel, indifferent brightness. Arush woke up in his room. The dark circles under his eyes were swollen, looking like bruises. His fingers were numb, the nerves still vibrating from the rattle of vertebrae. He looked at his hands; they felt heavy, as if the iron-blood of the sinners had permanently increased his mass.
In the living room, the TV was screaming. "Breaking News: Artificial Terrorism at MG Highway. Seven victims found slaughtered. Sources confirm the deceased were suspects in the kidnapping and murder of a local woman. AATD Officer Vaidere is on the scene." The reporter turned the camera toward a man standing by a black sedan. Mr. Vaidere. He looked into the lens—not at the reporter, but through the screen, directly into the Abyss. "I will find you," Vaidere said, his voice a cold, blue-lightning promise.
Arush's father sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Someone who goes against bastards like that... he's an angel sent by God to clean the streets." Arush forced a smile, but his knuckles began to glow a faint, phantom red. He left for school, walking through a world that was already celebrating his damnation.
At school, the atmosphere was electric with the gossip of blood. "It's me, you assholes!" a boy shouted, and the class erupted in laughter. Arush sat in the back bench, his head down. He could still hear the thud-thud-thud of the spinal cord hitting the pavement. A group of girls whispered near the window. "They say he's stronger than any Dealer in India. They say he's a specter."
Arush leaned forward, his voice a ghost. "Why are you calling a killer into a god? He's a sinner." The girls looked at him as if he were a fly in their soup. "A terrorist kills for no reason," one said firmly. "But when someone kills to judge the bad... he isn't a terrorist. He's the Scale." Arush looked up at the ceiling, feeling the invisible sword in his chest being twisted. I am a sinner who did sin for that helpless soul... God, please open the gate for her soul, even if the gate is closed for mine.
The Forensic Labyrinth (AATD Lab)
The AATD Forensic Department was a temple of cold science. The air was a thick, suffocating mix of Chlorine and Formaldehyde. Vaidere sat on a metal bench in the hallway. Two tactical soldiers stood guard, their gear clicking as they shifted weight. Vaidere ignored them. He was staring at a school photo—it was old, the edges curled and yellowed, but it was painted in a dry, dark crimson. He could see the people in the photo. They looked alive. This photo didn't belong to the killers; it belonged to the girl they had liquidated. On the back, an address was written in a trembling hand.
The elevator opened. A squad of NSEA agents marched out, their black boots striking the floor with a rhythmic Thud-Thud-Thud. In the center was Agent Maya. She wore a sleek nylon jacket that shimmered under the flickering fluorescent lights. She snapped her fingers, and her men fanned out, claiming the hallway. She sat next to Vaidere and pulled out a cigarette. One of her men stepped forward with a lighter, but Vaidere lifted a hand.
Snap. A spark of Blue Lightning danced from Vaidere's thumb to the tip of Maya's cigar. The ignition was instantaneous. Maya took a long, deep drag, exhaling a grey cloud that fought against the smell of chlorine. "Looks like someone is pissed," she said, her eyes tracing the static on Vaidere's sleeves. "I'm here to see what my 'Unknown Guy' did to the trash."
"He isn't your guy," Vaidere said, his voice a low vibration. The door to the ward opened. Dr. Nair, the country's top forensic specialist, stepped out. He looked exhausted, his surgical mask damp with cold sweat. "Only two agents," he signaled. "Maya and Vaidere."
They entered the morgue. The atmosphere here was Absolute Zero. Seven stretchers were lined up like an invoice for an apocalypse. Some bodies were beyond verification—nothing but charcoal and fused bone. Two were still being processed. Dr. Nair pulled back a white cloth, revealing the first face. "Look at this," he whispered. "The killer has raw strength that defies the current Dealer Scale. My skills are useless here."
He pointed to the skull. It wasn't just broken; it was shattered into a geometric puzzle. "The fragments of bone pierced the brain instantly. The force used here was greater than a semi-truck traveling at top speed. It was... mercifully painless. The victim didn't even have time to register his own death." Vaidere leaned in, his eyes narrowing as he saw the finger-marks embedded deep into the facial bone. "Fingerprints?" "Impossible," Nair said. "The heat was so immense that the blood solidified in the veins before it could even smear. He didn't leave a print; he left a Brand."
Maya chuckled, a dry, metallic sound. Nair moved to the next body. He pulled the blanket to show the back. "This is the one that bothers me," he said. "The spinal cord was pulled out with surgical precision. But he didn't just pull it—he shredded it, yet left every nerve ending exposed. Usually, this happens in high-tier surgery, but this guy... he did it to ensure the victim felt every millisecond of the extraction."
Vaidere looked at the carnage. Beneath his mask, his lips curled into a smile of pure, predatory respect. "Enough," Vaidere barked. He tapped his walkie-talkie. "Soldiers, get in here. Load every body into the furnace. I want the remains dissolved in acid. Not a single atom of this crime is to leave this room."
"Mr. Vaidere, you can't! This is evidence!" Dr. Nair shouted. Vaidere snapped his fingers, a bolt of blue static dancing inches from the doctor's eyes. "Your work is done. Now shut the hell up and let the adults handle the Beast."
Vaidere walked out, the air crackling in his wake. Maya followed, her purple goggles sliding down over her eyes. "Why kill the proof, fat ass?" she asked as they reached the helipad. Vaidere paused at the edge of the roof, the wind from the helicopter rotors whipping his coat into a frenzy. He took the official case file from a soldier, held it up, and snapped. The paper turned into a pillar of ash in a heartbeat.
"I'm closing this case for the public," Vaidere laughed, his eyes glowing with a manic intensity. "But I'm opening a private hunt. I'm interested in this 'Unknown Dealer.' Don't disappoint me, Maya." He stepped into the chopper and rose into the grey sky. Maya stood on the roof, the smell of burnt paper and ozone lingering in her hair. "Get lost," she whispered, her goggles flashing a deep, lethal purple. "I'll find the Beast first. And when I do... he won't be in your furnace."
-ARUSH SALUNKE