Fiction

Umme Hani Anika

Peering through the cracks of a wooden door in the abandoned house, Zilus could clearly see the disturbing scene which made his stomach churn. He was only out for a late night stroll and the shower of rain had to ruin it. As if hearing his inner thoughts, a decrepit looking building greeted him a few meters from where he was standing. No sooner had he stepped foot inside, then he heard a ‘CRACK!’ accompanied by a loud howl of laughter. Out of pure instincts, he crouched down, but later questioned his own action, since he was one with the shadows. Using his agility from his days as a police officer, he zoomed across the corridor moving from one room to the next, until he arrived at what seemed like the last room, and this led to his current predicament.

With the aid of a dimly lit bulb in the middle of the room, Zilus saw a pack of six tall hooded figures, all wielding metal rods, towering over a badly bruised man chained to a chair who lay almost limp. ‘Beasts’, muttered Zilus as nostalgia hit him hard, with the memories of his previous life where he witnessed this kind of scenes a great many times. That man must have a family awaiting his return, and the hooded figures caging him seemed to take Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ theory too seriously. Preying on the weak of their own kind, humans are the only animals that are capable of being this atrocious.

‘Tell us where the money is, Mr. Alid, and you can walk out of here in one piece,’ shouted one of the hooded figures, breaking Zilus’s train of thought. But the battered man smirked instead and muttered a low but firm ‘No’. ‘Alright, you asked for it’, said one of the hooded figures as he raised the metal rod stained with blood, ready to strike again. ‘Time to save another soul’, Zilus thought to himself and slipped through the gap of the ajar door. The door creaked open slightly and the hooded figure signaled one of his accomplices to close it. In a flash, the light bulb turned off and darkness gobbled up the room. ‘Behind you’, muttered the confined man to one of the hooded figures and the next second he flew to the other side of the room and fell to the floor unconscious. Two more tumbled down to the floor in a fetal position clutching their stomachs, in a state of confusion the last three who were on their feet started slashing the air with their metal rods. By then, the hooded figures had lost their hoods and looked like any ordinary street thugs.  Flashes of lightning momentarily lit up the room, revealing a seventh hooded figure raising his weapon that looked like a half-sliced crescent moon attached to a metal rod, with his fleshless hands. ‘Run for your lives boys, the Scythe Skeleton is here!’ growled the hooded figure. The three standing thugs fell on their knees with a thud. At once it seemed that time stopped, and a pregnant silence hung in the air, not a single occupant in the room moved or even breathed, all eyes were transfixed to the sole figure taking the center stage. In a split second, all the men were knocked out. The flashes of lightning ceased, the relentless rain gradually let up and the room reverted back to normal.

When Mr. Alid had come to, he found himself in the safety of his own house with no trace of any injuries on his body. As for the six thugs, they were left tied in front of a police station. Zilus was very content with his work that night. Though he did go overboard with the whole charade about the ‘Scythe Skeleton’ at least he saved a precious human life, something he could not always do when he was alive where he was always shackled by protocols and procedures. He realized that gradually he started to get a grip of his own powers.

Even though he no longer existed in the memories of his loved ones, even though no one could see him other than the ones he saved, even though he would have to wipe out the memories of those who saw him, even though he was lonely, he would fight to protect an innocent soul in a heartbeat. As tragic as his death was, even more tragic would be the death of more ordinary people like him in the hands of the misfits of society.