Vansh gazed at Riddhima, her petal soft lips open slightly in sleep. He placed her head gently on a pillow of soft grass, covering her with his robe. He got to his feet, his damp body gleaming in the soft moonlight. She looks like an angel, he thought, watching her long dark hair spread in abandon. He wanted to bite the creamy bare shoulders, peeking out from under his black robe. When he returned, he would take her again. This time, slow and deliberate. He would spread those gorgeous legs and taste her inner most secrets till she begged him to fuck her. He won’t…not at that moment. For the longest time, he would explore her body. Turn her over and mark the smooth skin of her back with his lips. Taste the salt of her skin, smell the sensuous woman she was. She would sob, the pleasure-pain of his touch becoming unbearable. Her need for release overcoming her shyness. Then and only then would he accept her plea this time. He would grip her shoulder, raise her hips and drive into her like an animal. Her buttocks would shudder with each thrust, each gyration of his body against hers. The sounds of their lovemaking would reverberate through the forest. Feeling the stirring of monstrous desires again, he bit back a curse. The woman was an irresistible distraction. He could not dally here any longer. It was almost dawn.
With a flick of his finger, he arranged the fireflies into a domelike structure over her sleeping form. She hated the dark. He didn’t want her waking up in his absence and panicking. The fireflies would comfort her. He would not allow anything to upset her. With his jaw set, he spread his arms, giving in to the Void.
“Poor girl. She looks like she is sleeping.”
“She should have just asked for a blanket. I had one spare.”
“I didn’t even know she was here alone. My daughter would have given her company. Poor child.”
Vansh walked past the crowd of people assembled in the narrow corridor. They shivered as he walked by, feeling only a deathly chill pass through them. Their destination was just an hour away now; a reason why many were awake at this time. The train was chugging along, impervious to the grim atmosphere in the cabin.
“Two deaths in one night. When will this inauspicious time pass?” the rotund ticket collector was whispering to his comrade. He turned towards the morbidly curious crowd. “All of you move away, please. We are handling the situation.” When no one stirred, he sighed in exasperation, shooing people out and closing the door on their grumbles.
Vansh looked down at the prone form of a girl on the wooden seat, her hands clasped between her knees for warmth. A deathly pallor was visible on her exhausted face, her lips pursed in a grimace.
“She was alive when I asked her for help,” spoke the other man in hushed tones, looking frightened. “Passed me the medicine box for Durgaprasad like a kind lady, then traipsed off to bed. How was I to know?”
“Two bodies to cremate…” sighed the ticket collector, wiping a bead of sweat off his forehead. “This is a night of the devil.” Vansh smiled, despite himself. There they went, blaming him again. As if he commanded the calling of the Void. As if this work brought him any pleasure.
“But…but where do we burn her?” the other man whispered, almost as if he could feel Death standing near him. “Durgaprasad would be cremated in the government plot in the next station. But where do we burn her? We don’t even know who she is.”
“Riddhima Pandit,” his companion responded somberly. “I remember writing her name. Hard to forget those haunted eyes. Now they are closed forever…I overheard the potter saying she had no one left alive. Perhaps, this was for her own good. How would a lone woman have survived in this cruel world?”
Vansh felt a spark of irritation. Who was he to comment on her fate? He tapped the man’s bald head sharply. He visibly startled, fumbling in his head for words of Vansh’s liking. “We will bury her in the apple orchard, near the Kusum river. She would like that.”
His subordinate looked aghast. “Bury her? But her caste…We must burn her, Sir.”
“There would be no burning. She has to be buried.” The man had a dazed look on his plump face. He would fight for whatever Death demanded.
“B-but why?” he blustered. “Her soul won’t find peace-“
“Shut up. Don’t waste time arguing. We have to inform the train master to call the mortuary.”
As the pair waddled out the door, the door slammed behind them. Idiots, Vansh cursed. As if a burial or cremation had any role to play in bringing peace to the dead. That role fell to countless other souls like him, butchered brutally in life and rising to walk as Death. They too will be called by the Void someday, some other tortured soul taking up the devil’s mantle. But after three centuries, Vansh had given up waiting for his turn.
He stared at Riddhima’s innocent face, a dull ache shooting through his chest. She was so beautiful even in death. His hand reached out to touch a lock of her hair, rubbing the silken strands between his fingers. A muscle ticked in his jaw, as he pondered what to tell her when she woke in his spirit realm at dawn. Would she realize she had passed last night in her sleep? Or would he have to tell her the unpleasant truth some other day?
He remembered when he had first seen her in Ramgarh, the murder of her neighbour necessitating Death’s visit. As he collected the young man’s soul, a pair of sad doe eyes had caught his attention in the crowd. It had been eons before a woman had captured his interest. Three hundred years since innocence had stirred his dead heart. He had been seized by an impossible impulse to know her. But he had held back, knowing that he was Death and she was Life. Being near him would bring her nothing but darkness. His mere shadow was known to steal away human years.
When he lost his wife, he had never wanted to feel like a man again. They had been young and rebellious, determined to flout the rules of their elders. He had not thought about losing her in volatile currents that day. The overwhelming shock and guilt had rendered him senseless, making him easy picking for his tribe. He had not imagined the punishment, the betrayal of being slaughtered by one’s own kith and kin. When he closed his eyes, he could feel the fire of his father’s blade on his face; the death blow that had killed him long before they dismembered his body. The dreadful rage and hurt pride that could turn humans into the embodiment of evil.
He had woken up again by the river, naked as the day he was born. His wife had been waiting for him, her amber eyes sorrowful. For a moment, his heart had soared, thinking everything had just been a bad dream. She had walked upto him and placed a hand on his torn face. “I forgive you,” she had whispered, her feather light touch comforting him. “Do not blame yourself… Oh, what have you become, my love.” Before he could speak, she had splintered into him, her many fragments soaking into his skin. He could feel her passing through him, into a deep dark secret place. A void. And then he could feel her no more.
He had gasped, feeling the unfamiliar touch of cold fingers on his spine. And then a voice. An ancient, disembodied voice. “You have been Chosen, Vanshraj of the tribe Anga…You have been Chosen.” Just those words. Nothing more. He had not understood anything that day. It was only days later when other souls had passed through him like his wife, that he had come to a devastating conclusion. He was Death. A spectre that bridged the Land of the Living and what is known as the Void. He was the devil as per scriptures. An abomination.
As a human, he had never participated in bloodshed. But as a spirit, his revenge had been brutal. It had become a part of the many legends at Ramgarh. He had tortured his slayers in nightmares, haunted his tribe till many took their own lives. The ones who survived killed each other, disoriented by paranoia and hallucinations. The rivers in his forest had bathe in blood many times over before he had been satisfied. He had killed everyone that wronged him and his wife. Sometimes, even those who hadn’t. But he never felt peace.
When the rage and hatred within him had cooled, all he had left was boredom. Boredom, and the tedious routine of collecting souls all over Ramgarh and its adjoining districts. Having lived across centuries, having witnessed all manner of cruelty and apathy. Being Death himself… he found it absurd to be brought to his knees by a mere wisp of a girl. A girl whose name was written like a poem on her luscious body. Riddhima. Full of love.
Despite his determination to stay away from her, he had run into her again and again as the riots grew closer to Ramgarh. It was tragic that his love for her had grown with the rising piles of dead in the vicinity. The more he saw her, the more his craving grew till it became unbearable. He had heard that emotions creeped back into Death’s heart, when it was time to pass on to afterlife. He hoped it was true. Anything to be done with this blasted existence.
He remembered standing outside her window for days, staring at her hungrily. Never close enough for his doomed shadow to fall, but enough to know the way she bit her lower lip when indecisive, the sound of her laughter, the mischievous twinkle in her eyes…the way she sometimes stood at the window looking at the stars for hours…a longing in her eyes, like she wanted more from this world.
He remembered the day she had lost her family. He had felt the calling, materializing in her home just as her brother breathe his last; her parents lying hacked to pieces on the stony floor. There had been a haunting look on their faces as their souls went through him. A defeated resignation to fate. He had lost his mind for a moment, his savage anger burning the whole house down. If there was a moment when he hated himself the most, it was then. He hated being bound to collect the souls of her family, wanting nothing more than to gift their lives back to Riddhima. In his anger, he had pulled some of the murderers into the flaming house, watched as they paid for their sins. There were more he would happily slaughter, as a wedding gift to his new wife. As many as she wanted dead, till the weight of grief lifted from her fragile shoulders. He would do anything for her.
But he could not return her life. A grim smile graced his lips. He had come to collect only one soul last night and found himself called to her side. He had not even known she was leaving the village. Would he have stopped her somehow if he had? Vansh wondered. She had been shivering violently on the wooden berth, her lips pale and cracked. The cold had been picking her apart, breaking her from within until it consumed her. He had tried frantically to revive her with his magic, but nothing seemed to work. He had known that it wouldn’t. Once a soul was called, it had to leave its host body and pass through him to the Void.
He took her hand in his, pressing a light kiss on her cold palm. She already smelled of decay. He hated to see her this way. If he had a choice, he would choose differently for her. She would know the joy of a simple homelike when her parents were alive, love of a human man, naughty children running around, growing old with memories…He shook himself out of his reverie. He could not change her fate in life. But in death, she would be his queen. He would not allow her spirit to pass to the Void. Not without him.
He would have her body buried in his favourite orchard today. Then he would dance with her soul, till she was drunk in his magic and falling in love. When the time was right, he would tell her the truth. That she no longer belonged in the Land of the Living. That she belonged with him. He would keep her body preserved beneath the soil, if she ever wanted to see it. He could not allow it to burn without knowing her wishes.
They would reign over Ramgarh together; bathe it in her enemy’s blood and then rule it in peace. And when the time came for him to surrender to the Void, he would take her with him. To another world. Wherever it was. They would find each other across realms. He was sure of that.
As warm sunlight tiptoed over the horizon, he placed her hand down gently. Stepping back, he raised his arms, a blissful smile lighting up his face. It was dawn. His beloved was waiting for him. And then he vanished into the Void.
The End