Monsoon Spirits - Part II

Please Read the first part (link below) before reading this part. Don't blame me for being vague or unclear this time... my mind just writes what it thinks without much explainations... >.<

This story is a continuation of Monsoon Spirits - Part I.
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"Akansha!!"
She fell on her knees and her forehead hit the train wall.
"Damn! What is going on here!!"  I went upto her and held her in my arms. I looked back at the red eyes.
'Bad news. I sense more of them coming.'
'More of who?' I put my thoughts back to her.
'The one who hijacked your girlfriend's soul.'
'Wha...'
And I look at some odd 15 people walking slowly towards me. And then I felt myself choking. My girlfriend was trying to strangle me with her lifeless eyes looking at me. I felt an opposing force grab me from behind. I swear I thought my neck was gonna tear apart like a piece of tissue paper, but luckily I and my girlfriend were hurled by the Red Eyed Woman out of the Metro Train. Upon landing on the station like sacks of rice, the grip on my neck loosened up a bit and I pulled her arm away from me. I struggled to find my breath and then looked up. The doors of the metro train had closed and moved ahead to it's next destination. But something was too obviously wrong. I didn't hear the sound of the train or the doors closing or even the sound of steel wheels moving over steel tracks. Something was obviously wrong and in pure desperation I first looked at my unconscious girlfriend and then looked towards the other girl with Red Eyes... Ah! it's annoying...
'What the heck is your name?'
'What would you do with my name?'
'Well... like I'm in no mood to refer you as - Oh! That annoying girl - right now.'
'For now, call me anything that you think suits me.'
'Red?'
She looked at me with here glaring red eyes and then smiled a bit. 'If that suits you... OK. So what did you want to ask?'
This woman was sharp. 'Well, for starters, what is going on. I can't hear any sound. There are no people around...'
'Maybe if you look a bit further off like towards the city, then you'll realize.'
'Huh?'
'Yes, go on. Look towards the city.'
I got up on my feet. My knees were still hurting as an after effect of Red's grab and throw action. I limped towards the railings to look out into the city. And I became more speechless and numb.
'Where are we?' was all I could think.
'It seems you understand now. This isn't the real world.'
'Where are we?' I repeated as I looked at the lifeless streets, empty buildings and parks. I couldn't see one person walking around.
'Something that's not real world.'
"FOR GOD'S SAKE JUST TELL ME WHERE THE HECK ARE WE?" I shouted at her in pure irritation. And then I suddenly felt my throat go numb. I didn't get it. Just what is going on here?
'You already know. If this isn't the real world, then either this is heaven or this is hell or maybe completely a new sub dimension created by the criminal spirit.'

I felt my whole body going numb now. I couldn't breath properly, I couldn't move my hands the way I was wanting to move them. It was a slow paralysis overcoming my whole body.
'Ah! You're in a pinch eh? Here, try and hold my hand.' Red stretched out her hand. I desperately tried to reach her hand but my breath was making it too difficult and my arms weren't moving the way I wanted them to. Was it moving at all? I don't know, but my vision was about to go blank when I thought I touched something. And then suddenly a rush of intense pain tore into me from my right hand to my whole body. It was as if  high pressure flow was trying to tear off my skin from underneath it. I thought my blood vessels were exploding but really, nothing was happening on the surface.  I was writhing in pain all over when I heard Red's voice. 'The Aura here in this dimension is toxic... at least for you. It went into you in large quantity when you screamed. So I just transferred some of my resistant energy into you, but it seems your body is trying to reject it. So here is my advice. Endure the pain if you want to survive this.'
After sometime the pain subdued or I felt that it subdued, so I was able to get up on my knees. I saw my girlfriend. I was breathless, but I managed to transmit my thought across to Red. 'What about her... is she OK?'
'She is not OK. Apart from being possessed by the spirit, she is even in this toxic environment and any form of protection won't work on her. We just have to wait and watch now.'
'What the...' I looked around me. No people, no sound and no change in the sunlight or daylight. I looked up at the clock that hangs down from every metro station. The minute hand didn't seem to move at all. As if time had stopped still.
'Red...'
'What?'
'What going to become of me or my girlfriend.'
'We have re-enforcements on way.'
'Am I gonna live?'
'You'll live, but can't say about her.'
I looked towards Akansha's unconscious body. I just didn't understand why would the spirit attack her. She was the most pure and innocent person I had ever met. She could do no wrong. And yet she was here unconscious and probably in pain just because she...

Something dawned to me. 'Just because her balance on the card was Rs. 99.90? This is absurd... downright silly.'
'Now you've started thinking eh?'
I was thinking. And as I thought, I dragged myself up to her body and started looking for her purse. It must have the card... maybe some clue as to where we must be. But there was no purse. Was it left back on the train? I then started searching in my pockets. I didn't have my wallet either.
'This may very well be the reason that why only the wallets with the metro cards in them were found. The attacked individuals had their body dragged out into this dimension and their metro card was left oouuuttt...' she slowed down on her last word. Her blood red eyes widened for a second. 'Hey! You... you check if there is any symbol for the Delhi Metro here in this station...'

'Huh?' I looked around. Indeed there weren't any symbols for the metro station throughout the station. Not even engraved in the concrete like it usually should be. By that time it seems that Red had already surveyed the whole area. She immediately came rushing to me... and kicked my chest with full force. I heard a terrible banging and cracking sound of crushing concrete. My senses were already numb with her anti-toxin treatment, so I didn't the pain of being kicked on the chest, but, I was desperately gasping for breath. I looked up towards where I should be if I hadn't been kicked. But there was a large crack and I could see Red desperately trying to defend herself from something by obstructing it with her two swords. I couldn't see who was attacking her. Suddenly she looked towards me and she shouted "LIE DOWN!!". I just obeyed and lay down. No sooner had I done that, I heard another cracking and banging sound from behind me. I could even feel the concrete dust hit my nape and head. "DAMN IT!!!" She shouted in even more desperation than before and then I don't know, or maybe I couldn't see what she did, but she made an extremely fast movement that resulted in some black ink like liquid splatter all over the floor and walls. The moment I saw this, I thought something cold was pricking the nape of my neck. And then a terrible gust of cyclonic wind surrounded me. I could only see a mix of black robes and silver steel go past me with a speed that must have caused the wind. And then I could feel something cold splash on my back. I slowly turned around to see that black ink surround me completely and Red breathing heavily as if she had no energy left.

She was still gasping for breath when she grabbed my wrists and said "Listen. I'll bring back your Girlfriend, but for now, you must leave this dimension. They are after you too..."
I had very little energy left in me to speak, so I continued to transmit my thoughts. 'Who is after me and how will you get me and Akansha out of this place?'
"Major explainations later, but right now, let me carve a Metro Symbol on you hands."
"Carve?"
"Yes, Carve."
"How?"
"With my sword."
"Huh? Hey wait. You can't do that right now..." saying that I pulled away my wrists.
"But let me do it. It's the only way out of this place for you."
"But what about Akansha? How will you bring her out then?"
"The same way as you but with a difference."
"I don't believe you. I don't believe..."
"Hey hey... I don't know why you won't believe me but this method will work and I will take both of you out of this place."
"But what if that spirit completely devours her. You won't bring her back then. You can't right?" I was getting desperate.
"She can only be devoured if the main spirit comes out."
"What if it comes out right now. Save Akansha first!"
"It won't come out that easily."
"Why?"
"Spirits don't have a brain do they?"
"Well..."
"See. This is a rather simple solution. Let's just do it."
"Bah! You don't know one thing about human emotion do you?" I didn't know I had that much energy left to verbally argue with her...
"I have plenty. Now just do as I say and I promise you won't be late for your next date."
I sighed. How did I get into this situation?

My senses were still weak for me to comprehend or remember things accurately. This time she forcefully pulled my arms towards her and started carving out a symbol on my wrists using her sword. She must have had excellent mastery over her sword because she drew a perfect circle of blood on my wrist followed by two parallel lines and a slash joining them. She drew a symbol of the Delhi Metro on my wrist drawing out my blood and I didn't feel the pain of having my skin cut either. That 6 seconds of my life felt the most unreal or surreal or any other word that would describe this situation. I still can never explain to anyone how unreal that felt at that time. But when she was done carving the Delhi Metro sign on my wrist, I suddenly felt an extreme pull... a pull so strong I felt as if I was some dirt been sucked by a vacuum cleaner. My vision distorted and blurred until I couldn't see anything and I had this extreme nauseating feeling. That was when I heard a voice. "Calm down! Calm Down! The Doctor will be there in a second... so please Calm down!"
I opened my eyes to see a nurse trying to pin me down with her slim and seemingly frail body. I instantly felt as if I had no power left in my body and simply flopped on the hospital bed. If there was some God out there, I had to sincerely thank him or her for protecting me. And if this was just a nightmare, then even more so.

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I waved my friends goodbye from my room. It seems my mom and dad reserved a private ward for me. Can't trust those public beds for even once. Also, my girlfriend was in another hospital recovering. It turns out she is out of danger. Once all my friends left, I looked to my left where my Nemesis was waiting silently. "I'm amazed you can keep quiet for so long Red."
"It seems you are referring to my sister as Red I presume?"
"Heh?" I took a good look at her again. Yes, she looked a lot like my Nemesis, but I must confess... I too found it too strange that she was so quiet for such a long time (about an hour and half since she appeared in the room), and then she was in a completely different attire all together. She wore more traditional Chinese Japanese dress, and that would be the first time I would've seen her like this. Only that it wasn't Red, because she would always be in Jeans or Short Skirts. It was someone else. Good thing my friends couldn't see her. She then interrupted my train of thoughts.
"I'm the younger twin of the lady you are originally acquainted to. I deeply apologize for any inconvenience caused due to this confusion."
"No. Please don't apologize. There was no such inconvenience." I instinctively replied in a very formal and soft tone.
"If that is the case, then that relives me tremendously."
Yes. This version of my Nemesis was far more polite, soft spoken and sensitive of the person before her.
"So, what is your name? And if possible, what is your sister's name?"
"My name is Ai. I believe you must already know my sister's name."
"Not really. I only called her Red yesterday cause she simply refused to tell me her real name."
"I... I see. I'm sorry for my sister's rude behavior..." she paused and bowed slightly. Was she becoming uncomfortable? "... but you see, you two must have been in a situation where telling your real names must have been risky. Like... like soul-jacking and stuff happens because of it."
Yes. I could feel she was becoming uncomfortable.
"Well, the situation was pretty bad, so I think it was great that she did her best to not jeopardize the situation any more that what it was already."
She look towards me and then smiled slightly. "Thank You for understanding her situation. It relieves me to know that you two get along well. I feel I can tell you her real name. It is Enma."
Enma? Odd name. Was it Chinese? But I put my thoughts for a later time "Ah! Yes. Of course we do get along... though we get along in a different way, but yes... we get along pretty well." I said. I didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable. "So. Why are you here? Where is your sister? I was sure it should be her who'd come and pester me."
"I'm extremely sorry If I'm pestering you." she had a concerned expression on her face.
"Ah! No. Not you. I mean... it's my way to show my... err... friendliness to your sister."
"I... I see... well. You see, it was my sister who originally sent me here. She is currently recuperating from her injuries caused in the latest case. She couldn't come herself, but told me to come saying that you may have questions that I or she can answer." she said in a muted but rushed tone.
"Well... I do have questions... and a lot of them. So just tell me everything from beginning to end about this matter. Who were the spirits? Why they were attacking passengers or my girlfriend? What had metro cards or symbols had to do with this? Why Rs. 99.90 was particularly targeted?"
"I'll try my best to answer all your question with the best of my ability."
"Well then please. I'm dying to know all this."
"Well... first of all... the attackers weren't really spirits but something that you may understand as vampires."
"Vampires? You mean like Count Dracula."
"Count Dracula was really a mortal who wished to become a vampire. But a real vampire is a lot different from what you know from the Twilight saga."
"Twilight? You actually read Stephenie Meyer?"
"Yes. And I like her books. They are nice and sweet don't you think?"
"I'd rather not talk about this right now... Please continue with the Metro case." I clearly didn't want to criticize her choice of books... which by my standards isn't too good.
"So. These Vampires are special. They can't exist in our dimension and can gain significant amount of constructive or destructive power by consuming human blood and souls. Thus they began abducting humans from this dimension. However, they didn't have a method to enter this dimension on their own accord. They however could rupture and break in if a Magical code was place in the real world. That magical code turned out to be 9990. The dot between 99 and 90 in turn amplified this rupture. However, the only people who could detect space time ruptures is me and one other person. So no one in the agency was able to know.  Once those vampires made their way in they found they couldn't take the people in metro with them to their dimension. Logically they should be able to but something was causing an eventual rejection of beings in that dimension. It turns out that the Delhi Metro symbol is a seal of protection against their dimensional leaps. If you carry a symbol on the card or token, you'll be protected from being abducted into their world. So the vampire entities simply discarded the item with the symbol and carried out the abduction. Initially they didn't act in day time on crowded areas because it would be detected immediately and a cover up would require a lot of energy. This time though, they decided to speed up their gathering process by using previously collected energy to do the cover up. They could also puppeteer some individuals by turning some power energy into Prana - a form of energy used to sustain familiars."
"That clears up a lot of things." I lean back at the pillow. "There are still a few things left. Why is their dimension toxic to me? How did my girlfriend survive this without that damned anti-toxin treatment?"
"About that... well. You see, the good things is that your girlfriend wasn't that badly exposed. Nee-san acted quickly to bail her out of that place, but she was attacked by a lot of those vampires and got injured. It's not so serious, but still, it's the first time in a long time I've seen her like this. However, there is a bad thing too."
"What?" I was having a feeling something really bad was gonna be told to me, cause Ai now made a very difficult expression. She looked away and said "In order to normalize the state of your girlfriend's soul and body, we had to apply a procedure that uses up her life force. She may now not live as long as she is fated to."
I gulped a knot down my throat. "How much has she lost?"
"About one and half to two years."
I sighed. It didn't sound as bad. "At least she'll live to be over sixty?"
"I don't have the ability to feel life force let alone tell age. I can only feel space and dimensions. Maybe Nee-san can help you with this. I'll let her know when she gets all better."
I sigh again. "And how come the vampires didn't try to possess me? All they did was use my girlfriend to try and strangle me."
"That may be because..." she took a brief pause and then suddenly looked at me. "... because you are not a normal human being. You may be someone with a free soul."
"Free soul? I don't get you."
"A Free soul is detached from fate and is not bound to any dimension unlike normal souls. Thus there are no direct methods to access your soul by magic. Hacking the mind may be one way to control you, but hacking minds is too risky for the hacker. So ultimately, anything in this world will be unable to possess you, but may be able to affect you by altering your surroundings or environment."
"I am so not understanding this... but if I'm detached from dimensions and all, how did I get into that other world in the first place?"
"You didn't let go of your girlfriend when the attackers switched dimensions. Also, I believe onee-san threw the two of you out of the Metro train?"
"Yes..." I was trying not to recall it. "... Rather brutally."
"That must have caused your wallet to fall into the Metro Train. So you easily went into the other dimension."
Things now became clearer than before. I kind of understood what happened but personally, I still didn't understand what did she mean by me having a free dimensionless soul. I feel I still haven't understood a lot of things and yet, there are still even more that is yet to seep into me. Right now, the after effect of that "Unreal" experience has rendered my mind comfortably numb. I understood the whole situation, but I didn't or couldn't feel the impact of it on me or my life. Maybe I will in two days... but until then I'm waiting for my mother to bring me some hot chicken soup and I'm hoping that my girlfriend will get better soon. She too is good at making warm stuff meant for patients like me.

Ai Kept standing on her place and left another 20 minutes later, after politely bowing and bidding me a formal goodbye.


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Author's Note
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Yay!!! Finally completed this so called horror story. But you know I'm not one bit scared after reading this so I doubt this actually is a horror story. Maybe it's another one of my unconscious mix matches.
Well, this time I italicized all the dialogs between characters because a lot of telepathic transmission was going on between them.

And Finally, I've yet again failed to write a short story that is short enough by blogger standards. If you've read both parts then thank you for reading my story. :) The fact you're reading up to this part makes me happy... :)

P.S ::> Just noticed. This post is posted on 9th... T_T Damn... I wanted to post it within the 8th of this month.